poet is not tied to any subjection. He saw art as equivalent to "skill", a profession to be learned or developed, and nature as the objective, empirical world. The poet can invent, and thus in effect grows another nature. Sidney writes that there “is no art delivered to mankind that hath not the works of nature for his principal object”. The poet then does not depart from external nature. His works are "imitation" or "fiction", made of the materials of nature, and are shaped by the artist's vision. This vision is one that demands the reader's awareness of the art of imitation created through the "maker", the poet. Sidney's notion of "fore-conceit" means that a conception of the work must exist in the poet's mind before it is written. Free from the limitations of nature, and independent from nature, poetry is capable of "making things either better than Nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in Nature". Sidney's doctrine presents the poet as creator. The poet's mediating role between two worlds – transcendent forms and historical actuality – corresponds to the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation. A complement to this doctrine is the concept of return or catharsis, which finds a parallel in Sidney's contemplation of virtue, based on man's rational desire. Apology contains only elements of Neoplatonism without adhering to the full doctrine. Thirdly, Sidney implies a theory of metaphoric language in his work. A recurring motif in Apology is painting or “portraiture”. Apology applies language use in a way suggestive of what is known in modern literary theory as semiotics. His central premise, as was that of Socrates in Plato's Republic, is that poetry is an art of imitation, that is, a "representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth" not unlike a "speaking picture". Sidney pays his homage to Aristotle also. Yet he develops his own idea of metaphoric language, one that it is based on an analogy through universal correspondences. Sidney's humanist poetics and his tendency to harmonize disparate extremes – to seek mediation – find expression in poetic works by John Donne. The life and writings of Sir Philip Sidney remain a legacy. In 1819, Thomas Campbell concludes that Sidney's life was "poetry in action", and then in 1858 William Stigant wrote that "Sidney's real poem was his life, and his teaching was his example". Sidney, the man, is apparent everywhere in his works: a