An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy), by the celebrated soldier-poet Sir Philip Sidney, is the most important work of literary theory published in the Renaissance.

This work is considered one of the earliest and most influential English literary criticism texts. Sidney's eloquent and persuasive argument for the value of poetry in society sheds light on the cultural context of the Renaissance period.

Controversy raged through England during the 1570-80s as Puritans denounced all manner of games & pastimes as a danger to public morals.

In its radical reading of the Defence, this book thus makes a decisive intervention in the field of early modern studies, while raising larger questions about a culture determined to quantify the 'value' of the humanities and to defend the ...