What is the point of percy bysshe shelleys defence of poetry?
Shelley’s “Defence” is a response to Thomas Love Peacock’s essay, “Four Ages of Poetry,” in which Peacock satirically devalued the importance of poetry in the age of science and technology. Shelley believed that poetry–and, by extension, art in general–revealed the beauty and order of things in the universe, and that without the artist’s imagination, mankind would fail to appreciate “the small things” in life. He also offered up his essay to fellow poets as a sort of validation, meaning, whatever “slings and arrows” they may suffer is not in vain, that their efforts actually mean something.
