Improvement on Nature
First, works of the imagination have value exactly because they do improve on nature. Sidney writes:
only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, does grow in effect into another nature, in making things either better than nature brings forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature . . .
Moral Purpose
Third, Sidney argues that imaginative literature does have a moral purpose. It "doth light the learner." Even the Bible and Jesus use poetic language to instruct humankind.
since the HOLY SCRIPTURE hath whole parts poetical. and that even our Savior Jesus Christ, vouchsafed to use the flower of it . . .
Therefore, it must be good. The end of poetry is not to deceive or go out bounds, as Gosson contends, but
to draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls . . . can be made capable of.
Emotional Impact
Sidney also celebrates poetry as better than history or philosophy, for those two fields offer simply cold facts and logical arguments, whereas poetry moves emotions.
The poet affects feelings and does not just give examples.
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