Abstract:
Philip Sidney’s Apology for Poetry defends the capacity of poetry to teach truth whether
it is prophecy or fiction. Sidney associates fiction with prophecy to elevate fiction and
show that it reveals truth even if it isn’t true. While John Milton intertwines fiction and
prophecy to emphasize the didactic quality of Paradise Lost, Milton’s contemporary,
Thomas Traherne, defends the ability of fiction to teach readers while treating fiction as
such in his Centuries of Meditations and Poems of Felicity.
Description:
73 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of English and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2013.