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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10140-0.txt b/10140-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9a116c --- /dev/null +++ b/10140-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5788 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10140 *** + +Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance + +A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism + +By + +Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D. +Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University + +1922 + + + + +To my Father and Mother + + + + +Preface + + + +In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on +the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This +influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance +writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric. +But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical +thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the +present day. + +The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of +rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part +Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of +poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but +by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical +terminology I have already touched on in an article on _The Requirements +of a Poet[1]_, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal +of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical +rhetoric. + +No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can +escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose _Literary +Criticism in the Renaissance_ has so carefully traced the debt of English +criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by +many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my +own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement +what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention +to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am +able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were +profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these +mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and +that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and +less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not +lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism. + +In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in +modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For +quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case +of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the +_Elizabethan Critical Essays_ edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the +_Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn, +I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a +practice would add to the convenience of the reader. + +The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of +acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia +University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided +me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously +allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English +rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly +and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to +Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond +M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard +and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is +to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration, +enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book +possible. + + + + +Contents + + + +Part First: The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry + + +I. Introductory + 1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic + +II. Classical Poetic + 1. Aristotle + 2. "Longinus" + 3. Plutarch + 4. Horace + +III. Classical Rhetoric + 1. Definitions + 2. Subject Matter + 3. Content of Classical Rhetoric + 4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic + 5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric + +IV. Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic + 1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style + 2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic + 3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools + 4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric + +V. The Middle Ages + 1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition + 2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language + +VI. Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance + 1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic + 2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric + 3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric + 4. Channels of Rhetorical Theory + +VII. Renaissance Poetic + 1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition + 2. Rhetorical Elements + +VIII. Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance + 1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism + 2. The Influence of Horace + 3. The Influence of Aristotle + 4. Manuals for Poets 5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism + + + +Part Second: The Purpose of Poetry + + +I. The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. General + 2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example + 3. Moral Improvement through Allegory + 4. The Influence of Rhetoric + +II. Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages + 2. Allegory in Mediaeval England + +III. Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose + of Poetry + 1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic + 2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics + +IV. English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric + 2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic + 3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example + + +Index of Names + + + + + +Part One + +The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry + + + + +Chapter I + +Introductory + + + +By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly +movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the +historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the +renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the +Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule +the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The +interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the +English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This +tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have +shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical +writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries +and original treatises of Italian scholars. + +The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely +discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is +known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English +renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics +to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval +development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will +be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its +development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in +the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to +show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English +renaissance. + +As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a +new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories +were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of +this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas +Wilson's _Arte of Rhetorique_ in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's _Timber_ in +1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical +theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence +first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of +Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English +criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories +of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology, +not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but +through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric. +The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical +theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an +inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages. +Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far +into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry +use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This +rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some +extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the +influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian +critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the +mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric. + + + +1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic + + +Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the _Rhetoric_ and +the _Poetics_. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical +consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his +mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, +but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical +basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the +classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly +what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace +the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in +the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in +the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry +contained many elements which historically derive from classical and +mediaeval rhetoric. + +Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical +critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in +addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in +separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of +history were composed in verse, they would still be something different +from poetry.[2] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings +are like those of the poets.[3] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric +against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like +that of the poets.[4] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some +fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a +difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of +ignoring. + +If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of +communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry +second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one +reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry +to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a +modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared +with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry. + +To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a +pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an +audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had +learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work +up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize +this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and +harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined +by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the +schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn. + +In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of +poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed +that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be +poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained. +Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and +Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching +of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did +rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch, +the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the +renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring +to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and +of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their +purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion, +therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in +Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The +object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between +nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is +to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the +other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because +also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better +understood. + +The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic +appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric +deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a +defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the +deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals +with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary +critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized +that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far +the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to +characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it +does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical +unity and movement. + +It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in +the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description +of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an +aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric +deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also +with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and +dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most +important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the +ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises +on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the +technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on +versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern +developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in +this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much +more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood +that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical +rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic. + +Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric +and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative +literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that +the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The +fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is +usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to +them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel, +who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete +and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect, +asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[5] He thus +advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the +Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has +in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence +of poetry is fiction.[6] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce +differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written +in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what +he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the +other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[7] Similar +to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and +intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and +practical.[8] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of +writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[9] + +In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation +between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the +traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical +study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between +rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive. + + + + +Chapter II + +Classical Poetic + + + +1. Aristotle + + +A survey of what Aristotle includes in his _Poetics_, what he excludes, +and what he ignores, will be a helpful initial step in an investigation of +what he meant by poetic. Five kinds of poetry are mentioned by name in the +_Poetics_: epic, dramatic, dithyrambic, nomic, and satiric; and lyric is +included by implication as a form of epic, where the poet narrates in his +own person.[10] + +The choruses, also, are lyric. Otherwise Aristotle does not discuss lyric +poetry. Of the other five kinds, nomic, dithyrambic, and satiric poetry +are mentioned only as illustrative of something Aristotle wishes to say +about epic or drama. Aristotle's _Poetics_ discusses only epic and, +especially, drama. Thus of the twenty-six books into which the _Poetics_ +is conventionally divided, five are devoted to the general theory of +poetry, three to diction, two to epic, and sixteen to drama. Although +Aristotle includes dithyrambic, nomic, satiric, and lyric poetry in his +discussion, he practically ignores them. + +On the other hand he specifically excludes from poetry such scientific +works as those of Empedocles and historical writings as those of +Herodotus.[11] The rhetorical element in the speeches of the characters of +drama or epic, Aristotle calls Thought (διάνια). Although +Aristotle includes Thought as an element in drama, he does not discuss it +in the _Poetics_, but refers his reader to the _Rhetoric_. Metrics, which +occupies so large a place in modern treatises on the theory of poetry, +Aristotle likewise mentions several times, but does not discuss. A +metrical structure he accepts as the usual practice in poetical +composition, but he rejects verse as the distinguishing mark of poetic. +Thus he refuses to classify as poetry the scientific writings which +Empedocles had composed in meter as well as the histories of Herodotus, +even if he had written them in verse. On the other hand, the mimes of +Sophron and Xenarchus, although composed in prose, he considers within the +scope of poetic.[12] + +If to Aristotle, then, verse is not the characteristic quality of poetic, +the next step in an investigation must be to discover the criterion by +which he classifies some literature as poetry and other as not poetry. The +characteristic quality, according to Aristotle, which is possessed by the +Socratic dialogs, by the Homeric epics, and by the dramas of Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, and which classifies them together as poetic, is +not verse but _mimesis_, imitation.[13] Exactly what Aristotle meant by +imitation has furnished subsequent critics with an excuse for writing many +volumes. The usual meaning of the word to the Greek, as to the modern, +seems to be little more than an aping or mimicking. Aristotle himself uses +imitate in this sense when he speaks of the delight children take in +imitation.[14] But in establishing imitation as the criterion of poetic, +Aristotle seems to have injected something of a private, or at least a +special scientific meaning into the word. As the characteristic quality of +poetic, imitation to Aristotle evidently did not mean a literal copy. +Plato had attacked poetry as unreal, a thrice-removed imitation of the +only true reality. To defend poetic against the strictures of his master +Aristotle reads more into the word than that. + +In discovering what Aristotle had in mind when he speaks of imitation, the +student must read from one treatise to another, for few writers of any +period are so addicted to the habit of cross-reference. In the +_Psychology_ Aristotle states that all stimuli received by the senses at +the moment of perception are impressed upon the mind as in wax. The images +held by the image-forming faculty are thus the after effect of sensation. +These images remain and may be recalled by the image-forming faculty. From +this store-house of images, or after effects of sensation, the reasoning +faculty derives the materials for thought as well as those for artistic +expression.[15] Imagination evidently has much to do with Aristotle's +conception of the nature of poetic. Imitation, then, to him, meant a +conscious selection and plastic mastery of the sense impressions stored as +images by the image-forming faculty of the author, whose writings are +addressed to the imagination of the reader or auditor. Furthermore, +Butcher's interpretation of "imitation of nature" seems both sound and +suggestive. According to him the imitation of nature is the imitation of +nature's ways. In this sense the act of the poet may well be called +creation. + +As imitative arts Aristotle mentions poetry, dancing, music, and painting. +They differ, he says, in their medium, objects, and manner. Poetry, +dancing, and music he classifies together because they use the similar +media of rhythm, language, or harmony either singly or combined. Music, +for instance, uses both rhythm and harmony, dancing uses rhythm alone, and +poetry uses language alone. Aristotle by this does not, as might seem, +exclude rhythm and harmony from poetry. Indeed, he states explicitly that +most forms of poetry do use all of the media mentioned: rhythm, tune, and +meter. He is only insisting that imitation in unmetrical language is still +poetry; that meter is not the characteristic element of poetic.[16] It is +important to recognize that in classifying poetry with music and dancing, +Aristotle is insisting that the common element in these arts is movement. +Movement is characteristic of poetry, as color and form are characteristic +of painting and sculpture. Thus in discussing the plot of tragedy, which +he holds to be the highest and most characteristic form of poetry, +Aristotle urges the necessity of unity and magnitude, both of which he +defines in terms not of space relations, but of movement. For instance, to +possess unity a plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end. + + A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal + necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An + end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other + thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. + A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows + it.[17] + +Furthermore, the magnitude which this dramatic movement should possess is +also discussed not in terms of bulk, but of length. + + As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms, a certain + magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in + one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length + which can easily be embraced by the memory.[18] + +It is noteworthy that to Aristotle the characteristic movement of poetic +depends on the dramatic unity and progression of a dramatic action, a +plot. In the _Rhetoric_ he shows that the arrangement of the movement of a +speech is governed by entirely different considerations. The unity of +rhetoric is not dramatic, but logical. The order of the parts of a speech +is determined not by a plot, but by the needs of presentation to an +audience. For instance, a statement of the case is given first, and then +the proof is marshalled. + +The objects of poetic imitation, Aristotle says, are character, emotion, +and deed, i.e., men in action,[19] inanimate nature and the life of dumb +animals being subordinate to these. The manner of imitating, if poetic, +Aristotle says is either narrative or dramatic. Under the narrative manner +he includes lyric, where the speaker expresses himself in the first +person, and epic, where the speaker tells his story in the third person. +In the dramatic manner he says that the characters are made to live and +move before us.[20] + +Answering Plato's charge that poetic is not real, Aristotle erects the +distinction between the real and the actual, claiming a reality for poetic +which is not the actuality of science or of practical affairs. It is thus +that he distinguishes the poet from the historian: although the historian +also uses images, he is restricted to relating what has happened--that is, +to fact; while the poet relates what should happen--what is possible +according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing +facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be +"true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of +nature."[21] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both +the characterization and the action. In the first place + + Poetry tends to express the universal--how a person of a certain type + will on occasion speak or act according to the law of probability or + necessity.[22] + +Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls +the structure of a narrative or dramatic plot in that, "what follows +should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action,"[23] +even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to +improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational +premise in an action may seem probable provided that the conclusion is +logical and made to seem real.[24] For instance, the irrational elements +in the Odyssey "are presented to the imagination with such vividness and +coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like +truth."[25] Such a result occurs only when the characters and action are +made real. We believe that which we see, even though we know in our hearts +that it is not so. + +How important Aristotle feels it to be that the spectator or reader should +see before him the characters and situations of an epic or drama is +evinced by his suggestion to the poet on the process of composing. The +author, he says, should visualize the situations he is presenting, working +out the appropriate gestures, for he who feels emotion is best at +transmitting it to an audience.[26] It is only when the poet thus +completely realizes his characters and situations that the audience can be +induced to feel sympathetically the pity and fear which produces the +_katharsis_, so important a result of successful tragedy. If human beings +did not possess that tendency to feel within themselves the emotions of +the people on the stage, they would be unable to experience vicariously +the fear animating the tragic hero. Thus tragedy, which is the type of all +poetic, depends vitally, according to Aristotle, on imaginative +realization. + + + +2. "Longinus" + + +Aristotle's theory of poetry, which influenced so profoundly the criticism +of the renaissance, was not followed by other classical treatises of the +same scope. In fact, very little Greek or Roman literary criticism is +concerned with poetical theory as compared with the keen interest of many +critics in oratory. Perhaps the most significant and valuable critical +treatise after Aristotle is that golden pamphlet _On the Sublime_ +erroneously ascribed to Longinus, which, anonymous and mutilated as it is, +still holds our attention by its sincerity, insight, and enthusiastic love +for great poetry. + +However important its contribution to classical theory of poetry, the +treatise is not specifically on poetic. In fact, it sets out as if to +treat rhetoric, and actually treats both; for it is mainly a treatise on +style, which as Aristotle says in the _Poetics_[27] is in essence the same +both in prose and verse. Nevertheless it does distinguish between rhetoric +and poetic and does contribute to the theory of poetry.[28] + +"_Sublimitas_," misleadingly translated "sublimity," the author defines +as elevation and greatness of style. It springs from the faculty of +grasping great conceptions and from passion, both gifts of nature. It is +assisted by art through the appropriate use of figures, noble diction, and +dignified and spirited composition of the words into sentences. It is the +insistence on passion, emotion, which makes the treatise _On the Sublime_ +stand out above other classical treatises on writing. Both poets and +orators attain the sublime, says the author, but passion is more +characteristic of the poets.[29] + +Passion moves the poet to intensity, which is attained by selection of +those sensory images which are significant. Thus the treatise praises the +ode by Sappho which it quotes, because the poet has taken the emotions +incident to the frenzy of love from the attendant symptoms, from +actuality, and first selected and then closely combined those which were +conspicuous and intense.[30] This intensity which is characteristic of the +poet he contrasts with the amplification of the orators, which strengthens +the fabric of an argument by insistence and is especially "appropriate in +perorations and digressions, and in all passages written for the style and +for display, in writings of historical and scientific nature." Yet +Demosthenes when moved by passion attains the sublimity of intensity and +strikes like lightning.[31] Both in oratory and in poetry sublimity is +attained by image-making, as when "moved by enthusiasm and passion, you +seem to see the things of which you speak, and place them under the eyes +of your hearers."[32] It would be difficult to phrase better the +conditions of imaginative realization. But the author felt truly that +this realization was different in poetry from what it was in rhetoric. In +commenting on a quotation from the _Orestes_, of Euripides, he says: + + There the poet saw the Furies with his own eyes, and what his + imagination presented he almost compelled his hearers to behold. + +And after an imaginative passage from the lost _Phaethon_, of the same +author, he says: + + Would you not say that the soul of the writer treads the car with the + driver, and shares the peril, and wears wings as the horses do? + +From this the rhetorical imagination differs in that it is at its best +when it has fact for its object.[33] Longinus would seem to say that the +realization of poetic is untrammeled by fact, while the imagination of the +orator is bound by the actual; it is always practical. + +Because the imaginative realization of poetry is characterized by passion, +intensity, and immediacy, the author of the treatise feels with Aristotle +that the dramatic is the most characteristically poetic. On this basis he +judges the _Odyssey_ to be less great than the _Iliad_. It is narrative +instead of dramatic; fable prevails over action; passion has degenerated +into character-drawing. This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the +qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize +character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or +for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye +instead of being told. + +The treatise makes this point exceedingly clear by two quotations which +bear repeating. + +"The author of the _Arimaspeia_ thinks these lines terrible: + + "Here too, is mighty marvel for our thought: + 'Mid seas men dwell, on water, far from land: + Wretches they are, for sorry toil is theirs; + Eyes on the stars, heart on the deep they fix; + Oft to the gods, I ween, their hands are raised; + Their inward parts in evil case upheaved. + +"Anyone, I think, will see that there is more embroidery than terror in it +all. Now for Homer: + + "As when a wave by the wild wind's blore + Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light, + And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white, + And through the sails all tattered and forlorn + Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright + Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they are borne."[34] + +The first quoted passage is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk +about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the +situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and +hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and shake with the +frightened sailors. + + + +3. Plutarch + + +But judgments like those of the appreciative and discerning author of the +treatise _On the Sublime_ are rare. Plutarch in his essay _On the Reading +of Poets_, is much more representative of late Greek criticism. This essay +is not a treatise on the theory of poetry, but a thoughtful discussion of +the place of poetry in the education of young men. Consequently the +greater part of the essay is devoted to the moral purpose of poetry, and +as such will be treated in the second section of this study. Two points, +however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical +imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting. + +The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To +Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. +"While poetry is based on imitations ... it does not resign the likeness +of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[35] As a +result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical +material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things +are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, +just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of +its loathsome subject, is praised for its art. + +Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which +led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was +a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent +poetry."[36] The false analogy, "_ut pictura poesis_," establishing, as it +does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until +Lessing exposed it in his _Laocoon_. Aristotle at the beginning had made +clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which +could have a beginning, a middle, and an end. + + + +4. Horace + + +The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are +the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a _poetic_; +it is an _ars poetica_. _Ars_, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a +practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner +himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its +philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to +become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He +says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found +of assistance." + +In structure, also, the _ars poetica_ is not a critical analysis, but a +text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental +considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to +compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so +that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; +he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter. + +The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to +line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing +of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the +most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are +between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in +that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his +emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace +says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin _ab ovo_ but +plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says +much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be +animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be +made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for +instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden +anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of +the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns +his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and +the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode +presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having +taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they +offend. + +The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is +good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is +appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. +Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript +carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a +sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem +will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. +If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his +work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A +poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better +advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his +"_ut pictura poesis_" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts +as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely. + +Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here +treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the +early renaissance. Just what the influence of the _Ars poetica_ was and +why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters. + + + + +Chapter III + +Classical Rhetoric + + + +1. Definitions + + +The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is +reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical +orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric +can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. +The _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. +In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical +theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his +whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there +were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for +their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the _Rhetoric ad +Alexandrum_, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated +in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek +text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's +rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through +the influence of his _Rhetoric_ and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus +set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct +from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, +but briefer. + + +Definitions + +"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering +all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[37] + +He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he +believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring +him to as high a point of health as possible."[38] Neither medicine nor +rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always +something incalculable. + +Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that +the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available +means of persuasion,[39] his successors were more direct, if less +accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is +persuasion,[40] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the +artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[41] But the +anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. +Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by +defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of +the audience as far as possible."[42] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is +that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the +assent of his audience.[43] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes +a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as +the _ars bene dicendi_, or good public speech.[44] Here the _bene_ implies +not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception +the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times +when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to +persuade would be dishonorable.[45] Quintilian's precepts, however, are +more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself +throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible +means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that +the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking. + + + +2. Subject Matter + + +If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion +as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[46] +says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made +persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and +successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was +almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were +or were not so, or persuading a deliberative assembly that this or that +should or should not be done. Consequently Hermagoras defines the subject +matter of rhetoric as "public questions," Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as +"communal affairs," and the _Ad Herennium_ as "whatever in customs or laws +is to the public benefit."[47] The same influence caused Cicero in his +youthful _De inventione_ to classify rhetoric as part of political +science,[48] and in the _De oratore_ to make Antonius restrict rhetoric to +public and communal affairs,[49] although in another section he returns to +Aristotle's "any subject" as the material of rhetoric[50] as does +Quintilian later.[51] + +Although Aristotle did state in his definition that any subject was the +material of rhetoric, in his classification of the varieties of speeches +he practically restricts rhetoric as did Hermagoras, Dionysius, and the +_Ad Herennium_; for here he finds but three kinds of oratory: the +deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional, ἐπιδεικτικός. Forensic +oratory he defines as that of the law court; deliberative, of the senate +or public assembly; and occasional, of eulogy and congratulation. Perhaps +the most illustrative modern examples of the third would be Fourth-of-July +addresses, funeral sermons, and appreciative articles or lectures. Aristotle +suggests that exaggeration is most appropriate to the style of occasional +oratory; for as the facts are taken for granted, it remains only to invest +them with grandeur and dignity.[52] + +Occasional oratory seems to have given no little concern to the classical +rhetoricians. Since it existed to adorn an occasion, it had to be +considered; but unlike the oratory of the forum or of the council chamber +it was not primarily practical. Quintilian comments on this; for it seems +to aim almost exclusively at gratifying its hearers,[53] in this respect +resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but +pleasure.[54] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those +of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective +"literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[55] +Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from +the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it +were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently he +declines to classify this form of oratory separately, reducing +Aristotle's three kinds of oratory to two. It is valuable, to his mind, as +the wet-nurse of the young orator, who enlarges his vocabulary and learns +composition from its practice.[56] Aristotle includes it in rhetoric; for +in its field of eulogy, panegyric, felicitation, and congratulation, it +too uses the available means of persuasion to prove some person or thing +praiseworthy or the reverse.[57] + + + +3. Content of Classical Rhetoric + + +Classical rhetoricians commonly divided their subject into five parts. +This analysis of rhetoric into _inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria_, +and _pronuntiatio_ is to all intents and purposes universal in classical +rhetoric and must be understood to give one a valid idea of its +content.[58] _Inventio_, so often lazily mistranslated as "invention," is +the art of exploring the material to discover all the arguments which may +be brought to bear in support of a proposition and in refutation of the +opposing arguments. It includes the study of arguments and fallacies; and +is that part of rhetoric which is closest neighbor to logic. The kinds of +argument treated in the classical rhetoric were two: the enthymeme, or +rhetorical syllogism; and the rhetorical induction or example. In the +practice of rhetoric _inventio_ was thus the solidest and most important +element. It included all of what to-day we might call "working up the +case." _Dispositio_ is the art of arranging the material gathered for +presentation to an audience. Aristotle insists that the essential parts of +a speech are but two: the statement and the proof. At most it may have +four: the _ex ordium_, or introduction; the _narratio_, or statement of +facts; the _confirmatio_, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and +the _peroratio_, or conclusion.[59] This is the characteristic movement of +rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot +movement of poetic.[60] The parts are capable of further analysis. +Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof +proper into _probatio_, or affirmative proof, and _refutatio_, or +refutation.[61] And the _Ad Herennium_ adds a _divisio_, which defines the +issues, between the statement of facts and the proof.[62] Cassiodorus +divides the speech into six parts[63] and so does Martianus Capella.[64] +Thomas Wilson (1553) offers seven.[65] + +The third part of rhetoric is _elocutio_, or style, the choice and +arrangement of words in a sentence. Quintilian's treatment of style is +typical. Words should be chosen which are in good use, clear, elegant, and +appropriate. The sentences should be grammatically correct, artistically +arranged, and adorned with such figures as antithesis, irony, and +metaphor.[66] Correctness is usually presupposed by the rhetoricians. To +the sound of sentences all classical treatises give an attention that +seems amazing if we forget that in Greece and Rome all literature was +spoken or read aloud. The sentence or period was considered more +rhythmically than logically, and subdivided in speech into rhythmical +parts called commas and cola. The end of the sentence was to be marked not +by a printer's sign, but by the falling cadence of the rhythm itself. +Furthermore, great care should be taken to avoid hiatus between words, as +when the first word ends and the word following begins with a vowel. But +the glory of style to the classical rhetorician lay in its use of figures. +Here rhetoric vindicated its practicality by a preoccupation with the +impractical; and here, as in analysis, rhetoric bore the seeds of its own +decay. Although Aristotle devoted relatively little space to the +rhetorical figures, later treatises emphasized them more and more until in +post-classical and in mediaeval rhetoric little else is discussed. The +figures of course had to be classified. First there were the _figurae +verborum_, or figures of language, which sought agreeable sounds alone or +in combination, such as antitheses, rhymes, and assonances. Then the +_figurae sententiarum_, or figures of thought, such as rhetorical +questions, hints, and exclamations.[67] Quintilian classifies as tropes +words or phrases converted from their proper signification to another. +Among these are metaphor, irony, and allegory. In our day we consider as +figures of speech only the classical tropes, and indeed Aristotle pays +little attention to the others. He says that in prose one should use only +literal names of things, and metaphors, or tropes[68]--which therefore are +not literal names but substituted names. For instance in this metaphor, +which Aristotle quotes from Homer, "The arrow flew,"[69] "flew" is not the +literal word to express the idea. Only birds fly, reminds the practical +person. Max Eastman has pertinently called attention to the fact that it +is only to rhetoric, which is a practical activity, that these figures are +indirect expressions, or substituted names. Apostrophe is not a turning +away in poetic, because in poetic there is no argument to turn away from. +Rather in poetic it is a turning toward the essential images of +realization, as metaphor in poetic is direct, not indirect, because in +poetic a word that suggests the salient parts or qualities of things will +always stand out over the general names of things.[70] + +The last two parts of rhetoric, _memoria_ and _pronuntiatio_, are really +not permanent parts of rhetoric, but only of the rhetoric of spoken +address. _Memoria_, the art of memory, did not mean to the Greeks and +Romans the art of learning by heart a written speech, but rather the art +of keeping ready for use a fund of argumentative material, together with +the features of the case which the speaker might be pleading. The +discussion of it in the treatises is usually an exposition of the mnemonic +system of visual association, the discovery of which is ascribed to +Simonides. Cicero deliberately leaves a discussion of _memoria_ out of his +_Orator_, because as he says, it is common to many arts;[71] and the Dutch +scholar Vossius in the renaissance denied that it was a part of +rhetoric.[72] _Pronuntiatio_, or delivery, has also been found hardly an +integral part of rhetoric. It is concerned with the use both of the voice +and of gesture. Quintilian, for instance, records the effectiveness of +clinging to the judge's knees, or of bringing into the court room the +weeping child of the accused.[73] Aristotle discusses only the use of the +voice.[74] + +Thus classical rhetoric was almost exclusively restricted to the +practical oratory of persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome a +mastery of rhetoric gave its possessor political power; for by persuasive +public speech a public man could gain a following by defending his clients +in the law courts, and influence the destinies of the state by his +deliberations in the legislative assembly. As long as these republican +institutions prevailed, the theory and practice of rhetoric continued to +be sound and practical. + + + +4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic + + +Implicit in Aristotle and throughout classical literary criticism there is +a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the +metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing +characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially +practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the Greeks and Romans as +something quite different from poetic and infinitely more important in +education and public life. But however clear-cut this distinction may be +in principle, in practical application there is rarely to be found such +ideal isolation. + +Aristotle, for instance, carries rhetoric bodily over into poetic by +including Thought, διάνοιᾰ, as the third in importance of the constituent +elements of tragedy.[75] This Thought is the intellectual element in +conduct, and in drama is embodied not in action, but in speech.[76] +Aristotle says, + + It is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given + circumstances. In the case of oratory, this is the function of the + political art and of the art of rhetoric. Concerning thought, we may + assume what is said in the _Rhetoric_, to which inquiry the subject more + properly belongs. Under thought is included every effect which has to be + produced by speech, the subdivisions being--proof and refutation; the + excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger and the like; the + suggestion of importance or its opposite.[77] + +This is a transfer of the content of rhetoric to poetic, but poetic +remains an art of imitation. Imaginative realization of the life of man +would be incomplete if the characters in a narrative or in a drama did not +use the same rhetorical art as do the characters of actual life. The poets +justly carry over rhetoric when the scene demands it, and have often +proved themselves excellent rhetoricians. Quintilian praises the +peroration of Priam's speech begging Achilles for the body of Hector,[78] +and Cicero gives a rhetorical analysis of the speech of the old man in the +_Andria_ of Terence, where the arrangement is especially appropriate to +the character of the speaker.[79] Norden, therefore, seems to go too far +in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.[80] +Dante remains an excellent poet when he puts into the mouth of Virgil that +persuasive speech to Cato in the first canto of the _Purgatorio_. Antony's +speech in _Julius Caesar_ is the best known modern example of the +legitimate place of rhetoric in poetic. + + + +5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric + + +Just as rhetoric is justly carried over into poetic when in the +realization of a character or situation a speech must be made or conduct +rationalized, so poetic is constantly utilized by the orator. Public +speech would be less persuasive if the characteristic imaginative +qualities of poetic were excluded. The ideas and propositions of rhetoric +would most ineffectually reach an audience if they were not made vivid. +That rhetoric is not thus made synonymous with poetic is due to the fact +that in rhetoric the images exist to illuminate the concept, while in +poetic they are woven into the movement of the plot. Oratory, like poetry, +is emotional, as Longinus asserts.[81] Cicero phrases the aim of the +orator as "docere, delectare, et movere," to prove, to delight, to move +emotionally.[82] The vividness and emotion, as well as the charm, of +poetic are indispensable in attaining the ultimate aim of rhetoric-- +persuasion. The orator must be himself moved, according to Quintilian,[83] +just as the poet, according to Aristotle.[84] That essential quality, +indeed, of poetic, the realization of character and situation which +presents vividly a situation or event to the mind's eye of the reader or +hearer so that he seems to participate in the action and vicariously live +through it, was incorporated into rhetoric as ἐνέγεια, a figure of speech. +There petrified in an alien substance, this characteristic quality of +poetic was transmitted to another age which knew of it through no other +source.[85] Thus a successful orator narrated with descriptive vividness +the circumstances, for instance, of a cruel murder, and even dramatized, +speaking now in the person of one actor, now of another, the situation +which he was endeavoring to realize for his audience. He was thus enabled +better to carry his audience with him to his ultimate goal of persuasion. + +But though rhetoric might for the moment thus borrow poetic, and though +poetic might borrow rhetoric, the two remained distinct in the large, each +conceived as having its own movement, its composition, distinct from that +of the other. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic + + + +1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style + + +The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically +in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in +this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of +recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of +the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[86] while the +modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the +sophists.[87] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity +between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century +B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between +Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous +Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so +elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than +to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself +on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his +discourses as in poems.[88] + +That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and +poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is +common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the +_Rhetoric_ he refers to the _Poetics_ for a fuller discussion of +metaphor.[89] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great +attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment. +Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not +to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical, +a set rhythm, a meter, is appropriate only to verse.[90] + +A distinction between the style of poetic and of rhetoric similar to that +of Aristotle is maintained by Cicero, but the distinction was losing its +sharpness. In the _Orator_ he considers the orator and the poet as similar +in style, but not identical. Formerly rhythm and meter were the +distinguishing marks of the poet, but the orators in his days, he says, +made increasing use of rhythm. Meter is a vice in an orator and should be +shunned. The poet has greater license in compounding and inventing words. +Both prose and verse, he adds, may be characterized by brilliant imagery +and headlong sweep.[91] The only essential difference between Cicero's +treatment of style and that of Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle had +shown imagery to be an integral part of poetic, Cicero felt it both in +poetic and in rhetoric to be superadded as a decoration. Whether or not +this difference was caused by lack of discrimination on the part of +Cicero, his position was at least in line with a tendency which in later +criticism received increasing development. Both the poet and the orator, +he says, use the same methods of ornament,[92] and the orator uses almost +the language of poetry.[93] And again, in a phrase which was taken up and +repeated for fifteen hundred years, the poets are nearest kin to the +orators.[94] + + + +2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and in Poetic + + +But the public interest in style was increasingly comparable to that in +athletic agility. As Socrates applauded the dancing girl who leaped +through the dagger-studded hoop,[95] the popular audience of imperial Rome +was delighted at a clever turn of speech, a surprising rhythm, or a +startling comparison. Literary study of style in occasional oratory must +have been extensive and extravagant at a very early date, to judge by the +rebukes of such practical speakers as Alcidamas. Moreover, such stylistic +artifice as was practiced and taught by Gorgias, Isocrates, and other +sophists crept into tragedy, says Norden, beginning with Agathon.[96] The +result was that with the poets style became as it had become with the +sophists, an end in itself. The epideictic orators became less orators and +more poets, and the poets cultivated less the characteristic vividness and +movement of poetic than those turns of style which began in oratory. + +Thus it was very natural that the discussions of artistic prose in the +treatises of the later rhetoricians should be copiously illustrated by +quotations from the poets, and that the poets should, in turn, be +influenced in the direction of further sophistical niceties by the +rhetorical treatises on style, such as those of Demetrius and Dionysius of +Halicarnassus, who devoted whole treatises to style alone. The obsession +of style is well exemplified by a comparison of Dionysius and Longinus in +their discussion of Sappho's literary art. Longinus praises her passion, +and her masterful selection of images which realize it for the reader, +while Dionysius, no less enthusiastic, points out that in the ode which he +quotes there is not a single case of hiatus. Dionysius is here much the +more characteristic of his age, as he is in his belief that there is very +little difference indeed between prose and verse. Longinus, while showing +the relations of rhetoric and poetic, keeps the two apart; Dionysius draws +them together. To Dionysius the best prose is that which resembles verse +although not entirely in meter, and the best poetry that which resembles +beautiful prose. By this he means that the poet should use enjambment +freely and should vary the length and form of his clauses, so that the +sense should not uniformly conclude with the metrical line.[97] In this +regard he would approve of Shakespeare's later blank verse much more than +of his earlier because it is freer and more like conversation. Thus, to +Dionysius, the diction of prose and the diction of poetry approach each +other as a limit. + + + +3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation School + + +Later antiquity carried the mingling further in the same direction. As +time went on, the over-refinement and literary sophistication of the +florid school of oratory became more and more powerful. The puritan +reaction of the Roman Atticists in the direction of the simplicity of +Lysias defeated itself in over emphasis and ended in establishing coldness +and aridity as literary ideals. Such a jejune style could never hold a +Roman audience, and Cicero in theory and in practice took as model not +only Demosthenes, but also Isocrates. As Roman liberty was lost under the +Caesars, style very naturally assumed greater and greater importance. +Bornecque has shown that the strife of the forum and the genuine debates +of the senate no longer kept tough the sinews of public speech, and the +orators sank back in lassitude on the remaining harmless but unreal +occasional oratory and on the fictitious declamations of the schools.[98] +In these declamation schools under the Empire the boys debated such +imaginary questions as this: A reward is offered to one who shall kill a +tyrant. A. enters the palace and kills the tyrant's son, whereupon the +father commits suicide. Is A. entitled to the reward? In the repertory of +Lucian occurs a show piece on each side of this proposition. For two +hundred years there had been no pirates in the Mediterranean; yet in the +declamation schools pirates abounded, and questions turned upon points of +law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite +cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the +adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the +declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with +frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The +master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, +would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his +pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[99] + +The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no +better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. +Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. +Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I +will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie +unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other +side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But +I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The +court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in +shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where +figures were appreciated.[100] But in spite of the ridiculous performance +of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, +in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased +popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[101] style +continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were +applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque +has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so +unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to +attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss +in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not +surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the +Christian era the sense of composition seems to have disappeared from +Latin literature."[102] Thus Quintilian lamented that in his day the well +constructed periods of Cicero appealed less to the perverted popular taste +than the brilliant but disjointed epigrams of Seneca. + + + +4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric + + +As style gained this preponderence in rhetoric, it continued to increase +its hold on poetic. While the rhetoricians were exemplifying from the +poets their schemes and tropes, their well joined words, "smooth, soft as +a maiden's face,"[103] the poets on their part were assiduously practicing +all the rhetorical devices of style. Thus the literature of the silver-age +is rhetorical. The custom of public readings by the author encouraged +clever writing and a declamatory manner,[104] even had the poets not +received their education in the only popular institutions of higher +instruction--the declamation schools. The fustian which passed for poetry +and equally well for history is well illustrated by the contempt of the +hard-headed Lucian for those historians who were unable to distinguish +history from poetry. "What!" he exclaims, "bedizen history like her +sister? As well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up +with purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his +cheeks; faugh, what an object one would make of him with such +defilements!"[105] But meretricious ornament was popular, and poets, +historians, and orators alike scrambled to see who could most adorn his +speech. Quintilian's pleas for the purer taste of a former age fell on +deaf ears, and despite his warnings orators imitated the style of the +poets, and the poets imitated the style of the orators.[106] Gorgias may +or may not have learned his style from the ancient poets of Greece, but +the poets of the silver age learned from the tribe of Gorgias. + +Not only did poetry and oratory suffer from the same bad taste in +straining for brilliance of style, but in practice, as Bornecque has +shown, both poetry and oratory suffered for lack of structure. The poets +paid so much attention to style that they neglected plot construction and +the vivid realization of character and situation. The orators paid so much +attention to style that they lost the art of composing sentences, and of +arranging sound arguments in such a way as to persuade an audience. In +effect there was a tendency for the late Latin writers to ignore those +elements of structure and movement wherein poetry and oratory most differ, +and stress unduly the elements of style wherein they have the most in +common. Indeed, so completely did any fundamental distinction between +poetic and rhetoric become blurred that in the second century Annaeus +Florus was able to offer as a debatable question, "Is Virgil an orator or +a poet?"[107] + + + + +Chapter V + +The Middle Ages + + + +1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition + + +The seven liberal arts of mediaeval education carried the blending almost +to the absorption of poetic by rhetoric, and the debasement of rhetoric +itself to a consideration of style alone. + +As for poetic, it had no distinct place except in the analyses of the +grammaticus, who from classical times had prepared boys for the schools of +rhetoric partly by analyzing with them the style of admirable passages. +These passages were commonly taken from the poets, whose art was thus +considered mainly as an art of words and applied to the art of the orator. +Consequently, as a result of this tradition, poetic in the middle ages was +commonly grouped with grammar or with rhetoric, although Isidore includes +it in his section on theology.[108] + +The rhetorical treatises of the middle ages exhibit two phases. On the one +hand the earlier post-classical treatises composed by Martianus Capella, +Cassiodorus, and Isidore, all inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, are +fairly close to the classical tradition of Quintilian. Their weakness +consists not in that they restricted rhetoric to style, but in that their +whole treatment of rhetorical theory was compact, arid, and schematic. The +second phase of mediaeval rhetoric is characteristic of a geographical +position more remote from the center of classical culture. Thus it is in +the rhetorical treatises of England and Germany in the middle ages that +rhetoric was to the greatest extent restricted to a consideration of +style. Illustrative of this tendency is the fact that the only surviving +rhetorical work by the Venerable Bede is a treatise on the rhetorical +figures. + +But although the conventional study of rhetoric in such condensed +treatment as that of the sections in Martianus, Isidore, or Cassiodorus, +was definitely intrenched in the educational system of the seven liberal +arts, it had no vitality. In the first place these treatises gave only the +dry husks of rhetoric, the conventional analyses, the stock definitions. +In the second place rhetoric was little applied. The political life of +western Europe centered in the camp, not in the forum. The classical +tradition of trial by a large jury, as the Areopagus or the Centumviri, +had given place to trial before the regal or manorial court. Thus rhetoric +dried up and lost whatever reality it had possessed in imperial Rome. + +But if the middle ages had no opportunity to apply rhetoric in its +function of persuasion in communal affairs, they did have real need of an +art of writing letters and of preparing lay or ecclesiastical documents, +such as contracts, wills, and records, and of preaching sermons. Thus in +the teaching of the schools, as well as in practice, the oration gave +place to the epistle and dictamen. "Dictare" was to write letters or +prepare documents. And the rhetorical treatise or "_ars rhetorica_" often +yielded to the "_ars prosandi_," or the "_ars dictandi_."[109] + +A characteristic treatise of this sort is the _Poetria_ of the Englishman +John of Garland (c. 1270). In his introductory chapter John explains that +he has divided the subject into seven parts: + + First is explained the theory of invention; then the manner of selecting + material; third, the arrangement and the manner of ornamentation; next, + the parts of a dictamen; fifth, the faults in all kinds of composition + (dictandi); sixth is arranged a treatise concerning rhetorical ornament + as necessary in meter as in prose, namely, the figures of speech and the + abbreviation and amplification of the material; seventh and last are + subjoined examples of courtly correspondence and scholastic dictamen, + pleasantly composed in verse and rhythms, and in diverse meters.[110] + +Under the head of invention John gives definitions, several examples of +good letters, a long list of proverbs under appropriate captions so that +the letter writer can quickly find the one to fit his context, and an +"elegiac, bucolic, ethic love poem" in fifty leonine verses, accompanied +by an inevitable allegorical interpretation.[111] Then he comes to +selection. Tully, he admits, puts arrangement after invention, "but," he +pleads, "in writing letters and documents poetically the art of selection +after that of invention is useful."[112] For he thinks of selection only +as the selection of words. A writer, he says, should select his words and +images according to the persons addressed. The court should be addressed +in the grand style; the city, in the middle style; and the country, in the +mean style.[113] One should arrange in three columns in a note-book the +words and comparisons appropriate to each style so that the material will +be handy when he wishes to write a letter. These principles John +illustrates with leonine verses and ecclesiastical epistles. Under +arrangement he says that all material must be so arranged as to have a +beginning, a middle, and an end. Then there are nine ways to begin a poem +and nine ways to begin a dictamen or epistle. Next he states that there +are six parts to an oration: "exordium, narracio, peticio, confirmacio, +confutacio, conclusio."[114] As an example of this division of the oration +into parts he quotes a long poem which persuades its reader to take up the +cross. Still under the general head of arrangement John explains the ten +ways of amplifying material. The tenth, "interpretacio," he illustrates by +telling a joke, and then amplifying it into a little comedy. "Comedy," he +says, "is a jocose poem beginning in sadness and ending in joy: a tragedy +is a poem composed in the grand style beginning in joy and ending in +grief."