Describing the freedom and superiority of the poetic imagination, Sidney proclaims its ability to create a better nature than the brazen nature of post-lapsarien existence. Similar to the Platonic quest for "the beautiful", the poet is involved in a noble quest for the incorporeal essence of the material world.
One of the most intriguing concepts explored by Sidney is the effect of poetry on the human psyche. Sidney argues that poetry in cultures, especially primitive ones, establishes a fertile mental environment for deeper knowledge. Like a rich mental fertilizer, poetry prepares the soil of the mind for more advanced knowledge:
Even among the most barbarous and simple Indians where no writing is, yet have they their poets who make and sing songs, which they call areytos, both of their ancestor's deeds and praises of their gods: a sufficient probability that, if ever learning come among, it most come from having their dull wits softened and sharpened with the sweet delights of poetry-for until they find a pleasure in the exercises of the mind, great promises of much knowledge will little persuade them that know not the fruits of knowledge. (Sidney, 20)
Although Sidney's tone is disturbingly arrogant, it provides helpful insight into Renaissance attitudes about the influence of poetry. Considered an important precursor to advanced learning, poetry continued to thrive during the high Renaissance.
Another aspect of the dynamic influence of poetry that Sidney explores is its alluring nature. Enticing the reader on a fantastic poetic journeys, poetry, "the monarch", is a guide to the way of truth:
For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect of the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of taste, you may long pass further.... And pretending no more doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue... (Spenser, 40)
Sidney identifies the sometimes disingenuous nature of poetry. Enticing the reader by delightful images and rhythm and rhyme, the poet often has a hidden agenda- the encouragement of virtue. Although poets are not always forthright with their objectives, their intentions usually are noble.
During the Renaissance, the vision of using poetry for instruction in virtue was also embraced by the English poet Edmund Spenser. Embracing the same ideology as Horace, and Sidney, concerning the didactic uses of poetry, Spenser fashioned his enduring masterpiece The Faerie Queene. This allegorical work beautifully illustrates the visions of Horace and Sidney concerning the ability of poetry to fashion virtue in the individual. Spencer divides the work into twelve separate books. Each book, having its separate hero, is devoted to one of twelve virtues of the private gentleman, according to Aristotle. The work is unified by the character of King Arthur who appears in all of the books to perform valiant deeds. Arthur is presented as the perfect representation of chivalry, in whom all the virtues are perfected.
Book two of the Faerie Queene is devoted to illustrating the virtue of temperance. Spencer tells the story of the valiant fairy knight Guyon who is on a quest to destroy the Bower of Bliss, a beautiful island garden of tempting delights. The island is the home of the evil temptress Acrasia, who after seducing her victims, turns them into beast. In Guyon's quest, he encounters a number of dubious characters, emblems of intemperance, who attempt to distract the knight from his objective.