SOURCE: “The Defence of Poetry,” in The Achievement of American Criticism, edited by Clarence Arthur Brown, The Ronald Press Co., 1954, pp. 219-33.

In the following essay, originally published as a review of Sir Philip Sidney's “The Defence of Poetry” in North American Review, Vol. XXXIV, in 1832, Longfellow discusses the role of poetry in America's national consciousness.

… As no ‘Apologie for Poetrie’ has appeared among us, we hope that Sir Philip Sidney's Defence will be widely read and long remembered. O that in our country, it might be the harbinger of as bright an intellectual day as it was in his own!—With us, the spirit of the age is clamorous for utility—for visible, tangible utility,—for bare, brawny, muscular utility. We would be roused to action by the voice of the populace, and the sounds of the crowded mart, and not ‘lulled asleep in shady idleness with...