[115] Next follow the six metrical faults, the faults of +salutations in letters, a classification of the different kinds of poems, +and further talk on different styles in writing. His sixth chapter, on +ornament in meter and prose, presents what he has up to this left unsaid +about style. It includes a list of fifty-seven figures of speech (_colores +verborum_) and eighteen figures of thought (_colores sententiarum_). This +is logically followed by the ten attributes of man. The seventh and final +chapter gives a long narrative poem of the horrific variety as an example +of tragedy and several letters as examples of dictamen. + +Such a digest shows better than any generalization a complete confusion of +poetic and rhetoric. Poems were to be written according to the formulae of +orations; allegory throve. Infinite pains were to be expended on the +worthless niceties of conceited metrical structure and rhetorical figures. +Garland has neither real poetic nor real rhetoric. + + + +2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language + + +As to the late middle ages rhetoric had come to mean to all intents +nothing more than style, it is frequently personified in picturesque +mediaeval allegory, never as being engaged in any useful occupation, but +as adding beauty, color, or charm to life. In the _Anticlaudianus_ of +Alanus de Insulis, Rhetoric is represented as painting and gilding the +pole of the Chariot of Prudence.[116] In the rhymed compendium of +universal knowledge which its author, Thomasin von Zirclaria, justly calls +_Der Wälsche Gast_, for learning was indeed a foreign guest in thirteenth +century Germany, rhetoric appears in a similar rôle. "Rhetoric," says +Thomasin, "clothes our speech with beautiful colors,"[117] and he gives as +his authority, "Tulljus, Quintiljan, Sidônjus," although Apollinaris +Sidonius seems to be the only one of the trio he had ever read.[118] This +theory lived to a vigorous old age. Palmieri, in his _Della Vita Civile_ +(1435), defines rhetoric as "the theory of speaking ornamentally."[119] +And Lydgate traces all the beauty of rhetoric to Calliope, "that with thyn +hony swete sugrest tongis of rethoricyens."[120] + +The most complete example, however, of the mediaeval restriction of +rhetoric to style, and of the absorption of poetic by rhetoric is afforded +by Lydgate in his _Court of Sapyence._ The passages which refer to +rhetoric are given in full because they can otherwise be consulted only +in the Caxton edition of 1481 or in the black letter copy printed by +Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.[121] + +_Introductory verses._ + + O Clyo lady moost facundyous + O ravysshynge delyte of eloquence + O gylted goddes gaye and gloryous + Enspyred with the percynge influence + Of delycate hevenly complacence + Within my mouth let dystyll of thy shoures + And forge my tonge to gladde myn auditoures. + + Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes + With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute + Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes + And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute + So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute + The redolent dulcour aromatyke + Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke. + + +_The section of rhetoric._ + + Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence + Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous + With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence + Within her parlour fresshe and precyous + Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous + Her audytours gan to all Joye converte + Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte. + + And many clerke had lust her for to here + Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance + Eche worde of her depured was so clere + And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce + That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce + Her termes gay as facunde soverayne + Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane. + + She taught them the crafte of endytynge + Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be + Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge + Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte + Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be + Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse + Whiche is Coma Colym perydus. + + Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont + And wolde conceyve the colours purperate + Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt + And to Galfryde the poete laureate + To Janneus a clerke of grete estate + Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke + Of this mater there groundely may he loke. + + In Tullius also moost eloquent + The chosen spouse unto this lady free + His gylted craft and gloyre in content + Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see + Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre + The bookes of lawe and of physyke good + Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood. + + In prose and metre of all kynde ywys + This lady blyssed had lust for to playe + With her was blesens Richarde pophys + Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay + With maters vere poetes in good array + Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace + Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace. + +Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context +than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of +rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as _docere, delectare, et movere_, only +the _delectare_ remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial +invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with +the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers +to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to +the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in +Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with +ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part +of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses +the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures +of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "_colores verborum_." And when he refers +to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical +divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et +periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of +"elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, +and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's +rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical +rhetoric--style. + +But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded +to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as +the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more +than this style, he does not say so. + +Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. +Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term +rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A +rhetor was one who was a master of style.[122] Henryson, for instance, +calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[123] Chaucer admired Petrarch +for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[124] and +was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of +brytagne,"[125] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by +John Walton.[126] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the +steps of rhetoric,[127] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and +asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[128] Bokenham calls +Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[129] and as late as +1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our +language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[130] The entire period was +thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited +at its best in the works of the poets. + +The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in +his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he +calls _The Pastime of Pleasure_ (1506). He begins, of course, with an +apology for + + Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes + Without rethorycke or coloure crafty; + Nothinge I am experte in poetry + As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[131] + +And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: + + O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge + Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[132] + +The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two +greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their +rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber +gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned +and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of +incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers +of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his +literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what +rhetoric is, + + Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason + Man for to governe wel and prudently; + His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[133] + +It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the +beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour +to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of +the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. +Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells. + +Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical +rhetoric.[134] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the +classical _inventio_. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," +discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, +who is familiar with the _inventio_ of classical rhetoric, concerned as it +is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection +with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted +not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and +explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a +defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term _inventio_ is +thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from +rhetoric to poetic. + +In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a +speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians +because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to +competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word +rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even +have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. +At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical _dispositio_ only in +name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic. + +Pronunciation (_pronuntiatio_), or delivery, of course applies to either +poets or orators. But whereas classical writers applied it to the orator's +use of voice and gesture, Hawes applies it only to the poet's reading +aloud. He recommends that when a poet reads his verses, he should make his +voice dolorous in bewailing a woeful tragedy, and his countenance glad in +joyful matter. It is important, however, that the reading poet be not +boisterous or unmannered. Let him be moderate, gentle, and seemly. The +final section, that on memory, comes closer to its classical sense than +does any other. Here the mnemonic system of "places," supposedly invented +by Simonides, is explained obscurely. Even more obscure is its +applicability to Hawes's subject. + +It is noteworthy that the chapter on Elocution (_elocutio_), +or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. +Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to +rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain +_inventio_; 12, _dispositio_; 40, _elocutio_; 8, _pronuntiatio_; +and 8, _memoria_. "Elocusyon," says Hawes, "exorneth the mater." + + The golden rethoryke is good refeccion + And to the reader ryght consolation.[135] + +Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. +Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, +dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they +gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold. But +beyond these picturesque generalizations there is little trace in Hawes of +any discussion of style such as one would find in a classical treatise. A +few figures of speech are mentioned, but not dwelt upon. Hawes +consistently confines himself to poetry. Tully, the only orator mentioned, +shares a line with Virgil. The main concern is with the devices used by +the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an +adjunct of the poet. + + my mayster Lydgate veryfyde + The depured rethoryke in Englysh language; + To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed + That the vyle termes should nothing arage + As like a pye to chatter in a cage, + But for to speke with rethoryke formally.[136] + +In a word, the whole traditional division of rhetoric is transferred to +poetry, and at the same time both rhetoric and poetic are limited to the +single part which they have in common--diction. The style cultivated by +this focus is ornamental and elaborate. If Lydgate or Hawes had believed +that rhetoric included more than aureate language, surely the scope of +their treatises would have afforded them opportunity to correct this +impression. Each of them is endeavoring to present a compendium of +universal knowledge according to the conventional analysis of the seven +liberal arts. Illustrative details might be omitted, but not important +sections of the subject matter. + +The meanings of words change, and with such changes we have no quarrel. It +is important, however, that we should know what the English middle ages +meant by rhetoric if we are to appreciate how powerful was the tradition +of the middle ages and in what direction it influenced the literary +criticism of the English renaissance. To resume, the middle ages thought +of poetry as being composed of two elements: a profitable subject matter +(_doctrina_), and style (_eloquentia_). The profitable subject matter was +theoretically supplied by the allegory. This will be discussed in the +second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical +discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been +shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric. + + + + +Chapter VI + +Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance + + + +1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic + + +But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of +Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in +life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament. Such a +serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic, +accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with +smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the +ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful +content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to +hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly +entitles _De inventione dialectica_, he defines logic as the art of +speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in +a speech.[137] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains +"_elocutio_," style; and logic carries over "_inventio_," as his title +shows, and "_dispositio_." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic +extremes of rhetoric he shows by denying to oratory any aim of pleasing +and moving. Of Cicero's threefold purpose, to teach, to please, and to +move, he retains only teaching as pertinent to effective public speech. +"Docere," to teach, he uses in the classical sense which includes proof as +well as instruction. Thus he says it has two parts: exposition and +argument.[138] The parts of a speech he reduces to the minimum proposed by +Aristotle: the statement and the proof. Thus although Agricola admits that +rhetoric is most beautiful, he will have none of her. + +Following this lead, Thomas Wilson, the English rhetorician and statesman, +defines logic and rhetoric as follows: + + Logic is occupied about all matters, and doeth plainlie and nakedly set + forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by way of argumentation. + Rhetorike useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those matters + with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at large.[139] + +According to Agricola and Wilson logic has supplanted rhetoric in finding +all possible means of persuasion in any subject. Following Peter +Ramus,[140] Wilson finds that logic has two parts: _judicium_, "Framyng of +thinges aptlie together, and knittyng words for the purpose accordynglie," +and _inventio_, "Findyng out matter, and searchyng stuffe agreable to the +cause."[141] Hermagoras and others had in antiquity considered _judicium_, +or judgment, as a part of rhetoric,[142] although Quintilian thought it +less a part of rhetoric than necessary to all parts.[143] _Inventio_, of +course, has always been the most important part of rhetoric. This same +carrying over of the content of classical rhetoric into logic is further +illustrated by Abraham Fraunce, who divides his _Lawiers Logic_ (1588) +into two parts: invention and disposition. + + + +2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric + + +But while the survival of the mediaeval notion that rhetoric was concerned +mainly with style thus gave over in the English Renaissance _inventio_ and +_dispositio_ to logic, there naturally remained nothing of classical +rhetoric but _elocutio_ and _pronuntiatio_. A brief survey of the English +rhetorics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will show +that this was the case. Richard Sherry devotes an entire book to style in +his "Treatise of Schemes and Tropes" (1550).[144] He begins by defining +"eloquucion, the third part of Rhetoric," as the dressing up of thought. +Rhetoric to him had not in theory become style, but style is the only part +which he finds interesting enough to treat. His schemes and tropes are of +course the rhetorical figures; but let him explain them in his own artless +way. "A scheme is the fashion of a word, sayyng or sentence, otherwyse +wrytten or spoken then after the vulgar and comon usage. A trope is a +movynge and changynge of a worde or sentence, from thyr owne significacion +into another which may agree with it by a similitude." Henry Peacham's +_Garden of Eloquence, Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric_ +(1577) likewise deals only with the rhetorical figures. + +In the anonymous, _The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike_ (1584),[145] +rhetoric is denned as "an arte of speaking finelie. It hath two parts, +garnishing of speach, called Eloqution, and garnishing of the manner of +utterance, called Pronunciation."[146] Thus by definition rhetoric +includes only style and delivery. Under garnishing of speech the author +treats only the rhetorical figures. This restriction of style to figures +is characteristic. The rhythm of prose upon which classical treatises on +style lavished such enthusiastic pains is practically ignored in those +English treatises. The _comma, colon_, and _periodus_ which to classical +authors signified rhythmical units in the sentence movement had already +come to mean to most people only marks of punctuation.[147] Garnishing of +utterance Fenner does not discuss at all. + +In _The Arcadian Rhetorike_ (1588), Abraham Fraunce treats both. +"Rhetorike," he says, "is an Art of Speaking. It hath two parts, Eloqution +and Pronuntiation. Eloqution is the first part of Rhetorike, concerning +the ordering and trimming of speech. It hath two parts, Congruity and +Braverie." Congruity (as pertaining more to grammar) he does not discuss. +"Braverie of speach consisteth of tropes or turnings, and in figures or +fashionings."[148] The remainder of the first book deals with meter and +verse forms, baldly of prose rhythm, epizeuxis, conceited verses, and +various rhetorical figures. The second book deals with the voice and +gestures. This rhetoric of Fraunce's, then, complements his _Lawiers +Logike_ of the same year, the latter dealing with the finding out and +arrangement of arguments in a speech, and the former with style and +delivery. Rhetoric is thus concerned only with stylistic artifice in verse +as well as in prose. + +The same tradition is upheld by Charles Butler, who in his Latin school +rhetoric (1600) defines rhetoric as the art of ornate speech and divides +it into _elocutio_, a discussion of the tropes and figures, and +_pronuntiatio_, the use of voice and gesture.[149] And John Barton is +worse. In his _Art of Rhetorick_ (1634) he says: + + Rhetorick is the skill of using daintie words, and comely deliverie, + whereby to work upon men's affections. It hath two parts, adornation and + action. Adornation consisteth in the sweetness of the phrase, and is + seen in tropes and figures. + +He continues: + + There are foure kinds of tropes, substitution, comprehension, + comparation, simulation. The affection of a trope is the quality whereby + it requires a second resolution. These affections are five: abuse, + duplication, continuation, superlocution, sublocution. A figure is an + affecting kind of speech without consideration had of any borrowed + sense. A figure is two-fold: relative and independent, + +and he names over in his jargon the six figures which are of each +kind.[150] If this be rhetoric, perhaps there was justification for John +Smith's _The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvailed_ (1657), which continued the +fallacious tradition by dividing rhetoric into elocution and +pronunciation. + +This perversion of rhetoric which considered it as concerned only with +style, or aureate language, was not restricted to the school books. The +popular use of rhetoric as synonymous with "fine honeyed speech,"[151] is +seen in a passage from _Old Fortunatus_, where it carries the modern +connotation of a meretricious substitute for genuine feeling, as where +Agripyne says, + + "Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his + affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home spun + stuff; there's no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric."[152] + + + +3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric + + +A half century before Smith unveiled the mysteries of rhetoric, Bacon had +in his _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) pointed out the fallacies of the +renaissance obsession with style. He briefly traces the causes of the +renaissance study of language and adds: + + "This grew speedily to an excesse; for men began to hunt more after + wordes than matter, and more after the choisenesse of the Phrase and the + round and cleane composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of + the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their workes with + tropes and figures, then after the weight of matter, worth of subject, + soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement."[153] + +Sooner or later the school books had to reform. The Latin school rhetoric +of Thomas Vicars (1621), after one has perused the treatise of his +predecessors and contemporaries, is so conservative as to appear +startling. It has all the air of a novelty. Yet all he does is to return +to the classical tradition by defining rhetoric as the art of correct or +effective speech having five parts: _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_, +_memoria_, and _pronuntiatio_[154]. And Thomas Farnaby, whose _Index +Rhetoricus_ appeared in six editions between 1633 and 1654, gives a fairly +proportioned treatment of _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_, and +_actio_. _Memoria_ he omits, following here, as elsewhere, the sound +leadership of Vossius. + + + +4. Channels of Classical Theory + + +This perversion of rhetorical theory in the middle ages and early +renaissance had resulted not from mere wrong-headedness on the part of the +rhetoricians, but from the limited knowledge of classical tradition during +the middle ages. Especially was this true in those parts of western +Europe, such as England, which were remote from the Mediterranean +countries which better preserved the heritage of Greece and Rome. +Moreover, the most important classical treatises on the theory of +poetry--by Aristotle and Longinus--were almost unknown throughout the +middle ages, and the rhetorical writings of Cicero and Quintilian were +known only in fragments. + +Servatus Lupus (805-862), Abbot of Ferrieres and a learned man, was +unusual in his scholarship; for he knew not only the rhetoric _Ad +Herennium_ which was believed to be Cicero's but also the _De oratore_ and +fragments of Quintilian.[155] The current rhetorical treatises of the +middle ages were Cicero's _De inventione_, and the _Ad Herennium._ The _De +oratore_ was used but slightly, and the _Brutus_ and the _Orator_ not at +all.[156] What little classical rhetoric there is in Stephen Hawes was +derived from the _Ad Herennium_. + +The survival and popularity of the _Ad Herennium_ during this period is +one of the most interesting phenomena of rhetorical history. Of the +classical treatises on rhetoric which survive to-day it undoubtedly +arouses the least interest and can contribute the least to modern +education or criticism. Yet it is the most characteristic Latin rhetoric +we possess. It is a text-book of rhetoric which was used in the Roman +schools. In fact, Cicero's _De inventione_ is so much like it that some +suspect that Cicero's notes which he took in school got into circulation +and forced the publication of his professor's lectures. Aristotle's +philosophy of rhetoric, Cicero's charming dialog on his profession, +Quintilian's treatise on the teaching of rhetoric--none of these is a +text-book. The rhetoric _Ad Herennium_ is. It is clear and orderly in its +organization. It defines all the technical terms which it uses, and +illustrates its principles. As one might expect, it delights in +over-analysis, in categories and sub-categories, the four kinds of causes, +the three virtues of the _narratio_. In the hands of a skilled teacher of +composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly +would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical +or literary treatises. Thus in Guarino's school at Ferrara (1429-1460) the +_Ad Herennium_ was regarded as the quintessence of pure Ciceronian +doctrine of oratory, and was made the starting point and standing +authority in teaching rhetoric. In more advanced classes it was +supplemented by the _De oratore, Orator_, and what was known of +Quintilian.[157] The _Ciceronianus_ of Erasmus testifies that by the next +century the scholarship of the renaissance had discovered that the _Ad +Herennium_ was not from the pen of Cicero, and that the _De inventione_ +was considered apologetically by its famous author, who wrote his _De +oratore_ to supersede the more youthful treatise.[158] But six years after +the publication of the _Ciceronianus_ of Erasmus, the edition of Cicero's +_Opera_ published in Basel in 1534 still incorporates the _Ad Herennium_, +and Thomas Wilson in England owes most of his first book and part of the +second of his _Arte of Rhetorique_ to its anonymous author, whom he +believed to be Cicero. For instance in his section on _Devision_ as a part +of a speech, Wilson says, "Tullie would not have a devision to be made, +of, or above three partes at the moste, nor lesse then three neither, if +neede so required."[159] + +"Tullie" says no such thing. Indeed, Cicero never considers _divisio_ as +one of the parts of a speech. But the _Ad Herennium_ does make _divisio_ a +part of a speech,[160] and does require not over three parts.[161] As late +as 1612, Thomas Heywood quotes the authority of "Tully, in his booke _Ad +Caium Herennium_."[162] + +The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is +well illustrated by a count of the manuscripts preserved. In the libraries +of Europe today there exist seventy-nine manuscripts of the _De +inventione_, eighty-three of the _Ad Herennium_, forty of the _De +oratore_, fourteen of the _Brutus_, and twenty of the _Orator._[163] Thus +in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the _De +inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_.[164] The _De inventione_ is the source +for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric +known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters +of it into Italian.[165] Although mutilated codices of the _De oratore_ +and the _Orator_ were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, +complete manuscripts of these most important works were not known previous +to 1422.[166] The _Ad Herennium_ and the _De inventione_ were first +printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers +(1476) was the _Ad Herennium_ under the usual mediaeval title of the +_Rhetorica nova_. The first edition of the _De oratore_ was printed in the +monastery of Subaco about 1466. The _Brutus_ first appeared in Rome (1469) +in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[167] +Before its first printing the _Orator_ was used as a reference book for +advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara. + +Castiglione's indebtedness to the _De oratore_ is well known, but few +notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's +dedicatory paragraphs of the _Orator._ + +But in England the first reference to the _Orator_ appears in Ascham's +_Scholemaster_ (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[168] +Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the +pseudo-Ciceronian _Ad Herennium_ and from the youthful _De inventione_, +not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them. +Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred +years after it had been displaced in Italy. + +The _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a +Latin translation by Hermanus Allemanus (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's +commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores +Graeci_ (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of +Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin +version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[169] This was +frequently reissued in the _Opera_ of Aristotle together with the +_Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in +the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the _Poetics_ in Pazzi's +translation. As the true _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, known to the renaissance +as the _Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten_, was so frequently published with +the spurious _Rhetorica_, references to Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ in the +sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell +whether the _Rhetoric_ required to be read by Oxford students in the +fifteenth century[170] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, +however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were +available, that the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle had so slight an influence on +English rhetorical theory. + +The _De institutione oratoria_ of Quintilian was too long to be preserved +intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well +known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, +and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by +Cassiodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth +century until Poggio discovered the complete manuscript at St. Gall in +1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis +of an incomplete manuscript Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth +century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous +enthusiast made a selection of the _Flores Quintilianei_.[171] Thus, while +the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the +Ciceronian tradition rested on the _De inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_, +the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the +treatises of Cassiodorus and Isidore, passed current throughout the middle +ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world +of scholars welcomed a familiar friend. + +Other classical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly. +The _De compositione verborum_ of Dionysius of Halicarnassus received its +first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by +Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend +of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, +when the _Scholemaster_ was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, +but shows no great familiarity with the text.[172] + +The _De sublimitate_ of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England. +Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, +once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at +Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of +its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his _Index +Rhetoricus_ (1633). The advance of classical scholarship in England is +indeed no better illustrated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited +sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, +Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an +imposing list of sources. + + "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, + Demetrius Phal,[173] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus _De + sublimitate_, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martianus + Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, + Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, + Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A. + Valladero." + +Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover +to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in +Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as +to others, both classical and mediaeval. + +With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions +of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of +the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in +mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the +lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such +classical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In +the second place, the recovery of classical criticism in the Italian +renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of classical +theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, +did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in classical +antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that classical theories of +poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost +as slow head against English mediaeval tradition. + + + + +Chapter VII + +Renaissance Poetic + + + +1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition + + +In concluding his authoritative study, _A History of Literary Criticism in +the Renaissance_, Spingarn asserts that before the sixteenth century, +"Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical +treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those +upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the _Institutions +Oratoriae_ of Quintilian, and the _De Legendis Gentilium Libris_ of Basil +the Great."[174] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great +change was brought about by the publication of the classical critical +writings, especially the _Poetics_ of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval +criteria of _doctrina_ and _eloquentia_ were superseded by many new ones. + +The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a +separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone +into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be +summarized as follows: + +The recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_ brought about a complete change in +poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing +and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a +hundred years later. + +_The Poetics_ had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin +abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew +translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac +translation of the Greek.[175] Although the _Poetics_ was not included in +the Aldine _Aristotle_ (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was +printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the _Rhetoric_ for the first time at +Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text +was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ (1508)[176] badly +edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the +Basel edition of Aristotle's _Opera_ (1538) with Filelfo's version of the +_Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of +Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the _Rhetoric_. Robortelli +edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by +Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by +Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the _De Poeta_ (1559) of Minturno and +the _Poetics_ (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories +were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the _Scholemaster_ (1570), +and never elucidated before Sidney's _Defense of Poesie_ (c. 1583, pub. +1595). + +But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of +the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_, renaissance +theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has +summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as passing through +three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and +philology.[177] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in +the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance +the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has +pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the classical +theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those +who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his +poem on great poems of classical antiquity, some critics suggested, he +could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle +for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The +rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are +stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to +the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary +models. + +Although with good taste as well as classical erudition Ascham preferred +Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view +was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with +style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, +but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to +the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but +also on account of his moral maxims or _sententiae_. In England the two +greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this +high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, +_Gorbuduc_, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are +stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully +taught.[178] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those +elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity +and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence." + +The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable +subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely +evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the +essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as +in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The +commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that +of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical +treatises. + +Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were +an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[179] +Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a +poet; Livy a historian.[180] Castelvetro probably came nearest to +Aristotle in asserting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in +prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is +prose.[181] Vossius anticipates Prickard's explanation of Aristotle by +defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To +him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a +historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[182] These are only a few +examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly +studied. + + + +2. Rhetorical Elements + + +This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse +was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction +between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle +ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable +subject matter _(doctrina)_ and style (_eloquentia_). If the definition +goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator +lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use +of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be +written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic +difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the +middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of +style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in +Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll +has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the +case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[183] + +In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is +frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars +whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the +vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the _Poetics_ +practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized +in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's +over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, +low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) +of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[184] Maggi[185] and +Tifernas[186] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest +neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by +meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same +material,[187] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to +discriminate in their choice of words.[188] + +As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but +Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the +_narratio_ of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of +facts. Confusing the _narratio_ of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says: + + There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and + perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second + and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[189] + +Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is +supposed by classical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of +his speech.[190] Furthermore, says Pontanus, one can write very good +poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[191] No wonder Luis Vives +complained in his _De Causis Corruptarum Artium_, + + The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two + that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call + rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language. + The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put + eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[192] + +From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive +studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical +elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The +Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the +overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of +the sounder critical theories of classical antiquity. Their service to +subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the +whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few +cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance + + + +1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism + + +Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry +formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth +century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which +Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance +theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval +tradition and from the classical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual +displacements of these elements by the sounder classical tradition which +reached England from Italy. + +"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given +up to rhetorical study."[193] In his period he includes Cox and Wilson, +the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he +characterizes as one of classification and metrical studies, he says, "A +long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a +rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[194] These +two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered +together. + +Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the +art of poetry. The rhetorics of Cox (1524) and Wilson (1553) were +rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of +a direct contact with classical rhetoric. Because Cox founded his treatise +on the sound scholarship of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of +his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely +under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on +rhetoric in England. + +Another scholar in classical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose +_Scholemaster_ (1570) contains the first reference in England to +Aristotle's _Poetics_. But except as a teacher of language and of +literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he +classifies literature into _genres_ of poetry, history, philosophy, and +oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and +Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a +field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the +result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of +individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power +than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's _Absolon_ and +Buchanan's _Iephthe_ he considers the best tragedies of his age because +only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and +Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, +and in imitation of good models.[195] Watson he especially praises for his +refusal to publish _Absolon_ because in several places an anapest was +substituted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of classical +rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness. + +The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the classical +treatises, but from the middle ages. His _Certayne Notes of Instruction_ +(1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the +English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of +grammar, following the classical tradition; but in France prosody had +regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As +Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in +the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired +Gascoigne.[196] + +Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, +borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas +Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, +Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie +of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies +is illustrated by his own example. + +If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither +praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are +_trita et obvia_. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby +my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake +to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the +prayse of hir commendacion.[197] + +By far the greater part of Gascoigne's treatise is devoted to metrics and +to style. One can use, he says, the same figures or tropes in verse as are +used in prose. It is noteworthy that in this treatise on making verses +Gascoigne restricts himself to externals of form and style. When he does +discuss the subject-matter of poetry, instead of emphasizing the +seriousness of content, he talks about his mistress' "cristal eye." + +What has been said about Gascoigne applies almost equally well to the +_Schort Treatise_ (1584) of James VI which was modeled on it. Like +Gascoigne's _Notes_, it is rhetorical and concerned with only the +externals of poetry. The treatise is almost entirely a metrical study, +although the author does call attention to three special ornaments of +verse, which are comparisons, epithets, and proverbs. The other figures of +rhetoric which are so appropriate to poetry James says may be studied in +Du Bellay. In both these writers, poetry is treated in the categories of +the middle ages. Poetry to them is composed of subject-matter and style. +The characteristic structure and movement of poetry is not considered at +all. + + + +2. The Influence of Horace + + +Thus far there had been no fundamental criticism of poetic in England, no +attempt to arrive at the basis of critical theory. Horace had been known +long before, but not until Drant's translation of the _Ars Poetica_ into +English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in +England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is +George Whetstone's _Dedication to Promos and Cassandra_ (1578). The +passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of +classicism. Whetstone inveighs against the English dramatist who "in three +howers ronnes throwe the worlde, marryes, gets children, makes Children +men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from +Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel."[198] This is the earliest record in +England of an insistence on unity of time and place. Then he urges the +claims of decorum in comedy. The poet should not make clowns the +companions of kings, nor put wise counsels into the mouth of fools. "For, +to worke a comedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct, yonge men +should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lascivious, +Boyes unhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye."[199] + +It is interesting that this conception of the characters in a drama should +ultimately trace back through many perversions to Aristotle's rhetorical +theory. There are three kinds of proof, says Aristotle in the _Rhetoric_: +the character of the speaker, the production of a certain disposition in +the audience, and the argument of the speech itself. The last kind of +proof is derived from logic; the first two, from psychology.[200] +Consequently, Aristotle devotes almost a third of his _Rhetoric_, the +second book, to an elaborate exposition of the passions (πάθη) of men, so +that the orator may know how to excite or allay them according as the +necessities of his case demand, and a full explanation of the character (ᤦθος) +of men, that the speaker may know how to impress upon his audience his own +trustworthiness, and adapt his arguments to the character of the +particular audience which he is addressing. Varieties of character in an +audience depend upon its passions, its virtues and vices, its age or +youth, and its position in life.[201] Aristotle's generalizations on the +character of young people and old, of the wealthy, noble and powerful, +display penetrating acumen. That flesh and blood character realizations in +drama or story could be attained by this method Aristotle never intended. +He is talking of public address. But the study of characterization as part +of the education of an orator became fixed in the curriculum of rhetoric +schools. The boys were supposed to study certain types of persons and then +write character sketches to show their sharpness of observation. +Theophrastus, Aristotle's favorite student and successor as head of the +school in Athens, wrote his _Characters_ to show how it was done, and did +it with such ability as to elevate the school exercise to a literary +form. These "characters" were epitomized in the Latin rhetorics and the +school exercises continued. The rhetoric _Ad Herennium_ calls them +_notatio_,[202] Cicero, _descriptio_,[203] and Quintilian, _mores_.[204] + +Quintilian furthermore makes interesting comments on the use of the +character sketches by the poets. Character (Greek: ᤦθος) in oratory, he +says, is similar to comedy, as the passions (πάθος) are to tragedy.[205] +Professor Butcher calls attention to the early influence of the character +sketches on the middle comedy. Here the "humours," to anticipate Ben +Jonson, give names not only to the characters of the play, but to the +plays themselves.[206] As adopted by the drama, the orator's view that +people of a certain age and rank are likely to behave in certain fashions +was perverted to the dramatical law of _decorum_, that people of certain +age or rank must on the stage act up to this generalization of what was +characteristic. This law of decorum was formulated by Horace in his _Ars +Poetica_,[207] whence it was derived by the renaissance. Thomas Wilson, +in his _Arte of Rhetorique_, gives a Theophrastian character sketch as an +illustration of the figure _descriptio_. + + "As in speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch + peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of + his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire + of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a + Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this thirtie Winter. He spent + once a groate at good ale, being forced through companie, and taken + short at his words, whereupon he hath taken such conceipt since that + time, that it hath almost cost him his life."[208] + +In 1592 Casaubon edited Theophrastus in Latin. Thereafter the character +sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of +remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[209] In the theory of the drama +the rhetorical method of characterization, fixed as the law of decorum, +flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England +from Whetstone on it was made much of. Thus a rhetorical tradition of +classical pedagogy, derived ultimately from Aristotle, and a poetical +tradition of later classical drama, derived from Horace, coincide in the +English renaissance. + +In _The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender_ (1579), for +instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye +where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach."[210] The +archaisms are defended in the first place, indeed, because they are +appropriate to rustic speakers, but in the second because Cicero says that +ancient words make the style seem grave and reverend. Further praise E.K. +grants the author because he avoids loose sentence structure and affects +the oratorical period. "Now, for the knitting of sentences, whych they +call the ioynts and members thereof, and for all the compasse of the +speach, it is round without roughness."[211] The "ioynts and members" are +the _cola_ and _commas_ of the oratorical prose rhythm. Stanyhurst in the +_Dedication_ to his translation of Virgil (1582), like E. K., is concerned +with style rather than matter, and of course primarily with the revival +of classical meters, a subject already so thoroughly investigated that it +need not be gone into here.[212] Stanyhurst's praise of Virgil is largely +concerned with formal and rhetorical excellences. + + Our _Virgil_ dooth laboure, in telling as yt were a _Cantorburye tale_, + too ferret owt the secretes of _Nature_, with woordes so fitlye coucht, + wyth verses so smoothlye slyckte, with sentences so featlye ordered, + with orations so neatlie burnisht, with similitudes so aptly applyed, + with eeche _decorum_ so duely observed, as in truth hee hath in right + purchased too hym self thee name of a surpassing poet, thee fame of an + od oratoure, and thee admiration of a profound philosopher.[213] + +Thus in accord with the mediseval tradition he analyzes poetry into +profitable subject matter and style. + + + +3. The Influence of Aristotle + + +In 1579 the Puritan attack on poetry and the stage began with Gosson's +_School of Abuse._[214] and was answered by Lodge's _Defence of Poetry_ in +the same year. The attack and defense both rested on moral, not aesthetic, +sanctions and will be discussed in a later section. It is only in Sidney's +_Defense_ (c. 1583) and that of his follower Harington that theories of +the nature of poetry are included. And with Sidney the Aristotelianism of +the Italian renaissance makes its first appearance in English +criticism.[215] + +"Poesie," writes Sidney, "therefore is an arte of imitation, for so +Aristotle termeth it in his word _Mimesis_, that is to say, a +representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speake metaphorically, +a speaking picture."[216] Thus not only Aristotle's imitation enters +English criticism, but Plutarch's speaking picture as well, with all the +power of its false analogy. That Sidney himself was not, however, carried +away by the analogy is apparent from other passages. Aristotle, +classifying poetic with music and dancing as a time art with its essence +in movement, had insisted that a poem must have a beginning, a middle, and +an end--qualities which do not exist in space. So in the most quoted +passage from Sidney's _Defense_, it is a "tale forsooth," which draws old +men from the chimney corner, and children from play,[217] and "the +narration" which furnishes the groundplot of poesie.[218] Thus he +introduces into English criticism, as an important element of poetry, the +essentially sound idea that the characteristic structure of poetry lies in +its narrative and dramatic movement. Poetry cannot lie because it never +pretends to fact. He establishes this assertion on Aristotle's "universal +not the particular" as the basis of poetic. Sidney had followed Scaliger +in classifying poets into three kinds: the theological, the philosophical, +and the right poets. The third class, the real poets, he says, "borrow +nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, onely rayned with +learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and +should be."[219] + +In considering the vehicle of poetic Sidney parts company with Scaliger +and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the +characteristic mark of poetry. The _Cyropaedia_ of Xenophon, and the +_Theagines and Cariclea_ of Heliodorus are poems, although written in +prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although +indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest +rayment."[220] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater +aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," +and "seates," from the mnemonic system of Simonides usually incorporated +in the section on memory in the classical rhetorics.[221] Furthermore, +Sidney is the first in England to insist on the vividness of realization +which comes from the poet's being himself moved. Discussing lyric poetry, +Sidney says: + + But truely many of such writings as come under the banner of + unresistable love, if I were a Mistres, would never perswade mee they + were in love; so coldely they apply fiery speeches, as men that had + rather red Lovers writings, and so caught up certaine swelling + phrases,... then that in truth they feele those passions, which easily + (as I think) may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness or _Energia_ (as + the Greeks call it), of the writer.[222] + +Sidney's _Energia_ came to him from the rhetorics of Aristotle and +Quintilian via the _Poetice_ of Scaliger.[223] _Energia_, the vivifying +quality of poetry, had at the earliest age been adopted by rhetoric to +lend power to persuasion. Carefully preserved among the figures of +rhetoric, it had survived the middle ages, and appears in Wilson's _Arte +of Rhetoric_ as "an evident declaration of a thing, as though we saw it +even now done." + +Sidney makes _energia_ an essential quality of poetic; but even with him +it seems to have a rhetorical cast. It is especially to be used, says +Sidney, by a lover to persuade his mistress, urging her to yield while yet +her beauty endures. This _genre_ of versified oration to one's mistress +was unusually popular in Elizabethan England. It may even be one reason +for Bacon's classification of lyric poetry as part of rhetoric.[224] +Although _energia_ does belong to both poetic and rhetoric, as +pseudo-Longinus implies,[225] there seems to be here a definitely +rhetorical conception of poetic style. Sidney, however, keeps the +classical distinction between rhetoric and poetic, although he was +conscious of their contact in diction. "Both," he says with Aristotle, +"have an affinity in this wordish consideration."[226] While many +renaissance critics interpreted this affinity as permitting rhetorical +elaboration in poetry as well as in prose, Sidney with innate good taste +pleaded for more restraint. The diction of the writers of lyrics is even +worse, he says, than their content. + + So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence apparalled, or rather + disguised, in a Curtizan-like painted affectation: one time with so + farre fette words, they seem monsters, but must seem strangers to any + poore English man, another tyme with coursing of a Letter as if they + were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary; another tyme, with + figures and flowers extreamelie winter-starved.[227] + +Prose writers, he adds, are as badly infected as "versers," even scholars +and preachers. That he himself was infected appears in the examples of +interminable "tropes" and "schemes" quoted by Fraunce in his _Arcadian +Rhetoric_ (1588) from Sidney's own _Arcadia_. But the concession of his +own style to the habit of his age did not involve any fundamental +confusion of rhetoric with poetic. + +Thus Sidney's _Defense of Poesie_, by domesticating in England the +Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing +mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that +Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and +from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to +expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought +which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney +instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years +established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases +toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism +profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is +interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the +mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show +classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable +residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval. + + + +4. Manuals for Poets + + +Before William Webbe wrote his _Discourse of English Poetry_ (1586) there +had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive +study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely +glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James +attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were +primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the +Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as +a main object. In his _Discourse_ Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose +in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on +English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to +discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be +aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much +attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, +poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall _Eloquution_, +as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one +descent."[228] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by +eloquence, he cites Lyly's _Euphues_. + + Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave + composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make + tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, + in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine + sence.[229] + +Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to +be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. +Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in +style. He adds: + + Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning + and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure + of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an apt + composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the hearers + eares even whether soever it lysteth, that _Plato_ affirmeth + therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to + persuade.[230] + +The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and +rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have +poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of +diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the +diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse +and oratory in prose. + + Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in + measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion + of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt + and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly + called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[231] + +Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come +seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best +known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the +_Discourse_ is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into +matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval +_doctrina_, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are +derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the +figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical +meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His +treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with +an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his +treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of +poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from +the _Ars Poetica_, and the _Epistles_. + +Perhaps the author of _The Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), +generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the +some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to +write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, +Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to +write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise +an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, +Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes +most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and +satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the +Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of +poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his +inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles +Aristotle and Horace.[232] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the +importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in +war, engineering and politics.[234] That the art of poetry is eminently +teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill +appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by +reason and gathered by experience.[233] It is verse, according to +Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This +makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more +eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and +set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it +sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so +beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best +persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[235] +Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more +beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better +able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and +history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, +and so on. The second book, _Of Proportion_, 70 pages, is a treatise on +metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English +versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures +such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is +devoted to classical meters. In his third book, _Of Ornament_, 165 pages, +Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of +speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, +Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[236]. Professor +Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his _Poetic and Verse +Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth_, because, he says, it does not fall +within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as +applicable to prose as to verse[237]. That Puttenham did include it, +however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading +public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the +ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be +seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly +embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and +bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham. + + This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which + be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his + language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or + passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment[238]. + +The figures Puttenham divides according to his own scheme. First come the +figures _auricular_ peculiar to the poets, then the figures _sensable_ +common to the poets and the rhetoricians, and finally the figures +_sententious_ appropriate to the orators alone. After he has explained the +first two varieties, however, and enters on the third, Puttenham says: + + Now if our presupposall be true, that the Poet is of all other the most + auncient Orator, as he that by good and pleasant perswasions first + reduced the wilde and beastly people into publicke societies and + civilitie of life, insinuating unto them, under fictions with sweete and + coloured speeches, many wholesome lessons and doctrines, then no doubt + there is nothing so fitte for him, as to be furnished with all the + figures that be _Rhetoricall_, and such as do most beautifie language + with eloquence and sententiousness. So as if we should intreate our + maker to play also the Orator, and whether it be to pleade, or to + praise, or to advise, that in all three cases he may utter and also + perswade both copiously and vehemently[239]. + +Puttenham was writing in the same age and with the same tradition which +defined Rhetoric as the art of ornament in speech. The only difference +between oratory and poetry lay in that the latter was composed in verse. + + + +5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism + + +From Puttenham to Bacon no serious contributions were made to the general +theory of poetry. Critical attention was absorbed by controversies of +Campion and Daniel over native and classical versification, and the +flyting of Harvey and Nash. Harvey was a classical scholar and rhetorician +who knew that poetry and oratory were different things, and believed verse +to be the mark of the first and prose of the latter[240]. He preferred the +periodic style of Isocrates and Ascham to the tricksy pages of +Euphues[241]. Chapman, likewise, considered verse the mark of poetry, and +prose of rhetoric[242]. + +In the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) Bacon clears up some of the +misconceptions of the English renaissance by judicious borrowing from the +Italian. He says: + + Poesie is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part + restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly + referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of + Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever + that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & + divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or + Matter. In the first sense it is but a _Character_ of stile, and + belongeth to Arts of speeche. In the later, it is, as hath beene saide, + one of the principall Portions of learning, and is nothing else but + _Fained History_, which may be stiled as well in Prose as in Verse.