ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with one of the most common analogies, that between horse and human, and shows how Philip Sidney uses this analogy to think through relations between humans, especially writers and readers. Sidney was invested, as both a poet and a statesman, in the idea that poetry’s ability to move readers from contemplation to action makes it a higher discipline than history and philosophy. In The Lady of May, an outdoor entertainment possibly written for Elizabeth Fowler’s visitation to Leicester’s purchased Wanstead Manor in 1578 or 1579, Sidney writes about the relations between thinking and acting. The relation of poetry to action is often conceptualized as the link between delight and profit. For Webbe, the movement that poetry can effect is toward contemplation; for Sidney, poetry can also move one to action. Valuable ethical education can be accomplished by means of poetry, says Sidney, through moving a reader to action.
