Shakespeare’s Fair Young Man or LOVELY BOY
becomes the subject of desire for the Dark Lady, too,
and the poet feels increasingly alienated as the Dark
Lady “steals” the Fair Young Man from him. In Sonnet
154, the poet speculates about their disappearance.
For the poet, the Dark Lady becomes the occasion for
fi ction making; she becomes the emblem of unchecked
desire, passion, and frustration, but also a symbol of
mystery.
FURTHER READING
Pequingney, Joseph. Such Is My Love: A Study of Shake-
speare’s Sonnets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985.
Daniel F. Pigg
DAVIES, SIR JOHN (1569–1626) Sir John
Davies was born on April 16, 1569. He entered school
at Winchester in 1580 and Queen’s College, Oxford, in
- He left a year and a half later to read law at New
Inn and then Middle Temple, where he remained.
Davies was disbarred in 1598 for brawling but rein-
stated in 1601. After this, he had a very successful legal
career.
Davies’s fi rst major work, Orchestra, or a Poem of
Dancing, was dismissed as a “frivolous poem” by many
of his contemporaries. GULLINGE SONNETS, a SATIRE mock-
ing Petrarchan conventions, followed. His next under-
taking, Nosce Teipsum (Know Thyself), was a philosophical
piece. By this time, Davies had succeeded in impressing
Queen ELIZABETH I. His next major work, Hymns to
Astrea, was a series of ACROSTIC poems spelling out “Eliz-
abeth Regina” that earned him royal gratitude.
Davies’s success continued after JAMES VI ascended
the throne as James I, since the king particularly
enjoyed Nosce Teipsum. Later in 1603, Davies was
knighted and appointed solicitor general of Ireland.
His success continued, culminating in his being
appointed lord chief justice of England. Unfortunately,
however, he died on December 8, 1626, one day before
assuming offi ce.
DEFENSE OF POESY, THE SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
(ca. 1579–1584) This text revitalized the tradition of
defenses of (or apologies for) poetry against the Greek
philosopher Plato’s attack, as well as contemporary
attacks on poetry and art. The Defense of Poesy is argu-
ably SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’s most infl uential work. It high-
lights a quality of art that is the nub of Plato’s criticism of
the poet—distrust of the artist’s power to move people.
Ever since Plato proposed to banish artists from his
ideal state in The Republic—owing to their misrepre-
sentation of “the nature of gods and heroes” (The
Republic, book 2) and, as well, to their ability to sway
not only public opinion but also conceptions of ideal
and acceptable behavior while presenting poor models
of godly behavior—philosophers, artists, and literary
critics have attempted to justify artists’ inclusion in
republics, ideal or otherwise. Sidney’s defense joins
those of Coluccio Salutati, GEORGE GASCOIGNE, Richard
Puttenham, THOMAS CAMPION, and others.
Plato’s fi rst criticism is that the poet must interpret
the actions of the gods as “good and just, and [ensure]
that sufferers [of the gods’ actions] were benefi ted by
being punished” (The Republic, book 2). Plato makes art
an instrument to be used by the state to control its citi-
zens. He was particularly concerned because many
poetic texts were used as teaching materials and thus
presented impiety and immorality as acceptable. He
outlines three laws that should bind those who would
write or speak of gods—that the gods are perfectly good,
unchangeable, and truthful. He then states that these
three principles are contested by their representation in
art. The poets, Plato contends, represent the gods as evil,
changeable, and deceitful, and such representations
threaten a social order based on the good, the perfect
(the changeless), and the truthful.
A second criticism of poets is that “they have said
that unjust men are often happy, and just men
wretched, that wrong-doing pays if you can avoid
being found out, and that justice is what is good for
someone else but is to your own disadvantage” (The
Republic, book 3). A third criticism concerns another
form of representation: The poet puts himself into the
character of another. Plato supposes that the reader
also does this; thus, the reader deviates from his own
character for that of another (possibly morally) suspect
character. Plato’s fourth criticism of the poet is his lack
of primary knowledge. Poets deal in deferred knowl-
edge and vicarious experience without recognizing it140 DAVIES, SIR JOHN