[243] + +Bacon's focus of attention on the substance of poetry is in keeping with +his attack on mere sophistication of style in rhetoric. Poetry as style +does not interest him. Like Castelvetro and Sidney, he considers the +vehicle of verse not essential to poetry, which, as a product of the +imagination, he considers to be occupied with fiction. To Bacon, perhaps, +the imagination seems to be too much the organ of make-believe, imaging +things which never were on land or under the sea. Nevertheless his claim +for the imagination is fortunate in ruling out those theories of art which +set up slavish fidelity to fact, under the name of imitation, as the +essence of poetry. Bacon was not concerned with formulating a complete +theory of poetry, but his pithy _obiter dicta_ were influential in further +establishing the sounder criticism of the Italian classicists. + +As Spingarn points out, Ben Jonson was first led to classicism in poetical +theory by the example of Sidney.[244] But during the intervening years +the scholars of Holland had supplanted those of Italy; and whereas Sidney +derived his Aristotelianism from Scaliger and Minturno, Jonson derived his +even more from Pontanus, Heinsius, and Lipsius and from the Latin +rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian. + + A Poet (says Jonson) is a Maker, or a fainer: His Art, an Art of + imitation or faining, expressing the life of man in fit measure, + numbers, and harmony.... Hence hee is called a _Poet_, not he which + writeth in measure only, but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and + writes things like the truth. For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, + the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke or Poeme.[245] + +So convinced was Jonson that the essence of poetry does not lie in verse +but in fiction that Drummond reports, "he thought not Bartas a Poet, but a +Verser, because he wrote not fiction."[246] Jonson was misled by the false +analogy of poetry and painting. + + _Poetry_ and _Picture_ are Arts of a like nature, and both are busie + about imitation. It was excellently said of _Plutarch, Poetry_ was a + speaking Picture, and _Picture_ a mute _Poesie_. For they both invent, + fame, and devise many things.[247] + +This structural and static conception of poetry is well exemplified by his +comparisons. Whereas Aristotle classified poetry with music and dance, +Jonson compares the epic or dramatic plot to a house. The epic is like a +palace and so requires more space than a drama. The influence of Jonson +was beneficial, however, in that he did emphasize in poetry the element of +structure which the middle ages had largely neglected.[248] In his ideals +of style Jonson is rhetorical. In the twelve sections of _Timber_ which he +devotes to rhetoric he incorporates a sound treatise on prose style, +urging restraint and perspicuity as especial virtues. In his nine sections +on poetry he says nothing about style, except to quote Oicero to the +effect that "the _Poet_ is the nearest Borderer upon the Orator, and +expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers." It would +seem that the section on style in oratory was meant to serve for poetry as +well. Jonson's own methods of comparison, as related to Drummond, would +bear this out: "That he wrote all his (verses) first in prose."[249] From +the same authority one may learn that "He recommended to my reading +Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he +lived with me," and "That Quintilian's 6, 7, 8, bookes were not only to be +read, but altogether digested,"[250] Though Jonson makes no more +distinction than Petrarch, between Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian as +authorities on poetical style,[251] his rhetorical cast does not imply the +style advocated by Webbe and Puttenham. This was the exuberant style of +mediaeval rhetoric, whereas by temperament and scholarly training Jonson +threw his influence in favor of the classical rhetorical style of the best +period. + +The influence of Bacon in favor of the sound rhetoric of Cicero and +Quintilian, seconded by that of Jonson, finally did away with the +mediaeval ideal of rhetoric as being one with aureate language and +embroidered style. The stylistic exuberance of the Elizabethans gave place +to a more restrained and polished phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, +for instance, in his _Hypercritica_ (c. 1618) warns the historians against +the style of the _Arcadia_. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better +becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical +Notions."[252] Henry Reynolds, in his _Mythomystes_ (c. 1633), although he +goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces +the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers of +rhetoric and versification as mere accidents of poetry.[253] In his +_Anacrisis_ (1634) the Earl of Stirling likewise urges that "language is +but the Apparel of Poesy."[254] The "but" marks the difference between the +ideals of two ages. Fiction remains for him the essence of poetry, for +fiction in prose is poetry. But he will not go the whole way with Jonson +and deny the name of poet to one whose material is not fictitious.[255] + +Unfortunately, for English criticism, Milton wrote very little on the +theory of poetry. His casual remarks, however, show such enlightened +scholarship and keen insight that what little he did write makes up in +importance what it lacks in bulk. In the Treatise _Of Education_ (1644) he +refers to the sublime art of poetry "which in _Aristotle's poetics_, in +_Horace_, and the _Italian_ commentaries of _Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni_, +and others, teaches what the laws are of a true _Epic_ poem, what of a +_Dramatic_, what of a _Lyric_, what decorum is, which is the grand master +peece to observe."[256] His rhetoric, also, he knew at first hand from the +best classical sources. He gives as his authorities Plato, Aristotle, +Phalereus,[257] Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.[258] This is the first time +that an English critic mentions the treatise _On the Sublime_ in +connection with poetry. It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Milton, +while citing the only surviving literary critic of classical antiquity who +gave proper emphasis to the importance of passion in poetry,[259] should +himself be the first English critical writer to urge for passion the same +importance. This he does in his famous differentiation of rhetoric and +poetic. In the educational scheme, he says, after mathematics should be +studied logic and rhetoric "To which Poetry would be made subsequent or +indeed rather precedent, as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate."[260] Milton has sometimes been thought to be +here defining poetry, but he is only distinguishing it from rhetoric. A +definition of poetry he never attempted. Meter he deemed essential to +poetry,[261] but rime he disliked. Thus, as far as he goes, Milton +represents the best in English renaissance criticism. He knew at first +hand the best classical treatises on poetic and on rhetoric; and he +recognized the distinctions which the ancients had made between them. + +With the English literary criticism in the second half of the Seventeenth +Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, +this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed +three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the +slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and +the modifications which they underwent in the process. Gregory Smith calls +attention to the influence of Sidney and Daniel in establishing "the claim +of English criticism as an instrument of power outside the craft of +rhetoricians and scholars."[262] Of the English critical writers Ascham +is the foremost of the scholarly type; Harvey is the only other example. +Thomas Wilson, although he wrote a rhetoric, wrote a better one in many +ways because he was not a professional rhetorician, but a man of affairs. +Gascoigne, Lodge, Spenser, were poets who incidentally wrote on the +technic of their art or in defence of its value. Sidney, the poet, +courtier, and soldier, wrote not from the musty alcoves of libraries. +Webbe, it is true, was a pedant, but certainly not a scholar. Puttenham +was a bad poet, a well-read man, and a courtier. Jonson's scholarship was +thorough, but sweetened and ventilated by his activities as poet and +dramatist. Bacon was a scholar, but even more a philosopher and a +statesman. Milton, our most scholarly poet, during most of his life could +not keep his mind and pen from church and national politics. Indeed, +during the entire English renaissance there was no professional critic. +Literary criticism was not a field to be tilled, but a wood to be explored +by busy men who could find time for the exploit. + +This amateur character of English critics accounts in a measure for the +slowness with which classical and Italian renaissance critical theories +filtered into England; for a statesman or a soldier is less likely to be +up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose +business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful +influence in the same direction was the characteristic English +conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of thought to Italian +innovations. + +This same common-sense conservatism accounts also for the modifications of +Italian renaissance critical theories before they were incorporated into +the fund of English criticism. Classical meters, slavish imitation of the +ancients, close adherence to the rules of unity and decorum never made +much headway in the English renaissance. Such contaminations of poetic by +rhetoric as are clearest seem to arise not from the new Italian influence, +but from the mediaeval tradition. + +To sum up, classical critics had recognized two categories of literature: +a fine art, poetic; and a practical art, rhetoric. Poetic they thought +characterized by narrative or dramatic structure or movement, and by +vividness of realization, and by passion. Rhetoric was characterized by a +logical structure determined by the necessity of persuading an audience. +Although most classical critics accepted prose as characteristic of +rhetoric, and verse of poetry, Aristotle pointed out that the distinction +was far more fundamental. As these two kinds of literature had a common +ground in diction, there was a tendency from very early times for them to +merge. In the artistic degeneracy of late Latin literature both rhetoric +and poetic paid less attention to structure and other elements which +distinguished them, and more attention to style, which they had in common. +Moreover, under the influence of sophistical rhetoric, preoccupied with +style, poetic and rhetoric practiced the same rhetorical artifices. As a +result Virgil might be either an orator or a poet. This was the rhetoric +which the middle ages inherited. To them rhetoric was synonymous with +stylistic beauty. Poetry was a compound of _doctrina_ and _eloquentia_, in +other words of theology and style, in verse. In England this mediaeval +tradition persisted into the seventeenth century, as the school rhetorics +and the treatises on poetry show. The English renaissance poetic never +freed itself from this influence of mediaeval rhetoric until the middle of +the seventeenth century. With the recovery of classical literature and +literary criticism, the new theories were interpreted in the light of the +old ideas. + +On its creative side the renaissance sought to produce in the vernacular a +literature comparable to that of Greece or Rome. Thus literary criticism +was prescriptive, and the typical treatises were text-books. Rhetoric, +which had long been taught, very naturally furnished the methods, the +teachers, and in many cases the subject matter for this instruction in +poetry. As has been shown in the preceding section of this study, the +renaissance theory of poetry was rhetorical in its obsession with style, +especially the figures of speech, in its abiding faith in the efficacy of +rules; and in its belief that the poet, no less than the orator, is +occupied with persuasion. This latter rhetorical view that the poet's +office is to persuade will be studied more fully in the following section +on "The Purpose of Poetry." The traditional view is that by persuading the +reader to adhere to the good and shun the evil the poet achieves the +proper end of poetry--moral improvement. + + + + + +Part Two + +The Purpose of Poetry + + + + +Chapter I + +The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +1. General + + +To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to +say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section +of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of +the second assertion for the first. + +As has been shown,[263] the classical critics were in substantial +agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of +discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of +classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the +reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to +moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not +formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's +definition of tragedy from the _Poetics_[264] with his definition of +rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as + + a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of + actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of + correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy + lives.[265] + +The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, +was formulated by Varchi.[266] + + Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain + actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony, + together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and + inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true + happiness and beatitude.[267] + +I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an +educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation +of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the +tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical +rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; +and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance +those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the +classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance. + + + +2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example + + +The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the +reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in _The +Frogs_ of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting +and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the +points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his +ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be +better citizens and worthier men."[268] Aeschylus then goes on to show +that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the +military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he +accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on +the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts +to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but +we, the poets, are teachers of men."[269] + +This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, +teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by +Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, +"forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of +others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one +time."[270] + +The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the +_Protagoras_, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an +exposition of the conventional Greek opinion. + + When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what + is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into + his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at + school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and + praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to + learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become + like them.[271] + +It is in the _Republic_, of course, that Plato enunciates his capital +objections to poetry. The first objection is that poetry as an imitative +art is three removes from truth. The divine powers, for instance, create +the idea of a table--the only true table. A carpenter makes a particular +table which is not the real, but only an appearance. A graphic artist +making a picture of this appearance is only an imitator of appearances. +"And the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore thrice removed from the +king and from the truth."[272] The second objection which Plato raises +against poetry is that poetry is addressed to the passional element in +man. The man of noble spirit and philosophy will not lament his +misfortunes, especially in public, while the lower orders of intellect are +likely to express all their feelings with greater freedom, and thus +furnish the poet with easier subjects for imitation. Consequently poetry +has the power of harming the good, for a good man will be in raptures at +the excellences of the poet who stirs his feelings most by representing a +hero in an emotional condition. As a result, when he himself suffers +sorrow or is moved by his own passions, it becomes more difficult for him +to repress his feelings.[273] Plato thus examines the popular contention +that the study of poetry educates the moral character of a man, and still +maintaining that it should be a moral force for good, demonstrates to his +own satisfaction that it fails to have the supposed beneficial effect +because it is three removes from truth, and because it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism in conduct. Plato's moral standard of poetry is +even better illustrated, perhaps, by the kind of poetry which he does not +ban from his ideal commonwealth. "We must remain firm in our conviction," +he says, "that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only +poetry which ought to be admitted into our state." As his utmost +concession to poetry, he will admit her if her defenders can prove "not +only that she is pleasant, but also useful to states and to human +life."[274] According to a later view, to be sure, Plato has been thought +to justify pleasure of a most refined and exalted variety as an end of +art. "The view which identifies the pleasant and the just and the good and +the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency."[275] In view, +however, of other pronouncements, such an endeavor to father upon him the +hedonistic theory of the purpose of art seems strained and ineffective. + +It was to justify poetry against the attacks of Plato that Aristotle +advanced a hedonistic view of poetry and propounded his theory of +katharsis. Nowhere in the _Poetics_ does Aristotle explicitly state that +the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Indirect evidence, however, is +plentiful. For instance, Aristotle justifies poetry as an imitative art +because children learn by imitation and the pleasure in imitation is +universal.[276] Furthermore, plot in tragedy is more important than +character; for in painting, a confused mass of colors gives less pleasure +than a chalk drawing of a portrait.[277] Beauty in any art depends in a +measure on magnitude; therefore a play must not be too short.[278] Most of +the tragic poets of Greece derived their plots from a limited number of +well known stories. But Aristotle justifies Agathon for departing from +this custom and making both his plot and characters fictitious, for the +plays of Agathon give none the less pleasure.[279] But not all pleasure, +he says, is appropriate to tragedy. In comedy we are pleased to see +enemies walk off the stage as friends, but in tragedy the "pleasure which +the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through +imitation."[280] Marvels, too, and wonders in poetry he justifies because +"the wonderful is pleasing; as may be inferred from the fact that everyone +tells a story with additions of his own, knowing that his hearers like it. +It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies +skilfully."[281] And at the very end of the _Poetics_, where he is +endeavoring to prove that tragedy is a higher art than epic, he does so by +showing that drama has all the epic elements, and in addition music and +spectacle, which produce the most vivid of pleasures. Moreover the drama +is more compact; "for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one +which is diluted."[282] Thus, in the _Poetics_, Aristotle takes a +non-moral attitude toward literature, although in the _Politics_[283] he +grants that poetry and music are eminently serviceable in conveying moral +instruction to young people. His mature attitude is well illustrated in +contrast with that of Aristophanes. Aristophanes criticises Euripides +severely as a perverter of Athenian morality. Aristotle mentions Euripides +about twenty times in the _Poetics_, and frequently criticises him +adversely, not, however, for his evil moral influence, but because he uses +his choruses badly, and is faulty in character-drawing. + +In answer to Plato's second objection to poetry, that it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism, Aristotle propounded his theory of katharsis. +"Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action ... through pity and +fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."[284] That +Aristotle had in mind an analogy with medicine is better understood from a +passage in the _Politics_ which describes the beneficial effect of music +on patients suffering from religious ecstasy. The stimulating music +furnishes the patient with an outlet for the expression of his religious +fervor. Afterwards, says Aristotle, the patients "fall back into their +normal state, as if they had undergone a medical or purgative +treatment."[285] Thus the theory of katharsis seems to have the same basis +as the modern psychological theory which encourages the expression of +emotions in their milder form lest, if inhibited, they gather added power +and finally burst disastrously through all restraints. Consequently, +although hedonist theorists have been anxious to establish katharsis on a +purely aesthetic foundation, it seems that the theory has inescapable +moral implications. To be sure, Aristotle in the same section of the +_Politics_ says that the emotional result of katharsis is "harmless joy," +and in the _Poetics_ he says that pity and fear produce the appropriate +pleasure of tragedy. Nevertheless Aristotle is answering Plato's +objections to unrestrained emotionalism, and by his theory of katharsis +endeavors to show not only that the emotional excitation of tragedy is +harmless to the spectator, but that it is actually good for him. + +But if the spectator is to derive these emotional excitations from +tragedy, his aesthetic experience cannot be passive. Aristotle recommends +as the ideal tragic hero a man not preeminently good nor unusually +depraved, but a man between these extremes; "for pity is aroused by +unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like +ourselves."[286] Evidently, then, through his imagination the spectator +must in a lively fashion participate in the action of the drama. Not only +is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he +identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions. + +But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral +grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. +Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion. Isocrates believes +that Homer was prized by the earlier Greeks because his poems instilled a +hatred of the barbarians, and kindled in the hearts of the readers a +desire to emulate the heroes who fought against Troy.[287] One might think +that the hatred of the barbarians was not the highest degree of morality, +but perhaps for the political integrity of Greece it was. That Homer +especially was supposed to have a moral influence is illustrated also by +Xenophon. Niceratus, in the _Symposium_, is telling the diners of what +knowledge he is most proud. "My father," he says, "in his pains to make me +a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems."[288] + +Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek +thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief. + + Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the + amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition + to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, + guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our + tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise + man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens + of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for + the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[289] + +This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's +essay _On the Study of Poetry_ that it is difficult to quote from him +without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught +poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely +as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[290] in his +reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are +pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch +believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards +because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be +taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously +avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make +poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking +and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[291] The profit of poetry he +believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very +highly such _sententiae_ as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and +"know thyself."[292] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so +heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them +in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For +instance: + + Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied + who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his + advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not + envy.[293] + +But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of +example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction +and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and +presenting fictitious narratives."[294] For instance, according to +Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her +ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that +such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that +frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the +only man who does such a thing in the _Iliad_ is that lascivious and +adulterous fellow Paris.[295] It is interesting that this essay of +Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of +the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance +and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603. + +The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry +as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman +was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman +criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes +been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, +for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but +about the purpose of the poet. + + Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are + at once pleasant and profitable. + +His reason for favoring the third view is important. + + Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect + austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval + of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This + book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and + prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[296] + +But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his +poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an +educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive +manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to +emulate. + + His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean + The boyish ear from words and tales unclean; + As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, + And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind; + He tells of worthy precedents, displays + The example of the past to after days, + Consoles affliction, and disease allays.[297] + +Moreover the consensus of conventional opinion in the Roman world was that +the study of the poets did succeed in moulding the moral character of the +youth. Apuleius, writing of a certain virtuous young man, the hero of one +of the episodes of the _Metamorphoses_, makes the following incidental +remark: "The master of the house had a young son well instructed in good +literature, and consequently remarkable for his piety and modesty."[298] + +Although Lucretius may not have been assured of the moral value, he was +so convinced of the seductive powers of poetry that he deliberately +utilized them to make palatable the forbidding thoughts of his essay _On +the Nature of Things_. The long passage is worth quoting entire because +his comparison is borrowed so frequently by renaissance critics to +illustrate the poetic doctrine of pleasurable profit. Lucretius says: + + But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter wormwood to + children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow + liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may + find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink the bitter juice of + the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be injured, but rather, being + recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this + argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it + has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was + desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in + sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the honey + of the Muses.[299] + +From this survey of classical opinion we may conclude that the public +looked for two things in poetry: pleasure and profit. Eratosthenes took an +extreme view in seeking pleasure alone. Both Aristotle and Horace +emphasized the pleasure to be derived from poetry, although neither denied +that poetry is beneficial. Horace takes almost a cynical view in +suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others +improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the +book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral +value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth. This view is well +exemplified in the quotations from Aristophanes, Xenophon, Strabo, and +especially Plutarch. But even Plutarch, who goes so far as to suggest +emending the poets to make their effect more moral, does not suggest that +the purpose of poetry is to afford moral instruction. He distinguishes; +some poetry is distinctly immoral and should be enjoyed only for its art. +Other poetry is moral in its effect, and consequently should be utilized +extensively by the school-master in educating young men. For such purposes +no poetry was thought to be better than Homer, whose epics furnish so many +examples of heroic conduct. + + + +3. Moral Improvement through Allegory + + +When the Roman arms conquered a new city, the story runs, the commander of +the forces took over in the name of the Emperor the gods; but before the +gates of Jerusalem this ceremony proved ineffective. The fathers of the +Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing +that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the +philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, +according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its +presentation. Furthermore, the gods of the Greeks were immoral and +furnished their worshippers with bad examples of conduct. Long before +Tertullian the moral philosophers of antiquity had already attacked the +poetry of Greece and Rome on the ground of immorality. Plato in his day +called the war between philosophy and poetry "age-long." The ancient +Greeks had considered Homer and Hesiod as the inspired recorders of the +facts of religion. They had looked to the poets for moral dogma and +example. Of necessity the philosophers condemned the poets for the +immorality of their thievish, lying, and adulterous pantheon. + +When the Christian fathers were confronted with the Syriac gospel of the +youth of Jesus, they called a council to declare it apochryphal. Lest +some devout reader should take literally the love poetry of the Canticles, +the fathers allegorized it as the love of Christ for his Church. +Unfortunately for Greek religion the philosophers did not determine which +episodes in the histories of the gods were valid as doctrine and which +were fictitious. They did, however, anticipate the fathers in their +allegorical interpretations. Socrates in the _Phaedrus_ laughs at +allegory;[300] and Plutarch believes that the poets intended to teach a +moral idea by example instead of expressing a hidden meaning by allegory. +For him allegory involved distortion and perversion. "For some men +_distort_ these stories and _pervert_ them into allegories or what the men +of old times called hidden meanings ὑπόνοιαι."[301] But allegory none the +less flourished. Theognis of Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and Stesimbrotus of +Thasos, were assiduous and startling in their interpretations.[302] The +Greek allegorical interpretations were of two kinds: one an explanation +of the secrets of nature, the other the teaching of morality.[303] +Although the practice was very old, the word "allegory" is not recorded +before Cicero, who says: + + When the imagery of the metaphor is sustained for a long time, the + nature of the style assuredly becomes changed. Consequently the Greeks + call this sort of thing allegory.... But he is nearer the truth who + calls all of these metaphors.[304] + +From Cicero on, allegory has a long history as a rhetorical figure--a +trope.[305] St. Augustine recommends that students of the scriptures study +the rhetorical figures so that they may be able to interpret the tropes in +the Bible, such as allegory.[306] + +The result will always be the same whenever the poets are considered +theologians and moral teachers. They will be condemned or allegorized. +Fortunate are the poets when they are not believed. "How much better," +exclaims St. Augustine, "are these fables of the poets" than the false +religious notions of the Manichees. "But Medea flying, although I chanted +sometimes, yet I maintained not the truth of; and though I heard it sung, +I believed it not: but these phantasies I thoroughly believed."[307] For +it is only when one believes devoutly that Zeus procured access to Danae +in a shower of gold, that his action gives a divine sanction to such +traffic in beauty on the agora or in the forum.[308] It is only when the +poets make no pretense of recounting facts that they can escape the +clutches of the philosophers. It was to save the poets from such attacks +that Aristotle asserts that poetry deals with the universal, not with the +particular.[309] Or, as Spingarn explains his meaning, "Poetry has little +regard for the actuality of specific event, but aims at the reality of an +eternal probability."[310] + + + +4. The Influence of Rhetoric + + +Thus the general consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry has +inescapable moral effects on those who listen or read. The moralists, +especially the Stoics, when confronted with traditional poetry whose +literal significance was immoral, leaned toward allegorical +interpretations which brought out a kernel of truth. The greater number, +however, of Greeks and Romans in the classical period believed that poetry +exerted the most potent influence for good when it enunciated crisp moral +maxims and afforded examples of heroic conduct which young people could be +induced to follow. + +In all these respects the classical view of poetic has much in common with +classical rhetoric. Allegory has been shown to have had a long history as +an extended metaphor--a rhetorical figure. Maxims are considered fully by +Aristotle as aids to persuasion in rhetoric.[311] The exemplum is +obviously a stock means of rhetoric. + +"Examples," says Aristotle, "are of two kinds, one consisting in the +allegation of historical facts, and the other in the invention of facts +for oneself. Invention comprises illustration on the one hand and ... +fables on the other." Then he tells how Aesop defended a demagogue by the +fable of the fox caught in the cleft of a rock. The fox was infested with +dog-ticks which sucked his blood. A benevolent hedge-hog offered to remove +the ticks, but the fox declined the kind offer on the ground that his +ticks were already full of blood and had ceased to annoy him much, whereas +if they were removed, a new colony of ticks would establish themselves and +thus entirely drain him of blood. "Yes, and in your case, men of Samos," +said Aesop, "my client will not do much further mischief--he has already +made his fortune--but, if you put him to death, there will come others who +are poor and who will consume all the revenues of the state by their +embezzlements."[312] "Fables," continues the shrewd master of those who +know, "have this advantage that, while historical parallels are hard to +find, it is comparatively easy to find fables." Quintilian, like +Aristotle, believes in the persuasive efficacy of examples. But Quintilian +has less faith in the probative value of fictitious examples than he has +in those drawn from authentic history. He thinks that fables are most +effective with a rustic and ingenuous audience, which "captivated by their +pleasure in the story, give assent to that which pleases them."[313] Thus +Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people to the senators by telling them the +fable of the revolt of the members against the belly. And Thomas Wilson, +in his _Arte of Rhetorique_, repeats the story, in his section on +examples, and ascribes to Themistocles the fox story which Aristotle tells +of Aesop.[314] + +But Aristotle, Quintilian, and Wilson are talking about rhetoric. Very +justly they believe that if one wants to persuade an audience to a course +of action, he must interest his audience sufficiently to hold their +attention. As Wilson sagely remarks, "For except men finde delite, they +will not long abide: delite them and winne them."[315] Cicero expressed in +memorable phrase the relationship between proof and pleasure as +instruments to persuasion and added a third element. He classified the +aims of an orator as "to teach, to please, to move" (_docere, delectare, +movere_). The teaching is the appeal to the intellect of the hearer by +means of proof. The pleasure is afforded by a euphonious style, and by +fables and stories. The audience is moved to action by the appeal to their +feelings.[316] + +Not until the renaissance did writers on the theory of poetry carry over +Cicero's threefold aim of the orator and make it apply to the poet.[317] +But already in post-classical times rhetoric had, as Seneca the father +clearly shows, vitiated the Latin poetry of the Silver Age. Under the +Empire the declamation schools in Rome had a profound influence on +literature.[318] It could not be otherwise in a society where the school +of rhetoric was the only temple of higher education, for which the +grammaticus, or elementary professor of literature, was constrained to +prepare his students. Rhetoric was the organon of Roman education, and +declamation was the aim of rhetoric. It was such an educational system +which prepared Ovid and Lucan for their careers as poets and men of +letters. Seneca the father records the brilliant declamations of Ovid as a +schoolboy, quoting at some length his plea for a wife who threw herself +over a cliff on hearing of the death of her husband, and calling attention +to several passages in Ovid's poems where the poet has borrowed the clever +sayings of his professors in the school of rhetoric.[319] Ovid makes his +characters prove that they are moved by passion instead of being +passionate in word and deed. He vitiates his emotions with his wit. This +is characteristic of almost all the poets who attended the declamation +schools. They talk about situations and characters instead of realizing +them. They write as if they were speaking to an audience. One can almost +see the gestures, the wait for applause after the enunciation of a noble +platitude. Not only historically, but also in the worst modern sense this +is rhetoric. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such a preoccupation +with rhetoric, such a sustained search for all possible means of +persuasion, should have strengthened rather than weakened the utilitarian +theory of poetry. The school-master endeavored to mould the characters of +his students by examples from heroic poetry; the teacher of rhetoric, in +turn, taught them that to persuade an audience they must prove, please, +and move, and that ficticious examples were about as persuasive as +historical parallels and much easier to find. When the student left school +he continued to seek means of persuasion in canvassing votes, pleading in +the courts, or deliberating in the senate. If he became a poet, he did not +forget the lessons of his youth; or if he became a teacher of literature +or a professor of rhetoric, he perpetuated the tradition. + + + + +Chapter II + +Mediaeval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +With the breaking up of the Empire the stream of classical culture was +restricted to a narrow channel--the Church. Opposed as it was to pagan +morals and theology, the church could honestly retain classical literature +only if it were allegorized. This explains the allegorical nature of +mediaeval poetry and of poetical theory. + +From the beginning the learning of the Church was of pagan origin. St. +Augustine was a professor of rhetoric and the author of a treatise on +aesthetics before he wrote the _City of God_, and his _Confessions_. In +fact, he never quite got over being a professor of rhetoric. Clement of +Alexandria was a product of the same rhetoric schools and an excellent +teacher of his subject before he recognized the divine origin of +Christianity. St. Basil was a college friend of Gregory Nazianzen and of +Julian, later emperor and apostate, when the three studied rhetoric at +Athens. Indeed, the most cunningly cruel decree which Julian later +promulgated against the Christians forbade them the use of the ancient +pagan literature of Greece and Rome. This decree Basil bitterly resented. +"I forgo all the rest," he says, "riches, birth, honor, authority, and all +the goods here below of which the charm vanishes like a dream; but I cling +to oratory nor do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, +which I have undertaken to master it."[320] + +But within the Church the lovers of Greek literature did not have it all +their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely +attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, +and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the +traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. +Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a +guide to morals.[321] + + + +1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages + + +Allegorical interpretation was the main weapon of the apologists for +poetry. The basis, indeed, of the Gnostic heresies of the second and third +centuries was an allegorical interpretation of the Greek poets and +philosophers and of the Scriptures. This soon degenerated into an +extravagant system of speculative mysticism. Clement of Alexandria and +Origen rejected the extravagances, but sought to retain the mysticism of +the Gnostics. They reconciled Greek literature and the Scriptures by +allegorizing both, much as today Darwin and Genesis are reconciled by +allegorizing Genesis.[322] Thus in the declining years of the Roman Empire +the rhetoricians had become ecclesiastics, and the Church had adopted +pagan literature with allegorical interpretation. + +This tradition dominated the middle ages; Lady Theology reigned over the +kingdom of the seven liberal arts, and to make Homer and Virgil +theological it was necessary that they be interpreted allegorically. As +Vossler has shown, theology and philosophy furnished, during the middle +ages, the subject matter of poetry; they were the _utile_ of Horace. The +_dulce_ became for them too exclusively the pleasing garment of style and +story.[323] + +Throughout the middle ages, however, many continued to look askance at +poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in +prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the +friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write +dreary verses of complaint. But these poetical Muses Philosophy sent +packing. "Who has allowed," said she, "these common strumpets of the +theatre to come near this sick man? Not only do they fail to assuage his +sorrows, but they feed and nourish them with sweet venom. They are not +fruitful nor profitable. They destroy the fruits of reason, for they hold +the hearts of men."[324] Here Philosophy is voicing the objections of +Plato. The arts are attacked because they are not successfully +utilitarian, and because they appeal to the emotions instead of to the +reason. In a later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the objection. He +postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, +imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, +intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God +instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he +shares with the lower animals.[325] + +But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by +allegory. When Isidore of Seville (†633 or 636), for instance, was +compiling his book of universal knowledge, the _Etymologiae_, he +incorporated his section on the poets in the chapter entitled _Concerning +the Church and the Sects_. So between a section devoted to the +_Philosophers of the Gentiles_ and a section entitled _Concerning Sibyls_ +he wrote concerning the poets as follows: + + Sometimes, however, the poets were called theologians, because they used + to compose songs concerning the gods. In doing this, however, it is the + office of the poets to render what has actually been done in a different + guise with a certain beauty of covert figures.[326] + +The poet, to Isidore, was the inspired bard who sings of the gods and the +eternal verities, not directly, but under the veil of a beautiful +allegory. Among these allegorical or indirect means of expression used by +the poet to veil truth are fables. + + The poets invent fables sometimes to give pleasure; sometimes they are + interpreted to explain the nature of things, sometimes to throw light on + the manners of men.[327] + +His illustrations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For +instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of +man and horse, the swiftness of human life. + +It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the +middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the _Convivio_ (c. +1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper +method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded +in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the +allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these +tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[328] The reason +this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the +fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to +say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three +disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may +understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The +fourth sense is the analogical. Here the text may be literally true, but +contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but +the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear +from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which +he discusses the interpretations of his _Commedia_. "Although these mystic +senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called +allegorical."[329] That the "beauteous fiction," the _bella menzogna_, of +allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a passage in the _Vita +Nuova_. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, +speaking and laughing on the assumption that as a poet he is licensed to +use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a +true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to +clothe the nakedness of truth.[330] + + + +2. Allegory in Mediaeval England + + +England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the +thirteenth century. In his _Poetria_, John of Garland[331] explains +allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes. +"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; +under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the +friend, reason."[332] In another illustrative poem, this time introduced +to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts +between the "_confirmacio_," and the "_confutacio_," an "_expositio +mistica_" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The +fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[333] + +As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ is as mediaeval as +the _Romance of the Rose_.[334] In this allegory of the education and love +adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke +to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven +liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space. In the chapter on +_inventio_, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her +traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all +possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their +purpose, and their fame. + +The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire +period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of +allegory. + + To make of nought reason sentencious + Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. + For often under a fayre fayned fable + A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[335] + +This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old +poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their +invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets +against sloth. + + The special treasure + Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo! + +Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues. + + Your hole desyre was set + Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,... + To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame. + +Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great +conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such illustrious +models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a +condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents +them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude +people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the +poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, +she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the +people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they +would praise and appreciate the moral poets. + +The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, +as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the +middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to +theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on _inventio_, is conducting a +defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth +under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it +is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men. + +The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, +to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets +did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds. + + And under colour of this beste, pryvely + The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[336] + +The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For +instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his +shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy. +Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus +in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the +hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, +to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the +redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, +Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable +into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical +adornment of figures and so forth. + +The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he +says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts +with love of virtue. Lydgate's _Falls of Princes_ is an especially great +poem, + + A good ensample for us to dispyse + This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[337] + +Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning +pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making +ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he +insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts. + +This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is +to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of +allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, +where, as has been shown, the recovery of classical culture made slow +progress.[338] + + + + +Chapter III + +Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of +Poetry + + +In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the +Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[339] that the characteristic +opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line, + + Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae. + +The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to +combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the +notable exceptions of Bernardo Tasso and Castelvetro, who claimed no +further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general +conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was +simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[340]" This +chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where +they help the reader to understand better the situation in English +criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done +two influences which affected the renaissance view not a +little--scholastic philosophy and the classical rhetorics. + +To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are +directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part +of it.[341] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic +in logic, whereas Aristotle had classified the three arts as coördinate +within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by +the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[342] The appearance of +this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a +gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, +in favor of the classical view which considered example as the best +vehicle for moral improvement. + +In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly +delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of +classical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often +become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming +discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of +classical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on +example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a +pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most +advanced class, the Dido episode was deleted from the _Æneid_.[343] + +Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as +parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric +by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the +poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting +representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, +the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to +virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of +logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of +sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating +a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port? +The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures +overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, +parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, +the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of +theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition. +Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their +material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the +poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor +only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, +praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He +incites to lust and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral +actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be +condemned.[344] + + + +1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic + + +The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola +derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[345] persisted for four centuries, +rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the +renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition +of Aristotle's _Poetics_ (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and +poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in +this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and +example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses +example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[346] + +Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the _Lezione_ (1553) +of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says: + + Just as the logician uses for his means the noblest of all instruments, + that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the + dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, + that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and + the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject + of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or + instrument is the example.[347] + +This has its ultimate source in the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, who made the +following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at +demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at +persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a +rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise +unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on +opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, +usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[348] + +The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the +treatise _On the Nature of the Art of Poetry_ (1647) of the Dutch scholar +Vossius, who writes: + + As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that + especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be + utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be + thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in + fictitious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove + something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but + action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that + both are the servants of the state.[349] + +Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to +promote desirable action. + +How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well illustrated by +the _Ars Rhetorica_ of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in +1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is +discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, +or induction. + + Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience + because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently + used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains + attractively and clearly.[350] + +Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to +make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them +were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make +other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of +proof. + + + +2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics + + +A more explicit influence on the renaissance belief that the function of +poetry is to improve social morality is readily seen in the definitions of +poetry which have already been quoted from Lombardus and Varchi, who +formulated their definitions of poetry by combining Aristotle's definition +of tragedy with his definition of rhetoric.[351] Another explicit +borrowing from classical rhetoric was of Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to delight, to persuade (_docere, delectare, +permovere_).[352] Several important Italian critics carried this +terminology over into their theories of poetry along with the purpose +which has always animated rhetoric--persuasion. + +Making Horace a point of departure, Daniello, in 1536, says that the +function of the poet is to teach and delight, but more than that--to +persuade. He must move his readers to share the emotions of his +characters, to shun vice, and embrace virtue.[353] This extreme rhetorical +parallel was further insisted on by Minturno (1559), who defined the duty +of a poet as so to speak in verse as to teach, to delight, and to +move.[354] And as Aristotle had affirmed in his _Rhetoric_ that the +character of the speaker was one of the three essential elements in +persuasion,[355] Minturno is constrained to make the moral character of +the poet an indispensable quality of his poetry. Thus he borrows Cato's +definition of the orator as a "good man skilled in public speech" (vir +bonus dicendi peritus) from Quintilian,[356] and defines the poet as "a +good man skilled in speech and imitation" (poeta vir bonus dicendi et +imitandi peritus).[357] + +Like Minturno, Scaliger insisted that poetry must teach, move, and +delight.[358] It is thus the result in action which Minturno and Scaliger +emphasize. The poet must work on the feelings of his reader so that he +shall embrace and imitate the good, and spurn the evil. Philosophy, +oratory, and poetry have thus one end--and only one--persuasion.[359] +Without the "movere," the incentive to action, of course poetry could not +serve its purpose of moral improvement on which the renaissance so sternly +insisted. A reader might enjoy a story, play, or poem which presented +impeccable examples of virtue rewarded and vice punished, or which +abounded in noble platitudes gilded with wit, and still smile and be a +villain. It was thus inevitable that an acceptance of the moral purpose of +poetry should sooner or later drive any logical minded critic of poetry +completely into the camp of rhetoric. There the poet would find a +complete panoply of arms forged for the arousing of the feelings in an +audience, and for stirring the springs of action. He could make his +readers hate sin by the same means Demosthenes made his hearers hate +Philip, and love any virtue by appropriating the methods of Cicero _Pro +Archia_. According to this belief, the difference between poetic and +rhetoric was minimized. In theory a poem or a speech might indifferently +be composed either in prose or in verse. Both endeavored to teach, to +please, and to move. Both looked toward persuasion as an object. The +speech used the enthymeme and the example as proofs, while the poem used +the example to a greater, and the enthymeme to a lesser degree. Both in +theory and in practice the example was regarded as being a pleasanter +argument than the precept, as well as being more effective. This was the +age of Ciceronianism. The school-masters of Europe had recently +rediscovered imitation as the royal road to learning, and in their system +of language teaching emphasized imitation of classical authors more than +following the precepts of the grammarians or of the rhetoricians. The +epigram of Seneca, "longum iter per praecepta, breve per exempla," was the +popular catchword of the age. The example was popular. + +Thus by the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian critics had +formulated a logical and self-consistent theory of the purpose of poetry. +Inheritors of the allegorical theory of the middle ages, which they in +part discarded, and discoverers of classical rhetoric which they carried +over bodily into their theories of poetry, they passed on to France, +Germany, and England their rhetorical theories. The purpose of poetry, as +well as of rhetoric, was to them persuasion--to teach, to please, to move. +The instrument of poetry was the rhetorical example. + + + + +Chapter IV + +English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +In England the Italian interpretations of the literary criticism of Greece +and Rome made slow headway against the established traditions of the +middle ages. In particular the vogue of allegory did not yield to the idea +of the moral example transferred from rhetoric to poetic. + + + +1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric + + +When Thomas Wilson published the first edition of his _Arte of Rhetorique_ +in 1553, the corpus of Greek criticism in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ had +been in print forty-five years, and the commentaries of Dolce, Daniello, +Robortelli, and Maggi were available. But Wilson wrote a very good +rhetoric with no books before him but Quintilian, Cicero and the rhetoric +_Ad Herennium_, which he thought to be Cicero's, Erasmus, Plutarch _De +audiendis poetis_, and St. Basil. His treatment of poetry is quite +naturally, then, that of a rhetorician who had been reared in the +mediaeval tradition of allegory. + +Allegory in the sense of Quintilian as a trope, an extended metaphor, +Wilson mentions only once. His instance will bear quotation: + + It is evil putting strong Wine into weake vesselles, that is to say, it + is evil trusting some women with weightie matters. The English Proverbes + gathered by John Heywood, helpe well in this behalfe, the which commonly + are nothing els but Allegories, and darke devised sentences.[360] + +Allegory in its more general mediaeval sense of the kernel of moral truth +within the brilliant husk of the poet's fables he discusses at greater +length elsewhere with full exemplification. + + For by them we may talke at large and win men by persuasion, if we + declare beforehand that these tales were not fained of such wisemen + without cause. + +This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by +orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. +That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure. + + For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the + same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment + of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of + Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... + As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[361] In the _Iliades_ + are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the _Odissea_ + is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and + wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they + durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde + men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the + wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might + understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[362] + +Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the +moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story +of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. +The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the +best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not +meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid +covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George +in like manner allegorically. + +But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned +with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example +as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and +enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, +and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on +the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate +pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his +comment on the use of stories in argument. + +Nor does Roger Ascham in his _Scholemaster_, written between 1563-1568 and +published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of +poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a +school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in +their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, +not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[363] That he is not blind to the +fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be +its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. +The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master +must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[364] And the same +fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his +famous condemnation of the _Morte Darthur_ "the whole pleasure of which +booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold +bawdrye,"[365] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems +and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, +Loyola and Vives.[366] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory +as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a +classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If +he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example +pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance +guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the +theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the +function of poetry is to teach by example. + + + +2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic + + +Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and +school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's +treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his _Certayne Notes of +Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme_.[367] The title is not +misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its +philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a +passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of +his mistress. + + If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange + discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by + the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes _per + Allegoriam_.[368] + +Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation +schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his +mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him +the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the _Epistles_ of +Ovid and the _Love Letters_ of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified +speech-making. Wilson recommended the _Proverbs_ of Heywood as furnishing +"allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his +_Euphues_ Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries +generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables +which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the +_Similia_ and _Adagia_, of Erasmus, and from the _Emblems_ of +Alciati.