Sidneys The Defence of Poesy and Television Commercials...

Sidneys The Defence of Poesy and Television Commercials I know that something major has changed in the world of television when my sons refuse requests to turn the set off with the comment, Just let me finish watching this commercial. I have always thought that commercials were something to endure until the real program came back on. Apparently some of them have now become the form of entertainment par excellence of the medium. What do TV commercials have to do with Sidneys The Defence of Poesy? More than one might think. Faced with the Puritans attack against poetry who saw it as a secondary form of knowledge, called it the mother of lies and believed that it fed the fires of passion, Sidney responds with a practical argument:†¦show more content†¦Well, I am exaggerating a bit, but certainly the arts were not in the same league as farming and preaching. When my father-in-law evaluated a story or a film, he wanted to know whether it was true or not. Fiction lowered it to an inferior level of truth. Why the Mennonite mistrust of the arts? I believe that it can be traced to our traditional belief in conformity to the community and non-conformity to the world. The strong emphasis on conformity put certain restraints on the imagination; remaining non-conformed to the world meant that one could not emulate or profit from non-Mennonite artists. So unless the arts were used directly to support our faith and the values of the community (such as congregational music, quilting, preaching, etc.)., they tended to be seen as frivolous or downright dangerous. One should not ridicule that argument; if the arts truly have the power to move us and if the best come from the outside world, it is only logical that the Amish-Mennonite culture would take steps to protect itself. So when Sidney tries to change the mind of his Puritan critics, his strongest argument is based upon the assumption that good poetry will cause people to act more virtuously. Puritans and Mennonites would both appreciate that approach. If one believes that good literature results in