The Shape of Things Known: <i>Sidney's</i> Apology <i>in Its Philosophical Tradition</i>

Sidney’s habit of describing poetry by visual analogy—“a speaking picture,” “images of virtue”—has usually been understood to mean that poetry is a verbal rendering of concrete things. Forrest Robinson’s examination of Sidney’s background and his work, however, reveals that there is very little that is concrete in Sidney’s aesthetic. Indeed, the author maintains, by “picture” Sidney meant something abstract—and idea, a mental picture—surveyed by the poet as he writes his poem and by the reader as he reads it. In his analysis of Sidney’s basic premises about poetry, Robinson places Sidney’s ideas in the context of visual epistemology. Preface Contents Introduction 1. The Tradition of Visual Epistemology 2. The Renaissance Spectrum 3. Sidney's Apology: From Fore-conceit to Ground-plot 4. The Speaking Picture of Sidney’s Prose and Poetry 5. Reflections in Seventeenth-century Literature Index Robinson Forrest : Forrest G. Robinson is Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.