[369] + +So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized +device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George +Whetstone's _Dedication_ to his _Promos and Cassandra_. For Whetstone +asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte +as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the +conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[370] +That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme +application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of +the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of +the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's +_Dedication_ was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his +attack against poetry and poets in his _School of Abuse_, which was +answered by Lodge and Sidney in their _Apologies_. In this controversy, in +which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his +_Touchstone for Time_ (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and +the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the +attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose +of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the +Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this +moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and +the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble +function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did +not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole. + +Gosson writes: + + The right use of auncient poetrie was to have the notable exploytes of + worthy captaines, the holesome councels of good fathers and vertuous + lives of predecessors set down in numbers, and sung to the instrument at + solemne feastes, that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from + kissing the cup too often, and the sense of the other put them in minde + of things past, and chaulke out the way to do the like.[371] + +The benefit, according to Gosson, which poetry should produce is that of +good moral example. Moral doctrine, he believes accessible in the +churches, and against the poets he urges that the evil social environment +of the theatre offsets the benefit to be derived even from good plays. +What profits the moral lesson of such a play if after witnessing the +performance a man walk away with a woman whose acquaintance he has just +made in the theatre.[372] He may drink wine, he may play cards, he may +even enter a brothel. + +In his _Defence of Poetry_ (1579), Lodge retreats to the caverns of the +middle ages to equip himself with arms. Under the influence of Campano, +who died in 1477, he advances allegory as the explanation which makes the +apparently light and trifling poets moral teachers of the utmost +seriousness. Addressing Gosson he exclaims: + + Did you never reade that under the persons of beastes many abuses were + dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye that whatsoever ether Virgil + did write of his gnatt or Ovid of his fley was all covertly to declare + abuse?... You remember not that under the person of Aeneas in Virgil the + practice of a dilligent captaine is described; you know not that the + creation is signified in the Image of Prometheus; the fall of pryde in + the person of Narcissus.[373] + +And he quotes Lactantius as comparing poetry with the Scriptures. If +either are taken literally, they will seem false. We should judge by the +poet's hidden meaning.[374] The purpose of the poets, to Lodge, was "In +the way of pleasure to draw men to wisdome." When he defends comedy, Lodge +drifts away from allegory. Terence and Plautus he praises for furnishing +examples of virtue and vice upon the boards, thus to amend the manners of +his auditors. He believed that poetry did amend manners, and correct +abuses--if properly used. But he is very quick to admit the very abuses +which Gosson attacked. + + I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry: I will admit the expullcion + of such enormities, poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in + it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it.[375] I + must confess with Aristotle that men are greatly delighted with + imitation, and that it were good to bring those things on stage that + were altogether tending to vertue; all this I admit and hartely wysh, + but you say unlesse the thinge be taken away the vice will continue. Nay + I say if the style were changed the practise would profit.[376] + +Thus he defends poetry bcause it teaches morality by example and by +allegory. + +With that higher intelligence and learning which have already been +contrasted with the unthinking acceptance of his times[377] Sir Philip +Sidney wrote his _Apologie for Poetrie_. In this dignified and vigorous +pamphlet, written about 1583, and published in 1595, Sidney presents the +best and most consistent argument for the moral purpose of poetry that +appeared in England. That the main line of his argument and his best +material is drawn from Minturno and Scaliger, as Spingarn has +demonstrated,[378] in no way invalidates his claim to distinction. The +purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and +delight,[379] "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, +with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to +know a poet by."[380] But as the end of all earthly learning is virtuous +action, in Sidney's mind, he agrees with Minturno and Scaliger in +borrowing from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the orator: to teach, +to delight, to move. Sidney says that the poets "imitate both to _delight_ +and _teach_, and delight to _move_ men to take the goodnes in hande ... +and _teach_, to make them know that goodnes whereunto they are +mooved."[381] It is incredible that he did not know this terminology as +rhetoric. Poetry, he believes, fails if it does not persuade its reader to +abandon evil and adopt good. + + And that _mooving_ is of a higher degree than _teaching_, it may by this + appeare, that it is well nigh the cause of teaching. For who will be + taught, if he bee not mooved with desire to be taught? and what so much + good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of morall doctrine) + as that it mooveth one to do that which it dooth teach?[382] + +The effectiveness of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in +its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which +is too frequently quoted incompletely, + + commeth to you with words sent in delightful proportion, either + accompanied with, or prepared for, the well inchaunting skill of + Musicke; and with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which + holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And + _pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from + wickedness to vertue_: even as the childe is often brought to take most + wholsom things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant + tast.[383] + +According to Sidney, then, it is the very purpose of poetry to win men to +virtue by pleasant instruction. The argument of poetry in accomplishing +this end is primarily the example. Sidney compares very elaborately +philosophy, history, and poetry in an endeavor to show that poetry is the +most effective instrument for forwarding virtue. In the first place poetry +is better adapted than philosophy to win men to virtue because it +persuades both by precepts and by examples, while philosophy persuades by +precepts alone. His sanction for this high opinion of the persuasive power +of example is the rhetorical commonplace of the renaissance that the way +is long by precept and short by example.[384] To enforce this point he +tells the story of how Menenius Agrippa won over the people of Rome to +support the Senate by telling them the story of the revolt of the members +against the belly. Quintilian[385] and Wilson[386] had already told this +story to prove the effectiveness of the example as a rhetorical argument, +a device of the public speaker. + +The main advantage which poetry possesses over history, Sidney goes on, is +that while the historian must stick to his facts, which too frequently are +unedifying, the poet can and does create a world better than nature, and +presents to his reader ideal figures of human conduct such as Pylades, +Cyrus, and Æneas.[387] This is Sidney's application of Aristotle's +assertion that history is particular and poetic universal; history records +things as they are and poetic as they are, worse than they are, or better. +Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some +of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to +add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true +example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned +to the highest key of passion);"[388] and here he is drawing from +Aristotle's _Rhetoric._[389] Through admiration of the noble persons of +poetry, the reader is won to a desire for emulation. "Who readeth _Æneas_ +carrying olde _Anchises_ on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune +to perfourme so excellent an acte?"[390] + +Although Sidney believes the principal moral value of poetry to reside in +its power to teach and move by the use of examples, he devotes at least +half a page to the beneficent effect of parables and allegories. The +parables which he uses, however, are all Christian, and the allegories are +all the _Fables_ of Æsop. From the allegorical interpretation of poetry +current in the middle ages and to a scarcely less degree among his English +contemporaries Sidney remains conspicuously aloof. + +In answering the specific charges against poetry, that it is a waste of +time, the mother of lies, the nurse of abuse, and rejected by Plato, +Sidney asserts that a thing which moves men to virtue so effectively as +poetry cannot be a waste of time; that since poetry pretends not to +literal truth, it cannot lie,[391] that poetry does not abuse man's wit, +but man's wit abuses poetry, for "shall the abuse of a thing make the +right use odious?"[393] and that Plato objected not to poetry but to its +abuse. + +Sir John Harington[392] who published his _Brief Apologie of Poetrie_ in +1591, four years before the publication of Sidney's _Apologie_, based much +of his treatise on Sidney. Unfortunately, he did not digest fully the +arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand +knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. +In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line +of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit +punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in +verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant +and the profitable."[394] The objection that poets lie Harington meets as +Sidney does, "But poets never affirming any for true, but presenting them +to us as fables and imitations, cannot lye though they would."[395] At +this point Harington parts company with his master and goes back to the +middle ages. + + The ancient Poets have indeed wrapped as it were in their writings + divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or mysteries + thereof. First of all for the litteral sence (as it were the utmost + barke or ryne) they set downe in manner of an historie the acts and + notable exploits of some persons worthie memorie: then in the same + fiction, as a second rine and somewhat more fine, as it were nearer to + the pith and marrow, they place the Morall sence profitable for the + active life of man, approving vertuous actions and condemning the + contrarie. Many times also under the selfesame words they comprehend + some true understanding of naturall Philosophie, or sometimes of + politike government, and now and then of divinitie: and these same + sences that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call the + Allegorie.[396] + +Nothing could be more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain +the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of +Perseus and the Gorgon--the highest allegory being theological. Further, +to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of +profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, +Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by +allegorical stories. To Harington, then, poetry is useful as an +introduction to Philosophy. Paraphrasing Plutarch _On the Reading of +Poets_, he says: + + So young men do like best that Philosophy that is not Philosophie, or + that is not delivered as Philosophie, and such are the pleasant writings + of learned Poets, that are the popular Philosophers and the popular + divines.[397] + +_A Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586) by the laborious but uninspired +tutor, William Webbe,[398] is not a defense; but interspersed among his +remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, +ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of +poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and +comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's +conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements +to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[399] In appraising the +methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his +contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation +of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the +instruction of manners and precepts of good life[400]. And he finds much +profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they +abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the +moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people +who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the +beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he +seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the +effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The +_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, for instance, + + though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall + inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth + of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and + sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good + counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly + read.[401] + +Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of +the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or +cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in +delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his +emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to +the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he +believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as +its motivating purpose[402]. And again, after descanting on the +exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable +things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of +poetry as containing "all such _Epigrammes_, _Elegies_, and delectable +ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight +thereof.[403] + +Like Webbe, the author of _The Arte of English Poesie_ (1589) ascribed to +Puttenham,[404] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, +however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. +Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may +be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what +may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is +worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham, + + is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in + phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, + the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & + reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of + sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & + sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate + myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and + cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for + recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest + or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, + dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill + example.[405] + +The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, +emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been +objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification +nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the +commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the +convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[406] But Puttenham does +not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be +released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, +dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil +examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest." + +Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the +mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of +lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and +courtiers,[407] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire +was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend +the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the +mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a +vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the +amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters +under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[408] Here Puttenham +pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in +satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to +allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be +wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is +most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde +of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more +universally satisfie then example."[409] It is on this account that +historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For +the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should +be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for +pleasure. + + Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether + fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no + less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but + often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his + pleasure.[410] + +This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all +history was a moral example[411] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic +fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two +as almost interchangeable.[412] + +Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both +the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, +Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, +but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[413] +accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the +_Hypercritica_ (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a +kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation +from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[414] + + + +3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example + + +A most interesting view of the purpose of poetry was evolved in the brain +of Francis Bacon--that baffling complexity of mediaeval tradition and +penetrating original thought. To him the use of feigned history, as he +defines poetry, "hath beene to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the +minde of man in those points wherein the Nature of things doth deny +it."[415] That is, poetry represents the world as greater, more just, and +more pleasant than it really is. "So as it appeareth that _Poesie_ +serveth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie, and to delectation." +Here Bacon seems to imply that the essential pleasure of poetry is in +affording vicarious experience through imaginative realization. Poetry +does this by "submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the +minde." It truly makes a world nearer to our heart's desire. But while +Bacon derives the moral benefit of poetry from examples of conduct and +outcomes of events more nearly just than those of actual life, when he +analyses poetry into its kinds, he makes a place for allegory. In this +division he provides for narrative, drama, and allegory. But with +penetration he sees what few renaissance critics had noted before--that +allegory is of two varieties. The first variety is essentially the same as +a rhetorical example; it is an extended metaphor used as an argument to +enforce a point and thus persuade an audience. The fables of Aesop are +such allegories or examples; and they are useful because they make their +point more interestingly than other arguments and more clearly. The other +sort of allegory, says Bacon, instead of illuminating the idea, obscures +it. "That is, when the Secrets and Misteries of Religion, Pollicy, or +Philosophy, are involved in Fables or Parables." He then gives political +allegorical interpretations of the myths of Briareus and of the Centaur +and suddenly adds: "Nevertheless in many the like incounters, I doe rather +think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the +Morall was first and thereupon the fable framed."[416] Bacon's final +conclusion seems to be that, although allegorical poetry does exist, +allegory is not essential to poetry and that the wholesale allegorizing of +the middle ages was far off the mark. In his suspicion that in most cases +the fable was first and the interpretation after, Bacon was in complete +agreement with Rabelais in the prologue of _Gargantua_.[417] At any rate +Bacon seems to have given the _coup de grace_ to allegory in England. + +Under the influence of Pico della Mirandola it was resurrected from its +tomb by Henry Reynolds; but it was a much less moral allegory and a more +mystical. In his _Mythomystes_ (licensed 1632) Reynolds admits, that the +ancients mingled moral instruction in their poetry, but reprehends this as +an abuse. Prose is the proper vehicle of moral doctrine and should have +been employed by Spenser. The true function of poetry, then, is to give +secret knowledge of the mysteries of nature to the initiated. Thus the +story of the rape of Proserpine signifies, when allegorically interpreted; +"the putrefaction and succeeding generation of the Seedes we commit to +Pluto, or the earth."[418] This is the most plausible example of mystical +interpretation to be found in the whole treatise. + +To the allegorist, the fable or plot in epic or dramatic poetry was only a +rind to cover attractively the kernel of truth. It was a means to an end, +not an end in itself. As the influence of Aristotle's _Poetics_ spreading +through Italy, Germany, France, and England, gave the plot or fable more +importance, allegory lost its hold on the minds of the critics. When Ben +Jonson writes in his _Timber_ "For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, +the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke or _Poeme_"[419] the change had +come. Jonson, like Sidney, was steeped in classical criticism as +interpreted and spread abroad by the sixteenth-century critics of the +continent. But while Sidney made a place for allegory in his scheme of +poetry, Jonson does not so much as mention it. His idea of the teaching +power of poetry, for to him poetry and painting both behold pleasure and +profit as their common object,[420] is rhetorical--depending on precept +and example--and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy +is "a dulcet and gentle _Philosophy_, which leades on and guides us by the +hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[421] +Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their +common purpose of securing persuasion; for he says: + + "The _Poet_ is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all + his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, + and above him in his strengths: Because in moving the minds of men, and + stirring of affections, in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves + her eminence, hee chiefly excells."[422] + +In his dedication to _Volpone_ he says this power of persuasion which the +poet possesses to so eminent a degree is to be applied to the moral +well-being of men, "to inform men in the best reason of living."[423] +Himself a writer for the theatre, Jonson is naturally more concerned with +comedy and tragedy than he is with any narrative forms of poetry. And to +him the office of the comic poet is "to imitate justice and instruct to +life--or stirre up gentle affections."[424] In _Timber_ he iterates the +same praise of poetry as being no less effective than philosophy in +instructing men to good life, and informing their manners, but as even +more effective in that it persuades men to good where philosophy threatens +and compels. In order to accomplish this beneficial effect on public +morals, the poet must have an exact knowledge of all virtues and vices +with ability to render the one loved and the other hated.[425] As a +natural result of this conception, so similar to Cicero's demand that the +orator must know all things and in line with Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, +Jonson concludes that the poet, like Quintilian's orator, must himself be +a good man; for how else will he be able "to informe _yong-men_ to all +good disciplines, inflame _growne-men_ to all great vertues, keepe _old +men_ in their best and supreme state."[426] + +Aside from Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through +to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are +identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, +or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his +preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled _Achilles' Shield_ +(1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in +the _Iliad_,[427] and enunciates the same idea in his _Prefaces_ of +1610-16.[428] Peacham, in his _Compleat Gentleman_ (1622), repeats the +usual commonplaces to the effect that poetry is a dulcet philosophy, for +the most part lifted from Puttenham.[429] In his _Argenis_ (1621) Barclay +reminds his reader of the children who for so many centuries had shunned +the cup of physic until the bitter taste had been removed by sweet syrop. +Thus also, says he, is it with the moral value of poetry disguised with +sweet music. "Virtues and vices I will frame, and the rewards of them +shall suite to both"; for it is on the moral example of poetic justice +that Barclay depends. The models of virtue will be followed.[430] + +The Earl of Stirling, in _Anacrisis_ (1634?) acknowledges the works of the +poets to be the chief springs of learning, "both for Profit and Pleasure, +showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they +are." Consequently he has a high opinion of the _Cyropaedia_ of Xenophon, +the _Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney, and other such poems, as "affording +many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes."[431] These types +the reader is expected to imitate in his own conduct, guided by the moral +precepts with which the poet must not neglect to decorate his work. + + * * * * * + +Within the period of this study two views were taken of the moral element +in poetry. With the exception of Sidney and Jonson, who knew the theories +of the Italian renaissance, the English critics believed with Horace that +poetry was at once pleasant and profitable, and agreed with Plutarch that +poetry, if rightly used, would be of benefit in the education of youth. +But there was little tendency to follow this to the conclusion of +asserting that because poetry has a moral effect on the reader, it is the +purpose of poetry as an art to exert this moral effect for the good of +society. Most of these critics believed that the moral effect which poetry +did exert came through allegory. In this respect, as has been shown, they +were carrying on the traditions of the middle ages. + +The opposing view derived ultimately from the classical rhetorics, and +entered England through the criticism of the Italian +scholars--particularly Minturno and Scaliger. Starting from the saying of +Horace that poets aim to please or profit, or please and profit together, +these critics borrowed from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to please, to move, and applied these three aims to the +poet. Accordingly, to them the poet has the same aim as the +orator--persuasion. He pleases not for the sake of giving pleasure, but +for the sake of winning his readers so that he may better attain his real +object of teaching morality and moving men to action in its practice. The +emphasis on the example as the means of attaining this end was further +derived from scholastic philosophy which, as has been shown, classed +logic, rhetoric, and poetic together as instruments for attaining truth +and improving the morality of the state. Furthermore, according to this +scholastic view, the three arts differed only as they utilized different +means to attain this end. Logic used the demonstrative syllogism and the +scientific induction, rhetoric used the enthymeme or rhetorical syllogism +and the example or popular induction, poetic used the example alone. +According to the renaissance developments of this last view, allegory was +emphasized less and less as the example was felt to be more appropriate. +Thus Sidney and Jonson, the outstanding classicists in English renaissance +criticism, exhibit to the highest degree the influence of the most +rhetorical of Italian renaissance critics. They alone in England assert +that the purpose of poetry is to move men to virtuous action. + + * * * * * + +Thus a study of rhetorical terminology in English renaissance theories of +poetry throws into sharp relief the fact that all criticism of the fine +art of literature in England in the 16th century and the first half of the +17th century was profoundly influenced by rhetoric. This influence was +two-fold. On the one hand the less scholarly critics perpetuated the +popular traditions of rhetoric which they inherited from the middle ages. +These traditions of allegory and the ornate style were, as has been shown, +in turn derived from post-classical rhetoric. On the other hand the more +scholarly critics applied to poetry the canons of classical rhetoric which +they derived in part from the classics themselves and in part from the +critics of the Italian renaissance. + +In one sense this has been a study of critical perversions. Although many +of the critics of the English renaissance are remarkable for their wisdom +and discerning judgments, their writings are far less valuable than those +of Longinus and Aristotle. But Aristotle and Longinus did not allow their +theories of poetry to be contaminated by rhetoric. The best modern critics +have studied and understood the classical treatises on poetic and have +consequently avoided the confusion between rhetoric and poetic into which +many renaissance critics fell. Others have not been so fortunate. For +these the object-lesson of renaissance failure should serve as a warning. + + + + +Index + + + +Abelard +Aeschylus +Aesop +Agathon +Agricola, Rudolph +Alanus de Insulis +Alciati +Alcidamas +Albucius +Aldus +Alfarabi +Alstedius +Anaxagoras +Annaeus Florus +Appian +Apsinus +Apthonius +Apuleius +Aristenetus +Aristophanes +Aristotle +Aristides +Ascham +Athenagoras +Augustine +Averroes + +Bacon, Francis +Barclay, John +Barton, John +Basil the Great +Bede +Bokenham +Boccaccio +Bolton, Edmund +Bornecque, Henri +Boethius +Brunetto Latini +Butcher, S.H. +Buchanan, George +Budé +Butler, Charles + +Can Grande +Campano, G. +Campion, Thomas +Casaubon +Cassiodorus +Castelvetro +Castiglione +Cato +Caussinus, N. +Chapman, G. +Chaucer +Chemnicensis, Georgius +Cicero +Clement of Alexandria +Cox, Leonard +Croce, B. +Croll, Morris +Curio Fortunatus + +Daniel, Samuel +Daniello +Dante +Darwin, Charles +Demetrius +Demosthenes +de Worde, Wynkyn +Dio Chrysostom +Dionysius of Halicarnassus +Dolce +Drant, Thomas +Drummond of Hawthornden +DuBellay +Ducas +DuCygne, M. +Dunbar, William + +Earle, John +Eastman, Max +Empedocles +Emporio +Erasmus +Eratosthenes +Estienne, Henri +Etienne de Rouen +Euripides + +Farnaby, Thomas +Fenner, Dudley +Filelfo +Fraunce, Abraham + +Gascoigne +George of Trebizond (Trapezuntius) +Gorgias +Gosson, Stephen +Gower +Gregory Nazianzen +Guarino +Guevara + +Hall, Joseph +Harington, John +Harvey, Gabriel +Hawes, Stephen +Heinsius, D. +Henryson +Heliodorus +Herodotus +Hermagoras +Hermannus Allemanus +Hermogenes +Hilary of Poitiers +Holland, P. +Homer +Horace +Hermas +Hesiod +Heywood, John + +Isidore of Seville +Isocrates + +James I +James VI +Jerome +John of Garland +John of Salisbury +Jonson, Ben +Julian + +Kechermann + +Lactantius +Langhorne +Lipisius +Livy +Lodge +Lombardus, B. +Longinus +Loyola +Lucan +Lucian +Lucretius +Lydgate, John +Lyly, John +Lyndesay, David. +Lysias + +Maggi +Martial +Martianus Capella +Mazzoni +Melanchthon +Menander +Menenius Agrippa +Milton +Minturno + +Nash, T. +Newman, J.H. +Norden, Eduard +North, Sir Thomas + +Origen +Overbury, Thomas +Ovid + +Palmieri +Pazzi +Peacham, Henry +Petrarch +Piccolomini +Pico della Mirandola +Plato +Plautus +Pliny +Plutarch +Poggio +Pontanus, Jacob +Prickard, A. O. +Puttenham + +Quintilian + +Rabelais +Ramus, Peter +Reynolds, Henry +Robortelli +Ronsard +Rufinus + +Sappho +Savonarola +Scaliger, J.C. +Schelling, Felix +Segni +Seneca +Servatus Lupus +Shakespeare +Sherry, Richard +Sidney +Sidonius, Apollinaris +Simonides +Smith, John +Soarez +Socrates +Sopatrus +Sophocles +Sophron +Spenser +Spingarn, J.E. +Stanyhurst +Stesimbrotus of Thasos +Strabo +Strebaeus +Sturm, John + +Tacitus +Tasso, B. +Tatian +Terence +Tertullian +Theognis of Rhegium +Theon +Theophilus +Theophrastus +Themistocles +Thomas Aquinas +Thomasin von Zirclaria +Tifernas +Timocles + +Valla +Valladero, A. +Van Hook, L. +Varchi +Vettore +Vicars, Thomas +Victor, Julius +Victorino, Mario +Vida +Virgil +Vives, L. +Vossius (J.G. Voss) +Vossler, Karl + +Wackernagel, Jacob +Walton, John +Watson, Thomas +Webbe, William +Whetstone, George +William of Malmesbury +Wilson, Thomas + +Xenarchus +Xenophon + + + + + +Footnotes: + + + +[1] _Modern Philology_, Vol. XVI, No. 8, Dec., 1918. + +[2] _Poetics_, I, 8. + +[3] _Quomodo historia conscribenda sit_, 8. + +[4] _De institutione oratoria_, X, ii, 21. + +[5] _Poetik, Rhetorik, und Stilistik_ (Halle, 1886), pp. 14, 261. + +[6] _Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics_, Ed. A.S. Cook +(Boston, 1891), pp. 10-11. + +[7] _Estetica_ (Milano, 1902), I, II, and appendix. + +[8] _Enjoyment of Poetry_ (New York, 1916), p. 66. + +[9] Georges Renard, _La method scientifique de l'histoire littéraire_. +(Paris, 1900), p. 385. + +[10] III, 1. + +[11] I, 8; and IX, 2. + +[12] Prickard thinks Aristotle misread in this passage. According to +Prickard, Aristotle means that poetry must be in meter, but that not all +meter is poetry. Aristotle's _Poetics_, p. 60. Most critics do not share +Prickard's opinion. + +[13] _Ibid._, I, 6. + +[14] _Ibid._, IV, 2. + +[15] _Psychology_, ed. E. Wallace, III, 3, cf. also introd., p. 77, ff. + +[16] _Poetics_, I. + +[17] VII, 3. + +[18] VII, 5. + +[19] S.H. Butcher, _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, p. 123. +Poetics, II, 1. + +[20] III, 1. + +[21] _Ibid._, IX. + +[22] _Ibid._, IX, 3-4; of. XV, 6. + +[23] _Ibid._, X, 3. + +[24] _Ibid._, XXIV, 9-10. + +[25] Butcher, _op. cit._ p. 392. + +[26] _Poetics_, XVII. + +[27] VI, 18. + +[28] Longinus, _On the Sublime_, trans, by A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906) I +and XXXIII. The treatise has been variously ascribed to the first and +fourth centuries. A valuable edition of the text accompanied by +translation and critical apparatus, was published by W. Rhys Roberts, +Cambridge University Press. + +[29] _Ibid._, VIII. + +[30] _Ibid._, X. + +[31] _Ibid._, XII. + +[32] _Ibid._, XV. This is almost exactly Aristotle's phrase in the +_Rhetoric_. + +[33] _Ibid._ + +[34] _Ibid_, X. + +[35] _De audiendis poetis_, VII, VIII. + +[36] III. + +[37] _Rhetoric_ (J. E. C. Welldon's trans., London, 1886), I, ii. + +[38] _Rhetoric_, I, i. + +[39] _Ibid._, I, i. + +[40] Wilkin's ed. of Cic. _De oratore_, introd. p. 56. + +[41] Cope, _Introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristotle_ (London, 1867), p. +149. + +[42] _Ad Herennium_, I, 2. Published in the _Opera Rhetorica_ of Cicero, +edited by W. Friedrich for Teubner (Leipzig, 1893), Vol. 1. + +[43] _De oratore_, I, 138. + +[44] _De institutione oratoria_, II, xv, 38. + +[45] _Ibid._, XI, i, 9-11. The "vir bonus dicendi peritus" is from Cato. + +[46] _Gorgias_, St. 453. + +[47] _Loci cit._ + +[48] I, v. + +[49] I, 213. + +[50] _Op. cit._, I, 64. + +[51] _De inst. orat._, II, xxi, 4. + +[52] _Rhet._, I, ix. + +[53] _De inst. orat._, III, iv, 6. + +[54] _Ibid._, X, i, 28. + +[55] γραθική, Rhet. III, xii. + +[56] _Orator_, 37-38. + +[57] _Rhet._, I, ix. + +[58] _Ad Herennium_, I, 2; Cicero, _De inventione_, I, vii. _De oratore_, +I, 142; Quintilian, _De inst. orat._, III, iii, i. + +[59] Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, III, xiii-xix; Cicero, _Partit. orat._, 15. + +[60] See above, pp. 13-14. + +[61] Cicero, _De oratore_, I. 143; Quint., _De inst. orat._, III, ix. + +[62] I, 4. Cicero, also, _De invent._, I, xiv. + +[63] _Opera omnia_ (1622), p. 1028. + +[64] _De nuptiis_, 544-560. + +[65] _The Arte of Rhet._, p. 7. + +[66] _De inst. orat._, VIII, i, I + +[67] _De inst. orat._, VIII, vi, I ff. + +[68] _Rhetoric_, III, ii. + +[69] _Ibid._, III, xi. + +[70] _Enjoyment of Poetry_, pp. 76-78. The best classical treatments of +style are to be found in Arist. _Rhet._, III; Cic., _Orat._; Quint., _De +inst. orat._, VIII, x; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De comp. verb._; and +Demetrius, _De elocutione_. + +[71] Sec. 54. + +[72] _Commentarioum Rhetoricorum libri_ IV, I, i, 3, in his _Opera_, III. +(Amsterdam, 1697). + +[73] VI, 1. + +[74] _Rhet._, III, 1. + +[75] The six elements are Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, +and Song. _Poetics_, VI, 7 and 16. + +[76] Butcher, _op. cit._, pp. 339-343. + +[77] _Poetics_, VI, 16, and XIX, 1-2. + +[78] _De inst. orat._, X, i, 46-51. + +[79] _De inventione_, I, xxiii, 33. + +[80] _Die antike kunstprosa_ (Leipzig, 1898), p. 884, note 3. + +[81] See above, p. 17. + +[82] _De optimo genere oratorum_, I, 3; _Orator_, 69; _De oratore_, II, +28. + +[83] _De inst. orat._, VI, ii, 25-36. + +[84] _Poetics_, XVII, 2. + +[85] Arist. _Rhet._, III. xi; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De Lysia_, 7; +Quintilian, VIII, iii, 62. + +[86] _Rhetoric_, III, i. + +[87] _Op. cit._, pp. 883-884. + +[88] La Rue Van Hook, "Alcidamas _versus_ Isocrates," _Classical Weekly_, +XII (Jan. 20, 1919), p. 90. Professor Van Hook here presents the only +English translation of Alcidamas, _On the Sophists_. Isocrates made his +reply in his speech _On the Antidosis_. + +[89] _Rhetoric_, III, ii. + +[90] _Ibid._, III, viii. + +[91] _Orator_, 66-68. + +[92] _De oratore_, I, 70. + +[93] "Verba prope poetarum," _ibid._, I, 128. + +[94] "Id primum in poetis cerni licet, quibus est proxima cognatio cum +oratoribus." _De orat._, III, 27. cf. also I, 70. + +[95] Xenophon, _Banquet_, II, 11-14. + +[96] _Die antike kunstprosa_, pp. 75-79. + +[97] _De compositione verborum_, XXV-XXVI. + +[98] Sénèque le rheteur, _Controverses et suasoires_, ed. Henri Bornecque +(Paris). Introduction pp. 20 ff. + +[99] _Ibid._ + +[100] _Op. cit._ vol. II, p. 5. + +[101] _Dialogus_, 20. + +[102] _Op. cit._, Introd. p. 23. + +[103] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De comp. verb._, XXIII. + +[104] Hardie, _Lectures_, VII, p. 281. + +[105] _Quomodo historia conscribenda sit_, Sec. 8. Trans, of Lucian by +H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler (Oxford, 4 vols., 1905). + +[106] Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas +et historicos, in illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos +putemus. _De inst. orat_, X, ii, 21. + +[107] Virgilius orator an poeta? quoted by Karl Vossler, _Poetische +Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance_. (Berlin, 1900) p. 42, note +2. + +[108] _Etymologiae_, II. + +[109] P. Abelson, _The Seven Liberal Arts_ (New York, 1906), p. 60, ff. + +[110] _Poetria magistri Johannis anglici de arte prosayca metrica et +rithmica_, ed. by G. Mari, _Romanische Forschungen_ (1902), XIII, p. 883 +ff. + +[111] _Ibid._, p. 894. + +[112] _Ibid._, p. 897. + +[113] Cf. G. L. Hendrickson, "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient +Characters of Style," _Am. Jour. of Phil._ (1905), xxvi, p. 249. + +[114] Cf. the _auctor ad Her._, I, 4, who gives them as exordium, +narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio. + +[115] _Ibid._, p. 918. + +[116] III, 3. + +[117] "Rhetoricâ, kleit unser rede mit varwe schône." Ed. by H. Rückert, +_Bibl. der Deutsch. Lit._, Vol. 30, 1. 8924. + +[118] Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (430-488) can be consulted in a +modern ed. by Paulus Mohr (Leipzig, 1895). + +[119] Doctrina dell' ornato parlare." Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._ p. 75. + +[120] _Chron. Troy_ (1412-20), Prol. 57. + +[121] I am indebted to my friend Dr. Mark Van Doren for the transcript +which I am here publishing. + +[122] _Mor. Fab._ Prol. 3. (c. 1580). + +[123] _Poems_, LXV, 10 (1500-20). + +[124] _Clerk's Prolog._ 32. + +[125] _Life of our Lady_ (1409-1411), (Caxton) lvii b. + +[126] Trans, of Boethius (1410), quoted by Skeat, _Chaucer_, II, xvii. + +[127] _Kingis Q._ (1423), CXCVII. + +[128] _Test. Papyngo_ (1530), II. + +[129] _Seyntys_ (1447), Roxb. 41. + +[130] _Serp. Devision_, c. iii b. + +[131] Reprinted from the ed. of 1555 for the Percy Society (London, 1845), +p. 2. + +[132] _Ibid._, p. 55. + +[133] _Ibid._, p. 28. + +[134] _See_ p. 27. + +[135] _Ibid._, p. 37. + +[136] _Ibid._, p. 46. + +[137] "Proximum grammatice docet, quae emendate & aperte loquendi vim +tradit: Proximum _rhetorice, quae ornatum orationis cultum que & omnes +capiendarum aurium illecebras invenit_. Quod reliquum igitur est videbitur +sibi dialectice vendicare, probabliter dicere de qualibet re, quae +deducitur in orationem." _De inventione dialectica_ (Paris, 1535), II, 2. +cf. also II, 3. + +Cf. "_Gram_ loquitur; _Dia_ vera docet; _Rhet_ verba colorat." Nicolaus de +Orbellis (d. 1455), quoted by Sandys, p. 644. + +[138] _Ibid._, I, 1. + +[139] _Rule of Reason_ (1551), p. 5. Fraunce, _Lawiers Logike_, takes the +same view. + +[140] _Dialecticae libri duo_, A. Talaei praelectionibus illustrati +(Paris, 1560), I, 2. + +[141] _Rule of Reason_, p. 3. + +[142] Wilkins introd. to Cic. _De orat._, p. 57. + +[143] _De inst. orat._, VI., v, 1-2. + +[144] Printed in London by John Day, without a date. The dedication is +dated Dec. 13, 1550. The title page says it was "written fyrst in +Latin--by Erasmus." + +[145] Ascribed to Dudley Tenner by Foster Watson, _The English Grammar +Schools_ (Cambridge, 1908), p. 89. + +[146] Chapter IX. + +[147] Thomas Heywood, _Apology for Actors_ (London, 1612), in _Pub. Shak. +Soc._, Vol. III, p. 29. + +[148] Book I, ch. 1. + +[149] "Rhetorica est ars ornate dicendi." _Rhetoricae libri duo quorum +prior de tropis & figuris, posterior de voce & gestu praecepit: in usum +scholarum postremo recogniti._ (London, 1629) + +[150] _The Art of Rhetorick concisely and completely handled, exemplified +out of Holy Writ_, etc. (London, 1634) + +[151] Dekker and Middleton, _The Roaring Girl_, III, 3. + +[152] Dekker, III, 1. + +[153] Spingarn, _Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, I, 2. + +[154] χειραγωγια _Manductio ad Artem Rhetoricam ante paucos annos +in privatum scholarium usum concinnata_ (London, 1621). "Rhetorica est ars +recte dicendi, etc." + +[155] Norden, _op. cit._, pp. 699-703. + +[156] A.C. Clark, _Ciceronianism_, in _Eng. Lit. and the Classics_, ed. +Gordon (Oxford, 1912), p. 128. + +[157] Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._, p. 45. + +[158] Erasmus, _Dialogus, cui titulus ciceronianus, sive, de optimo +dicendi genere_, in _Opera omnia_ (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703), I. It was +composed in 1528. + +[159] _Arte of Rhet._, p. 109. + +[160] I, 4. Wilson follows the analysis on p. 7. + +[161] I, x, 17. + +[162] _An Apology for Actors_, p. 29. + +[163] This count is based on the Cicero MSS. listed by P. Deschamps, +_Essai bibliographique sur M. T. Ciceron_ (Paris. 1863). Appendix. + +[164] H. Rashdall, _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, +1895), I, 249. + +[165] J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, p. 590. + +[166] Sandys, p. 624 _seq._ + +[167] Deschamps, _op. cit._, pp. 59-63. + +[168] Arber reprint, p. 124. + +[169] M. Schwab, _Bibliographie d'Aristote_ (Paris, 1896). + +[170] Rashdall, II, 457. + +[171] Fierville, C. _M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber +primus_ (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for +the first time the complete texts of these abridgments in an appendix. + +[172] Arber, p. 95. + +[173] The pseudo-Demetrius, author of the _De elecutione_. + +[174] P. 316. + +[175] Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, pp. 541-2. + +[176] M. Schwab, _op. cit._ + +[177] _Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance_ (Berlin, +1900), p. 88. + +[178] _Defense_, in Smith, I, 196-197. + +[179] Vossius, _De artis poeticae natura_, II, 3-4. + +[180] _Poetics_, I, 2. + +[181] _Poetica_, 23, 190. + +[182] _De artis poeticae natura_, II, 4. + +[183] _Euphues_, edited by M. W. Croll and H. Clemens (New York), Introd. +iv. + +[184] Preface to Maggi's _Aristotle_ (1550), p. 2. + +[185] Prolog. _ibid._, p. 15. + +[186] Spingarn, p. 312. + +[187] Jacob Pontanus, S. J., _Poeticarum institutionum libri tres_ +(Ingolstadi, 1594), p. 36. + +[188] _Ibid_, p. 81. + +[189] "Tres autem sunt virtutes narrationis, brevitas, perspicuitas, +probabilitas. Secundam & tertiam diligentissime consectabitur Epicus, +earumque rationem a Rhetoricae magistris percepiet," p. 72. These three +virtues of a "narratio" are based on the analysis of the _Rhetorica ad +Alexandrum_. + +[190] Arist., _Rhet._, III. 16. + +[191] _Op. cit_,, p. 26. + +[192] Spingarn, p. 313. + +[193] _Lit. Crit._, p. 255. + +[194] _Ibid._, p. 262. + +[195] Arber, pp. 138-141. + +[196] Spingarn, pp. 174, 256. + +[197] Smith, I, 48. + +[198] Smith, I, 59. + +[199] _Ibid._, p. 60. + +[200] I, 2. + +[201] II, 12. + +[202] IV, 63. + +[203] _Topics_, 83. + +[204] VI, ii, 8 _seq._ Quintilian also uses the Greek terms. + +[205] X, i, 46-131. + +[206] _Op. cit._, pp. 275-398. + +[207] II, 154 seq. + +[208] P. 187. + +[209] G.S. Gordon, "Theophrastus" in _Eng. Lit. and the Classics_, p. +49-86. + +[210] Smith, I, 128 + +[211] _Ibid._, 130-131. + +[212] Cf. Spingarn, pp. 298-304, for a good account of reformed versifying +in England. + +[213] Smith, I, 137. + +[214] John Northbrooke anticipated Gosson by two years in his attack on +the stage, but did not include poets in his title. + +[215] Spingam, pp. 256-258. + +[216] Smith, I, 158. + +[217] _Ibid._, I, 172. + +[218] _Ibid._, I, 185. + +[219] _Ibid._, I, 158-159. + +[220] _Ibid._, I, 160. + +[221] I, 183. + +[222] I, 201. + +[223] Arist. _Rhet._, III, 2; Quint. VIII, iii. 62; Scaliger, iii, 25. Cf. +ante p. 33. + +[224] _De aug._ II, 13. + +[225] See pp. 18, 19. + +[226] I, 203. + +[227] I, 202. + +[228] Smith, I, 227-228. + +[229] I, 256. + +[230] I, 231. + +[231] I, 247-248. + +[232] I, i. + +[233] I, ii. + +[234] I, viii. + +[235] I, iv. + +[236] La Rue Van Hook, "Greek Rhetorical Terminology in Puttenham's _The +Arte of English Poesie." Trans. of the Am. Phil. Ass._ (1914) XLV, 111. +Puttenham was also familiar with the _ad Herennium_ and with _Cicero_. + +[237] (Philadelphia, 1891), p. 59. + +[238] III, i. + +[239] III, xix, p. 206 Arber reprint; of. also p. 230, on the figure +_Merismus_ or the Distributor, and the remainder of the chapter. + +[240] Smith, II, 249, 282. + +[241] _Ibid_, II, 274. + +[242] Preface to Homer, in Spingarn, _Critical Essays of the Seventeenth +Century_, I, 81. + +[243] Spingarn, I, 5. + +[244] _Literary Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, Introduction_, I, +xiii. + +[245] _Timber_, Sec. 128. Cf. _Pastime of Pleasure_, VIII, 29. + +[246] Spingarn, I, 211. + +[247] _Timber_, Sec. 109. + +[248] _Timber_, Sees. 132-133. + +[249] Spingarn, I, 214. + +[250] _Ibid._, p. 210, 213. + +[251] Vossler, _op. cit._, p. 48. + +[252] Spingarn, I, 107. + +[253] _Ibid._, I, 142. + +[254] _Ibid._, I, 182. + +[255] _Ibid._, I, 188, 185. + +[256] Spingarn, I, 206. + +[257] Pseudo-Demetrius, _De elocutione_. + +[258] The _De sublimitate_. + +[259] _De sublimitate_, VIII. + +[260] Spingarn, I, 206. + +[261] _Reason of Church Government_ (1641), in Spingarn, I, 194. + +[262] _Introd. to Eliz. Crit. Essays_, I, lxx. + +[263] Pp. 23-25. + +[264] VI, 2. + +[265] Poetica est facultas videndi quodcunque accommodatum est ad +imitationem cuiusque actionis, affectionis, moris, suavi sermone, ad vitam +corrigendam & ad bene beateque vivendum comparata. _Praefatio_ to +_Maggi's_ ed. of the _Poetics_ (1550), p. 9. + +[266] Spingarn, p. 35. + +[267] La poetica è una facoltà, la quale insegna in quai modi si debba +imitare qualunque azione, affetto e costume, con numero, sermone ed +armonia; mescolatamente a di per sè, per remuovere gli uomini dai vizi e +accendergli alle virtù, affine che conseguano la perfezione e beatitudine +loro. _Lezione della poetica_ (1590) in _Opere_ (Trieste, 1859), II, 687. + +[268] Verses 1008-1010. + +[269] Verse 1055. + +[270] _The Women at the Feast of Bacchus_, quoted by Emile Egger, +_L'Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs_ (Paris, 1886), p. 74. + +[271] _Protagoras_, 325-326, Jowett's translation. + +[272] _Republic_, 596-598. + +[273] _Ibid._, 605-606. + +[274] _Ibid._, 607 + +[275] _Laws_, 663. + +[276] _Poetics_, IV, 2. + +[277] _Ibid._, VI, 15. + +[278] _Ibid._, VII. + +[279] _Ibid._, IX, 7. + +[280] _Ibid._, XIII. Cf. also XXVI. + +[281] _Ibid._, XXIV. + +[282] _Ibid._, XXVI. + +[283] _Politics_, V, v. + +[284] _Poetics_, VI. (Butcher). Cf. Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Fine +Art_, Chapter VI, for a full discussion of katharsis. + +[285] _Politics_, V, vii. + +[286] _Poetics_, XIII. + +[287] _Panegyric_, § 159. + +[288] _Symposium_, III, 5. + +[289] _Geography_, I, ii, 3. Trans, by H. C. Hamilton (Bohn ed, London, +1854), 1, 24-25. + +[290] _De audiendis poetis_, trans, by F.M. Padelford under the title +_Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry_ (New York, 1902), I. Cf. also +Julian, _Epistle_ 42. + +[291] _Ibid._ + +[292] _Ibid._ XIV. Cf. Harrington in Smith's _Eliz. Crit. Essays_, II, +197-198. + +[293] _Ibid._ XII. Cf. Chemnicensis, _Canons_, LII, in Smith, I, 421. + +[294] _Ibid._, IV. Cf. Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, II, xx. + +[295] _Ibid._, III. + +[296] + + Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae + Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae + + * * * * * + + Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis; + Celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: + Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, + Lectorem delectando, periterque monendo. + Hic meret aera liber Sosiis; hic et mare transit, + Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. + + +_Ad Pisonem_, 333-334, 342-346. + +[297] _Epistles_, II, i, 11. 126 ff. Conington's trans. + +[298] _Metamorphoses_, X, 2. + +[299] _De rerum natura_, I, 936-950. + +[300] _Phaedrus_. See also _Republic_, II. + +[301] _How to Study Poetry_, IV. + +[302] Cf. Cicero, _De nat. deor._ i, 15-38 ff., and Hatch, _Hibbert +Lectures_, 1888, Ch. III. + +[303] A. Schlemm, _De fontibus Plutarchi commentationum De aud. poet._ +(Göttingen, 1893), pp. 32-36. + +[304] "Iam cum confluxerunt plures continuae tralationes, alia plane fit +oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν nomine recte genere +melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat." _Orator_, 94. Cf. _Ad. +Att._ ii, 20, 3. + +[305] Quintilian, VIII, vi, 44. Isidore, _Etym._ I, xxxvii, 22. + +[306] _De doctrina christiana_ (397), III, 29, 40. + +[307] _Confessions_ (Watts's trans.), III. vi., Lionardo Bruni, _De +studiis et literis_ (1405), uses the same argument to defend poetry. + +[308] Terence, _Eun._ 585-589, shows a young man justifying his vices on +this ground. + +[309] _Poetics_, IX. + +[310] _Literary Criticism_, p. 18. + +[311] _Rhet._ II, xxi. + +[312] _Rhetoric_, II, xx. (Weldon's translation). + +[313] _De inst. orat._ V, xi, 6, 19. + +[314] Edited from the edition of 1560 by G.H. Mair (Oxford, 1909), p. 198. + +[315] _Ibid._, p. 3. + +[316] "Docere debitum est, delectare honorarium, permovere necessarium." +_De optimo genere oratorum_, I, 3. He gives the same threefold aims as "ut +probet, ut delectet, ut flectet," in the _Orator_, 69; and in the _De +oratore_, II, 121. + +[317] _Vide_ pp. 136-137. + +[318] Cf. _ante_, I, iv. + +[319] _Controv._ II, 2 (10). Bornecque ed., I, 145-148. + +[320] Quoted by Padelford, p. 36. + +[321] _Orat._ xi, p. 308. + +[322] Padelford, _op. cit._ pp. 39-43. + +[323] Karl Vossler, _Poetische Theorien in der italienischen +Frührenaissance_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 5, 18, 45. + +[324] Boethius, _De consolatione philosophiae_, Book I, prose 1. Boethius +lived 480-524. Cf. Skeat, _Chaucer_, II, introd. xiv ff. for references to +the surprising number of translations in most European languages +throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, +Notker, and Chaucer. + +[325] _Ibid_, Book V, prose v. + +[326] "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina +faciebant. Officium autem poetae in eo est ut ea, quae vere gesta sunt, in +alias species obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa +transducant." _Etym._ VIII, vii, 9-10. + +[327] "Fabulas poetae quasdam delectandi causa finxerunt, quasdam ad +naturam rerum, nonnullas ad mores hominum interpretati sunt." _Etym._ I, +xl, 3. + +[328] "Una verita ascosa sotto bella menzogna." II, 1. + +[329] _Epistle_, X, 11, 160-1. Quoted by Wicksteed, _Temple Classics_, pp. +66-67. + +[330] "Vesta di figura o di colore rettorico." _La Vita Nuova_, XXV. + +[331] See above, pp. 45-47. + +[332] "Per nimpham fingitur caro, per iuvenem coruptorem mundus vel +dyabolus, per proprium amicum ratio." _Poetria magistri Johannis anglici +de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica_. Ed. by G. Mari, Romanische +Forschungen (1902) XIII, 894. + +[333] "Est furor Eacides ire sathanas," _Ibid_, p. 913. + +[334] See above, pp. 51-55. + +[335] _Pastime of Pleasure_, p. 29. + +[336] _Ibid._, p. 38. + +[337] _Ibid._, p. 54; see further above, p. 54. + +[338] Cf. ante, pp. 97-99. + +[339] _Lit. Crit._, p. 47-59. + +[340] _Ibid._, p. 58. + +[341] I _anal._ 1a. + +[342] _Lit. Crit._, p. 25. + +[343] André Schimberg, _L'education morale dans les collèges de la +compagnie de Jésus en France_ (Paris, 1913). p. 138. + +[344] _Opus de divisione, ordine, ac utilitate omnium scientiarum, in +poeticen apologeticum_. Autore fratre Hieronymo Savonarola (Venetiis, +1542), IV, pp. 36-55. Savonarola died in 1498. + +[345] Cartier, "L'Esthetique de Savonarola," in Didron's _Annales +Archoelogiques_ (1847). vii, 255 ff. + +[346] "Rhetorica, Poeticaque contra: quod non adeo vere ac proprie Logicae +appellantur, neque, syllogismo fere, sed exemplo atque enthymemate, +rationibus quasi popularibus utuntur...." Poetic, furthermore, differs +from rhetoric, "neque usurpat enthymema fere, sed exemplum." Vincentius +Madius et Bartholomaeus Lombardus. In _Aristotelis Librum de poetica +communes explanationes_ (Venetiis, 1550), pp. 8-9. + +[347] "Onde come il loico usa per suo mezzo il più nobile strumento, ciò è +la dimostrazione o vero il sillogismo dimonstrativo; cosi usa il +dialettico il sillogismo topico; il sofista il sofistico, ciò è apparente +ed ingannevole: il retore l'entimema, e il poeta l'esempio, il quale è il +meno degno di tutti gli altri. É adunque il subbietto della poetica il +favellare finto e favoloso, ed il suo mezzo o strumento l'esempio." _Delia +Poetica in Generale, Lezione Una _ I, 2. _Opere_ (Trieste, 1850), II, 684. +In his paraphrase of this passage and in his comments, Spingarn (_Lit. +Crit._ pp. 25-26) misunderstands both his author and his rhetoric when he +says, "The subject of poetry is fiction, or invention, arrived at by means +of that form of the syllogism known as the example. Here the enthymeme or +example, which Aristotle has made the instrument of rhetoric, becomes the +instrument of poetry." + +[348] _Rhet._ I, ii. + +[349] "Nimirum arbitrantur, quemadmodum Rhetorice ab Aristotele ipso +appellatur particula Dialecticae; idque propterea, quod doceat rationem, +qua enthymema applicetur ad materiam civilem: ita & Poeticen esse Logices +partem, quia aperit exempli usum in materia ficta ... at Rhetorice, & +Poetice, non solum docere student, sed etiam delectare; nec cognitionem +tantum spectant, sed & actionem. Quamquam vero hoc commune habet cum +Rhetorica, quod utraque sit famula Politicae." Gerardi Joannis Vossii, _De +artis poeticae, natura, ac constitutions liber_, cap VII, in _Opera_ +(Amsterdam, 1697), III. + +[350] "Inductio delectat, et est vulgo apta, propter similitudines et +exempla. Hanc argumentationem frequentant Rhetores et Poetae, praesertim +Ovidius; quia venuste ac perspicue explicat argumenta." I, ii. + +[351] _Vide_, pp. 103-104. + +[352] _Vide_, pp. 119-120. + +[353] _Poetica_ (Vinegia, 1536), p. 25. Spingarn, p. 48. + +[354] "Sic dicere versibus, ut doccat, ut delectet, ut moveat." _De +poeta_, p. 102. + +[355] _Rhetoric_, I, ii. + +[356] XII, i, 1. + +[357] _De poeta_, p. 79. Vossius echoes the same idea from the same +rhetorical source. + +[358] "Sed & docendi, & movendi, & delectandi." _Poetice_ (1561), III, +xcvii. + +[359] _Ibid._, I, i. + +[360] _Arte of Rhet._ p. 176. + +[361] These two names were frequently connected in the renaissance. + +[362] _Ibid_, p. 195. + +[363] _Arber Reprint_ (London, 1870), p. 151. + +[364] _Ibid._, pp. 142-143. + +[365] _Ibid._, p. 80. + +[366] _Vide_, p. 132. + +[367] _Vide_, pp. 77-78. + +[368] Smith, _Eliz. Crit. Essays_, I, 48. + +[369] Croll, Introd. to ed. of _Euphues_ (New York, 1916), p. vii. + +[370] Smith, I, 60. + +[371] _School of Abuse_ (Pub. of the Shak. Soc., 1841), Vol, 2, p. 15. + +[372] _Ibid._, pp. 20, 25, 29. + +[373] Smith, I, 65. + +[374] Smith, I, 73. + +[375] Smith, I, 76. + +[376] Smith, I, 83. + +[377] _Vide_, pp. 86-87. + +[378] _Lit. Crit. in the Ren._ 2d ed., pp. 269-274. + +[379] Smith, I, 158-160. + +[380] _Ibid._, 160. + +[381] _Ibid._, I, 159. + +[382] _Ibid._, I, 171. + +[383] _Ibid._, p. 172. + +[384] Cf. above, p. 138. + +[385] _De inst. orat._, V, xi, 19. + +[386] _Arte of Rhet._, p. 198. + +[387] _Ibid._, I, 157. + +[388] Smith, I, 169. + +[389] _Rhetoric_, II, xx. + +[390] Smith, I, 173. + +[391] Cf. St. Augustine, _Confessions_, III, vi. + +[392] Smith, I, 187. Cf. Arist. _Rhet._ I, i, and Quint. _De inst. orat._ +II, xvi, who defend rhetoric on the same ground. Sidney's "with a sword +thou maist kill thy Father, and with a sword thou maist defende thy Prince +and Country" is in Quintilian. + +[393] See also p. 38. + +[394] Smith, II, 208. + +[395] Smith, II, 201. + +[396] _Ibid._ + +[397] _De audiendis poetis_, XIV. Plutarch believed that poetry gained +this end by enunciating moral and philosophical _sententiae_, not by +allegory, which Plutarch made sport of. + +[398] See pp. 87-89. + +[399] Smith, I, 250-252. + +[400] Smith, I, 232. + +[401] Smith, I, 238-239. + +[402] Smith, I, 235-236. + +[403] Smith, I, 248-249. + +[404] _Vide_, pp. 89-92. + +[405] Smith, II, 25. + +[406] Smith, II, 115-116. + +[407] Smith, II, 160. + +[408] Smith, II, 32-40. + +[409] Smith, II, 41-42. + +[410] _Ibid._ + +[411] Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._ p. 135. + +[412] Krapp, _Rise of Eng. Lit. Prose_ (New York, 1915), pp. 408-409. + +[413] _Vide_, pp. 91-92. + +[414] Spingarn, _Crit. Essays of the 17th Century_, I, 98, 99. + +[415] Springarn, I, 6. + +[416] Spingarn, I, 6-8. + +[417] The author's prolog to the first book. + +[418] Spingarn, I, 170. + +[419] Spingarn, I, 50; for Jonson see also pp. 93-96. + +[420] Spingarn, I, 29. + +[421] _Ibid._, 51-52. + +[422] _Ibid._, p. 55. Cf. Cicero, _ante_ p. 37. + +[423] Ded. to _Volpone_, Spingarn, I. 15. + +[424] _Ibid._ + +[425] Spingarn, I, 28-29. + +[426] Ded to _Volpone_, Spingarn, I, 12. + +[427] Smith, II, 306. + +[428] Spingarn, I, 67. + +[429] Spingarn, I, 117-120. + +[430] A.H. Tieje, _Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction Prior to_ +1740 (Minneapolis, 1916), p. 14. + +[431] Spingarn, I, 186-187. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance +by Donald Lemen Clark + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10140 *** diff --git a/10140-h/10140-h.htm b/10140-h/10140-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3c23c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10140-h/10140-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5848 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance, by Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + h1,h2,h3,h4 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-variant: small-caps } + h1,h2 { margin-top: 2em } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + img { border-style: none } + hr ( margin: 2em 0% 2em 0% } + --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10140 ***</div> + +<h1>Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance</h1> + +<h2>A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism</h2> + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.<br /> +Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University</h2> + +<p align="center">1922</p> + + + + +<p align="center" style="margin: 2em">To my Father and Mother</p> + + + + +<h2>Preface</h2> + + + +<p>In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on +the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This +influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance +writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric. +But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical +thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the +present day.</p> + +<p>The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of +rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part +Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of +poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but +by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical +terminology I have already touched on in an article on <i>The Requirements +of a Poet[<a href="#foot1">1</a>]</i>, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal +of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical +rhetoric.</p> + +<p>No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can +escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose <i>Literary +Criticism in the Renaissance</i> has so carefully traced the debt of English +criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by +many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my +own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement +what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention +to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am +able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were +profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these +mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and +that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and +less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not +lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism.</p> + +<p>In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in +modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For +quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case +of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the +<i>Elizabethan Critical Essays</i> edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the +<i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn, +I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a +practice would add to the convenience of the reader.</p> + +<p>The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of +acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia +University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided +me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously +allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English +rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly +and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to +Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond +M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard +and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is +to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration, +enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book +possible.</p> + + + + +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + +<p><b>Part First: </b> <a href="#1">The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#1-1">Introductory</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-1-1">The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-2">Classical Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-2-1">Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-2">"Longinus"</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-3">Plutarch</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-4">Horace</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-3">Classical Rhetoric</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-3-1">Definitions</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-2">Subject Matter</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-3">Content of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-4">Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-5">Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-4">Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-4-1">The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-2">The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-3">The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-4">The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-5">The Middle Ages</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-5-1">The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-5-2">Rhetoric as Aureate Language</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-6">Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-6-1">The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-2">The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-3">The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-4">Channels of Rhetorical Theory</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-7">Renaissance Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-7-1">The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-7-2">Rhetorical Elements</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-8">Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-8-1">The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-2">The Influence of Horace</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-3">The Influence of Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-4">Manuals for Poets</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-5">Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + + +<p><b>Part Second:</b> <a href="#2">The Purpose of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#2-1">The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-1-1">General</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-2">Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-3">Moral Improvement through Allegory</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-4">The Influence of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-2">Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-2-1">Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-2-2">Allegory in Mediaeval England</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-3">Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose + of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-3-1">The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-3-2">The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-4">English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-4-1">Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-2">Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-3">The Displacement of Allegory by Example</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + +<p><a href="#index">Index of Names</a></p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="1"></a>Part One<br /> + +The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +Introductory</h3> + + + +<p>By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly +movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the +historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the +renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the +Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule +the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The +interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the +English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This +tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have +shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical +writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries +and original treatises of Italian scholars.</p> + +<p>The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely +discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is +known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English +renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics +to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval +development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will +be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its +development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in +the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to +show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English +renaissance.</p> + +<p>As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a +new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories +were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of +this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas +Wilson's <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's <i>Timber</i> in +1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical +theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence +first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of +Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English +criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories +of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology, +not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but +through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric. +The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical +theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an +inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages. +Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far +into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry +use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This +rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some +extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the +influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian +critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the +mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-1-1"></a>1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the <i>Rhetoric</i> and +the <i>Poetics</i>. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical +consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his +mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, +but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical +basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the +classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly +what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace +the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in +the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in +the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry +contained many elements which historically derive from classical and +mediaeval rhetoric.</p> + +<p>Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical +critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in +addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in +separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of +history were composed in verse, they would still be something different +from poetry.