The Renaissance was an era of changes and unlike the medieval, people started to search and to ask questions about varies
issues as science or culture.
Intellectuals of that time wrote and dealt with these matters and each one published his opinions and way of thinking. Intellectuals doubted values and beliefs from the ancient world and tried to find another way of thinking. Some intellectuals attacked poetry and poets, doubting them and their role in our world.
In 1595 Sir Philip Sidney published the "
Defense of Poesy" (DOP), a long essay that comes as an answer to Stephan Gosson''s "
The School of Abuse", where Gosson, in his puritan way of thinking, attacks the poet and his poetry. In the DOP, Sidney defends poetry and the poet. For Sidney, poetry is the right way to teach and to educate, poetry is the monarchy of all disciplines, and poetry combines between philosophy and history. The
philosopher and the historian are lack of delight, an important condition to teach and to educate, and therefore they are limited. Poetry has that condition that gives poetry an advantage over philosophy and history, the poet can do what the philosopher and the poet cannot, he can invent a history. The poet can borrow a notion of pictures and create a story and by that use poetry as a tool for educating, and to use it as a service o the public, trying to make people better.