[<a href="#foot2">2</a>] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings +are like those of the poets.[<a href="#foot3">3</a>] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric +against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like +that of the poets.[<a href="#foot4">4</a>] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some +fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a +difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of +ignoring.</p> + +<p>If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of +communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry +second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one +reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry +to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a +modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared +with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry.</p> + +<p>To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a +pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an +audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had +learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work +up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize +this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and +harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined +by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the +schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn.</p> + +<p>In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of +poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed +that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be +poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained. +Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and +Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching +of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did +rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch, +the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the +renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring +to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and +of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their +purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion, +therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in +Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The +object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between +nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is +to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the +other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because +also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better +understood.</p> + +<p>The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic +appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric +deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a +defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the +deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals +with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary +critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized +that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far +the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to +characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it +does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical +unity and movement.</p> + +<p>It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in +the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description +of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an +aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric +deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also +with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and +dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most +important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the +ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises +on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the +technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on +versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern +developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in +this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much +more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood +that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical +rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic.</p> + +<p>Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric +and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative +literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that +the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The +fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is +usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to +them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel, +who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete +and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect, +asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[<a href="#foot5">5</a>] He thus +advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the +Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has +in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence +of poetry is fiction.[<a href="#foot6">6</a>] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce +differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written +in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what +he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the +other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[<a href="#foot7">7</a>] Similar +to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and +intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and +practical.[<a href="#foot8">8</a>] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of +writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[<a href="#foot9">9</a>]</p> + +<p>In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation +between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the +traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical +study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between +rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Classical Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-1"></a>1. Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>A survey of what Aristotle includes in his <i>Poetics</i>, what he excludes, +and what he ignores, will be a helpful initial step in an investigation of +what he meant by poetic. Five kinds of poetry are mentioned by name in the +<i>Poetics</i>: epic, dramatic, dithyrambic, nomic, and satiric; and lyric is +included by implication as a form of epic, where the poet narrates in his +own person.[<a href="#foot10">10</a>]</p> + +<p>The choruses, also, are lyric. Otherwise Aristotle does not discuss lyric +poetry. Of the other five kinds, nomic, dithyrambic, and satiric poetry +are mentioned only as illustrative of something Aristotle wishes to say +about epic or drama. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> discusses only epic and, +especially, drama. Thus of the twenty-six books into which the <i>Poetics</i> +is conventionally divided, five are devoted to the general theory of +poetry, three to diction, two to epic, and sixteen to drama. Although +Aristotle includes dithyrambic, nomic, satiric, and lyric poetry in his +discussion, he practically ignores them.</p> + +<p>On the other hand he specifically excludes from poetry such scientific +works as those of Empedocles and historical writings as those of +Herodotus.[<a href="#foot11">11</a>] The rhetorical element in the speeches of the characters of +drama or epic, Aristotle calls Thought (διάνια). Although +Aristotle includes Thought as an element in drama, he does not discuss it +in the <i>Poetics</i>, but refers his reader to the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Metrics, which +occupies so large a place in modern treatises on the theory of poetry, +Aristotle likewise mentions several times, but does not discuss. A +metrical structure he accepts as the usual practice in poetical +composition, but he rejects verse as the distinguishing mark of poetic. +Thus he refuses to classify as poetry the scientific writings which +Empedocles had composed in meter as well as the histories of Herodotus, +even if he had written them in verse. On the other hand, the mimes of +Sophron and Xenarchus, although composed in prose, he considers within the +scope of poetic.[<a href="#foot12">12</a>]</p> + +<p>If to Aristotle, then, verse is not the characteristic quality of poetic, +the next step in an investigation must be to discover the criterion by +which he classifies some literature as poetry and other as not poetry. The +characteristic quality, according to Aristotle, which is possessed by the +Socratic dialogs, by the Homeric epics, and by the dramas of Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, and which classifies them together as poetic, is +not verse but <i>mimesis</i>, imitation.[<a href="#foot13">13</a>] Exactly what Aristotle meant by +imitation has furnished subsequent critics with an excuse for writing many +volumes. The usual meaning of the word to the Greek, as to the modern, +seems to be little more than an aping or mimicking. Aristotle himself uses +imitate in this sense when he speaks of the delight children take in +imitation.[<a href="#foot14">14</a>] But in establishing imitation as the criterion of poetic, +Aristotle seems to have injected something of a private, or at least a +special scientific meaning into the word. As the characteristic quality of +poetic, imitation to Aristotle evidently did not mean a literal copy. +Plato had attacked poetry as unreal, a thrice-removed imitation of the +only true reality. To defend poetic against the strictures of his master +Aristotle reads more into the word than that.</p> + +<p>In discovering what Aristotle had in mind when he speaks of imitation, the +student must read from one treatise to another, for few writers of any +period are so addicted to the habit of cross-reference. In the +<i>Psychology</i> Aristotle states that all stimuli received by the senses at +the moment of perception are impressed upon the mind as in wax. The images +held by the image-forming faculty are thus the after effect of sensation. +These images remain and may be recalled by the image-forming faculty. From +this store-house of images, or after effects of sensation, the reasoning +faculty derives the materials for thought as well as those for artistic +expression.[<a href="#foot15">15</a>] Imagination evidently has much to do with Aristotle's +conception of the nature of poetic. Imitation, then, to him, meant a +conscious selection and plastic mastery of the sense impressions stored as +images by the image-forming faculty of the author, whose writings are +addressed to the imagination of the reader or auditor. Furthermore, +Butcher's interpretation of "imitation of nature" seems both sound and +suggestive. According to him the imitation of nature is the imitation of +nature's ways. In this sense the act of the poet may well be called +creation.</p> + +<p>As imitative arts Aristotle mentions poetry, dancing, music, and painting. +They differ, he says, in their medium, objects, and manner. Poetry, +dancing, and music he classifies together because they use the similar +media of rhythm, language, or harmony either singly or combined. Music, +for instance, uses both rhythm and harmony, dancing uses rhythm alone, and +poetry uses language alone. Aristotle by this does not, as might seem, +exclude rhythm and harmony from poetry. Indeed, he states explicitly that +most forms of poetry do use all of the media mentioned: rhythm, tune, and +meter. He is only insisting that imitation in unmetrical language is still +poetry; that meter is not the characteristic element of poetic.[<a href="#foot16">16</a>] It is +important to recognize that in classifying poetry with music and dancing, +Aristotle is insisting that the common element in these arts is movement. +Movement is characteristic of poetry, as color and form are characteristic +of painting and sculpture. Thus in discussing the plot of tragedy, which +he holds to be the highest and most characteristic form of poetry, +Aristotle urges the necessity of unity and magnitude, both of which he +defines in terms not of space relations, but of movement. For instance, to +possess unity a plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end.</p> + +<blockquote> A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal + necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An + end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other + thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. + A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows + it.[<a href="#foot17">17</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore, the magnitude which this dramatic movement should possess is +also discussed not in terms of bulk, but of length.</p> + +<blockquote> As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms, a certain + magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in + one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length + which can easily be embraced by the memory.[<a href="#foot18">18</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is noteworthy that to Aristotle the characteristic movement of poetic +depends on the dramatic unity and progression of a dramatic action, a +plot. In the <i>Rhetoric</i> he shows that the arrangement of the movement of a +speech is governed by entirely different considerations. The unity of +rhetoric is not dramatic, but logical. The order of the parts of a speech +is determined not by a plot, but by the needs of presentation to an +audience. For instance, a statement of the case is given first, and then +the proof is marshalled.</p> + +<p>The objects of poetic imitation, Aristotle says, are character, emotion, +and deed, i.e., men in action,[<a href="#foot19">19</a>] inanimate nature and the life of dumb +animals being subordinate to these. The manner of imitating, if poetic, +Aristotle says is either narrative or dramatic. Under the narrative manner +he includes lyric, where the speaker expresses himself in the first +person, and epic, where the speaker tells his story in the third person. +In the dramatic manner he says that the characters are made to live and +move before us.[<a href="#foot20">20</a>]</p> + +<p>Answering Plato's charge that poetic is not real, Aristotle erects the +distinction between the real and the actual, claiming a reality for poetic +which is not the actuality of science or of practical affairs. It is thus +that he distinguishes the poet from the historian: although the historian +also uses images, he is restricted to relating what has happened--that is, +to fact; while the poet relates what should happen--what is possible +according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing +facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be +"true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of +nature."[<a href="#foot21">21</a>] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both +the characterization and the action. In the first place</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry tends to express the universal--how a person of a certain type + will on occasion speak or act according to the law of probability or + necessity.[<a href="#foot22">22</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls +the structure of a narrative or dramatic plot in that, "what follows +should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action,"[<a href="#foot23">23</a>] +even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to +improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational +premise in an action may seem probable provided that the conclusion is +logical and made to seem real.[<a href="#foot24">24</a>] For instance, the irrational elements +in the Odyssey "are presented to the imagination with such vividness and +coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like +truth."[<a href="#foot25">25</a>] Such a result occurs only when the characters and action are +made real. We believe that which we see, even though we know in our hearts +that it is not so.</p> + +<p>How important Aristotle feels it to be that the spectator or reader should +see before him the characters and situations of an epic or drama is +evinced by his suggestion to the poet on the process of composing. The +author, he says, should visualize the situations he is presenting, working +out the appropriate gestures, for he who feels emotion is best at +transmitting it to an audience.[<a href="#foot26">26</a>] It is only when the poet thus +completely realizes his characters and situations that the audience can be +induced to feel sympathetically the pity and fear which produces the +<i>katharsis</i>, so important a result of successful tragedy. If human beings +did not possess that tendency to feel within themselves the emotions of +the people on the stage, they would be unable to experience vicariously +the fear animating the tragic hero. Thus tragedy, which is the type of all +poetic, depends vitally, according to Aristotle, on imaginative +realization.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-2"></a>2. "Longinus"</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle's theory of poetry, which influenced so profoundly the criticism +of the renaissance, was not followed by other classical treatises of the +same scope. In fact, very little Greek or Roman literary criticism is +concerned with poetical theory as compared with the keen interest of many +critics in oratory. Perhaps the most significant and valuable critical +treatise after Aristotle is that golden pamphlet <i>On the Sublime</i> +erroneously ascribed to Longinus, which, anonymous and mutilated as it is, +still holds our attention by its sincerity, insight, and enthusiastic love +for great poetry.</p> + +<p>However important its contribution to classical theory of poetry, the +treatise is not specifically on poetic. In fact, it sets out as if to +treat rhetoric, and actually treats both; for it is mainly a treatise on +style, which as Aristotle says in the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot27">27</a>] is in essence the same +both in prose and verse. Nevertheless it does distinguish between rhetoric +and poetic and does contribute to the theory of poetry.[<a href="#foot28">28</a>]</p> + +<p>"<i>Sublimitas</i>," misleadingly translated "sublimity," the author defines +as elevation and greatness of style. It springs from the faculty of +grasping great conceptions and from passion, both gifts of nature. It is +assisted by art through the appropriate use of figures, noble diction, and +dignified and spirited composition of the words into sentences. It is the +insistence on passion, emotion, which makes the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> +stand out above other classical treatises on writing. Both poets and +orators attain the sublime, says the author, but passion is more +characteristic of the poets.[<a href="#foot29">29</a>]</p> + +<p>Passion moves the poet to intensity, which is attained by selection of +those sensory images which are significant. Thus the treatise praises the +ode by Sappho which it quotes, because the poet has taken the emotions +incident to the frenzy of love from the attendant symptoms, from +actuality, and first selected and then closely combined those which were +conspicuous and intense.[<a href="#foot30">30</a>] This intensity which is characteristic of the +poet he contrasts with the amplification of the orators, which strengthens +the fabric of an argument by insistence and is especially "appropriate in +perorations and digressions, and in all passages written for the style and +for display, in writings of historical and scientific nature." Yet +Demosthenes when moved by passion attains the sublimity of intensity and +strikes like lightning.[<a href="#foot31">31</a>] Both in oratory and in poetry sublimity is +attained by image-making, as when "moved by enthusiasm and passion, you +seem to see the things of which you speak, and place them under the eyes +of your hearers."[<a href="#foot32">32</a>] It would be difficult to phrase better the +conditions of imaginative realization. But the author felt truly that +this realization was different in poetry from what it was in rhetoric. In +commenting on a quotation from the <i>Orestes</i>, of Euripides, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> There the poet saw the Furies with his own eyes, and what his + imagination presented he almost compelled his hearers to behold.</blockquote> + +<p>And after an imaginative passage from the lost <i>Phaethon</i>, of the same +author, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Would you not say that the soul of the writer treads the car with the + driver, and shares the peril, and wears wings as the horses do?</blockquote> + +<p>From this the rhetorical imagination differs in that it is at its best +when it has fact for its object.[<a href="#foot33">33</a>] Longinus would seem to say that the +realization of poetic is untrammeled by fact, while the imagination of the +orator is bound by the actual; it is always practical.</p> + +<p>Because the imaginative realization of poetry is characterized by passion, +intensity, and immediacy, the author of the treatise feels with Aristotle +that the dramatic is the most characteristically poetic. On this basis he +judges the <i>Odyssey</i> to be less great than the <i>Iliad</i>. It is narrative +instead of dramatic; fable prevails over action; passion has degenerated +into character-drawing. This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the +qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize +character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or +for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye +instead of being told.</p> + +<p>The treatise makes this point exceedingly clear by two quotations which +bear repeating.</p> + +<p>"The author of the <i>Arimaspeia</i> thinks these lines terrible:</p> + +<blockquote> "Here too, is mighty marvel for our thought:<br /> +'Mid seas men dwell, on water, far from land:<br /> +Wretches they are, for sorry toil is theirs;<br /> +Eyes on the stars, heart on the deep they fix;<br /> +Oft to the gods, I ween, their hands are raised;<br /> +Their inward parts in evil case upheaved.</blockquote> + +<p>"Anyone, I think, will see that there is more embroidery than terror in it +all. Now for Homer:</p> + +<blockquote> "As when a wave by the wild wind's blore<br /> +Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light,<br /> +And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white,<br /> +And through the sails all tattered and forlorn<br /> +Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright<br /> +Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they are borne."[<a href="#foot34">34</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The first quoted passage is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk +about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the +situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and +hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and shake with the +frightened sailors.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-3"></a>3. Plutarch</h4> + + +<p>But judgments like those of the appreciative and discerning author of the +treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> are rare. Plutarch in his essay <i>On the Reading +of Poets</i>, is much more representative of late Greek criticism. This essay +is not a treatise on the theory of poetry, but a thoughtful discussion of +the place of poetry in the education of young men. Consequently the +greater part of the essay is devoted to the moral purpose of poetry, and +as such will be treated in the second section of this study. Two points, +however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical +imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting.</p> + +<p>The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To +Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. +"While poetry is based on imitations ... it does not resign the likeness +of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[<a href="#foot35">35</a>] As a +result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical +material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things +are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, +just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of +its loathsome subject, is praised for its art.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which +led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was +a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent +poetry."[<a href="#foot36">36</a>] The false analogy, "<i>ut pictura poesis</i>," establishing, as it +does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until +Lessing exposed it in his <i>Laocoon</i>. Aristotle at the beginning had made +clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which +could have a beginning, a middle, and an end.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-4"></a>4. Horace</h4> + + +<p>The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are +the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a <i>poetic</i>; +it is an <i>ars poetica</i>. <i>Ars</i>, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a +practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner +himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its +philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to +become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He +says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found +of assistance."</p> + +<p>In structure, also, the <i>ars poetica</i> is not a critical analysis, but a +text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental +considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to +compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so +that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; +he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter.</p> + +<p>The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to +line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing +of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the +most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are +between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in +that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his +emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace +says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin <i>ab ovo</i> but +plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says +much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be +animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be +made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for +instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden +anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of +the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns +his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and +the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode +presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having +taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they +offend.</p> + +<p>The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is +good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is +appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. +Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript +carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a +sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem +will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. +If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his +work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A +poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better +advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his +"<i>ut pictura poesis</i>" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts +as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely.</p> + +<p>Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here +treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the +early renaissance. Just what the influence of the <i>Ars poetica</i> was and +why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Classical Rhetoric</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-1"></a>1. Definitions</h4> + + +<p>The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is +reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical +orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric +can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. +The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. +In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical +theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his +whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there +were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for +their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the <i>Rhetoric ad +Alexandrum</i>, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated +in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek +text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's +rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through +the influence of his <i>Rhetoric</i> and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus +set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct +from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, +but briefer.</p> + + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">Definitions</p> + +<p>"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering +all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[<a href="#foot37">37</a>]</p> + +<p>He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he +believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring +him to as high a point of health as possible."[<a href="#foot38">38</a>] Neither medicine nor +rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always +something incalculable.</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that +the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available +means of persuasion,[<a href="#foot39">39</a>] his successors were more direct, if less +accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is +persuasion,[<a href="#foot40">40</a>] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the +artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[<a href="#foot41">41</a>] But the +anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. +Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by +defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of +the audience as far as possible."[<a href="#foot42">42</a>] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is +that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the +assent of his audience.[<a href="#foot43">43</a>] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes +a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as +the <i>ars bene dicendi</i>, or good public speech.[<a href="#foot44">44</a>] Here the <i>bene</i> implies +not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception +the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times +when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to +persuade would be dishonorable.[<a href="#foot45">45</a>] Quintilian's precepts, however, are +more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself +throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible +means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that +the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-2"></a>2. Subject Matter</h4> + + +<p>If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion +as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[<a href="#foot46">46</a>] +says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made +persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and +successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was +almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were +or were not so, or persuading a deliberative assembly that this or that +should or should not be done. Consequently Hermagoras defines the subject +matter of rhetoric as "public questions," Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as +"communal affairs," and the <i>Ad Herennium</i> as "whatever in customs or laws +is to the public benefit."[<a href="#foot47">47</a>] The same influence caused Cicero in his +youthful <i>De inventione</i> to classify rhetoric as part of political +science,[<a href="#foot48">48</a>] and in the <i>De oratore</i> to make Antonius restrict rhetoric to +public and communal affairs,[<a href="#foot49">49</a>] although in another section he returns to +Aristotle's "any subject" as the material of rhetoric[<a href="#foot50">50</a>] as does +Quintilian later.[<a href="#foot51">51</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle did state in his definition that any subject was the +material of rhetoric, in his classification of the varieties of speeches +he practically restricts rhetoric as did Hermagoras, Dionysius, and the +<i>Ad Herennium</i>; for here he finds but three kinds of oratory: the +deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional, ἐπιδεικτικός. +Forensic oratory he defines as that of the law court; deliberative, of the +senate or public assembly; and occasional, of eulogy and congratulation. +Perhaps the most illustrative modern examples of the third would be +Fourth-of-July addresses, funeral sermons, and appreciative articles or +lectures. Aristotle suggests that exaggeration is most appropriate to the +style of occasional oratory; for as the facts are taken for granted, it +remains only to invest them with grandeur and dignity.[<a href="#foot52">52</a>]</p> + +<p>Occasional oratory seems to have given no little concern to the classical +rhetoricians. Since it existed to adorn an occasion, it had to be +considered; but unlike the oratory of the forum or of the council chamber +it was not primarily practical. Quintilian comments on this; for it seems +to aim almost exclusively at gratifying its hearers,[<a href="#foot53">53</a>] in this respect +resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but +pleasure.[<a href="#foot54">54</a>] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those +of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective +"literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[<a href="#foot55">55</a>] +Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from +the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it +were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently he +declines to classify this form of oratory separately, reducing +Aristotle's three kinds of oratory to two. It is valuable, to his mind, as +the wet-nurse of the young orator, who enlarges his vocabulary and learns +composition from its practice.[<a href="#foot56">56</a>] Aristotle includes it in rhetoric; for +in its field of eulogy, panegyric, felicitation, and congratulation, it +too uses the available means of persuasion to prove some person or thing +praiseworthy or the reverse.[<a href="#foot57">57</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-3"></a>3. Content of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Classical rhetoricians commonly divided their subject into five parts. +This analysis of rhetoric into <i>inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria</i>, +and <i>pronuntiatio</i> is to all intents and purposes universal in classical +rhetoric and must be understood to give one a valid idea of its +content.[<a href="#foot58">58</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, so often lazily mistranslated as "invention," is +the art of exploring the material to discover all the arguments which may +be brought to bear in support of a proposition and in refutation of the +opposing arguments. It includes the study of arguments and fallacies; and +is that part of rhetoric which is closest neighbor to logic. The kinds of +argument treated in the classical rhetoric were two: the enthymeme, or +rhetorical syllogism; and the rhetorical induction or example. In the +practice of rhetoric <i>inventio</i> was thus the solidest and most important +element. It included all of what to-day we might call "working up the +case." <i>Dispositio</i> is the art of arranging the material gathered for +presentation to an audience. Aristotle insists that the essential parts of +a speech are but two: the statement and the proof. At most it may have +four: the <i>ex ordium</i>, or introduction; the <i>narratio</i>, or statement of +facts; the <i>confirmatio</i>, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and +the <i>peroratio</i>, or conclusion.[<a href="#foot59">59</a>] This is the characteristic movement of +rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot +movement of poetic.[<a href="#foot60">60</a>] The parts are capable of further analysis. +Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof +proper into <i>probatio</i>, or affirmative proof, and <i>refutatio</i>, or +refutation.[<a href="#foot61">61</a>] And the <i>Ad Herennium</i> adds a <i>divisio</i>, which defines the +issues, between the statement of facts and the proof.[<a href="#foot62">62</a>] Cassiodorus +divides the speech into six parts[<a href="#foot63">63</a>] and so does Martianus Capella.[<a href="#foot64">64</a>] +Thomas Wilson (1553) offers seven.[<a href="#foot65">65</a>]</p> + +<p>The third part of rhetoric is <i>elocutio</i>, or style, the choice and +arrangement of words in a sentence. Quintilian's treatment of style is +typical. Words should be chosen which are in good use, clear, elegant, and +appropriate. The sentences should be grammatically correct, artistically +arranged, and adorned with such figures as antithesis, irony, and +metaphor.[<a href="#foot66">66</a>] Correctness is usually presupposed by the rhetoricians. To +the sound of sentences all classical treatises give an attention that +seems amazing if we forget that in Greece and Rome all literature was +spoken or read aloud. The sentence or period was considered more +rhythmically than logically, and subdivided in speech into rhythmical +parts called commas and cola. The end of the sentence was to be marked not +by a printer's sign, but by the falling cadence of the rhythm itself. +Furthermore, great care should be taken to avoid hiatus between words, as +when the first word ends and the word following begins with a vowel. But +the glory of style to the classical rhetorician lay in its use of figures. +Here rhetoric vindicated its practicality by a preoccupation with the +impractical; and here, as in analysis, rhetoric bore the seeds of its own +decay. Although Aristotle devoted relatively little space to the +rhetorical figures, later treatises emphasized them more and more until in +post-classical and in mediaeval rhetoric little else is discussed. The +figures of course had to be classified. First there were the <i>figurae +verborum</i>, or figures of language, which sought agreeable sounds alone or +in combination, such as antitheses, rhymes, and assonances. Then the +<i>figurae sententiarum</i>, or figures of thought, such as rhetorical +questions, hints, and exclamations.[<a href="#foot67">67</a>] Quintilian classifies as tropes +words or phrases converted from their proper signification to another. +Among these are metaphor, irony, and allegory. In our day we consider as +figures of speech only the classical tropes, and indeed Aristotle pays +little attention to the others. He says that in prose one should use only +literal names of things, and metaphors, or tropes[<a href="#foot68">68</a>]--which therefore are +not literal names but substituted names. For instance in this metaphor, +which Aristotle quotes from Homer, "The arrow flew,"[<a href="#foot69">69</a>] "flew" is not the +literal word to express the idea. Only birds fly, reminds the practical +person. Max Eastman has pertinently called attention to the fact that it +is only to rhetoric, which is a practical activity, that these figures are +indirect expressions, or substituted names. Apostrophe is not a turning +away in poetic, because in poetic there is no argument to turn away from. +Rather in poetic it is a turning toward the essential images of +realization, as metaphor in poetic is direct, not indirect, because in +poetic a word that suggests the salient parts or qualities of things will +always stand out over the general names of things.[<a href="#foot70">70</a>]</p> + +<p>The last two parts of rhetoric, <i>memoria</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>, are really +not permanent parts of rhetoric, but only of the rhetoric of spoken +address. <i>Memoria</i>, the art of memory, did not mean to the Greeks and +Romans the art of learning by heart a written speech, but rather the art +of keeping ready for use a fund of argumentative material, together with +the features of the case which the speaker might be pleading. The +discussion of it in the treatises is usually an exposition of the mnemonic +system of visual association, the discovery of which is ascribed to +Simonides. Cicero deliberately leaves a discussion of <i>memoria</i> out of his +<i>Orator</i>, because as he says, it is common to many arts;[<a href="#foot71">71</a>] and the Dutch +scholar Vossius in the renaissance denied that it was a part of +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot72">72</a>] <i>Pronuntiatio</i>, or delivery, has also been found hardly an +integral part of rhetoric. It is concerned with the use both of the voice +and of gesture. Quintilian, for instance, records the effectiveness of +clinging to the judge's knees, or of bringing into the court room the +weeping child of the accused.[<a href="#foot73">73</a>] Aristotle discusses only the use of the +voice.[<a href="#foot74">74</a>]</p> + +<p>Thus classical rhetoric was almost exclusively restricted to the +practical oratory of persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome a +mastery of rhetoric gave its possessor political power; for by persuasive +public speech a public man could gain a following by defending his clients +in the law courts, and influence the destinies of the state by his +deliberations in the legislative assembly. As long as these republican +institutions prevailed, the theory and practice of rhetoric continued to +be sound and practical.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-4"></a>4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Implicit in Aristotle and throughout classical literary criticism there is +a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the +metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing +characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially +practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the Greeks and Romans as +something quite different from poetic and infinitely more important in +education and public life. But however clear-cut this distinction may be +in principle, in practical application there is rarely to be found such +ideal isolation.</p> + +<p>Aristotle, for instance, carries rhetoric bodily over into poetic by +including Thought, διάνοιᾰ, as the third in importance of the +constituent elements of tragedy.[<a href="#foot75">75</a>] This Thought is the intellectual +element in conduct, and in drama is embodied not in action, but in +speech.[<a href="#foot76">76</a>] Aristotle says,</p> + +<blockquote> It is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given + circumstances. In the case of oratory, this is the function of the + political art and of the art of rhetoric. Concerning thought, we may + assume what is said in the <i>Rhetoric</i>, to which inquiry the subject more + properly belongs. Under thought is included every effect which has to be + produced by speech, the subdivisions being--proof and refutation; the + excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger and the like; the + suggestion of importance or its opposite.[<a href="#foot77">77</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This is a transfer of the content of rhetoric to poetic, but poetic +remains an art of imitation. Imaginative realization of the life of man +would be incomplete if the characters in a narrative or in a drama did not +use the same rhetorical art as do the characters of actual life. The poets +justly carry over rhetoric when the scene demands it, and have often +proved themselves excellent rhetoricians. Quintilian praises the +peroration of Priam's speech begging Achilles for the body of Hector,[<a href="#foot78">78</a>] +and Cicero gives a rhetorical analysis of the speech of the old man in the +<i>Andria</i> of Terence, where the arrangement is especially appropriate to +the character of the speaker.[<a href="#foot79">79</a>] Norden, therefore, seems to go too far +in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.[<a href="#foot80">80</a>] +Dante remains an excellent poet when he puts into the mouth of Virgil that +persuasive speech to Cato in the first canto of the <i>Purgatorio</i>. Antony's +speech in <i>Julius Caesar</i> is the best known modern example of the +legitimate place of rhetoric in poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-5"></a>5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Just as rhetoric is justly carried over into poetic when in the +realization of a character or situation a speech must be made or conduct +rationalized, so poetic is constantly utilized by the orator. Public +speech would be less persuasive if the characteristic imaginative +qualities of poetic were excluded. The ideas and propositions of rhetoric +would most ineffectually reach an audience if they were not made vivid. +That rhetoric is not thus made synonymous with poetic is due to the fact +that in rhetoric the images exist to illuminate the concept, while in +poetic they are woven into the movement of the plot. Oratory, like poetry, +is emotional, as Longinus asserts.[<a href="#foot81">81</a>] Cicero phrases the aim of the +orator as "docere, delectare, et movere," to prove, to delight, to move +emotionally.[<a href="#foot82">82</a>] The vividness and emotion, as well as the charm, of +poetic are indispensable in attaining the ultimate aim of rhetoric-- +persuasion. The orator must be himself moved, according to Quintilian,[<a href="#foot83">83</a>] +just as the poet, according to Aristotle.[<a href="#foot84">84</a>] That essential quality, +indeed, of poetic, the realization of character and situation which +presents vividly a situation or event to the mind's eye of the reader or +hearer so that he seems to participate in the action and vicariously live +through it, was incorporated into rhetoric as ἐνέγεια, a figure +of speech. There petrified in an alien substance, this characteristic +quality of poetic was transmitted to another age which knew of it through +no other source.[<a href="#foot85">85</a>] Thus a successful orator narrated with descriptive +vividness the circumstances, for instance, of a cruel murder, and even +dramatized, speaking now in the person of one actor, now of another, the +situation which he was endeavoring to realize for his audience. He was +thus enabled better to carry his audience with him to his ultimate goal of +persuasion.</p> + +<p>But though rhetoric might for the moment thus borrow poetic, and though +poetic might borrow rhetoric, the two remained distinct in the large, each +conceived as having its own movement, its composition, distinct from that +of the other.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-1"></a>1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</h4> + + +<p>The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically +in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in +this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of +recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of +the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[<a href="#foot86">86</a>] while the +modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the +sophists.[<a href="#foot87">87</a>] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity +between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century +B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between +Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous +Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so +elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than +to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself +on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his +discourses as in poems.[<a href="#foot88">88</a>]</p> + +<p>That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and +poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is +common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the +<i>Rhetoric</i> he refers to the <i>Poetics</i> for a fuller discussion of +metaphor.[<a href="#foot89">89</a>] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great +attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment. +Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not +to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical, +a set rhythm, a meter, is appropriate only to verse.[<a href="#foot90">90</a>]</p> + +<p>A distinction between the style of poetic and of rhetoric similar to that +of Aristotle is maintained by Cicero, but the distinction was losing its +sharpness. In the <i>Orator</i> he considers the orator and the poet as similar +in style, but not identical. Formerly rhythm and meter were the +distinguishing marks of the poet, but the orators in his days, he says, +made increasing use of rhythm. Meter is a vice in an orator and should be +shunned. The poet has greater license in compounding and inventing words. +Both prose and verse, he adds, may be characterized by brilliant imagery +and headlong sweep.[<a href="#foot91">91</a>] The only essential difference between Cicero's +treatment of style and that of Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle had +shown imagery to be an integral part of poetic, Cicero felt it both in +poetic and in rhetoric to be superadded as a decoration. Whether or not +this difference was caused by lack of discrimination on the part of +Cicero, his position was at least in line with a tendency which in later +criticism received increasing development. Both the poet and the orator, +he says, use the same methods of ornament,[<a href="#foot92">92</a>] and the orator uses almost +the language of poetry.[<a href="#foot93">93</a>] And again, in a phrase which was taken up and +repeated for fifteen hundred years, the poets are nearest kin to the +orators.[<a href="#foot94">94</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-2"></a>2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>But the public interest in style was increasingly comparable to that in +athletic agility. As Socrates applauded the dancing girl who leaped +through the dagger-studded hoop,[<a href="#foot95">95</a>] the popular audience of imperial Rome +was delighted at a clever turn of speech, a surprising rhythm, or a +startling comparison. Literary study of style in occasional oratory must +have been extensive and extravagant at a very early date, to judge by the +rebukes of such practical speakers as Alcidamas. Moreover, such stylistic +artifice as was practiced and taught by Gorgias, Isocrates, and other +sophists crept into tragedy, says Norden, beginning with Agathon.[<a href="#foot96">96</a>] The +result was that with the poets style became as it had become with the +sophists, an end in itself. The epideictic orators became less orators and +more poets, and the poets cultivated less the characteristic vividness and +movement of poetic than those turns of style which began in oratory.</p> + +<p>Thus it was very natural that the discussions of artistic prose in the +treatises of the later rhetoricians should be copiously illustrated by +quotations from the poets, and that the poets should, in turn, be +influenced in the direction of further sophistical niceties by the +rhetorical treatises on style, such as those of Demetrius and Dionysius of +Halicarnassus, who devoted whole treatises to style alone. The obsession +of style is well exemplified by a comparison of Dionysius and Longinus in +their discussion of Sappho's literary art. Longinus praises her passion, +and her masterful selection of images which realize it for the reader, +while Dionysius, no less enthusiastic, points out that in the ode which he +quotes there is not a single case of hiatus. Dionysius is here much the +more characteristic of his age, as he is in his belief that there is very +little difference indeed between prose and verse. Longinus, while showing +the relations of rhetoric and poetic, keeps the two apart; Dionysius draws +them together. To Dionysius the best prose is that which resembles verse +although not entirely in meter, and the best poetry that which resembles +beautiful prose. By this he means that the poet should use enjambment +freely and should vary the length and form of his clauses, so that the +sense should not uniformly conclude with the metrical line.[<a href="#foot97">97</a>] In this +regard he would approve of Shakespeare's later blank verse much more than +of his earlier because it is freer and more like conversation. Thus, to +Dionysius, the diction of prose and the diction of poetry approach each +other as a limit.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-3"></a>3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation School</h4> + + +<p>Later antiquity carried the mingling further in the same direction. As +time went on, the over-refinement and literary sophistication of the +florid school of oratory became more and more powerful. The puritan +reaction of the Roman Atticists in the direction of the simplicity of +Lysias defeated itself in over emphasis and ended in establishing coldness +and aridity as literary ideals. Such a jejune style could never hold a +Roman audience, and Cicero in theory and in practice took as model not +only Demosthenes, but also Isocrates. As Roman liberty was lost under the +Caesars, style very naturally assumed greater and greater importance. +Bornecque has shown that the strife of the forum and the genuine debates +of the senate no longer kept tough the sinews of public speech, and the +orators sank back in lassitude on the remaining harmless but unreal +occasional oratory and on the fictitious declamations of the schools.[<a href="#foot98">98</a>] +In these declamation schools under the Empire the boys debated such +imaginary questions as this: A reward is offered to one who shall kill a +tyrant. A. enters the palace and kills the tyrant's son, whereupon the +father commits suicide. Is A. entitled to the reward? In the repertory of +Lucian occurs a show piece on each side of this proposition. For two +hundred years there had been no pirates in the Mediterranean; yet in the +declamation schools pirates abounded, and questions turned upon points of +law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite +cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the +adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the +declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with +frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The +master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, +would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his +pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[<a href="#foot99">99</a>]</p> + +<p>The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no +better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. +Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. +Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I +will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie +unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other +side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But +I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The +court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in +shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where +figures were appreciated.[<a href="#foot100">100</a>] But in spite of the ridiculous performance +of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, +in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased +popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[<a href="#foot101">101</a>] style +continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were +applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque +has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so +unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to +attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss +in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not +surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the +Christian era the sense of composition seems to have disappeared from +Latin literature."[<a href="#foot102">102</a>] Thus Quintilian lamented that in his day the well +constructed periods of Cicero appealed less to the perverted popular taste +than the brilliant but disjointed epigrams of Seneca.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-4"></a>4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>As style gained this preponderence in rhetoric, it continued to increase +its hold on poetic. While the rhetoricians were exemplifying from the +poets their schemes and tropes, their well joined words, "smooth, soft as +a maiden's face,"[<a href="#foot103">103</a>] the poets on their part were assiduously practicing +all the rhetorical devices of style. Thus the literature of the silver-age +is rhetorical. The custom of public readings by the author encouraged +clever writing and a declamatory manner,[<a href="#foot104">104</a>] even had the poets not +received their education in the only popular institutions of higher +instruction--the declamation schools. The fustian which passed for poetry +and equally well for history is well illustrated by the contempt of the +hard-headed Lucian for those historians who were unable to distinguish +history from poetry. "What!" he exclaims, "bedizen history like her +sister? As well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up +with purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his +cheeks; faugh, what an object one would make of him with such +defilements!"[<a href="#foot105">105</a>] But meretricious ornament was popular, and poets, +historians, and orators alike scrambled to see who could most adorn his +speech. Quintilian's pleas for the purer taste of a former age fell on +deaf ears, and despite his warnings orators imitated the style of the +poets, and the poets imitated the style of the orators.[<a href="#foot106">106</a>] Gorgias may +or may not have learned his style from the ancient poets of Greece, but +the poets of the silver age learned from the tribe of Gorgias.</p> + +<p>Not only did poetry and oratory suffer from the same bad taste in +straining for brilliance of style, but in practice, as Bornecque has +shown, both poetry and oratory suffered for lack of structure. The poets +paid so much attention to style that they neglected plot construction and +the vivid realization of character and situation. The orators paid so much +attention to style that they lost the art of composing sentences, and of +arranging sound arguments in such a way as to persuade an audience. In +effect there was a tendency for the late Latin writers to ignore those +elements of structure and movement wherein poetry and oratory most differ, +and stress unduly the elements of style wherein they have the most in +common. Indeed, so completely did any fundamental distinction between +poetic and rhetoric become blurred that in the second century Annaeus +Florus was able to offer as a debatable question, "Is Virgil an orator or +a poet?"[<a href="#foot107">107</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-5"></a>Chapter V<br /> + +The Middle Ages</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-1"></a>1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>The seven liberal arts of mediaeval education carried the blending almost +to the absorption of poetic by rhetoric, and the debasement of rhetoric +itself to a consideration of style alone.</p> + +<p>As for poetic, it had no distinct place except in the analyses of the +grammaticus, who from classical times had prepared boys for the schools of +rhetoric partly by analyzing with them the style of admirable passages. +These passages were commonly taken from the poets, whose art was thus +considered mainly as an art of words and applied to the art of the orator. +Consequently, as a result of this tradition, poetic in the middle ages was +commonly grouped with grammar or with rhetoric, although Isidore includes +it in his section on theology.[<a href="#foot108">108</a>]</p> + +<p>The rhetorical treatises of the middle ages exhibit two phases. On the one +hand the earlier post-classical treatises composed by Martianus Capella, +Cassiodorus, and Isidore, all inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, are +fairly close to the classical tradition of Quintilian. Their weakness +consists not in that they restricted rhetoric to style, but in that their +whole treatment of rhetorical theory was compact, arid, and schematic. The +second phase of mediaeval rhetoric is characteristic of a geographical +position more remote from the center of classical culture. Thus it is in +the rhetorical treatises of England and Germany in the middle ages that +rhetoric was to the greatest extent restricted to a consideration of +style. Illustrative of this tendency is the fact that the only surviving +rhetorical work by the Venerable Bede is a treatise on the rhetorical +figures.</p> + +<p>But although the conventional study of rhetoric in such condensed +treatment as that of the sections in Martianus, Isidore, or Cassiodorus, +was definitely intrenched in the educational system of the seven liberal +arts, it had no vitality. In the first place these treatises gave only the +dry husks of rhetoric, the conventional analyses, the stock definitions. +In the second place rhetoric was little applied. The political life of +western Europe centered in the camp, not in the forum. The classical +tradition of trial by a large jury, as the Areopagus or the Centumviri, +had given place to trial before the regal or manorial court. Thus rhetoric +dried up and lost whatever reality it had possessed in imperial Rome.</p> + +<p>But if the middle ages had no opportunity to apply rhetoric in its +function of persuasion in communal affairs, they did have real need of an +art of writing letters and of preparing lay or ecclesiastical documents, +such as contracts, wills, and records, and of preaching sermons. Thus in +the teaching of the schools, as well as in practice, the oration gave +place to the epistle and dictamen. "Dictare" was to write letters or +prepare documents. And the rhetorical treatise or "<i>ars rhetorica</i>" often +yielded to the "<i>ars prosandi</i>," or the "<i>ars dictandi</i>."[<a href="#foot109">109</a>]</p> + +<p>A characteristic treatise of this sort is the <i>Poetria</i> of the Englishman +John of Garland (c. 1270). In his introductory chapter John explains that +he has divided the subject into seven parts:</p> + +<blockquote> First is explained the theory of invention; then the manner of selecting + material; third, the arrangement and the manner of ornamentation; next, + the parts of a dictamen; fifth, the faults in all kinds of composition + (dictandi); sixth is arranged a treatise concerning rhetorical ornament + as necessary in meter as in prose, namely, the figures of speech and the + abbreviation and amplification of the material; seventh and last are + subjoined examples of courtly correspondence and scholastic dictamen, + pleasantly composed in verse and rhythms, and in diverse meters.[<a href="#foot110">110</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Under the head of invention John gives definitions, several examples of +good letters, a long list of proverbs under appropriate captions so that +the letter writer can quickly find the one to fit his context, and an +"elegiac, bucolic, ethic love poem" in fifty leonine verses, accompanied +by an inevitable allegorical interpretation.[<a href="#foot111">111</a>] Then he comes to +selection. Tully, he admits, puts arrangement after invention, "but," he +pleads, "in writing letters and documents poetically the art of selection +after that of invention is useful."[<a href="#foot112">112</a>] For he thinks of selection only +as the selection of words. A writer, he says, should select his words and +images according to the persons addressed. The court should be addressed +in the grand style; the city, in the middle style; and the country, in the +mean style.[<a href="#foot113">113</a>] One should arrange in three columns in a note-book the +words and comparisons appropriate to each style so that the material will +be handy when he wishes to write a letter. These principles John +illustrates with leonine verses and ecclesiastical epistles. Under +arrangement he says that all material must be so arranged as to have a +beginning, a middle, and an end. Then there are nine ways to begin a poem +and nine ways to begin a dictamen or epistle. Next he states that there +are six parts to an oration: "exordium, narracio, peticio, confirmacio, +confutacio, conclusio."[<a href="#foot114">114</a>] As an example of this division of the oration +into parts he quotes a long poem which persuades its reader to take up the +cross. Still under the general head of arrangement John explains the ten +ways of amplifying material. The tenth, "interpretacio," he illustrates by +telling a joke, and then amplifying it into a little comedy. "Comedy," he +says, "is a jocose poem beginning in sadness and ending in joy: a tragedy +is a poem composed in the grand style beginning in joy and ending in +grief."[<a href="#foot115">115</a>] Next follow the six metrical faults, the faults of +salutations in letters, a classification of the different kinds of poems, +and further talk on different styles in writing. His sixth chapter, on +ornament in meter and prose, presents what he has up to this left unsaid +about style. It includes a list of fifty-seven figures of speech (<i>colores +verborum</i>) and eighteen figures of thought (<i>colores sententiarum</i>). This +is logically followed by the ten attributes of man. The seventh and final +chapter gives a long narrative poem of the horrific variety as an example +of tragedy and several letters as examples of dictamen.</p> + +<p>Such a digest shows better than any generalization a complete confusion of +poetic and rhetoric. Poems were to be written according to the formulae of +orations; allegory throve. Infinite pains were to be expended on the +worthless niceties of conceited metrical structure and rhetorical figures. +Garland has neither real poetic nor real rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-2"></a>2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language</h4> + + +<p>As to the late middle ages rhetoric had come to mean to all intents +nothing more than style, it is frequently personified in picturesque +mediaeval allegory, never as being engaged in any useful occupation, but +as adding beauty, color, or charm to life. In the <i>Anticlaudianus</i> of +Alanus de Insulis, Rhetoric is represented as painting and gilding the +pole of the Chariot of Prudence.[<a href="#foot116">116</a>] In the rhymed compendium of +universal knowledge which its author, Thomasin von Zirclaria, justly calls +<i>Der Wälsche Gast</i>, for learning was indeed a foreign guest in thirteenth +century Germany, rhetoric appears in a similar rôle. "Rhetoric," says +Thomasin, "clothes our speech with beautiful colors,"[<a href="#foot117">117</a>] and he gives as +his authority, "Tulljus, Quintiljan, Sidônjus," although Apollinaris +Sidonius seems to be the only one of the trio he had ever read.[<a href="#foot118">118</a>] This +theory lived to a vigorous old age. Palmieri, in his <i>Della Vita Civile</i> +(1435), defines rhetoric as "the theory of speaking ornamentally."[<a href="#foot119">119</a>] +And Lydgate traces all the beauty of rhetoric to Calliope, "that with thyn +hony swete sugrest tongis of rethoricyens."[<a href="#foot120">120</a>]</p> + +<p>The most complete example, however, of the mediaeval restriction of +rhetoric to style, and of the absorption of poetic by rhetoric is afforded +by Lydgate in his <i>Court of Sapyence.</i> The passages which refer to +rhetoric are given in full because they can otherwise be consulted only +in the Caxton edition of 1481 or in the black letter copy printed by +Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.[<a href="#foot121">121</a>]</p> + +<i>Introductory verses.</i> + +<blockquote> O Clyo lady moost facundyous<br /> +O ravysshynge delyte of eloquence<br /> +O gylted goddes gaye and gloryous<br /> +Enspyred with the percynge influence<br /> +Of delycate hevenly complacence<br /> +Within my mouth let dystyll of thy shoures<br /> +And forge my tonge to gladde myn auditoures.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes<br /> +With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute<br /> +Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes<br /> +And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute<br /> +So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute<br /> +The redolent dulcour aromatyke<br /> +Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke.</blockquote> + + +<p align="center"><i>The section of rhetoric.</i></p> + +<blockquote> Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence<br /> +Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous<br /> +With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence<br /> +Within her parlour fresshe and precyous<br /> +Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous<br /> +Her audytours gan to all Joye converte<br /> +Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>And many clerke had lust her for to here<br /> +Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance<br /> +Eche worde of her depured was so clere<br /> +And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce<br /> +That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce<br /> +Her termes gay as facunde soverayne<br /> +Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>She taught them the crafte of endytynge<br /> +Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be<br /> +Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge<br /> +Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte<br /> +Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be<br /> +Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse<br /> +Whiche is Coma Colym perydus.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont<br /> +And wolde conceyve the colours purperate<br /> +Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt<br /> +And to Galfryde the poete laureate<br /> +To Janneus a clerke of grete estate<br /> +Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke<br /> +Of this mater there groundely may he loke.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In Tullius also moost eloquent<br /> +The chosen spouse unto this lady free<br /> +His gylted craft and gloyre in content<br /> +Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see<br /> +Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre<br /> +The bookes of lawe and of physyke good<br /> +Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In prose and metre of all kynde ywys<br /> +This lady blyssed had lust for to playe<br /> +With her was blesens Richarde pophys<br /> +Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay<br /> +With maters vere poetes in good array<br /> +Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace<br /> +Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.</blockquote> + +<p>Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context +than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of +rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as <i>docere, delectare, et movere</i>, only +the <i>delectare</i> remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial +invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with +the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers +to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to +the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in +Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with +ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part +of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses +the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures +of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "<i>colores verborum</i>." And when he refers +to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical +divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et +periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of +"elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, +and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's +rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical +rhetoric--style.</p> + +<p>But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded +to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as +the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more +than this style, he does not say so.</p> + +<p>Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. +Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term +rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A +rhetor was one who was a master of style.[<a href="#foot122">122</a>] Henryson, for instance, +calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[<a href="#foot123">123</a>] Chaucer admired Petrarch +for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[<a href="#foot124">124</a>] and +was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of +brytagne,"[<a href="#foot125">125</a>] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by +John Walton.[<a href="#foot126">126</a>] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the +steps of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot127">127</a>] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and +asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot128">128</a>] Bokenham calls +Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[<a href="#foot129">129</a>] and as late as +1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our +language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[<a href="#foot130">130</a>] The entire period was +thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited +at its best in the works of the poets.</p> + +<p>The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in +his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he +calls <i>The Pastime of Pleasure</i> (1506). He begins, of course, with an +apology for</p> + +<blockquote> Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes<br /> +Without rethorycke or coloure crafty;<br /> +Nothinge I am experte in poetry<br /> +As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[<a href="#foot131">131</a>]</blockquote> + +And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: + +<blockquote> O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge<br /> +Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[<a href="#foot132">132</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two +greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their +rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber +gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned +and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of +incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers +of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his +literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what +rhetoric is,</p> + +<blockquote> Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason<br /> +Man for to governe wel and prudently;<br /> +His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[<a href="#foot133">133</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the +beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour +to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of +the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. +Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells.</p> + +<p>Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot134">134</a>] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the +classical <i>inventio</i>. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," +discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, +who is familiar with the <i>inventio</i> of classical rhetoric, concerned as it +is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection +with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted +not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and +explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a +defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term <i>inventio</i> is +thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from +rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a +speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians +because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to +competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word +rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even +have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. +At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical <i>dispositio</i> only in +name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>Pronunciation (<i>pronuntiatio</i>), or delivery, of course applies to either +poets or orators. But whereas classical writers applied it to the orator's +use of voice and gesture, Hawes applies it only to the poet's reading +aloud. He recommends that when a poet reads his verses, he should make his +voice dolorous in bewailing a woeful tragedy, and his countenance glad in +joyful matter. It is important, however, that the reading poet be not +boisterous or unmannered. Let him be moderate, gentle, and seemly. The +final section, that on memory, comes closer to its classical sense than +does any other. Here the mnemonic system of "places," supposedly invented +by Simonides, is explained obscurely. Even more obscure is its +applicability to Hawes's subject.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that the chapter on Elocution (<i>elocutio</i>), +or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. +Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to +rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain +<i>inventio</i>; 12, <i>dispositio</i>; 40, <i>elocutio</i>; 8, <i>pronuntiatio</i>; and 8, <i>memoria</i>. "Elocusyon," says Hawes, "exorneth the mater."</p> + +<blockquote> The golden rethoryke is good refeccion<br /> +And to the reader ryght consolation.[<a href="#foot135">135</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. +Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, +dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they +gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold. But +beyond these picturesque generalizations there is little trace in Hawes of +any discussion of style such as one would find in a classical treatise. A +few figures of speech are mentioned, but not dwelt upon. Hawes +consistently confines himself to poetry. Tully, the only orator mentioned, +shares a line with Virgil. The main concern is with the devices used by +the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an +adjunct of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> my mayster Lydgate veryfyde<br /> +The depured rethoryke in Englysh language;<br /> +To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed<br /> +That the vyle termes should nothing arage<br /> +As like a pye to chatter in a cage,<br /> +But for to speke with rethoryke formally.[<a href="#foot136">136</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In a word, the whole traditional division of rhetoric is transferred to +poetry, and at the same time both rhetoric and poetic are limited to the +single part which they have in common--diction. The style cultivated by +this focus is ornamental and elaborate. If Lydgate or Hawes had believed +that rhetoric included more than aureate language, surely the scope of +their treatises would have afforded them opportunity to correct this +impression. Each of them is endeavoring to present a compendium of +universal knowledge according to the conventional analysis of the seven +liberal arts. Illustrative details might be omitted, but not important +sections of the subject matter.</p> + +<p>The meanings of words change, and with such changes we have no quarrel. It +is important, however, that we should know what the English middle ages +meant by rhetoric if we are to appreciate how powerful was the tradition +of the middle ages and in what direction it influenced the literary +criticism of the English renaissance. To resume, the middle ages thought +of poetry as being composed of two elements: a profitable subject matter +(<i>doctrina</i>), and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). The profitable subject matter was +theoretically supplied by the allegory. This will be discussed in the +second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical +discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been +shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-6"></a>Chapter VI<br /> + +Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-1"></a>1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic</h4> + + +<p>But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of +Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in +life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament. Such a +serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic, +accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with +smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the +ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful +content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to +hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly +entitles <i>De inventione dialectica</i>, he defines logic as the art of +speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in +a speech.[<a href="#foot137">137</a>] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains +"<i>elocutio</i>," style; and logic carries over "<i>inventio</i>," as his title +shows, and "<i>dispositio</i>." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic +extremes of rhetoric he shows by denying to oratory any aim of pleasing +and moving. Of Cicero's threefold purpose, to teach, to please, and to +move, he retains only teaching as pertinent to effective public speech. +"Docere," to teach, he uses in the classical sense which includes proof as +well as instruction. Thus he says it has two parts: exposition and +argument.[<a href="#foot138">138</a>] The parts of a speech he reduces to the minimum proposed by +Aristotle: the statement and the proof. Thus although Agricola admits that +rhetoric is most beautiful, he will have none of her.</p> + +<p>Following this lead, Thomas Wilson, the English rhetorician and statesman, +defines logic and rhetoric as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Logic is occupied about all matters, and doeth plainlie and nakedly set + forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by way of argumentation. + Rhetorike useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those matters + with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at large.[<a href="#foot139">139</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Agricola and Wilson logic has supplanted rhetoric in finding +all possible means of persuasion in any subject. Following Peter +Ramus,[<a href="#foot140">140</a>] Wilson finds that logic has two parts: <i>judicium</i>, "Framyng of +thinges aptlie together, and knittyng words for the purpose accordynglie," +and <i>inventio</i>, "Findyng out matter, and searchyng stuffe agreable to the +cause."[<a href="#foot141">141</a>] Hermagoras and others had in antiquity considered <i>judicium</i>, +or judgment, as a part of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot142">142</a>] although Quintilian thought it +less a part of rhetoric than necessary to all parts.[<a href="#foot143">143</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, of +course, has always been the most important part of rhetoric. This same +carrying over of the content of classical rhetoric into logic is further +illustrated by Abraham Fraunce, who divides his <i>Lawiers Logic</i> (1588) +into two parts: invention and disposition.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-2"></a>2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>But while the survival of the mediaeval notion that rhetoric was concerned +mainly with style thus gave over in the English Renaissance <i>inventio</i> and +<i>dispositio</i> to logic, there naturally remained nothing of classical +rhetoric but <i>elocutio</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>. A brief survey of the English +rhetorics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will show +that this was the case. Richard Sherry devotes an entire book to style in +his "Treatise of Schemes and Tropes" (1550).[<a href="#foot144">144</a>] He begins by defining +"eloquucion, the third part of Rhetoric," as the dressing up of thought. +Rhetoric to him had not in theory become style, but style is the only part +which he finds interesting enough to treat. His schemes and tropes are of +course the rhetorical figures; but let him explain them in his own artless +way. "A scheme is the fashion of a word, sayyng or sentence, otherwyse +wrytten or spoken then after the vulgar and comon usage. A trope is a +movynge and changynge of a worde or sentence, from thyr owne significacion +into another which may agree with it by a similitude." Henry Peacham's +<i>Garden of Eloquence, Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric</i> +(1577) likewise deals only with the rhetorical figures.</p> + +<p>In the anonymous, <i>The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike</i> (1584),[<a href="#foot145">145</a>] +rhetoric is denned as "an arte of speaking finelie. It hath two parts, +garnishing of speach, called Eloqution, and garnishing of the manner of +utterance, called Pronunciation."[<a href="#foot146">146</a>] Thus by definition rhetoric +includes only style and delivery. Under garnishing of speech the author +treats only the rhetorical figures. This restriction of style to figures +is characteristic. The rhythm of prose upon which classical treatises on +style lavished such enthusiastic pains is practically ignored in those +English treatises. The <i>comma, colon</i>, and <i>periodus</i> which to classical +authors signified rhythmical units in the sentence movement had already +come to mean to most people only marks of punctuation.[<a href="#foot147">147</a>] Garnishing of +utterance Fenner does not discuss at all.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Arcadian Rhetorike</i> (1588), Abraham Fraunce treats both. +"Rhetorike," he says, "is an Art of Speaking. It hath two parts, Eloqution +and Pronuntiation. Eloqution is the first part of Rhetorike, concerning +the ordering and trimming of speech. It hath two parts, Congruity and +Braverie." Congruity (as pertaining more to grammar) he does not discuss. +"Braverie of speach consisteth of tropes or turnings, and in figures or +fashionings."[<a href="#foot148">148</a>] The remainder of the first book deals with meter and +verse forms, baldly of prose rhythm, epizeuxis, conceited verses, and +various rhetorical figures. The second book deals with the voice and +gestures. This rhetoric of Fraunce's, then, complements his <i>Lawiers +Logike</i> of the same year, the latter dealing with the finding out and +arrangement of arguments in a speech, and the former with style and +delivery. Rhetoric is thus concerned only with stylistic artifice in verse +as well as in prose.</p> + +<p>The same tradition is upheld by Charles Butler, who in his Latin school +rhetoric (1600) defines rhetoric as the art of ornate speech and divides +it into <i>elocutio</i>, a discussion of the tropes and figures, and +<i>pronuntiatio</i>, the use of voice and gesture.[<a href="#foot149">149</a>] And John Barton is +worse. In his <i>Art of Rhetorick</i> (1634) he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Rhetorick is the skill of using daintie words, and comely deliverie, + whereby to work upon men's affections. It hath two parts, adornation and + action. Adornation consisteth in the sweetness of the phrase, and is + seen in tropes and figures.</blockquote> + +<p>He continues:</p> + +<blockquote> There are foure kinds of tropes, substitution, comprehension, + comparation, simulation. The affection of a trope is the quality whereby + it requires a second resolution. These affections are five: abuse, + duplication, continuation, superlocution, sublocution. A figure is an + affecting kind of speech without consideration had of any borrowed + sense. A figure is two-fold: relative and independent,</blockquote> + +<p>and he names over in his jargon the six figures which are of each +kind.[<a href="#foot150">150</a>] If this be rhetoric, perhaps there was justification for John +Smith's <i>The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvailed</i> (1657), which continued the +fallacious tradition by dividing rhetoric into elocution and +pronunciation.</p> + +<p>This perversion of rhetoric which considered it as concerned only with +style, or aureate language, was not restricted to the school books. The +popular use of rhetoric as synonymous with "fine honeyed speech,"[<a href="#foot151">151</a>] is +seen in a passage from <i>Old Fortunatus</i>, where it carries the modern +connotation of a meretricious substitute for genuine feeling, as where +Agripyne says,</p> + +<blockquote> "Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his + affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home spun + stuff; there's no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric."[<a href="#foot152">152</a>]</blockquote> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-3"></a>3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>A half century before Smith unveiled the mysteries of rhetoric, Bacon had +in his <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) pointed out the fallacies of the +renaissance obsession with style. He briefly traces the causes of the +renaissance study of language and adds:</p> + +<blockquote> "This grew speedily to an excesse; for men began to hunt more after + wordes than matter, and more after the choisenesse of the Phrase and the + round and cleane composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of + the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their workes with + tropes and figures, then after the weight of matter, worth of subject, + soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement."[<a href="#foot153">153</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sooner or later the school books had to reform. The Latin school rhetoric +of Thomas Vicars (1621), after one has perused the treatise of his +predecessors and contemporaries, is so conservative as to appear +startling. It has all the air of a novelty. Yet all he does is to return +to the classical tradition by defining rhetoric as the art of correct or +effective speech having five parts: <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, +<i>memoria</i>, and <i>pronuntiatio</i>[<a href="#foot154">154</a>]. And Thomas Farnaby, whose <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> appeared in six editions between 1633 and 1654, gives a fairly +proportioned treatment of <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, and +<i>actio</i>. <i>Memoria</i> he omits, following here, as elsewhere, the sound +leadership of Vossius.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-4"></a>4. Channels of Classical Theory</h4> + + +<p>This perversion of rhetorical theory in the middle ages and early +renaissance had resulted not from mere wrong-headedness on the part of the +rhetoricians, but from the limited knowledge of classical tradition during +the middle ages. Especially was this true in those parts of western +Europe, such as England, which were remote from the Mediterranean +countries which better preserved the heritage of Greece and Rome. +Moreover, the most important classical treatises on the theory of +poetry--by Aristotle and Longinus--were almost unknown throughout the +middle ages, and the rhetorical writings of Cicero and Quintilian were +known only in fragments.</p> + +<p>Servatus Lupus (805-862), Abbot of Ferrieres and a learned man, was +unusual in his scholarship; for he knew not only the rhetoric <i>Ad +Herennium</i> which was believed to be Cicero's but also the <i>De oratore</i> and +fragments of Quintilian.[<a href="#foot155">155</a>] The current rhetorical treatises of the +middle ages were Cicero's <i>De inventione</i>, and the <i>Ad Herennium.</i> The <i>De +oratore</i> was used but slightly, and the <i>Brutus</i> and the <i>Orator</i> not at +all.[<a href="#foot156">156</a>] What little classical rhetoric there is in Stephen Hawes was +derived from the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.</p> + +<p>The survival and popularity of the <i>Ad Herennium</i> during this period is +one of the most interesting phenomena of rhetorical history. Of the +classical treatises on rhetoric which survive to-day it undoubtedly +arouses the least interest and can contribute the least to modern +education or criticism. Yet it is the most characteristic Latin rhetoric +we possess. It is a text-book of rhetoric which was used in the Roman +schools. In fact, Cicero's <i>De inventione</i> is so much like it that some +suspect that Cicero's notes which he took in school got into circulation +and forced the publication of his professor's lectures. Aristotle's +philosophy of rhetoric, Cicero's charming dialog on his profession, +Quintilian's treatise on the teaching of rhetoric--none of these is a +text-book. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> is. It is clear and orderly in its +organization. It defines all the technical terms which it uses, and +illustrates its principles. As one might expect, it delights in +over-analysis, in categories and sub-categories, the four kinds of causes, +the three virtues of the <i>narratio</i>. In the hands of a skilled teacher of +composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly +would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical +or literary treatises. Thus in Guarino's school at Ferrara (1429-1460) the +<i>Ad Herennium</i> was regarded as the quintessence of pure Ciceronian +doctrine of oratory, and was made the starting point and standing +authority in teaching rhetoric. In more advanced classes it was +supplemented by the <i>De oratore, Orator</i>, and what was known of +Quintilian.[<a href="#foot157">157</a>] The <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus testifies that by the next +century the scholarship of the renaissance had discovered that the <i>Ad +Herennium</i> was not from the pen of Cicero, and that the <i>De inventione</i> +was considered apologetically by its famous author, who wrote his <i>De +oratore</i> to supersede the more youthful treatise.[<a href="#foot158">158</a>] But six years after +the publication of the <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus, the edition of Cicero's +<i>Opera</i> published in Basel in 1534 still incorporates the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +and Thomas Wilson in England owes most of his first book and part of the +second of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> to its anonymous author, whom he +believed to be Cicero. For instance in his section on <i>Devision</i> as a part +of a speech, Wilson says, "Tullie would not have a devision to be made, +of, or above three partes at the moste, nor lesse then three neither, if +neede so required."[<a href="#foot159">159</a>]</p> + +<p>"Tullie" says no such thing. Indeed, Cicero never considers <i>divisio</i> as +one of the parts of a speech. But the <i>Ad Herennium</i> does make <i>divisio</i> a +part of a speech,[<a href="#foot160">160</a>] and does require not over three parts.[<a href="#foot161">161</a>] As late +as 1612, Thomas Heywood quotes the authority of "Tully, in his booke <i>Ad +Caium Herennium</i>."[<a href="#foot162">162</a>]</p> + +<p>The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is +well illustrated by a count of the manuscripts preserved. In the libraries +of Europe today there exist seventy-nine manuscripts of the <i>De +inventione</i>, eighty-three of the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, forty of the <i>De +oratore</i>, fourteen of the <i>Brutus</i>, and twenty of the <i>Orator.</i>[<a href="#foot163">163</a>] Thus +in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the <i>De +inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.[<a href="#foot164">164</a>] The <i>De inventione</i> is the source +for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric +known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters +of it into Italian.[<a href="#foot165">165</a>] Although mutilated codices of the <i>De oratore</i> +and the <i>Orator</i> were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, +complete manuscripts of these most important works were not known previous +to 1422.[<a href="#foot166">166</a>] The <i>Ad Herennium</i> and the <i>De inventione</i> were first +printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers +(1476) was the <i>Ad Herennium</i> under the usual mediaeval title of the +<i>Rhetorica nova</i>. The first edition of the <i>De oratore</i> was printed in the +monastery of Subaco about 1466. The <i>Brutus</i> first appeared in Rome (1469) +in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[<a href="#foot167">167</a>] +Before its first printing the <i>Orator</i> was used as a reference book for +advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara.</p> + +<p>Castiglione's indebtedness to the <i>De oratore</i> is well known, but few +notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's +dedicatory paragraphs of the <i>Orator.</i></p> + +<p>But in England the first reference to the <i>Orator</i> appears in Ascham's +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[<a href="#foot168">168</a>] +Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the +pseudo-Ciceronian <i>Ad Herennium</i> and from the youthful <i>De inventione</i>, +not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them. +Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred +years after it had been displaced in Italy.</p> + +<p>The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a +Latin translation by Hermanus Allemanus (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's +commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores +Graeci</i> (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of +Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin +version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[<a href="#foot169">169</a>] This was +frequently reissued in the <i>Opera</i> of Aristotle together with the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in +the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the <i>Poetics</i> in Pazzi's +translation. As the true <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, known to the renaissance +as the <i>Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten</i>, was so frequently published with +the spurious <i>Rhetorica</i>, references to Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i> in the +sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell +whether the <i>Rhetoric</i> required to be read by Oxford students in the +fifteenth century[<a href="#foot170">170</a>] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, +however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were +available, that the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle had so slight an influence on +English rhetorical theory.</p> + +<p>The <i>De institutione oratoria</i> of Quintilian was too long to be preserved +intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well +known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, +and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by +Cassiodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth +century until Poggio discovered the complete manuscript at St. Gall in +1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis +of an incomplete manuscript Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth +century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous +enthusiast made a selection of the <i>Flores Quintilianei</i>.[<a href="#foot171">171</a>] Thus, while +the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the +Ciceronian tradition rested on the <i>De inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the +treatises of Cassiodorus and Isidore, passed current throughout the middle +ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world +of scholars welcomed a familiar friend.</p> + +<p>Other classical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly. +The <i>De compositione verborum</i> of Dionysius of Halicarnassus received its +first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by +Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend +of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, +when the <i>Scholemaster</i> was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, +but shows no great familiarity with the text.[<a href="#foot172">172</a>]</p> + +<p>The <i>De sublimitate</i> of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England. +Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, +once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at +Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of +its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> (1633). The advance of classical scholarship in England is +indeed no better illustrated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited +sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, +Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an +imposing list of sources.</p> + +<blockquote> "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, + Demetrius Phal,[<a href="#foot173">173</a>] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus <i>De + sublimitate</i>, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martianus + Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, + Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, + Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A. + Valladero."</blockquote> + +<p>Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover +to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in +Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as +to others, both classical and mediaeval.</p> + +<p>With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions +of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of +the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in +mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the +lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such +classical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In +the second place, the recovery of classical criticism in the Italian +renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of classical +theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, +did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in classical +antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that classical theories of +poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost +as slow head against English mediaeval tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-7"></a>Chapter VII<br /> + +Renaissance Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-1"></a>1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>In concluding his authoritative study, <i>A History of Literary Criticism in +the Renaissance</i>, Spingarn asserts that before the sixteenth century, +"Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical +treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those +upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the <i>Institutions +Oratoriae</i> of Quintilian, and the <i>De Legendis Gentilium Libris</i> of Basil +the Great."[<a href="#foot174">174</a>] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great +change was brought about by the publication of the classical critical +writings, especially the <i>Poetics</i> of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval +criteria of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i> were superseded by many new ones.</p> + +<p>The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a +separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone +into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be +summarized as follows:</p> + +<p>The recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> brought about a complete change in +poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing +and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a +hundred years later.</p> + +<p><i>The Poetics</i> had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin +abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew +translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac +translation of the Greek.[<a href="#foot175">175</a>] Although the <i>Poetics</i> was not included in +the Aldine <i>Aristotle</i> (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was +printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the <i>Rhetoric</i> for the first time at +Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text +was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> (1508)[<a href="#foot176">176</a>] badly +edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the +Basel edition of Aristotle's <i>Opera</i> (1538) with Filelfo's version of the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of +Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Robortelli +edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by +Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by +Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the <i>De Poeta</i> (1559) of Minturno and +the <i>Poetics</i> (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories +were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the <i>Scholemaster</i> (1570), +and never elucidated before Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i> (c. 1583, pub. +1595).</p> + +<p>But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of +the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, renaissance +theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has +summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as passing through +three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and +philology.[<a href="#foot177">177</a>] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in +the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance +the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has +pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the classical +theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those +who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his +poem on great poems of classical antiquity, some critics suggested, he +could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle +for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The +rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are +stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to +the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary +models.</p> + +<p>Although with good taste as well as classical erudition Ascham preferred +Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view +was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with +style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, +but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to +the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but +also on account of his moral maxims or <i>sententiae</i>. In England the two +greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this +high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, +<i>Gorbuduc</i>, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are +stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully +taught.[<a href="#foot178">178</a>] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those +elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity +and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence."</p> + +<p>The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable +subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely +evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the +essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as +in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The +commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that +of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical +treatises.</p> + +<p>Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were +an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[<a href="#foot179">179</a>] +Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a +poet; Livy a historian.[<a href="#foot180">180</a>] Castelvetro probably came nearest to +Aristotle in asserting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in +prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is +prose.[<a href="#foot181">181</a>] Vossius anticipates Prickard's explanation of Aristotle by +defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To +him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a +historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[<a href="#foot182">182</a>] These are only a few +examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly +studied.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-2"></a>2. Rhetorical Elements</h4> + + +<p>This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse +was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction +between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle +ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable +subject matter <i>(doctrina)</i> and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). If the definition +goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator +lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use +of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be +written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic +difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the +middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of +style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in +Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll +has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the +case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[<a href="#foot183">183</a>]</p> + +<p>In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is +frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars +whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the +vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the <i>Poetics</i> +practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized +in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's +over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, +low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) +of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[<a href="#foot184">184</a>] Maggi[<a href="#foot185">185</a>] and +Tifernas[<a href="#foot186">186</a>] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest +neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by +meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same +material,[<a href="#foot187">187</a>] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to +discriminate in their choice of words.[<a href="#foot188">188</a>]</p> + +<p>As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but +Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the +<i>narratio</i> of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of +facts. Confusing the <i>narratio</i> of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says:</p> + +<blockquote> There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and + perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second + and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot189">189</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is +supposed by classical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of +his speech.[<a href="#foot190">190</a>] Furthermore, says Pontanus, one can write very good +poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[<a href="#foot191">191</a>] No wonder Luis Vives +complained in his <i>De Causis Corruptarum Artium</i>,</p> + +<blockquote> The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two + that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call + rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language. + The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put + eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[<a href="#foot192">192</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive +studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical +elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The +Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the +overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of +the sounder critical theories of classical antiquity. Their service to +subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the +whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few +cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-8"></a>Chapter VIII<br /> + +Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-1"></a>1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</h4> + + +<p>Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry +formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth +century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which +Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance +theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval +tradition and from the classical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual +displacements of these elements by the sounder classical tradition which +reached England from Italy.</p> + +<p>"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given +up to rhetorical study."[<a href="#foot193">193</a>] In his period he includes Cox and Wilson, +the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he +characterizes as one of classification and metrical studies, he says, "A +long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a +rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[<a href="#foot194">194</a>] These +two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered +together.</p> + +<p>Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the +art of poetry. The rhetorics of Cox (1524) and Wilson (1553) were +rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of +a direct contact with classical rhetoric. Because Cox founded his treatise +on the sound scholarship of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of +his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely +under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on +rhetoric in England.</p> + +<p>Another scholar in classical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) contains the first reference in England to +Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>. But except as a teacher of language and of +literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he +classifies literature into <i>genres</i> of poetry, history, philosophy, and +oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and +Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a +field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the +result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of +individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power +than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's <i>Absolon</i> and +Buchanan's <i>Iephthe</i> he considers the best tragedies of his age because +only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and +Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, +and in imitation of good models.[<a href="#foot195">195</a>] Watson he especially praises for his +refusal to publish <i>Absolon</i> because in several places an anapest was +substituted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of classical +rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness.</p> + +<p>The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the classical +treatises, but from the middle ages. His <i>Certayne Notes of Instruction</i> +(1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the +English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of +grammar, following the classical tradition; but in France prosody had +regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As +Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in +the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired +Gascoigne.[<a href="#foot196">196</a>]</p> + +<p>Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, +borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas +Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, +Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie +of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies +is illustrated by his own example.</p> + +<p>If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither +praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are +<i>trita et obvia</i>. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby +my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake +to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the +prayse of hir commendacion.[<a href="#foot197">197</a>]</p> + +<p>By far the greater part of Gascoigne's treatise is devoted to metrics and +to style. One can use, he says, the same figures or tropes in verse as are +used in prose. It is noteworthy that in this treatise on making verses +Gascoigne restricts himself to externals of form and style. When he does +discuss the subject-matter of poetry, instead of emphasizing the +seriousness of content, he talks about his mistress' "cristal eye."</p> + +<p>What has been said about Gascoigne applies almost equally well to the +<i>Schort Treatise</i> (1584) of James VI which was modeled on it. Like +Gascoigne's <i>Notes</i>, it is rhetorical and concerned with only the +externals of poetry. The treatise is almost entirely a metrical study, +although the author does call attention to three special ornaments of +verse, which are comparisons, epithets, and proverbs. The other figures of +rhetoric which are so appropriate to poetry James says may be studied in +Du Bellay. In both these writers, poetry is treated in the categories of +the middle ages. Poetry to them is composed of subject-matter and style. +The characteristic structure and movement of poetry is not considered at +all.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-2"></a>2. The Influence of Horace</h4> + + +<p>Thus far there had been no fundamental criticism of poetic in England, no +attempt to arrive at the basis of critical theory. Horace had been known +long before, but not until Drant's translation of the <i>Ars Poetica</i> into +English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in +England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is +George Whetstone's <i>Dedication to Promos and Cassandra</i> (1578). The +passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of +classicism. Whetstone inveighs against the English dramatist who "in three +howers ronnes throwe the worlde, marryes, gets children, makes Children +men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from +Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel."[<a href="#foot198">198</a>] This is the earliest record in +England of an insistence on unity of time and place. Then he urges the +claims of decorum in comedy. The poet should not make clowns the +companions of kings, nor put wise counsels into the mouth of fools. "For, +to worke a comedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct, yonge men +should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lascivious, +Boyes unhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye."[<a href="#foot199">199</a>]</p> + +<p>It is interesting that this conception of the characters in a drama should +ultimately trace back through many perversions to Aristotle's rhetorical +theory. There are three kinds of proof, says Aristotle in the <i>Rhetoric</i>: +the character of the speaker, the production of a certain disposition in +the audience, and the argument of the speech itself. The last kind of +proof is derived from logic; the first two, from psychology.[<a href="#foot200">200</a>] +Consequently, Aristotle devotes almost a third of his <i>Rhetoric</i>, the +second book, to an elaborate exposition of the passions (πάθη) of men, so that the orator may know how to +excite or allay them according as the necessities of his case demand, and +a full explanation of the character (ᤦθος) +of men, that the speaker may know how to impress upon his audience his own +trustworthiness, and adapt his arguments to the character of the +particular audience which he is addressing. Varieties of character in an +audience depend upon its passions, its virtues and vices, its age or +youth, and its position in life.[<a href="#foot201">201</a>] Aristotle's generalizations on the +character of young people and old, of the wealthy, noble and powerful, +display penetrating acumen. That flesh and blood character realizations in +drama or story could be attained by this method Aristotle never intended. +He is talking of public address. But the study of characterization as part +of the education of an orator became fixed in the curriculum of rhetoric +schools. The boys were supposed to study certain types of persons and then +write character sketches to show their sharpness of observation. +Theophrastus, Aristotle's favorite student and successor as head of the +school in Athens, wrote his <i>Characters</i> to show how it was done, and did +it with such ability as to elevate the school exercise to a literary +form. These "characters" were epitomized in the Latin rhetorics and the +school exercises continued. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> calls them +<i>notatio</i>,[<a href="#foot202">202</a>] Cicero, <i>descriptio</i>,[<a href="#foot203">203</a>] and Quintilian, <i>mores</i>.[<a href="#foot204">204</a>]</p> + +<p>Quintilian furthermore makes interesting comments on the use of the +character sketches by the poets. Character (ᤦθος) in +oratory, he says, is similar to comedy, as the passions (πάθος) +are to tragedy.[<a href="#foot205">205</a>] Professor Butcher calls attention to the early +influence of the character sketches on the middle comedy. Here the +"humours," to anticipate Ben Jonson, give names not only to the characters +of the play, but to the plays themselves.[<a href="#foot206">206</a>] As adopted by the drama, +the orator's view that people of a certain age and rank are likely to +behave in certain fashions was perverted to the dramatical law of +<i>decorum</i>, that people of certain age or rank must on the stage act +up to this generalization of what was characteristic. This law of decorum +was formulated by Horace in his <i>Ars Poetica</i>,[<a href="#foot207">207</a>] whence it was +derived by the renaissance. Thomas Wilson, in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, +gives a Theophrastian character sketch as an illustration of the figure +<i>descriptio</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> As in speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch + peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of + his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire + of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a + Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this thirtie Winter. He spent + once a groate at good ale, being forced through companie, and taken + short at his words, whereupon he hath taken such conceipt since that + time, that it hath almost cost him his life."[<a href="#foot208">208</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In 1592 Casaubon edited Theophrastus in Latin. Thereafter the character +sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of +remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[<a href="#foot209">209</a>] In the theory of the drama +the rhetorical method of characterization, fixed as the law of decorum, +flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England +from Whetstone on it was made much of. Thus a rhetorical tradition of +classical pedagogy, derived ultimately from Aristotle, and a poetical +tradition of later classical drama, derived from Horace, coincide in the +English renaissance.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender</i> (1579), for +instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye +where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach."[<a href="#foot210">210</a>] The +archaisms are defended in the first place, indeed, because they are +appropriate to rustic speakers, but in the second because Cicero says that +ancient words make the style seem grave and reverend. Further praise E.K. +grants the author because he avoids loose sentence structure and affects +the oratorical period. "Now, for the knitting of sentences, whych they +call the ioynts and members thereof, and for all the compasse of the +speach, it is round without roughness."[<a href="#foot211">211</a>] The "ioynts and members" are +the <i>cola</i> and <i>commas</i> of the oratorical prose rhythm. Stanyhurst in the +<i>Dedication</i> to his translation of Virgil (1582), like E. K., is concerned +with style rather than matter, and of course primarily with the revival +of classical meters, a subject already so thoroughly investigated that it +need not be gone into here.[<a href="#foot212">212</a>] Stanyhurst's praise of Virgil is largely +concerned with formal and rhetorical excellences.</p> + +<blockquote> Our <i>Virgil</i> dooth laboure, in telling as yt were a <i>Cantorburye tale</i>, + too ferret owt the secretes of <i>Nature</i>, with woordes so fitlye coucht, + wyth verses so smoothlye slyckte, with sentences so featlye ordered, + with orations so neatlie burnisht, with similitudes so aptly applyed, + with eeche <i>decorum</i> so duely observed, as in truth hee hath in right + purchased too hym self thee name of a surpassing poet, thee fame of an + od oratoure, and thee admiration of a profound philosopher.[<a href="#foot213">213</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus in accord with the mediseval tradition he analyzes poetry into +profitable subject matter and style.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-3"></a>3. The Influence of Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>In 1579 the Puritan attack on poetry and the stage began with Gosson's +<i>School of Abuse.</i>[<a href="#foot214">214</a>] and was answered by Lodge's <i>Defence of Poetry</i> in +the same year. The attack and defense both rested on moral, not aesthetic, +sanctions and will be discussed in a later section. It is only in Sidney's +<i>Defense</i> (c. 1583) and that of his follower Harington that theories of +the nature of poetry are included. And with Sidney the Aristotelianism of +the Italian renaissance makes its first appearance in English +criticism.[<a href="#foot215">215</a>]</p> + +<p>"Poesie," writes Sidney, "therefore is an arte of imitation, for so +Aristotle termeth it in his word <i>Mimesis</i>, that is to say, a +representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speake metaphorically, +a speaking picture."[<a href="#foot216">216</a>] Thus not only Aristotle's imitation enters +English criticism, but Plutarch's speaking picture as well, with all the +power of its false analogy. That Sidney himself was not, however, carried +away by the analogy is apparent from other passages. Aristotle, +classifying poetic with music and dancing as a time art with its essence +in movement, had insisted that a poem must have a beginning, a middle, and +an end--qualities which do not exist in space. So in the most quoted +passage from Sidney's <i>Defense</i>, it is a "tale forsooth," which draws old +men from the chimney corner, and children from play,[<a href="#foot217">217</a>] and "the +narration" which furnishes the groundplot of poesie.[<a href="#foot218">218</a>] Thus he +introduces into English criticism, as an important element of poetry, the +essentially sound idea that the characteristic structure of poetry lies in +its narrative and dramatic movement. Poetry cannot lie because it never +pretends to fact. He establishes this assertion on Aristotle's "universal +not the particular" as the basis of poetic. Sidney had followed Scaliger +in classifying poets into three kinds: the theological, the philosophical, +and the right poets. The third class, the real poets, he says, "borrow +nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, onely rayned with +learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and +should be."[<a href="#foot219">219</a>]</p> + +<p>In considering the vehicle of poetic Sidney parts company with Scaliger +and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the +characteristic mark of poetry. The <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, and the +<i>Theagines and Cariclea</i> of Heliodorus are poems, although written in +prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although +indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest +rayment."[<a href="#foot220">220</a>] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater +aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," +and "seates," from the mnemonic system of Simonides usually incorporated +in the section on memory in the classical rhetorics.[<a href="#foot221">221</a>] Furthermore, +Sidney is the first in England to insist on the vividness of realization +which comes from the poet's being himself moved. Discussing lyric poetry, +Sidney says:</p> + +<blockquote> But truely many of such writings as come under the banner of + unresistable love, if I were a Mistres, would never perswade mee they + were in love; so coldely they apply fiery speeches, as men that had + rather red Lovers writings, and so caught up certaine swelling + phrases,... then that in truth they feele those passions, which easily + (as I think) may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness or <i>Energia</i> (as + the Greeks call it), of the writer.[<a href="#foot222">222</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sidney's <i>Energia</i> came to him from the rhetorics of Aristotle and +Quintilian via the <i>Poetice</i> of Scaliger.[<a href="#foot223">223</a>] <i>Energia</i>, the vivifying +quality of poetry, had at the earliest age been adopted by rhetoric to +lend power to persuasion. Carefully preserved among the figures of +rhetoric, it had survived the middle ages, and appears in Wilson's <i>Arte +of Rhetoric</i> as "an evident declaration of a thing, as though we saw it +even now done."</p> + +<p>Sidney makes <i>energia</i> an essential quality of poetic; but even with him +it seems to have a rhetorical cast. It is especially to be used, says +Sidney, by a lover to persuade his mistress, urging her to yield while yet +her beauty endures. This <i>genre</i> of versified oration to one's mistress +was unusually popular in Elizabethan England. It may even be one reason +for Bacon's classification of lyric poetry as part of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot224">224</a>] +Although <i>energia</i> does belong to both poetic and rhetoric, as +pseudo-Longinus implies,[<a href="#foot225">225</a>] there seems to be here a definitely +rhetorical conception of poetic style. Sidney, however, keeps the +classical distinction between rhetoric and poetic, although he was +conscious of their contact in diction. "Both," he says with Aristotle, +"have an affinity in this wordish consideration."[<a href="#foot226">226</a>] While many +renaissance critics interpreted this affinity as permitting rhetorical +elaboration in poetry as well as in prose, Sidney with innate good taste +pleaded for more restraint. The diction of the writers of lyrics is even +worse, he says, than their content.</p> + +<blockquote> So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence apparalled, or rather + disguised, in a Curtizan-like painted affectation: one time with so + farre fette words, they seem monsters, but must seem strangers to any + poore English man, another tyme with coursing of a Letter as if they + were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary; another tyme, with + figures and flowers extreamelie winter-starved.[<a href="#foot227">227</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Prose writers, he adds, are as badly infected as "versers," even scholars +and preachers. That he himself was infected appears in the examples of +interminable "tropes" and "schemes" quoted by Fraunce in his <i>Arcadian +Rhetoric</i> (1588) from Sidney's own <i>Arcadia</i>. But the concession of his +own style to the habit of his age did not involve any fundamental +confusion of rhetoric with poetic.</p> + +<p>Thus Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i>, by domesticating in England the +Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing +mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that +Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and +from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to +expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought +which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney +instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years +established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases +toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism +profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is +interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the +mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show +classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable +residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-4"></a>4. Manuals for Poets</h4> + + +<p>Before William Webbe wrote his <i>Discourse of English Poetry</i> (1586) there +had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive +study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely +glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James +attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were +primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the +Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as +a main object. In his <i>Discourse</i> Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose +in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on +English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to +discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be +aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much +attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, +poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall <i>Eloquution</i>, +as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one +descent."[<a href="#foot228">228</a>] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by +eloquence, he cites Lyly's <i>Euphues</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave + composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make + tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, + in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine + sence.[<a href="#foot229">229</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to +be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. +Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in +style. He adds:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning + and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure + of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an + apt composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the + hearers eares even whether soever it lysteth, that <i>Plato</i> affirmeth + therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to + persuade.[<a href="#foot230">230</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and +rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have +poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of +diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the +diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse +and oratory in prose.</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in + measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion + of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt + and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly + called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[<a href="#foot231">231</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come +seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best +known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the +<i>Discourse</i> is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into +matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval +<i>doctrina</i>, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are +derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the +figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical +meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His +treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with +an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his +treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of +poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from +the <i>Ars Poetica</i>, and the <i>Epistles</i>.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589), +generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the +some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to +write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, +Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to +write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise +an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, +Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes +most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and +satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the +Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of +poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his +inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles +Aristotle and Horace.[<a href="#foot232">232</a>] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the +importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in +war, engineering and politics.[<a href="#foot234">234</a>] That the art of poetry is eminently +teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill +appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by +reason and gathered by experience.[<a href="#foot233">233</a>] It is verse, according to +Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This +makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more +eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and +set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it +sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so +beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best +persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[<a href="#foot235">235</a>] +Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more +beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better +able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and +history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, +and so on. The second book, <i>Of Proportion</i>, 70 pages, is a treatise on +metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English +versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures +such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is +devoted to classical meters. In his third book, <i>Of Ornament</i>, 165 pages, +Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of +speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, +Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[<a href="#foot236">236</a>]. Professor +Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his <i>Poetic and Verse +Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth</i>, because, he says, it does not fall +within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as +applicable to prose as to verse[<a href="#foot237">237</a>]. That Puttenham did include it, +however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading +public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the +ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be +seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly +embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and +bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham.</p> + +<blockquote> This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which + be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his + language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or + passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment[<a href="#foot238">238</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>The figures Puttenham divides according to his own scheme. First come the +figures <i>auricular</i> peculiar to the poets, then the figures <i>sensable</i> +common to the poets and the rhetoricians, and finally the figures +<i>sententious</i> appropriate to the orators alone. After he has explained the +first two varieties, however, and enters on the third, Puttenham says:</p> + +<blockquote> Now if our presupposall be true, that the Poet is of all other the most + auncient Orator, as he that by good and pleasant perswasions first + reduced the wilde and beastly people into publicke societies and + civilitie of life, insinuating unto them, under fictions with sweete and + coloured speeches, many wholesome lessons and doctrines, then no doubt + there is nothing so fitte for him, as to be furnished with all the + figures that be <i>Rhetoricall</i>, and such as do most beautifie language + with eloquence and sententiousness. So as if we should intreate our + maker to play also the Orator, and whether it be to pleade, or to + praise, or to advise, that in all three cases he may utter and also + perswade both copiously and vehemently[<a href="#foot239">239</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>Puttenham was writing in the same age and with the same tradition which +defined Rhetoric as the art of ornament in speech. The only difference +between oratory and poetry lay in that the latter was composed in verse.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-5"></a>5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</h4> + + +<p>From Puttenham to Bacon no serious contributions were made to the general +theory of poetry. Critical attention was absorbed by controversies of +Campion and Daniel over native and classical versification, and the +flyting of Harvey and Nash. Harvey was a classical scholar and rhetorician +who knew that poetry and oratory were different things, and believed verse +to be the mark of the first and prose of the latter[<a href="#foot240">240</a>]. He preferred the +periodic style of Isocrates and Ascham to the tricksy pages of +Euphues[<a href="#foot241">241</a>]. Chapman, likewise, considered verse the mark of poetry, and +prose of rhetoric[<a href="#foot242">242</a>].</p> + +<p>In the <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) Bacon clears up some of the +misconceptions of the English renaissance by judicious borrowing from the +Italian. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> Poesie is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part + restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly + referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of + Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever + that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & + divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or + Matter. In the first sense it is but a <i>Character</i> of stile, and + belongeth to Arts of speeche. In the later, it is, as hath beene saide, + one of the principall Portions of learning, and is nothing else but + <i>Fained History</i>, which may be stiled as well in Prose as in Verse.[<a href="#foot243">243</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Bacon's focus of attention on the substance of poetry is in keeping with +his attack on mere sophistication of style in rhetoric. Poetry as style +does not interest him. Like Castelvetro and Sidney, he considers the +vehicle of verse not essential to poetry, which, as a product of the +imagination, he considers to be occupied with fiction. To Bacon, perhaps, +the imagination seems to be too much the organ of make-believe, imaging +things which never were on land or under the sea. Nevertheless his claim +for the imagination is fortunate in ruling out those theories of art which +set up slavish fidelity to fact, under the name of imitation, as the +essence of poetry. Bacon was not concerned with formulating a complete +theory of poetry, but his pithy <i>obiter dicta</i> were influential in further +establishing the sounder criticism of the Italian classicists.</p> + +<p>As Spingarn points out, Ben Jonson was first led to classicism in poetical +theory by the example of Sidney.[<a href="#foot244">244</a>] But during the intervening years +the scholars of Holland had supplanted those of Italy; and whereas Sidney +derived his Aristotelianism from Scaliger and Minturno, Jonson derived his +even more from Pontanus, Heinsius, and Lipsius and from the Latin +rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian.</p> + +<blockquote> A Poet (says Jonson) is a Maker, or a fainer: His Art, an Art of + imitation or faining, expressing the life of man in fit measure, + numbers, and harmony.... Hence hee is called a <i>Poet</i>, not he which + writeth in measure only, but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and + writes things like the truth. For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, + the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke or Poeme.[<a href="#foot245">245</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>So convinced was Jonson that the essence of poetry does not lie in verse +but in fiction that Drummond reports, "he thought not Bartas a Poet, but a +Verser, because he wrote not fiction."[<a href="#foot246">246</a>] Jonson was misled by the false +analogy of poetry and painting.</p> + +<blockquote> <i>Poetry</i> and <i>Picture</i> are Arts of a like nature, and both are busie + about imitation. It was excellently said of <i>Plutarch, Poetry</i> was a + speaking Picture, and <i>Picture</i> a mute <i>Poesie</i>. For they both invent, + fame, and devise many things.[<a href="#foot247">247</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This structural and static conception of poetry is well exemplified by his +comparisons. Whereas Aristotle classified poetry with music and dance, +Jonson compares the epic or dramatic plot to a house. The epic is like a +palace and so requires more space than a drama. The influence of Jonson +was beneficial, however, in that he did emphasize in poetry the element of +structure which the middle ages had largely neglected.[<a href="#foot248">248</a>] In his ideals +of style Jonson is rhetorical. In the twelve sections of <i>Timber</i> which he +devotes to rhetoric he incorporates a sound treatise on prose style, +urging restraint and perspicuity as especial virtues. In his nine sections +on poetry he says nothing about style, except to quote Oicero to the +effect that "the <i>Poet</i> is the nearest Borderer upon the Orator, and +expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers." It would +seem that the section on style in oratory was meant to serve for poetry as +well. Jonson's own methods of comparison, as related to Drummond, would +bear this out: "That he wrote all his (verses) first in prose."[<a href="#foot249">249</a>] From +the same authority one may learn that "He recommended to my reading +Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he +lived with me," and "That Quintilian's 6, 7, 8, bookes were not only to be +read, but altogether digested,"[<a href="#foot250">250</a>] Though Jonson makes no more +distinction than Petrarch, between Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian as +authorities on poetical style,[<a href="#foot251">251</a>] his rhetorical cast does not imply the +style advocated by Webbe and Puttenham. This was the exuberant style of +mediaeval rhetoric, whereas by temperament and scholarly training Jonson +threw his influence in favor of the classical rhetorical style of the best +period.</p> + +<p>The influence of Bacon in favor of the sound rhetoric of Cicero and +Quintilian, seconded by that of Jonson, finally did away with the +mediaeval ideal of rhetoric as being one with aureate language and +embroidered style. The stylistic exuberance of the Elizabethans gave place +to a more restrained and polished phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, +for instance, in his <i>Hypercritica</i> (c. 1618) warns the historians against +the style of the <i>Arcadia</i>. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better +becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical +Notions."[<a href="#foot252">252</a>] Henry Reynolds, in his <i>Mythomystes</i> (c. 1633), although he +goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces +the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers of +rhetoric and versification as mere accidents of poetry.[<a href="#foot253">253</a>] In his +<i>Anacrisis</i> (1634) the Earl of Stirling likewise urges that "language is +but the Apparel of Poesy."[<a href="#foot254">254</a>] The "but" marks the difference between the +ideals of two ages. Fiction remains for him the essence of poetry, for +fiction in prose is poetry. But he will not go the whole way with Jonson +and deny the name of poet to one whose material is not fictitious.[<a href="#foot255">255</a>]</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, for English criticism, Milton wrote very little on the +theory of poetry. His casual remarks, however, show such enlightened +scholarship and keen insight that what little he did write makes up in +importance what it lacks in bulk. In the Treatise <i>Of Education</i> (1644) he +refers to the sublime art of poetry "which in <i>Aristotle's poetics</i>, in +<i>Horace</i>, and the <i>Italian</i> commentaries of <i>Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni</i>, +and others, teaches what the laws are of a true <i>Epic</i> poem, what of a +<i>Dramatic</i>, what of a <i>Lyric</i>, what decorum is, which is the grand master +peece to observe."[<a href="#foot256">256</a>] His rhetoric, also, he knew at first hand from the +best classical sources. He gives as his authorities Plato, Aristotle, +Phalereus,[<a href="#foot257">257</a>] Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.[<a href="#foot258">258</a>] This is the first time +that an English critic mentions the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> in +connection with poetry. It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Milton, +while citing the only surviving literary critic of classical antiquity who +gave proper emphasis to the importance of passion in poetry,[<a href="#foot259">259</a>] should +himself be the first English critical writer to urge for passion the same +importance. This he does in his famous differentiation of rhetoric and +poetic. In the educational scheme, he says, after mathematics should be +studied logic and rhetoric "To which Poetry would be made subsequent or +indeed rather precedent, as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate."[<a href="#foot260">260</a>] Milton has sometimes been thought to be +here defining poetry, but he is only distinguishing it from rhetoric. A +definition of poetry he never attempted. Meter he deemed essential to +poetry,[<a href="#foot261">261</a>] but rime he disliked. Thus, as far as he goes, Milton +represents the best in English renaissance criticism. He knew at first +hand the best classical treatises on poetic and on rhetoric; and he +recognized the distinctions which the ancients had made between them.</p> + +<p>With the English literary criticism in the second half of the Seventeenth +Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, +this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed +three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the +slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and +the modifications which they underwent in the process. Gregory Smith calls +attention to the influence of Sidney and Daniel in establishing "the claim +of English criticism as an instrument of power outside the craft of +rhetoricians and scholars."[<a href="#foot262">262</a>] Of the English critical writers Ascham +is the foremost of the scholarly type; Harvey is the only other example. +Thomas Wilson, although he wrote a rhetoric, wrote a better one in many +ways because he was not a professional rhetorician, but a man of affairs. +Gascoigne, Lodge, Spenser, were poets who incidentally wrote on the +technic of their art or in defence of its value. Sidney, the poet, +courtier, and soldier, wrote not from the musty alcoves of libraries. +Webbe, it is true, was a pedant, but certainly not a scholar. Puttenham +was a bad poet, a well-read man, and a courtier. Jonson's scholarship was +thorough, but sweetened and ventilated by his activities as poet and +dramatist. Bacon was a scholar, but even more a philosopher and a +statesman. Milton, our most scholarly poet, during most of his life could +not keep his mind and pen from church and national politics. Indeed, +during the entire English renaissance there was no professional critic. +Literary criticism was not a field to be tilled, but a wood to be explored +by busy men who could find time for the exploit.</p> + +<p>This amateur character of English critics accounts in a measure for the +slowness with which classical and Italian renaissance critical theories +filtered into England; for a statesman or a soldier is less likely to be +up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose +business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful +influence in the same direction was the characteristic English +conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of thought to Italian +innovations.</p> + +<p>This same common-sense conservatism accounts also for the modifications of +Italian renaissance critical theories before they were incorporated into +the fund of English criticism. Classical meters, slavish imitation of the +ancients, close adherence to the rules of unity and decorum never made +much headway in the English renaissance. Such contaminations of poetic by +rhetoric as are clearest seem to arise not from the new Italian influence, +but from the mediaeval tradition.</p> + +<p>To sum up, classical critics had recognized two categories of literature: +a fine art, poetic; and a practical art, rhetoric. Poetic they thought +characterized by narrative or dramatic structure or movement, and by +vividness of realization, and by passion. Rhetoric was characterized by a +logical structure determined by the necessity of persuading an audience. +Although most classical critics accepted prose as characteristic of +rhetoric, and verse of poetry, Aristotle pointed out that the distinction +was far more fundamental. As these two kinds of literature had a common +ground in diction, there was a tendency from very early times for them to +merge. In the artistic degeneracy of late Latin literature both rhetoric +and poetic paid less attention to structure and other elements which +distinguished them, and more attention to style, which they had in common. +Moreover, under the influence of sophistical rhetoric, preoccupied with +style, poetic and rhetoric practiced the same rhetorical artifices. As a +result Virgil might be either an orator or a poet. This was the rhetoric +which the middle ages inherited. To them rhetoric was synonymous with +stylistic beauty. Poetry was a compound of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i>, in +other words of theology and style, in verse. In England this mediaeval +tradition persisted into the seventeenth century, as the school rhetorics +and the treatises on poetry show. The English renaissance poetic never +freed itself from this influence of mediaeval rhetoric until the middle of +the seventeenth century. With the recovery of classical literature and +literary criticism, the new theories were interpreted in the light of the +old ideas.</p> + +<p>On its creative side the renaissance sought to produce in the vernacular a +literature comparable to that of Greece or Rome. Thus literary criticism +was prescriptive, and the typical treatises were text-books. Rhetoric, +which had long been taught, very naturally furnished the methods, the +teachers, and in many cases the subject matter for this instruction in +poetry. As has been shown in the preceding section of this study, the +renaissance theory of poetry was rhetorical in its obsession with style, +especially the figures of speech, in its abiding faith in the efficacy of +rules; and in its belief that the poet, no less than the orator, is +occupied with persuasion. This latter rhetorical view that the poet's +office is to persuade will be studied more fully in the following section +on "The Purpose of Poetry." The traditional view is that by persuading the +reader to adhere to the good and shun the evil the poet achieves the +proper end of poetry--moral improvement.</p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="2"></a>Part Two<br /> + +The Purpose of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-1"></a>1. General</h4> + + +<p>To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to +say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section +of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of +the second assertion for the first.</p> + +<p>As has been shown,[<a href="#foot263">263</a>] the classical critics were in substantial +agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of +discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of +classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the +reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to +moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not +formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's +definition of tragedy from the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot264">264</a>] with his definition of +rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as</p> + +<blockquote> a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of + actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of + correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy + lives.[<a href="#foot265">265</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, +was formulated by Varchi.[<a href="#foot266">266</a>]</p> + +<blockquote> Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain + actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony, + together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and + inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true + happiness and beatitude.[<a href="#foot267">267</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an +educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation +of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the +tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical +rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; +and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance +those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the +classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-2"></a>2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</h4> + + +<p>The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the +reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in <i>The +Frogs</i> of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting +and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the +points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his +ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be +better citizens and worthier men."[<a href="#foot268">268</a>] Aeschylus then goes on to show +that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the +military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he +accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on +the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts +to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but +we, the poets, are teachers of men."[<a href="#foot269">269</a>]</p> + +<p>This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, +teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by +Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, +"forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of +others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one +time."[<a href="#foot270">270</a>]</p> + +<p>The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the +<i>Protagoras</i>, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an +exposition of the conventional Greek opinion.</p> + +<blockquote> When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what + is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into + his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at + school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and + praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to + learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become + like them.[<a href="#foot271">271</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is in the <i>Republic</i>, of course, that Plato enunciates his capital +objections to poetry. The first objection is that poetry as an imitative +art is three removes from truth. The divine powers, for instance, create +the idea of a table--the only true table. A carpenter makes a particular +table which is not the real, but only an appearance. A graphic artist +making a picture of this appearance is only an imitator of appearances. +"And the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore thrice removed from the +king and from the truth."[<a href="#foot272">272</a>] The second objection which Plato raises +against poetry is that poetry is addressed to the passional element in +man. The man of noble spirit and philosophy will not lament his +misfortunes, especially in public, while the lower orders of intellect are +likely to express all their feelings with greater freedom, and thus +furnish the poet with easier subjects for imitation. Consequently poetry +has the power of harming the good, for a good man will be in raptures at +the excellences of the poet who stirs his feelings most by representing a +hero in an emotional condition. As a result, when he himself suffers +sorrow or is moved by his own passions, it becomes more difficult for him +to repress his feelings.[<a href="#foot273">273</a>] Plato thus examines the popular contention +that the study of poetry educates the moral character of a man, and still +maintaining that it should be a moral force for good, demonstrates to his +own satisfaction that it fails to have the supposed beneficial effect +because it is three removes from truth, and because it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism in conduct. Plato's moral standard of poetry is +even better illustrated, perhaps, by the kind of poetry which he does not +ban from his ideal commonwealth. "We must remain firm in our conviction," +he says, "that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only +poetry which ought to be admitted into our state." As his utmost +concession to poetry, he will admit her if her defenders can prove "not +only that she is pleasant, but also useful to states and to human +life."[<a href="#foot274">274</a>] According to a later view, to be sure, Plato has been thought +to justify pleasure of a most refined and exalted variety as an end of +art. "The view which identifies the pleasant and the just and the good and +the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency."[<a href="#foot275">275</a>] In view, +however, of other pronouncements, such an endeavor to father upon him the +hedonistic theory of the purpose of art seems strained and ineffective.</p> + +<p>It was to justify poetry against the attacks of Plato that Aristotle +advanced a hedonistic view of poetry and propounded his theory of +katharsis. Nowhere in the <i>Poetics</i> does Aristotle explicitly state that +the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Indirect evidence, however, is +plentiful. For instance, Aristotle justifies poetry as an imitative art +because children learn by imitation and the pleasure in imitation is +universal.[<a href="#foot276">276</a>] Furthermore, plot in tragedy is more important than +character; for in painting, a confused mass of colors gives less pleasure +than a chalk drawing of a portrait.[<a href="#foot277">277</a>] Beauty in any art depends in a +measure on magnitude; therefore a play must not be too short.[<a href="#foot278">278</a>] Most of +the tragic poets of Greece derived their plots from a limited number of +well known stories. But Aristotle justifies Agathon for departing from +this custom and making both his plot and characters fictitious, for the +plays of Agathon give none the less pleasure.[<a href="#foot279">279</a>] But not all pleasure, +he says, is appropriate to tragedy. In comedy we are pleased to see +enemies walk off the stage as friends, but in tragedy the "pleasure which +the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through +imitation."[<a href="#foot280">280</a>] Marvels, too, and wonders in poetry he justifies because +"the wonderful is pleasing; as may be inferred from the fact that everyone +tells a story with additions of his own, knowing that his hearers like it. +It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies +skilfully."[<a href="#foot281">281</a>] And at the very end of the <i>Poetics</i>, where he is +endeavoring to prove that tragedy is a higher art than epic, he does so by +showing that drama has all the epic elements, and in addition music and +spectacle, which produce the most vivid of pleasures. Moreover the drama +is more compact; "for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one +which is diluted."[<a href="#foot282">282</a>] Thus, in the <i>Poetics</i>, Aristotle takes a +non-moral attitude toward literature, although in the <i>Politics</i>[<a href="#foot283">283</a>] he +grants that poetry and music are eminently serviceable in conveying moral +instruction to young people. His mature attitude is well illustrated in +contrast with that of Aristophanes. Aristophanes criticises Euripides +severely as a perverter of Athenian morality. Aristotle mentions Euripides +about twenty times in the <i>Poetics</i>, and frequently criticises him +adversely, not, however, for his evil moral influence, but because he uses +his choruses badly, and is faulty in character-drawing.</p> + +<p>In answer to Plato's second objection to poetry, that it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism, Aristotle propounded his theory of katharsis. +"Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action ... through pity and +fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."[<a href="#foot284">284</a>] That +Aristotle had in mind an analogy with medicine is better understood from a +passage in the <i>Politics</i> which describes the beneficial effect of music +on patients suffering from religious ecstasy. The stimulating music +furnishes the patient with an outlet for the expression of his religious +fervor. Afterwards, says Aristotle, the patients "fall back into their +normal state, as if they had undergone a medical or purgative +treatment."[<a href="#foot285">285</a>] Thus the theory of katharsis seems to have the same basis +as the modern psychological theory which encourages the expression of +emotions in their milder form lest, if inhibited, they gather added power +and finally burst disastrously through all restraints. Consequently, +although hedonist theorists have been anxious to establish katharsis on a +purely aesthetic foundation, it seems that the theory has inescapable +moral implications. To be sure, Aristotle in the same section of the +<i>Politics</i> says that the emotional result of katharsis is "harmless joy," +and in the <i>Poetics</i> he says that pity and fear produce the appropriate +pleasure of tragedy. Nevertheless Aristotle is answering Plato's +objections to unrestrained emotionalism, and by his theory of katharsis +endeavors to show not only that the emotional excitation of tragedy is +harmless to the spectator, but that it is actually good for him.</p> + +<p>But if the spectator is to derive these emotional excitations from +tragedy, his aesthetic experience cannot be passive. Aristotle recommends +as the ideal tragic hero a man not preeminently good nor unusually +depraved, but a man between these extremes; "for pity is aroused by +unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like +ourselves."[<a href="#foot286">286</a>] Evidently, then, through his imagination the spectator +must in a lively fashion participate in the action of the drama. Not only +is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he +identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions.</p> + +<p>But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral +grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. +Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion. Isocrates believes +that Homer was prized by the earlier Greeks because his poems instilled a +hatred of the barbarians, and kindled in the hearts of the readers a +desire to emulate the heroes who fought against Troy.[<a href="#foot287">287</a>] One might think +that the hatred of the barbarians was not the highest degree of morality, +but perhaps for the political integrity of Greece it was. That Homer +especially was supposed to have a moral influence is illustrated also by +Xenophon. Niceratus, in the <i>Symposium</i>, is telling the diners of what +knowledge he is most proud. "My father," he says, "in his pains to make me +a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems."[<a href="#foot288">288</a>]</p> + +<p>Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek +thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief.</p> + +<blockquote> Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the + amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition + to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, + guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our + tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise + man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens + of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for + the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[<a href="#foot289">289</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's +essay <i>On the Study of Poetry</i> that it is difficult to quote from him +without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught +poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely +as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[<a href="#foot290">290</a>] in his +reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are +pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch +believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards +because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be +taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously +avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make +poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking +and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[<a href="#foot291">291</a>] The profit of poetry he +believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very +highly such <i>sententiae</i> as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and +"know thyself."[<a href="#foot292">292</a>] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so +heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them +in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For +instance:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied + who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his + advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not + envy.[<a href="#foot293">293</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of +example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction +and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and +presenting fictitious narratives."[<a href="#foot294">294</a>] For instance, according to +Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her +ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that +such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that +frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the +only man who does such a thing in the <i>Iliad</i> is that lascivious and +adulterous fellow Paris.[<a href="#foot295">295</a>] It is interesting that this essay of +Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of +the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance +and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603.</p> + +<p>The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry +as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman +was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman +criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes +been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, +for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but +about the purpose of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are + at once pleasant and profitable.</blockquote> + +<p>His reason for favoring the third view is important.</p> + +<blockquote> Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect + austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval + of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This + book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and + prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[<a href="#foot296">296</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his +poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an +educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive +manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to +emulate.</p> + +<blockquote> His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean<br /> +The boyish ear from words and tales unclean;<br /> +As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind,<br /> +And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind;<br /> +He tells of worthy precedents, displays<br /> +The example of the past to after days,<br /> +Consoles affliction, and disease allays.[<a href="#foot297">297</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Moreover the consensus of conventional opinion in the Roman world was that +the study of the poets did succeed in moulding the moral character of the +youth. Apuleius, writing of a certain virtuous young man, the hero of one +of the episodes of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, makes the following incidental +remark: "The master of the house had a young son well instructed in good +literature, and consequently remarkable for his piety and modesty."[<a href="#foot298">298</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Lucretius may not have been assured of the moral value, he was +so convinced of the seductive powers of poetry that he deliberately +utilized them to make palatable the forbidding thoughts of his essay <i>On +the Nature of Things</i>. The long passage is worth quoting entire because +his comparison is borrowed so frequently by renaissance critics to +illustrate the poetic doctrine of pleasurable profit. Lucretius says:</p> + +<blockquote> But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter wormwood to + children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow + liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may + find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink the bitter juice of + the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be injured, but rather, being + recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this + argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it + has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was + desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in + sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the honey + of the Muses.[<a href="#foot299">299</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this survey of classical opinion we may conclude that the public +looked for two things in poetry: pleasure and profit. Eratosthenes took an +extreme view in seeking pleasure alone. Both Aristotle and Horace +emphasized the pleasure to be derived from poetry, although neither denied +that poetry is beneficial. Horace takes almost a cynical view in +suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others +improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the +book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral +value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth. This view is well +exemplified in the quotations from Aristophanes, Xenophon, Strabo, and +especially Plutarch. But even Plutarch, who goes so far as to suggest +emending the poets to make their effect more moral, does not suggest that +the purpose of poetry is to afford moral instruction. He distinguishes; +some poetry is distinctly immoral and should be enjoyed only for its art. +Other poetry is moral in its effect, and consequently should be utilized +extensively by the school-master in educating young men. For such purposes +no poetry was thought to be better than Homer, whose epics furnish so many +examples of heroic conduct.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-3"></a>3. Moral Improvement through Allegory</h4> + + +<p>When the Roman arms conquered a new city, the story runs, the commander of +the forces took over in the name of the Emperor the gods; but before the +gates of Jerusalem this ceremony proved ineffective. The fathers of the +Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing +that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the +philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, +according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its +presentation. Furthermore, the gods of the Greeks were immoral and +furnished their worshippers with bad examples of conduct. Long before +Tertullian the moral philosophers of antiquity had already attacked the +poetry of Greece and Rome on the ground of immorality. Plato in his day +called the war between philosophy and poetry "age-long." The ancient +Greeks had considered Homer and Hesiod as the inspired recorders of the +facts of religion. They had looked to the poets for moral dogma and +example. Of necessity the philosophers condemned the poets for the +immorality of their thievish, lying, and adulterous pantheon.</p> + +<p>When the Christian fathers were confronted with the Syriac gospel of the +youth of Jesus, they called a council to declare it apochryphal. Lest +some devout reader should take literally the love poetry of the Canticles, +the fathers allegorized it as the love of Christ for his Church. +Unfortunately for Greek religion the philosophers did not determine which +episodes in the histories of the gods were valid as doctrine and which +were fictitious. They did, however, anticipate the fathers in their +allegorical interpretations. Socrates in the <i>Phaedrus</i> laughs at +allegory;[<a href="#foot300">300</a>] and Plutarch believes that the poets intended to teach a +moral idea by example instead of expressing a hidden meaning by allegory. +For him allegory involved distortion and perversion. "For some men +<i>distort</i> these stories and <i>pervert</i> them into allegories or what the men +of old times called hidden meanings ὑπόνοιαι."[<a href="#foot301">301</a>] But +allegory none the less flourished. Theognis of Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and +Stesimbrotus of Thasos, were assiduous and startling in their +interpretations.[<a href="#foot302">302</a>] The Greek allegorical interpretations were of two +kinds: one an explanation of the secrets of nature, the other the teaching +of morality.[<a href="#foot303">303</a>] Although the practice was very old, the word "allegory" +is not recorded before Cicero, who says:</p> + +<blockquote> When the imagery of the metaphor is sustained for a long time, the + nature of the style assuredly becomes changed. Consequently the Greeks + call this sort of thing allegory.... But he is nearer the truth who + calls all of these metaphors.[<a href="#foot304">304</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From Cicero on, allegory has a long history as a rhetorical figure--a +trope.[<a href="#foot305">305</a>] St. Augustine recommends that students of the scriptures study +the rhetorical figures so that they may be able to interpret the tropes in +the Bible, such as allegory.[<a href="#foot306">306</a>]</p> + +<p>The result will always be the same whenever the poets are considered +theologians and moral teachers. They will be condemned or allegorized. +Fortunate are the poets when they are not believed. "How much better," +exclaims St. Augustine, "are these fables of the poets" than the false +religious notions of the Manichees. "But Medea flying, although I chanted +sometimes, yet I maintained not the truth of; and though I heard it sung, +I believed it not: but these phantasies I thoroughly believed."[<a href="#foot307">307</a>] For +it is only when one believes devoutly that Zeus procured access to Danae +in a shower of gold, that his action gives a divine sanction to such +traffic in beauty on the agora or in the forum.[<a href="#foot308">308</a>] It is only when the +poets make no pretense of recounting facts that they can escape the +clutches of the philosophers. It was to save the poets from such attacks +that Aristotle asserts that poetry deals with the universal, not with the +particular.[<a href="#foot309">309</a>] Or, as Spingarn explains his meaning, "Poetry has little +regard for the actuality of specific event, but aims at the reality of an +eternal probability."[<a href="#foot310">310</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-4"></a>4. The Influence of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Thus the general consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry has +inescapable moral effects on those who listen or read. The moralists, +especially the Stoics, when confronted with traditional poetry whose +literal significance was immoral, leaned toward allegorical +interpretations which brought out a kernel of truth. The greater number, +however, of Greeks and Romans in the classical period believed that poetry +exerted the most potent influence for good when it enunciated crisp moral +maxims and afforded examples of heroic conduct which young people could be +induced to follow.</p> + +<p>In all these respects the classical view of poetic has much in common with +classical rhetoric. Allegory has been shown to have had a long history as +an extended metaphor--a rhetorical figure. Maxims are considered fully by +Aristotle as aids to persuasion in rhetoric.[<a href="#foot311">311</a>] The exemplum is +obviously a stock means of rhetoric.</p> + +<p>"Examples," says Aristotle, "are of two kinds, one consisting in the +allegation of historical facts, and the other in the invention of facts +for oneself. Invention comprises illustration on the one hand and ... +fables on the other." Then he tells how Aesop defended a demagogue by the +fable of the fox caught in the cleft of a rock. The fox was infested with +dog-ticks which sucked his blood. A benevolent hedge-hog offered to remove +the ticks, but the fox declined the kind offer on the ground that his +ticks were already full of blood and had ceased to annoy him much, whereas +if they were removed, a new colony of ticks would establish themselves and +thus entirely drain him of blood. "Yes, and in your case, men of Samos," +said Aesop, "my client will not do much further mischief--he has already +made his fortune--but, if you put him to death, there will come others who +are poor and who will consume all the revenues of the state by their +embezzlements."[<a href="#foot312">312</a>] "Fables," continues the shrewd master of those who +know, "have this advantage that, while historical parallels are hard to +find, it is comparatively easy to find fables." Quintilian, like +Aristotle, believes in the persuasive efficacy of examples. But Quintilian +has less faith in the probative value of fictitious examples than he has +in those drawn from authentic history. He thinks that fables are most +effective with a rustic and ingenuous audience, which "captivated by their +pleasure in the story, give assent to that which pleases them."[<a href="#foot313">313</a>] Thus +Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people to the senators by telling them the +fable of the revolt of the members against the belly. And Thomas Wilson, +in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, repeats the story, in his section on +examples, and ascribes to Themistocles the fox story which Aristotle tells +of Aesop.[<a href="#foot314">314</a>]</p> + +<p>But Aristotle, Quintilian, and Wilson are talking about rhetoric. Very +justly they believe that if one wants to persuade an audience to a course +of action, he must interest his audience sufficiently to hold their +attention. As Wilson sagely remarks, "For except men finde delite, they +will not long abide: delite them and winne them."[<a href="#foot315">315</a>] Cicero expressed in +memorable phrase the relationship between proof and pleasure as +instruments to persuasion and added a third element. He classified the +aims of an orator as "to teach, to please, to move" (<i>docere, delectare, +movere</i>). The teaching is the appeal to the intellect of the hearer by +means of proof. The pleasure is afforded by a euphonious style, and by +fables and stories. The audience is moved to action by the appeal to their +feelings.[<a href="#foot316">316</a>]</p> + +<p>Not until the renaissance did writers on the theory of poetry carry over +Cicero's threefold aim of the orator and make it apply to the poet.[<a href="#foot317">317</a>] +But already in post-classical times rhetoric had, as Seneca the father +clearly shows, vitiated the Latin poetry of the Silver Age. Under the +Empire the declamation schools in Rome had a profound influence on +literature.[<a href="#foot318">318</a>] It could not be otherwise in a society where the school +of rhetoric was the only temple of higher education, for which the +grammaticus, or elementary professor of literature, was constrained to +prepare his students. Rhetoric was the organon of Roman education, and +declamation was the aim of rhetoric. It was such an educational system +which prepared Ovid and Lucan for their careers as poets and men of +letters. Seneca the father records the brilliant declamations of Ovid as a +schoolboy, quoting at some length his plea for a wife who threw herself +over a cliff on hearing of the death of her husband, and calling attention +to several passages in Ovid's poems where the poet has borrowed the clever +sayings of his professors in the school of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot319">319</a>] Ovid makes his +characters prove that they are moved by passion instead of being +passionate in word and deed. He vitiates his emotions with his wit. This +is characteristic of almost all the poets who attended the declamation +schools. They talk about situations and characters instead of realizing +them. They write as if they were speaking to an audience. One can almost +see the gestures, the wait for applause after the enunciation of a noble +platitude. Not only historically, but also in the worst modern sense this +is rhetoric. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such a preoccupation +with rhetoric, such a sustained search for all possible means of +persuasion, should have strengthened rather than weakened the utilitarian +theory of poetry. The school-master endeavored to mould the characters of +his students by examples from heroic poetry; the teacher of rhetoric, in +turn, taught them that to persuade an audience they must prove, please, +and move, and that ficticious examples were about as persuasive as +historical parallels and much easier to find. When the student left school +he continued to seek means of persuasion in canvassing votes, pleading in +the courts, or deliberating in the senate. If he became a poet, he did not +forget the lessons of his youth; or if he became a teacher of literature +or a professor of rhetoric, he perpetuated the tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Mediaeval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>With the breaking up of the Empire the stream of classical culture was +restricted to a narrow channel--the Church. Opposed as it was to pagan +morals and theology, the church could honestly retain classical literature +only if it were allegorized. This explains the allegorical nature of +mediaeval poetry and of poetical theory.</p> + +<p>From the beginning the learning of the Church was of pagan origin. St. +Augustine was a professor of rhetoric and the author of a treatise on +aesthetics before he wrote the <i>City of God</i>, and his <i>Confessions</i>. In +fact, he never quite got over being a professor of rhetoric. Clement of +Alexandria was a product of the same rhetoric schools and an excellent +teacher of his subject before he recognized the divine origin of +Christianity. St. Basil was a college friend of Gregory Nazianzen and of +Julian, later emperor and apostate, when the three studied rhetoric at +Athens. Indeed, the most cunningly cruel decree which Julian later +promulgated against the Christians forbade them the use of the ancient +pagan literature of Greece and Rome. This decree Basil bitterly resented. +"I forgo all the rest," he says, "riches, birth, honor, authority, and all +the goods here below of which the charm vanishes like a dream; but I cling +to oratory nor do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, +which I have undertaken to master it."[<a href="#foot320">320</a>]</p> + +<p>But within the Church the lovers of Greek literature did not have it all +their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely +attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, +and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the +traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. +Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a +guide to morals.[<a href="#foot321">321</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-1"></a>1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</h4> + + +<p>Allegorical interpretation was the main weapon of the apologists for +poetry. The basis, indeed, of the Gnostic heresies of the second and third +centuries was an allegorical interpretation of the Greek poets and +philosophers and of the Scriptures. This soon degenerated into an +extravagant system of speculative mysticism. Clement of Alexandria and +Origen rejected the extravagances, but sought to retain the mysticism of +the Gnostics. They reconciled Greek literature and the Scriptures by +allegorizing both, much as today Darwin and Genesis are reconciled by +allegorizing Genesis.[<a href="#foot322">322</a>] Thus in the declining years of the Roman Empire +the rhetoricians had become ecclesiastics, and the Church had adopted +pagan literature with allegorical interpretation.</p> + +<p>This tradition dominated the middle ages; Lady Theology reigned over the +kingdom of the seven liberal arts, and to make Homer and Virgil +theological it was necessary that they be interpreted allegorically. As +Vossler has shown, theology and philosophy furnished, during the middle +ages, the subject matter of poetry; they were the <i>utile</i> of Horace. The +<i>dulce</i> became for them too exclusively the pleasing garment of style and +story.[<a href="#foot323">323</a>]</p> + +<p>Throughout the middle ages, however, many continued to look askance at +poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in +prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the +friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write +dreary verses of complaint. But these poetical Muses Philosophy sent +packing. "Who has allowed," said she, "these common strumpets of the +theatre to come near this sick man? Not only do they fail to assuage his +sorrows, but they feed and nourish them with sweet venom. They are not +fruitful nor profitable. They destroy the fruits of reason, for they hold +the hearts of men."[<a href="#foot324">324</a>] Here Philosophy is voicing the objections of +Plato. The arts are attacked because they are not successfully +utilitarian, and because they appeal to the emotions instead of to the +reason. In a later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the objection. He +postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, +imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, +intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God +instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he +shares with the lower animals.[<a href="#foot325">325</a>]</p> + +<p>But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by +allegory. When Isidore of Seville (†633 or 636), for instance, was +compiling his book of universal knowledge, the <i>Etymologiae</i>, he +incorporated his section on the poets in the chapter entitled <i>Concerning +the Church and the Sects</i>. So between a section devoted to the +<i>Philosophers of the Gentiles</i> and a section entitled <i>Concerning Sibyls</i> +he wrote concerning the poets as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Sometimes, however, the poets were called theologians, because they used + to compose songs concerning the gods. In doing this, however, it is the + office of the poets to render what has actually been done in a different + guise with a certain beauty of covert figures.[<a href="#foot326">326</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poet, to Isidore, was the inspired bard who sings of the gods and the +eternal verities, not directly, but under the veil of a beautiful +allegory. Among these allegorical or indirect means of expression used by +the poet to veil truth are fables.</p> + +<blockquote> The poets invent fables sometimes to give pleasure; sometimes they are + interpreted to explain the nature of things, sometimes to throw light on + the manners of men.[<a href="#foot327">327</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>His illustrations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For +instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of +man and horse, the swiftness of human life.</p> + +<p>It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the +middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the <i>Convivio</i> (c. +1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper +method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded +in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the +allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these +tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[<a href="#foot328">328</a>] The reason +this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the +fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to +say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three +disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may +understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The +fourth sense is the analogical. Here the text may be literally true, but +contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but +the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear +from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which +he discusses the interpretations of his <i>Commedia</i>. "Although these mystic +senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called +allegorical."[<a href="#foot329">329</a>] That the "beauteous fiction," the <i>bella menzogna</i>, of +allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a passage in the <i>Vita +Nuova</i>. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, +speaking and laughing on the assumption that as a poet he is licensed to +use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a +true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to +clothe the nakedness of truth.[<a href="#foot330">330</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-2"></a>2. Allegory in Mediaeval England</h4> + + +<p>England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the +thirteenth century. In his <i>Poetria</i>, John of Garland[<a href="#foot331">331</a>] explains +allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes. +"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; +under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the +friend, reason."[<a href="#foot332">332</a>] In another illustrative poem, this time introduced +to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts +between the "<i>confirmacio</i>," and the "<i>confutacio</i>," an "<i>expositio +mistica</i>" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The +fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[<a href="#foot333">333</a>]</p> + +<p>As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i> is as mediaeval as +the <i>Romance of the Rose</i>.[<a href="#foot334">334</a>] In this allegory of the education and love +adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke +to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven +liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space. In the chapter on +<i>inventio</i>, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her +traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all +possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their +purpose, and their fame.</p> + +<p>The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire +period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of +allegory.</p> + +<blockquote> To make of nought reason sentencious + Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. + For often under a fayre fayned fable + A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[<a href="#foot335">335</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old +poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their +invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets +against sloth.</p> + +<blockquote> The special treasure<br /> +Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo!</blockquote> + +<p>Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues.</p> + +<blockquote> Your hole desyre was set<br /> +Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,...<br /> +To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great +conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such illustrious +models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a +condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents +them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude +people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the +poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, +she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the +people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they +would praise and appreciate the moral poets.</p> + +<p>The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, +as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the +middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to +theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on <i>inventio</i>, is conducting a +defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth +under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it +is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men.</p> + +<p>The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, +to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets +did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds.</p> + +<blockquote> And under colour of this beste, pryvely<br /> +The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[<a href="#foot336">336</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For +instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his +shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy. +Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus +in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the +hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, +to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the +redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, +Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable +into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical +adornment of figures and so forth.</p> + +<p>The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he +says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts +with love of virtue. Lydgate's <i>Falls of Princes</i> is an especially great +poem,</p> + +<blockquote> A good ensample for us to dispyse<br /> +This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[<a href="#foot337">337</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning +pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making +ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he +insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts.</p> + +<p>This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is +to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of +allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, +where, as has been shown, the recovery of classical culture made slow +progress.[<a href="#foot338">338</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of +Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the +Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[<a href="#foot339">339</a>] that the characteristic +opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line,</p> + +<blockquote> Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae.</blockquote> + +<p>The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to +combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the +notable exceptions of Bernardo Tasso and Castelvetro, who claimed no +further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general +conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was +simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[<a href="#foot340">340</a>]" This +chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where +they help the reader to understand better the situation in English +criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done +two influences which affected the renaissance view not a +little--scholastic philosophy and the classical rhetorics.</p> + +<p>To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are +directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part +of it.[<a href="#foot341">341</a>] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic +in logic, whereas Aristotle had classified the three arts as coördinate +within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by +the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[<a href="#foot342">342</a>] The appearance of +this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a +gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, +in favor of the classical view which considered example as the best +vehicle for moral improvement.</p> + +<p>In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly +delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of +classical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often +become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming +discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of +classical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on +example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a +pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most +advanced class, the Dido episode was deleted from the <i>Æneid</i>.[<a href="#foot343">343</a>]</p> + +<p>Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as +parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric +by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the +poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting +representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, +the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to +virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of +logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of +sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating +a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port? +The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures +overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, +parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, +the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of +theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition. +Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their +material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the +poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor +only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, +praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He +incites to lust and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral +actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be +condemned.[<a href="#foot344">344</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-1"></a>1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</h4> + + +<p>The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola +derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[<a href="#foot345">345</a>] persisted for four centuries, +rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the +renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition +of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and +poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in +this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and +example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses +example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[<a href="#foot346">346</a>]</p> + +<p>Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the <i>Lezione</i> (1553) +of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says:</p> + +<blockquote> Just as the logician uses for his means the noblest of all instruments, + that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the + dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, + that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and + the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject + of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or + instrument is the example.[<a href="#foot347">347</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This has its ultimate source in the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, who made the +following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at +demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at +persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a +rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise +unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on +opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, +usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[<a href="#foot348">348</a>]</p> + +<p>The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the +treatise <i>On the Nature of the Art of Poetry</i> (1647) of the Dutch scholar +Vossius, who writes:</p> + +<blockquote> As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that + especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be + utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be + thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in + fictitious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove + something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but + action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that + both are the servants of the state.[<a href="#foot349">349</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to +promote desirable action.</p> + +<p>How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well illustrated by +the <i>Ars Rhetorica</i> of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in +1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is +discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, +or induction.</p> + +<blockquote> Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience + because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently + used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains + attractively and clearly.[<a href="#foot350">350</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to +make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them +were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make +other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of +proof.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-2"></a>2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</h4> + + +<p>A more explicit influence on the renaissance belief that the function of +poetry is to improve social morality is readily seen in the definitions of +poetry which have already been quoted from Lombardus and Varchi, who +formulated their definitions of poetry by combining Aristotle's definition +of tragedy with his definition of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot351">351</a>] Another explicit +borrowing from classical rhetoric was of Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to delight, to persuade (<i>docere, delectare, +permovere</i>).[<a href="#foot352">352</a>] Several important Italian critics carried this +terminology over into their theories of poetry along with the purpose +which has always animated rhetoric--persuasion.</p> + +<p>Making Horace a point of departure, Daniello, in 1536, says that the +function of the poet is to teach and delight, but more than that--to +persuade. He must move his readers to share the emotions of his +characters, to shun vice, and embrace virtue.[<a href="#foot353">353</a>] This extreme rhetorical +parallel was further insisted on by Minturno (1559), who defined the duty +of a poet as so to speak in verse as to teach, to delight, and to +move.[<a href="#foot354">354</a>] And as Aristotle had affirmed in his <i>Rhetoric</i> that the +character of the speaker was one of the three essential elements in +persuasion,[<a href="#foot355">355</a>] Minturno is constrained to make the moral character of +the poet an indispensable quality of his poetry. Thus he borrows Cato's +definition of the orator as a "good man skilled in public speech" (vir +bonus dicendi peritus) from Quintilian,[<a href="#foot356">356</a>] and defines the poet as "a +good man skilled in speech and imitation" (poeta vir bonus dicendi et +imitandi peritus).[<a href="#foot357">357</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Minturno, Scaliger insisted that poetry must teach, move, and +delight.[<a href="#foot358">358</a>] It is thus the result in action which Minturno and Scaliger +emphasize. The poet must work on the feelings of his reader so that he +shall embrace and imitate the good, and spurn the evil. Philosophy, +oratory, and poetry have thus one end--and only one--persuasion.[<a href="#foot359">359</a>] +Without the "movere," the incentive to action, of course poetry could not +serve its purpose of moral improvement on which the renaissance so sternly +insisted. A reader might enjoy a story, play, or poem which presented +impeccable examples of virtue rewarded and vice punished, or which +abounded in noble platitudes gilded with wit, and still smile and be a +villain. It was thus inevitable that an acceptance of the moral purpose of +poetry should sooner or later drive any logical minded critic of poetry +completely into the camp of rhetoric. There the poet would find a +complete panoply of arms forged for the arousing of the feelings in an +audience, and for stirring the springs of action. He could make his +readers hate sin by the same means Demosthenes made his hearers hate +Philip, and love any virtue by appropriating the methods of Cicero <i>Pro +Archia</i>. According to this belief, the difference between poetic and +rhetoric was minimized. In theory a poem or a speech might indifferently +be composed either in prose or in verse. Both endeavored to teach, to +please, and to move. Both looked toward persuasion as an object. The +speech used the enthymeme and the example as proofs, while the poem used +the example to a greater, and the enthymeme to a lesser degree. Both in +theory and in practice the example was regarded as being a pleasanter +argument than the precept, as well as being more effective. This was the +age of Ciceronianism. The school-masters of Europe had recently +rediscovered imitation as the royal road to learning, and in their system +of language teaching emphasized imitation of classical authors more than +following the precepts of the grammarians or of the rhetoricians. The +epigram of Seneca, "longum iter per praecepta, breve per exempla," was the +popular catchword of the age. The example was popular.</p> + +<p>Thus by the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian critics had +formulated a logical and self-consistent theory of the purpose of poetry. +Inheritors of the allegorical theory of the middle ages, which they in +part discarded, and discoverers of classical rhetoric which they carried +over bodily into their theories of poetry, they passed on to France, +Germany, and England their rhetorical theories. The purpose of poetry, as +well as of rhetoric, was to them persuasion--to teach, to please, to move. +The instrument of poetry was the rhetorical example.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In England the Italian interpretations of the literary criticism of Greece +and Rome made slow headway against the established traditions of the +middle ages. In particular the vogue of allegory did not yield to the idea +of the moral example transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-1"></a>1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>When Thomas Wilson published the first edition of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> +in 1553, the corpus of Greek criticism in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> had +been in print forty-five years, and the commentaries of Dolce, Daniello, +Robortelli, and Maggi were available. But Wilson wrote a very good +rhetoric with no books before him but Quintilian, Cicero and the rhetoric +<i>Ad Herennium</i>, which he thought to be Cicero's, Erasmus, Plutarch <i>De +audiendis poetis</i>, and St. Basil. His treatment of poetry is quite +naturally, then, that of a rhetorician who had been reared in the +mediaeval tradition of allegory.</p> + +<p>Allegory in the sense of Quintilian as a trope, an extended metaphor, +Wilson mentions only once. His instance will bear quotation:</p> + +<blockquote> It is evil putting strong Wine into weake vesselles, that is to say, it + is evil trusting some women with weightie matters. The English Proverbes + gathered by John Heywood, helpe well in this behalfe, the which commonly + are nothing els but Allegories, and darke devised sentences.[<a href="#foot360">360</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Allegory in its more general mediaeval sense of the kernel of moral truth +within the brilliant husk of the poet's fables he discusses at greater +length elsewhere with full exemplification.</p> + +<blockquote> For by them we may talke at large and win men by persuasion, if we + declare beforehand that these tales were not fained of such wisemen + without cause.</blockquote> + +<p>This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by +orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. +That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure.</p> + +<blockquote> For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the + same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment + of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of + Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... + As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[<a href="#foot361">361</a>] In the <i>Iliades</i> + are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the <i>Odissea</i> + is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and + wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they + durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde + men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the + wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might + understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[<a href="#foot362">362</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the +moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story +of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. +The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the +best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not +meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid +covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George +in like manner allegorically.</p> + +<p>But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned +with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example +as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and +enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, +and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on +the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate +pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his +comment on the use of stories in argument.</p> + +<p>Nor does Roger Ascham in his <i>Scholemaster</i>, written between 1563-1568 and +published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of +poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a +school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in +their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, +not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[<a href="#foot363">363</a>] That he is not blind to the +fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be +its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. +The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master +must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[<a href="#foot364">364</a>] And the same +fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his +famous condemnation of the <i>Morte Darthur</i> "the whole pleasure of which +booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold +bawdrye,"[<a href="#foot365">365</a>] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems +and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, +Loyola and Vives.[<a href="#foot366">366</a>] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory +as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a +classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If +he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example +pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance +guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the +theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the +function of poetry is to teach by example.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-2"></a>2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and +school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's +treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his <i>Certayne Notes of +Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme</i>.[<a href="#foot367">367</a>] The title is not +misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its +philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a +passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of +his mistress.</p> + +<blockquote> If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange + discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by + the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes <i>per + Allegoriam</i>.[<a href="#foot368">368</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation +schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his +mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him +the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the <i>Epistles</i> of +Ovid and the <i>Love Letters</i> of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified +speech-making. Wilson recommended the <i>Proverbs</i> of Heywood as furnishing +"allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his +<i>Euphues</i> Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries +generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables +which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the +<i>Similia</i> and <i>Adagia</i>, of Erasmus, and from the <i>Emblems</i> of +Alciati.[<a href="#foot369">369</a>]</p> + +<p>So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized +device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George +Whetstone's <i>Dedication</i> to his <i>Promos and Cassandra</i>. For Whetstone +asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte +as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the +conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[<a href="#foot370">370</a>] +That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme +application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of +the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of +the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's +<i>Dedication</i> was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his +attack against poetry and poets in his <i>School of Abuse</i>, which was +answered by Lodge and Sidney in their <i>Apologies</i>. In this controversy, in +which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his +<i>Touchstone for Time</i> (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and +the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the +attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose +of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the +Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this +moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and +the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble +function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did +not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole.</p> + +<p>Gosson writes:</p> + +<blockquote> The right use of auncient poetrie was to have the notable exploytes of + worthy captaines, the holesome councels of good fathers and vertuous + lives of predecessors set down in numbers, and sung to the instrument at + solemne feastes, that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from + kissing the cup too often, and the sense of the other put them in minde + of things past, and chaulke out the way to do the like.[<a href="#foot371">371</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>The benefit, according to Gosson, which poetry should produce is that of +good moral example. Moral doctrine, he believes accessible in the +churches, and against the poets he urges that the evil social environment +of the theatre offsets the benefit to be derived even from good plays. +What profits the moral lesson of such a play if after witnessing the +performance a man walk away with a woman whose acquaintance he has just +made in the theatre.[<a href="#foot372">372</a>] He may drink wine, he may play cards, he may +even enter a brothel.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Defence of Poetry</i> (1579), Lodge retreats to the caverns of the +middle ages to equip himself with arms. Under the influence of Campano, +who died in 1477, he advances allegory as the explanation which makes the +apparently light and trifling poets moral teachers of the utmost +seriousness. Addressing Gosson he exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote> Did you never reade that under the persons of beastes many abuses were + dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye that whatsoever ether Virgil + did write of his gnatt or Ovid of his fley was all covertly to declare + abuse?... You remember not that under the person of Aeneas in Virgil the + practice of a dilligent captaine is described; you know not that the + creation is signified in the Image of Prometheus; the fall of pryde in + the person of Narcissus.[<a href="#foot373">373</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>And he quotes Lactantius as comparing poetry with the Scriptures. If +either are taken literally, they will seem false. We should judge by the +poet's hidden meaning.[<a href="#foot374">374</a>] The purpose of the poets, to Lodge, was "In +the way of pleasure to draw men to wisdome." When he defends comedy, Lodge +drifts away from allegory. Terence and Plautus he praises for furnishing +examples of virtue and vice upon the boards, thus to amend the manners of +his auditors. He believed that poetry did amend manners, and correct +abuses--if properly used. But he is very quick to admit the very abuses +which Gosson attacked.</p> + +<blockquote> I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry: I will admit the expullcion + of such enormities, poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in + it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it.[<a href="#foot375">375</a>] I + must confess with Aristotle that men are greatly delighted with + imitation, and that it were good to bring those things on stage that + were altogether tending to vertue; all this I admit and hartely wysh, + but you say unlesse the thinge be taken away the vice will continue. Nay + I say if the style were changed the practise would profit.[<a href="#foot376">376</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus he defends poetry bcause it teaches morality by example and by +allegory.</p> + +<p>With that higher intelligence and learning which have already been +contrasted with the unthinking acceptance of his times[<a href="#foot377">377</a>] Sir Philip +Sidney wrote his <i>Apologie for Poetrie</i>. In this dignified and vigorous +pamphlet, written about 1583, and published in 1595, Sidney presents the +best and most consistent argument for the moral purpose of poetry that +appeared in England. That the main line of his argument and his best +material is drawn from Minturno and Scaliger, as Spingarn has +demonstrated,[<a href="#foot378">378</a>] in no way invalidates his claim to distinction. The +purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and +delight,[<a href="#foot379">379</a>] "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, +with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to +know a poet by."[<a href="#foot380">380</a>] But as the end of all earthly learning is virtuous +action, in Sidney's mind, he agrees with Minturno and Scaliger in +borrowing from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the orator: to teach, +to delight, to move. Sidney says that the poets "imitate both to <i>delight</i> +and <i>teach</i>, and delight to <i>move</i> men to take the goodnes in hande ... +and <i>teach</i>, to make them know that goodnes whereunto they are +mooved."[<a href="#foot381">381</a>] It is incredible that he did not know this terminology as +rhetoric. Poetry, he believes, fails if it does not persuade its reader to +abandon evil and adopt good.</p> + +<blockquote> And that <i>mooving</i> is of a higher degree than <i>teaching</i>, it may by this + appeare, that it is well nigh the cause of teaching. For who will be + taught, if he bee not mooved with desire to be taught? and what so much + good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of morall doctrine) + as that it mooveth one to do that which it dooth teach?[<a href="#foot382">382</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The effectiveness of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in +its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which +is too frequently quoted incompletely,</p> + +<blockquote> commeth to you with words sent in delightful proportion, either + accompanied with, or prepared for, the well inchaunting skill of + Musicke; and with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which + holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And + <i>pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from + wickedness to vertue</i>: even as the childe is often brought to take most + wholsom things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant + tast.[<a href="#foot383">383</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Sidney, then, it is the very purpose of poetry to win men to +virtue by pleasant instruction. The argument of poetry in accomplishing +this end is primarily the example. Sidney compares very elaborately +philosophy, history, and poetry in an endeavor to show that poetry is the +most effective instrument for forwarding virtue. In the first place poetry +is better adapted than philosophy to win men to virtue because it +persuades both by precepts and by examples, while philosophy persuades by +precepts alone. His sanction for this high opinion of the persuasive power +of example is the rhetorical commonplace of the renaissance that the way +is long by precept and short by example.[<a href="#foot384">384</a>] To enforce this point he +tells the story of how Menenius Agrippa won over the people of Rome to +support the Senate by telling them the story of the revolt of the members +against the belly. Quintilian[<a href="#foot385">385</a>] and Wilson[<a href="#foot386">386</a>] had already told this +story to prove the effectiveness of the example as a rhetorical argument, +a device of the public speaker.</p> + +<p>The main advantage which poetry possesses over history, Sidney goes on, is +that while the historian must stick to his facts, which too frequently are +unedifying, the poet can and does create a world better than nature, and +presents to his reader ideal figures of human conduct such as Pylades, +Cyrus, and Æneas.[<a href="#foot387">387</a>] This is Sidney's application of Aristotle's +assertion that history is particular and poetic universal; history records +things as they are and poetic as they are, worse than they are, or better. +Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some +of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to +add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true +example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned +to the highest key of passion);"[<a href="#foot388">388</a>] and here he is drawing from +Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric.</i>[<a href="#foot389">389</a>] Through admiration of the noble persons of +poetry, the reader is won to a desire for emulation. "Who readeth <i>Æneas</i> +carrying olde <i>Anchises</i> on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune +to perfourme so excellent an acte?"[<a href="#foot390">390</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Sidney believes the principal moral value of poetry to reside in +its power to teach and move by the use of examples, he devotes at least +half a page to the beneficent effect of parables and allegories. The +parables which he uses, however, are all Christian, and the allegories are +all the <i>Fables</i> of Æsop. From the allegorical interpretation of poetry +current in the middle ages and to a scarcely less degree among his English +contemporaries Sidney remains conspicuously aloof.</p> + +<p>In answering the specific charges against poetry, that it is a waste of +time, the mother of lies, the nurse of abuse, and rejected by Plato, +Sidney asserts that a thing which moves men to virtue so effectively as +poetry cannot be a waste of time; that since poetry pretends not to +literal truth, it cannot lie,[<a href="#foot391">391</a>] that poetry does not abuse man's wit, +but man's wit abuses poetry, for "shall the abuse of a thing make the +right use odious?"[<a href="#foot393">393</a>] and that Plato objected not to poetry but to its +abuse.</p> + +<p>Sir John Harington[<a href="#foot392">392</a>] who published his <i>Brief Apologie of Poetrie</i> in +1591, four years before the publication of Sidney's <i>Apologie</i>, based much +of his treatise on Sidney. Unfortunately, he did not digest fully the +arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand +knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. +In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line +of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit +punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in +verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant +and the profitable."[<a href="#foot394">394</a>] The objection that poets lie Harington meets as +Sidney does, "But poets never affirming any for true, but presenting them +to us as fables and imitations, cannot lye though they would."[<a href="#foot395">395</a>] At +this point Harington parts company with his master and goes back to the +middle ages.</p> + +<blockquote> The ancient Poets have indeed wrapped as it were in their writings + divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or mysteries + thereof. First of all for the litteral sence (as it were the utmost + barke or ryne) they set downe in manner of an historie the acts and + notable exploits of some persons worthie memorie: then in the same + fiction, as a second rine and somewhat more fine, as it were nearer to + the pith and marrow, they place the Morall sence profitable for the + active life of man, approving vertuous actions and condemning the + contrarie. Many times also under the selfesame words they comprehend + some true understanding of naturall Philosophie, or sometimes of + politike government, and now and then of divinitie: and these same + sences that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call the + Allegorie.[<a href="#foot396">396</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Nothing could be more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain +the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of +Perseus and the Gorgon--the highest allegory being theological. Further, +to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of +profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, +Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by +allegorical stories. To Harington, then, poetry is useful as an +introduction to Philosophy. Paraphrasing Plutarch <i>On the Reading of +Poets</i>, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> So young men do like best that Philosophy that is not Philosophie, or + that is not delivered as Philosophie, and such are the pleasant writings + of learned Poets, that are the popular Philosophers and the popular + divines.[<a href="#foot397">397</a>]</blockquote> + +<p><i>A Discourse of English Poetrie</i> (1586) by the laborious but uninspired +tutor, William Webbe,[<a href="#foot398">398</a>] is not a defense; but interspersed among his +remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, +ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of +poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and +comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's +conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements +to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[<a href="#foot399">399</a>] In appraising the +methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his +contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation +of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the +instruction of manners and precepts of good life[<a href="#foot400">400</a>]. And he finds much +profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they +abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the +moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people +who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the +beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he +seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the +effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The +<i>Metamorphoses</i> of Ovid, for instance,</p> + +<blockquote> though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall + inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth + of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and + sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good + counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly + read.[<a href="#foot401">401</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of +the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or +cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in +delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his +emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to +the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he +believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as +its motivating purpose[<a href="#foot402">402</a>]. And again, after descanting on the +exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable +things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of +poetry as containing "all such <i>Epigrammes</i>, <i>Elegies</i>, and delectable +ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight +thereof.[<a href="#foot403">403</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Webbe, the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589) ascribed to +Puttenham,[<a href="#foot404">404</a>] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, +however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. +Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may +be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what +may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is +worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham,</p> + +<blockquote> is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in + phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, + the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & + reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of + sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & + sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate + myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and + cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for + recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest + or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, + dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill + example.[<a href="#foot405">405</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, +emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been +objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification +nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the +commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the +convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[<a href="#foot406">406</a>] But Puttenham does +not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be +released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, +dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil +examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest."</p> + +<p>Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the +mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of +lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and +courtiers,[<a href="#foot407">407</a>] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire +was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend +the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the +mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a +vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the +amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters +under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[<a href="#foot408">408</a>] Here Puttenham +pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in +satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to +allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be +wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is +most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde +of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more +universally satisfie then example."[<a href="#foot409">409</a>] It is on this account that +historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For +the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should +be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for +pleasure.</p> + +<blockquote> Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether + fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no + less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but + often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his + pleasure.[<a href="#foot410">410</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all +history was a moral example[<a href="#foot411">411</a>] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic +fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two +as almost interchangeable.[<a href="#foot412">412</a>]</p> + +<p>Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both +the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, +Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, +but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[<a href="#foot413">413</a>] +accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the +<i>Hypercritica</i> (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a +kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation +from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[<a href="#foot414">414</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-3"></a>3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example</h4> + + +<p>A most interesting view of the purpose of poetry was evolved in the brain +of Francis Bacon--that baffling complexity of mediaeval tradition and +penetrating original thought. To him the use of feigned history, as he +defines poetry, "hath beene to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the +minde of man in those points wherein the Nature of things doth deny +it."[<a href="#foot415">415</a>] That is, poetry represents the world as greater, more just, and +more pleasant than it really is. "So as it appeareth that <i>Poesie</i> +serveth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie, and to delectation." +Here Bacon seems to imply that the essential pleasure of poetry is in +affording vicarious experience through imaginative realization. Poetry +does this by "submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the +minde." It truly makes a world nearer to our heart's desire. But while +Bacon derives the moral benefit of poetry from examples of conduct and +outcomes of events more nearly just than those of actual life, when he +analyses poetry into its kinds, he makes a place for allegory. In this +division he provides for narrative, drama, and allegory. But with +penetration he sees what few renaissance critics had noted before--that +allegory is of two varieties. The first variety is essentially the same as +a rhetorical example; it is an extended metaphor used as an argument to +enforce a point and thus persuade an audience. The fables of Aesop are +such allegories or examples; and they are useful because they make their +point more interestingly than other arguments and more clearly. The other +sort of allegory, says Bacon, instead of illuminating the idea, obscures +it. "That is, when the Secrets and Misteries of Religion, Pollicy, or +Philosophy, are involved in Fables or Parables." He then gives political +allegorical interpretations of the myths of Briareus and of the Centaur +and suddenly adds: "Nevertheless in many the like incounters, I doe rather +think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the +Morall was first and thereupon the fable framed."[<a href="#foot416">416</a>] Bacon's final +conclusion seems to be that, although allegorical poetry does exist, +allegory is not essential to poetry and that the wholesale allegorizing of +the middle ages was far off the mark. In his suspicion that in most cases +the fable was first and the interpretation after, Bacon was in complete +agreement with Rabelais in the prologue of <i>Gargantua</i>.[<a href="#foot417">417</a>] At any rate +Bacon seems to have given the <i>coup de grace</i> to allegory in England.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of Pico della Mirandola it was resurrected from its +tomb by Henry Reynolds; but it was a much less moral allegory and a more +mystical. In his <i>Mythomystes</i> (licensed 1632) Reynolds admits, that the +ancients mingled moral instruction in their poetry, but reprehends this as +an abuse. Prose is the proper vehicle of moral doctrine and should have +been employed by Spenser. The true function of poetry, then, is to give +secret knowledge of the mysteries of nature to the initiated. Thus the +story of the rape of Proserpine signifies, when allegorically interpreted; +"the putrefaction and succeeding generation of the Seedes we commit to +Pluto, or the earth."[<a href="#foot418">418</a>] This is the most plausible example of mystical +interpretation to be found in the whole treatise.</p> + +<p>To the allegorist, the fable or plot in epic or dramatic poetry was only a +rind to cover attractively the kernel of truth. It was a means to an end, +not an end in itself. As the influence of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> spreading +through Italy, Germany, France, and England, gave the plot or fable more +importance, allegory lost its hold on the minds of the critics. When Ben +Jonson writes in his <i>Timber</i> "For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, +the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke or <i>Poeme</i>"[<a href="#foot419">419</a>] the change had +come. Jonson, like Sidney, was steeped in classical criticism as +interpreted and spread abroad by the sixteenth-century critics of the +continent. But while Sidney made a place for allegory in his scheme of +poetry, Jonson does not so much as mention it. His idea of the teaching +power of poetry, for to him poetry and painting both behold pleasure and +profit as their common object,[<a href="#foot420">420</a>] is rhetorical--depending on precept +and example--and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy +is "a dulcet and gentle <i>Philosophy</i>, which leades on and guides us by the +hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[<a href="#foot421">421</a>] +Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their +common purpose of securing persuasion; for he says:</p> + +<blockquote>"The <i>Poet</i> is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all +his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, +and above him in his strengths: Because in moving the minds of men, and +stirring of affections, in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves +her eminence, hee chiefly excells."[<a href="#foot422">422</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In his dedication to <i>Volpone</i> he says this power of persuasion which the +poet possesses to so eminent a degree is to be applied to the moral +well-being of men, "to inform men in the best reason of living."[<a href="#foot423">423</a>] +Himself a writer for the theatre, Jonson is naturally more concerned with +comedy and tragedy than he is with any narrative forms of poetry. And to +him the office of the comic poet is "to imitate justice and instruct to +life--or stirre up gentle affections."[<a href="#foot424">424</a>] In <i>Timber</i> he iterates the +same praise of poetry as being no less effective than philosophy in +instructing men to good life, and informing their manners, but as even +more effective in that it persuades men to good where philosophy threatens +and compels. In order to accomplish this beneficial effect on public +morals, the poet must have an exact knowledge of all virtues and vices +with ability to render the one loved and the other hated.[<a href="#foot425">425</a>] As a +natural result of this conception, so similar to Cicero's demand that the +orator must know all things and in line with Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i>, +Jonson concludes that the poet, like Quintilian's orator, must himself be +a good man; for how else will he be able "to informe <i>yong-men</i> to all +good disciplines, inflame <i>growne-men</i> to all great vertues, keepe <i>old +men</i> in their best and supreme state."[<a href="#foot426">426</a>]</p> + +<p>Aside from Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through +to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are +identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, +or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his +preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled <i>Achilles' Shield</i> +(1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in +the <i>Iliad</i>,[<a href="#foot427">427</a>] and enunciates the same idea in his <i>Prefaces</i> of +1610-16.[<a href="#foot428">428</a>] Peacham, in his <i>Compleat Gentleman</i> (1622), repeats the +usual commonplaces to the effect that poetry is a dulcet philosophy, for +the most part lifted from Puttenham.[<a href="#foot429">429</a>] In his <i>Argenis</i> (1621) Barclay +reminds his reader of the children who for so many centuries had shunned +the cup of physic until the bitter taste had been removed by sweet syrop. +Thus also, says he, is it with the moral value of poetry disguised with +sweet music. "Virtues and vices I will frame, and the rewards of them +shall suite to both"; for it is on the moral example of poetic justice +that Barclay depends. The models of virtue will be followed.[<a href="#foot430">430</a>]</p> + +<p>The Earl of Stirling, in <i>Anacrisis</i> (1634?) acknowledges the works of the +poets to be the chief springs of learning, "both for Profit and Pleasure, +showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they +are." Consequently he has a high opinion of the <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, +the <i>Arcadia</i> of Sir Philip Sidney, and other such poems, as "affording +many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes."[<a href="#foot431">431</a>] These types +the reader is expected to imitate in his own conduct, guided by the moral +precepts with which the poet must not neglect to decorate his work.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Within the period of this study two views were taken of the moral element +in poetry. With the exception of Sidney and Jonson, who knew the theories +of the Italian renaissance, the English critics believed with Horace that +poetry was at once pleasant and profitable, and agreed with Plutarch that +poetry, if rightly used, would be of benefit in the education of youth. +But there was little tendency to follow this to the conclusion of +asserting that because poetry has a moral effect on the reader, it is the +purpose of poetry as an art to exert this moral effect for the good of +society. Most of these critics believed that the moral effect which poetry +did exert came through allegory. In this respect, as has been shown, they +were carrying on the traditions of the middle ages.</p> + +<p>The opposing view derived ultimately from the classical rhetorics, and +entered England through the criticism of the Italian +scholars--particularly Minturno and Scaliger. Starting from the saying of +Horace that poets aim to please or profit, or please and profit together, +these critics borrowed from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to please, to move, and applied these three aims to the +poet. Accordingly, to them the poet has the same aim as the +orator--persuasion. He pleases not for the sake of giving pleasure, but +for the sake of winning his readers so that he may better attain his real +object of teaching morality and moving men to action in its practice. The +emphasis on the example as the means of attaining this end was further +derived from scholastic philosophy which, as has been shown, classed +logic, rhetoric, and poetic together as instruments for attaining truth +and improving the morality of the state. Furthermore, according to this +scholastic view, the three arts differed only as they utilized different +means to attain this end. Logic used the demonstrative syllogism and the +scientific induction, rhetoric used the enthymeme or rhetorical syllogism +and the example or popular induction, poetic used the example alone. +According to the renaissance developments of this last view, allegory was +emphasized less and less as the example was felt to be more appropriate. +Thus Sidney and Jonson, the outstanding classicists in English renaissance +criticism, exhibit to the highest degree the influence of the most +rhetorical of Italian renaissance critics. They alone in England assert +that the purpose of poetry is to move men to virtuous action.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Thus a study of rhetorical terminology in English renaissance theories of +poetry throws into sharp relief the fact that all criticism of the fine +art of literature in England in the 16th century and the first half of the +17th century was profoundly influenced by rhetoric. This influence was +two-fold. On the one hand the less scholarly critics perpetuated the +popular traditions of rhetoric which they inherited from the middle ages. +These traditions of allegory and the ornate style were, as has been shown, +in turn derived from post-classical rhetoric. On the other hand the more +scholarly critics applied to poetry the canons of classical rhetoric which +they derived in part from the classics themselves and in part from the +critics of the Italian renaissance.</p> + +<p>In one sense this has been a study of critical perversions. Although many +of the critics of the English renaissance are remarkable for their wisdom +and discerning judgments, their writings are far less valuable than those +of Longinus and Aristotle. But Aristotle and Longinus did not allow their +theories of poetry to be contaminated by rhetoric. The best modern critics +have studied and understood the classical treatises on poetic and have +consequently avoided the confusion between rhetoric and poetic into which +many renaissance critics fell. Others have not been so fortunate. For +these the object-lesson of renaissance failure should serve as a warning.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="index"></a>Index</h2> + + + +<p>Abelard<br /> +Aeschylus<br /> +Aesop<br /> +Agathon<br /> +Agricola, Rudolph<br /> +Alanus de Insulis<br /> +Alciati<br /> +Alcidamas<br /> +Albucius<br /> +Aldus<br /> +Alfarabi<br /> +Alstedius<br /> +Anaxagoras<br /> +Annaeus Florus<br /> +Appian<br /> +Apsinus<br /> +Apthonius<br /> +Apuleius<br /> +Aristenetus<br /> +Aristophanes<br /> +Aristotle<br /> +Aristides<br /> +Ascham<br /> +Athenagoras<br /> +Augustine<br /> +Averroes</p> + +<p>Bacon, Francis<br /> +Barclay, John<br /> +Barton, John<br /> +Basil the Great<br /> +Bede<br /> +Bokenham<br /> +Boccaccio<br /> +Bolton, Edmund<br /> +Bornecque, Henri<br /> +Boethius<br /> +Brunetto Latini<br /> +Butcher, S.H.<br /> +Buchanan, George<br /> +Budé<br /> +Butler, Charles</p> + +<p>Can Grande<br /> +Campano, G.<br /> +Campion, Thomas<br /> +Casaubon<br /> +Cassiodorus<br /> +Castelvetro<br /> +Castiglione<br /> +Cato<br /> +Caussinus, N.<br /> +Chapman, G.<br /> +Chaucer<br /> +Chemnicensis, Georgius<br /> +Cicero<br /> +Clement of Alexandria<br /> +Cox, Leonard<br /> +Croce, B.<br /> +Croll, Morris<br /> +Curio Fortunatus</p> + +<p>Daniel, Samuel<br /> +Daniello<br /> +Dante<br /> +Darwin, Charles<br /> +Demetrius<br /> +Demosthenes<br /> +de Worde, Wynkyn<br /> +Dio Chrysostom<br /> +Dionysius of Halicarnassus<br /> +Dolce<br /> +Drant, Thomas<br /> +Drummond of Hawthornden<br /> +DuBellay<br /> +Ducas<br /> +DuCygne, M.<br /> +Dunbar, William</p> + +<p>Earle, John<br /> +Eastman, Max<br /> +Empedocles<br /> +Emporio<br /> +Erasmus<br /> +Eratosthenes<br /> +Estienne, Henri<br /> +Etienne de Rouen<br /> +Euripides</p> + +<p>Farnaby, Thomas<br /> +Fenner, Dudley<br /> +Filelfo<br /> +Fraunce, Abraham</p> + +<p>Gascoigne<br /> +George of Trebizond (Trapezuntius)<br /> +Gorgias<br /> +Gosson, Stephen<br /> +Gower<br /> +Gregory Nazianzen<br /> +Guarino<br /> +Guevara</p> + +<p>Hall, Joseph<br /> +Harington, John<br /> +Harvey, Gabriel<br /> +Hawes, Stephen<br /> +Heinsius, D.<br /> +Henryson<br /> +Heliodorus<br /> +Herodotus<br /> +Hermagoras<br /> +Hermannus Allemanus<br /> +Hermogenes<br /> +Hilary of Poitiers<br /> +Holland, P.<br /> +Homer<br /> +Horace<br /> +Hermas<br /> +Hesiod<br /> +Heywood, John</p> + +<p>Isidore of Seville<br /> +Isocrates</p> + +<p>James I<br /> +James VI<br /> +Jerome<br /> +John of Garland<br /> +John of Salisbury<br /> +Jonson, Ben<br /> +Julian</p> + +<p>Kechermann</p> + +<p>Lactantius<br /> +Langhorne<br /> +Lipisius<br /> +Livy<br /> +Lodge<br /> +Lombardus, B.<br /> +Longinus<br /> +Loyola<br /> +Lucan<br /> +Lucian<br /> +Lucretius<br /> +Lydgate, John<br /> +Lyly, John<br /> +Lyndesay, David.<br /> +Lysias</p> + +<p>Maggi<br /> +Martial<br /> +Martianus Capella<br /> +Mazzoni<br /> +Melanchthon<br /> +Menander<br /> +Menenius Agrippa<br /> +Milton<br /> +Minturno</p> + +<p>Nash, T.<br /> +Newman, J.H.<br /> +Norden, Eduard<br /> +North, Sir Thomas</p> + +<p>Origen<br /> +Overbury, Thomas<br /> +Ovid</p> + +<p>Palmieri<br /> +Pazzi<br /> +Peacham, Henry<br /> +Petrarch<br /> +Piccolomini<br /> +Pico della Mirandola<br /> +Plato<br /> +Plautus<br /> +Pliny<br /> +Plutarch<br /> +Poggio<br /> +Pontanus, Jacob<br /> +Prickard, A. O.<br /> +Puttenham</p> + +<p>Quintilian</p> + +<p>Rabelais<br /> +Ramus, Peter<br /> +Reynolds, Henry<br /> +Robortelli<br /> +Ronsard<br /> +Rufinus</p> + +<p>Sappho<br /> +Savonarola<br /> +Scaliger, J.C.<br /> +Schelling, Felix<br /> +Segni<br /> +Seneca<br /> +Servatus Lupus<br /> +Shakespeare<br /> +Sherry, Richard<br /> +Sidney<br /> +Sidonius, Apollinaris<br /> +Simonides<br /> +Smith, John<br /> +Soarez<br /> +Socrates<br /> +Sopatrus<br /> +Sophocles<br /> +Sophron<br /> +Spenser<br /> +Spingarn, J.E.<br /> +Stanyhurst<br /> +Stesimbrotus of Thasos<br /> +Strabo<br /> +Strebaeus<br /> +Sturm, John</p> + +<p>Tacitus<br /> +Tasso, B.<br /> +Tatian<br /> +Terence<br /> +Tertullian<br /> +Theognis of Rhegium<br /> +Theon<br /> +Theophilus<br /> +Theophrastus<br /> +Themistocles<br /> +Thomas Aquinas<br /> +Thomasin von Zirclaria<br /> +Tifernas<br /> +Timocles</p> + +<p>Valla<br /> +Valladero, A.<br /> +Van Hook, L.<br /> +Varchi<br /> +Vettore<br /> +Vicars, Thomas<br /> +Victor, Julius<br /> +Victorino, Mario<br /> +Vida<br /> +Virgil<br /> +Vives, L.<br /> +Vossius (J.G. Voss)<br /> +Vossler, Karl</p> + +<p>Wackernagel, Jacob<br /> +Walton, John<br /> +Watson, Thomas<br /> +Webbe, William<br /> +Whetstone, George<br /> +William of Malmesbury<br /> +Wilson, Thomas</p> + +<p>Xenarchus<br /> +Xenophon</p> + + + + + +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> + + + +<p><a name="foot1"></a>1. <i>Modern Philology</i>, Vol. XVI, No. 8, Dec., 1918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot2"></a>2. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot3"></a>3. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot4"></a>4. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot5"></a>5. <i>Poetik, Rhetorik, und Stilistik</i> (Halle, 1886), pp. 14, 261.</p> + +<p><a name="foot6"></a>6. <i>Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics</i>, Ed. A.S. Cook +(Boston, 1891), pp. 10-11.</p> + +<p><a name="foot7"></a>7. <i>Estetica</i> (Milano, 1902), I, II, and appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot8"></a>8. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i> (New York, 1916), p. 66.</p> + +<p><a name="foot9"></a>9. Georges Renard, <i>La method scientifique de l'histoire littéraire</i>. +(Paris, 1900), p. 385.</p> + +<p><a name="foot10"></a>10. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot11"></a>11. I, 8; and IX, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot12"></a>12. Prickard thinks Aristotle misread in this passage. According to +Prickard, Aristotle means that poetry must be in meter, but that not all +meter is poetry. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, p. 60. Most critics do not share +Prickard's opinion.</p> + +<p><a name="foot13"></a>13. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot14"></a>14. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot15"></a>15. <i>Psychology</i>, ed. E. Wallace, III, 3, cf. also introd., p. 77, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot16"></a>16. <i>Poetics</i>, I.</p> + +<p><a name="foot17"></a>17. VII, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot18"></a>18. VII, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot19"></a>19. S.H. Butcher, <i>Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art</i>, p. 123. +Poetics, II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot20"></a>20. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot21"></a>21. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot22"></a>22. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 3-4; of. XV, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot23"></a>23. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot24"></a>24. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot25"></a>25. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 392.</p> + +<p><a name="foot26"></a>26. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot27"></a>27. VI, 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot28"></a>28. Longinus, <i>On the Sublime</i>, trans, by A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906) I +and XXXIII. The treatise has been variously ascribed to the first and +fourth centuries. A valuable edition of the text accompanied by +translation and critical apparatus, was published by W. Rhys Roberts, +Cambridge University Press.</p> + +<p><a name="foot29"></a>29. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot30"></a>30. <i>Ibid.</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot31"></a>31. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot32"></a>32. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV. This is almost exactly Aristotle's phrase in the +<i>Rhetoric</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot33"></a>33. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot34"></a>34. <i>Ibid</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot35"></a>35. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, VII, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot36"></a>36. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot37"></a>37. <i>Rhetoric</i> (J. E. C. Welldon's trans., London, 1886), I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot38"></a>38. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot39"></a>39. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot40"></a>40. Wilkin's ed. of Cic. <i>De oratore</i>, introd. p. 56.</p> + +<p><a name="foot41"></a>41. Cope, <i>Introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristotle</i> (London, 1867), p. +149.</p> + +<p><a name="foot42"></a>42. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2. Published in the <i>Opera Rhetorica</i> of Cicero, +edited by W. Friedrich for Teubner (Leipzig, 1893), Vol. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot43"></a>43. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot44"></a>44. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, II, xv, 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot45"></a>45. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, i, 9-11. The "vir bonus dicendi peritus" is from Cato.</p> + +<p><a name="foot46"></a>46. <i>Gorgias</i>, St. 453.</p> + +<p><a name="foot47"></a>47. <i>Loci cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot48"></a>48. I, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot49"></a>49. I, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot50"></a>50. <i>Op. cit.</i>, I, 64.</p> + +<p><a name="foot51"></a>51. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, II, xxi, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot52"></a>52. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot53"></a>53. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iv, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot54"></a>54. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, i, 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot55"></a>55. γραθική, Rhet. III, xii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot56"></a>56. <i>Orator</i>, 37-38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot57"></a>57. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot58"></a>58. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2; Cicero, <i>De inventione</i>, I, vii. <i>De oratore</i>, +I, 142; Quintilian, <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iii, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot59"></a>59. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, xiii-xix; Cicero, <i>Partit. orat.</i>, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot60"></a>60. See above, pp. 13-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot61"></a>61. Cicero, <i>De oratore</i>, I. 143; Quint., <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot62"></a>62. I, 4. Cicero, also, <i>De invent.</i>, I, xiv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot63"></a>63. <i>Opera omnia</i> (1622), p. 1028.</p> + +<p><a name="foot64"></a>64. <i>De nuptiis</i>, 544-560.</p> + +<p><a name="foot65"></a>65. <i>The Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot66"></a>66. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, i, I</p> + +<p><a name="foot67"></a>67. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, vi, I ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot68"></a>68. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot69"></a>69. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, xi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot70"></a>70. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i>, pp. 76-78. The best classical treatments of +style are to be found in Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III; Cic., <i>Orat.</i>; Quint., <i>De +inst. orat.</i>, VIII, x; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>; and +Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot71"></a>71. Sec. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot72"></a>72. <i>Commentarioum Rhetoricorum libri</i> IV, I, i, 3, in his <i>Opera</i>, III. +(Amsterdam, 1697).</p> + +<p><a name="foot73"></a>73. VI, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot74"></a>74. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot75"></a>75. The six elements are Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, +and Song. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 7 and 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot76"></a>76. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 339-343.</p> + +<p><a name="foot77"></a>77. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 16, and XIX, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot78"></a>78. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, X, i, 46-51.</p> + +<p><a name="foot79"></a>79. <i>De inventione</i>, I, xxiii, 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot80"></a>80. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i> (Leipzig, 1898), p. 884, note 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot81"></a>81. See above, p. 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot82"></a>82. <i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3; <i>Orator</i>, 69; <i>De oratore</i>, II, +28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot83"></a>83. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI, ii, 25-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot84"></a>84. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot85"></a>85. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III. xi; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De Lysia</i>, 7; +Quintilian, VIII, iii, 62.</p> + +<p><a name="foot86"></a>86. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot87"></a>87. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 883-884.</p> + +<p><a name="foot88"></a>88. La Rue Van Hook, "Alcidamas <i>versus</i> Isocrates," <i>Classical Weekly</i>, +XII (Jan. 20, 1919), p. 90. Professor Van Hook here presents the only +English translation of Alcidamas, <i>On the Sophists</i>. Isocrates made his +reply in his speech <i>On the Antidosis</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot89"></a>89. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot90"></a>90. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot91"></a>91. <i>Orator</i>, 66-68.</p> + +<p><a name="foot92"></a>92. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot93"></a>93. "Verba prope poetarum," <i>ibid.</i>, I, 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot94"></a>94. "Id primum in poetis cerni licet, quibus est proxima cognatio cum +oratoribus." <i>De orat.</i>, III, 27. cf. also I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot95"></a>95. Xenophon, <i>Banquet</i>, II, 11-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot96"></a>96. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i>, pp. 75-79.</p> + +<p><a name="foot97"></a>97. <i>De compositione verborum</i>, XXV-XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot98"></a>98. Sénèque le rheteur, <i>Controverses et suasoires</i>, ed. Henri Bornecque +(Paris). Introduction pp. 20 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot99"></a>99. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot100"></a>100. <i>Op. cit.</i> vol. II, p. 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot101"></a>101. <i>Dialogus</i>, 20.</p> + +<p><a name="foot102"></a>102. <i>Op. cit.</i>, Introd. p. 23.</p> + +<p><a name="foot103"></a>103. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>, XXIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot104"></a>104. Hardie, <i>Lectures</i>, VII, p. 281.</p> + +<p><a name="foot105"></a>105. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, Sec. 8. Trans, of Lucian by +H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler (Oxford, 4 vols., 1905).</p> + +<p><a name="foot106"></a>106. Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas +et historicos, in illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos +putemus. <i>De inst. orat</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot107"></a>107. Virgilius orator an poeta? quoted by Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische +Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i>. (Berlin, 1900) p. 42, note +2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot108"></a>108. <i>Etymologiae</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot109"></a>109. P. Abelson, <i>The Seven Liberal Arts</i> (New York, 1906), p. 60, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot110"></a>110. <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici de arte prosayca metrica et +rithmica</i>, ed. by G. Mari, <i>Romanische Forschungen</i> (1902), XIII, p. 883 +ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot111"></a>111. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot112"></a>112. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 897.</p> + +<p><a name="foot113"></a>113. Cf. G. L. Hendrickson, "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient +Characters of Style," <i>Am. Jour. of Phil.</i> (1905), xxvi, p. 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot114"></a>114. Cf. the <i>auctor ad Her.</i>, I, 4, who gives them as exordium, +narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio.</p> + +<p><a name="foot115"></a>115. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot116"></a>116. III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot117"></a>117. "Rhetoricâ, kleit unser rede mit varwe schône." Ed. by H. Rückert, +<i>Bibl. der Deutsch. Lit.</i>, Vol. 30, 1. 8924.</p> + +<p><a name="foot118"></a>118. Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (430-488) can be consulted in a +modern ed. by Paulus Mohr (Leipzig, 1895).</p> + +<p><a name="foot119"></a>119. Doctrina dell' ornato parlare." Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="foot120"></a>120. <i>Chron. Troy</i> (1412-20), Prol. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot121"></a>121. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Mark Van Doren for the transcript +which I am here publishing.</p> + +<p><a name="foot122"></a>122. <i>Mor. Fab.</i> Prol. 3. (c. 1580).</p> + +<p><a name="foot123"></a>123. <i>Poems</i>, LXV, 10 (1500-20).</p> + +<p><a name="foot124"></a>124. <i>Clerk's Prolog.</i> 32.</p> + +<p><a name="foot125"></a>125. <i>Life of our Lady</i> (1409-1411), (Caxton) lvii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot126"></a>126. Trans, of Boethius (1410), quoted by Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, xvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot127"></a>127. <i>Kingis Q.</i> (1423), CXCVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot128"></a>128. <i>Test. Papyngo</i> (1530), II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot129"></a>129. <i>Seyntys</i> (1447), Roxb. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="foot130"></a>130. <i>Serp. Devision</i>, c. iii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot131"></a>131. Reprinted from the ed. of 1555 for the Percy Society (London, 1845), +p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot132"></a>132. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot133"></a>133. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot134"></a>134. <i>See</i> p. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="foot135"></a>135. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot136"></a>136. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 46.</p> + +<p><a name="foot137"></a>137. "Proximum grammatice docet, quae emendate & aperte loquendi vim +tradit: Proximum <i>rhetorice, quae ornatum orationis cultum que & omnes +capiendarum aurium illecebras invenit</i>. Quod reliquum igitur est videbitur +sibi dialectice vendicare, probabliter dicere de qualibet re, quae +deducitur in orationem." <i>De inventione dialectica</i> (Paris, 1535), II, 2. +cf. also II, 3.</p> + +<p>Cf. "<i>Gram</i> loquitur; <i>Dia</i> vera docet; <i>Rhet</i> verba colorat." Nicolaus de +Orbellis (d. 1455), quoted by Sandys, p. 644.</p> + +<p><a name="foot138"></a>138. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot139"></a>139. <i>Rule of Reason</i> (1551), p. 5. Fraunce, <i>Lawiers Logike</i>, takes the +same view.</p> + +<p><a name="foot140"></a>140. <i>Dialecticae libri duo</i>, A. Talaei praelectionibus illustrati +(Paris, 1560), I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot141"></a>141. <i>Rule of Reason</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot142"></a>142. Wilkins introd. to Cic. <i>De orat.</i>, p. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot143"></a>143. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI., v, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot144"></a>144. Printed in London by John Day, without a date. The dedication is +dated Dec. 13, 1550. The title page says it was "written fyrst in +Latin--by Erasmus."</p> + +<p><a name="foot145"></a>145. Ascribed to Dudley Tenner by Foster Watson, <i>The English Grammar +Schools</i> (Cambridge, 1908), p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot146"></a>146. Chapter IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot147"></a>147. Thomas Heywood, <i>Apology for Actors</i> (London, 1612), in <i>Pub. Shak. +Soc.</i>, Vol. III, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot148"></a>148. Book I, ch. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot149"></a>149. "Rhetorica est ars ornate dicendi." <i>Rhetoricae libri duo quorum +prior de tropis & figuris, posterior de voce & gestu praecepit: in usum +scholarum postremo recogniti.</i> (London, 1629)</p> + +<p><a name="foot150"></a>150. <i>The Art of Rhetorick concisely and completely handled, exemplified +out of Holy Writ</i>, etc. (London, 1634)</p> + +<p><a name="foot151"></a>151. Dekker and Middleton, <i>The Roaring Girl</i>, III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot152"></a>152. Dekker, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot153"></a>153. Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot154"></a>154. χειραγωγια <i>Manductio ad Artem Rhetoricam ante paucos annos +in privatum scholarium usum concinnata</i> (London, 1621). "Rhetorica est ars +recte dicendi, etc."</p> + +<p><a name="foot155"></a>155. Norden, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 699-703.</p> + +<p><a name="foot156"></a>156. A.C. Clark, <i>Ciceronianism</i>, in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, ed. +Gordon (Oxford, 1912), p. 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot157"></a>157. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i>, p. 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot158"></a>158. Erasmus, <i>Dialogus, cui titulus ciceronianus, sive, de optimo +dicendi genere</i>, in <i>Opera omnia</i> (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703), I. It was +composed in 1528.</p> + +<p><a name="foot159"></a>159. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot160"></a>160. I, 4. Wilson follows the analysis on p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot161"></a>161. I, x, 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot162"></a>162. <i>An Apology for Actors</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot163"></a>163. This count is based on the Cicero MSS. listed by P. Deschamps, +<i>Essai bibliographique sur M. T. Ciceron</i> (Paris. 1863). Appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot164"></a>164. H. Rashdall, <i>Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages</i> (Oxford, +1895), I, 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot165"></a>165. J. E. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, p. 590.</p> + +<p><a name="foot166"></a>166. Sandys, p. 624 <i>seq.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot167"></a>167. Deschamps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 59-63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot168"></a>168. Arber reprint, p. 124.</p> + +<p><a name="foot169"></a>169. M. Schwab, <i>Bibliographie d'Aristote</i> (Paris, 1896).</p> + +<p><a name="foot170"></a>170. Rashdall, II, 457.</p> + +<p><a name="foot171"></a>171. Fierville, C. <i>M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber +primus</i> (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for +the first time the complete texts of these abridgments in an appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot172"></a>172. Arber, p. 95.</p> + +<p><a name="foot173"></a>173. The pseudo-Demetrius, author of the <i>De elecutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot174"></a>174. P. 316.</p> + +<p><a name="foot175"></a>175. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, pp. 541-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot176"></a>176. M. Schwab, <i>op. cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot177"></a>177. <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, +1900), p. 88.</p> + +<p><a name="foot178"></a>178. <i>Defense</i>, in Smith, I, 196-197.</p> + +<p><a name="foot179"></a>179. Vossius, <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 3-4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot180"></a>180. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot181"></a>181. <i>Poetica</i>, 23, 190.</p> + +<p><a name="foot182"></a>182. <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot183"></a>183. <i>Euphues</i>, edited by M. W. Croll and H. Clemens (New York), Introd. +iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot184"></a>184. Preface to Maggi's <i>Aristotle</i> (1550), p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot185"></a>185. Prolog. <i>ibid.</i>, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot186"></a>186. Spingarn, p. 312.</p> + +<p><a name="foot187"></a>187. Jacob Pontanus, S. J., <i>Poeticarum institutionum libri tres</i> +(Ingolstadi, 1594), p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot188"></a>188. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot189"></a>189. "Tres autem sunt virtutes narrationis, brevitas, perspicuitas, +probabilitas. Secundam & tertiam diligentissime consectabitur Epicus, +earumque rationem a Rhetoricae magistris percepiet," p. 72. These three +virtues of a "narratio" are based on the analysis of the <i>Rhetorica ad +Alexandrum</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot190"></a>190. Arist., <i>Rhet.</i>, III. 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot191"></a>191. <i>Op. cit</i>,, p. 26.</p> + +<p><a name="foot192"></a>192. Spingarn, p. 313.</p> + +<p><a name="foot193"></a>193. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 255.</p> + +<p><a name="foot194"></a>194. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 262.</p> + +<p><a name="foot195"></a>195. Arber, pp. 138-141.</p> + +<p><a name="foot196"></a>196. Spingarn, pp. 174, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot197"></a>197. Smith, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot198"></a>198. Smith, I, 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot199"></a>199. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot200"></a>200. I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot201"></a>201. II, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot202"></a>202. IV, 63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot203"></a>203. <i>Topics</i>, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot204"></a>204. VI, ii, 8 <i>seq.</i> Quintilian also uses the Greek terms.</p> + +<p><a name="foot205"></a>205. X, i, 46-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot206"></a>206. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 275-398.</p> + +<p><a name="foot207"></a>207. II, 154 seq.</p> + +<p><a name="foot208"></a>208. P. 187.</p> + +<p><a name="foot209"></a>209. G.S. Gordon, "Theophrastus" in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, p. +49-86.</p> + +<p><a name="foot210"></a>210. Smith, I, 128</p> + +<p><a name="foot211"></a>211. <i>Ibid.</i>, 130-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot212"></a>212. Cf. Spingarn, pp. 298-304, for a good account of reformed versifying +in England.</p> + +<p><a name="foot213"></a>213. Smith, I, 137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot214"></a>214. John Northbrooke anticipated Gosson by two years in his attack on +the stage, but did not include poets in his title.</p> + +<p><a name="foot215"></a>215. Spingam, pp. 256-258.</p> + +<p><a name="foot216"></a>216. Smith, I, 158.</p> + +<p><a name="foot217"></a>217. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot218"></a>218. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot219"></a>219. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 158-159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot220"></a>220. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot221"></a>221. I, 183.</p> + +<p><a name="foot222"></a>222. I, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot223"></a>223. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 2; Quint. VIII, iii. 62; Scaliger, iii, 25. Cf. +ante p. 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot224"></a>224. <i>De aug.</i> II, 13.</p> + +<p><a name="foot225"></a>225. See pp. 18, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot226"></a>226. I, 203.</p> + +<p><a name="foot227"></a>227. I, 202.</p> + +<p><a name="foot228"></a>228. Smith, I, 227-228.</p> + +<p><a name="foot229"></a>229. I, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot230"></a>230. I, 231.</p> + +<p><a name="foot231"></a>231. I, 247-248.</p> + +<p><a name="foot232"></a>232. I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot233"></a>233. I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot234"></a>234. I, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot235"></a>235. I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot236"></a>236. La Rue Van Hook, "Greek Rhetorical Terminology in Puttenham's <i>The +Arte of English Poesie." Trans. of the Am. Phil. Ass.</i> (1914) XLV, 111. +Puttenham was also familiar with the <i>ad Herennium</i> and with <i>Cicero</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot237"></a>237. (Philadelphia, 1891), p. 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot238"></a>238. III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot239"></a>239. III, xix, p. 206 Arber reprint; of. also p. 230, on the figure +<i>Merismus</i> or the Distributor, and the remainder of the chapter.</p> + +<p><a name="foot240"></a>240. Smith, II, 249, 282.</p> + +<p><a name="foot241"></a>241. <i>Ibid</i>, II, 274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot242"></a>242. Preface to Homer, in Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth +Century</i>, I, 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot243"></a>243. Spingarn, I, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot244"></a>244. <i>Literary Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, Introduction</i>, I, +xiii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot245"></a>245. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 128. Cf. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, VIII, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot246"></a>246. Spingarn, I, 211.</p> + +<p><a name="foot247"></a>247. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot248"></a>248. <i>Timber</i>, Sees. 132-133.</p> + +<p><a name="foot249"></a>249. Spingarn, I, 214.</p> + +<p><a name="foot250"></a>250. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 210, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot251"></a>251. Vossler, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot252"></a>252. Spingarn, I, 107.</p> + +<p><a name="foot253"></a>253. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 142.</p> + +<p><a name="foot254"></a>254. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 182.</p> + +<p><a name="foot255"></a>255. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 188, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot256"></a>256. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot257"></a>257. Pseudo-Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot258"></a>258. The <i>De sublimitate</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot259"></a>259. <i>De sublimitate</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot260"></a>260. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot261"></a>261. <i>Reason of Church Government</i> (1641), in Spingarn, I, 194.</p> + +<p><a name="foot262"></a>262. <i>Introd. to Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, lxx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot263"></a>263. Pp. 23-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot264"></a>264. VI, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot265"></a>265. Poetica est facultas videndi quodcunque accommodatum est ad +imitationem cuiusque actionis, affectionis, moris, suavi sermone, ad vitam +corrigendam & ad bene beateque vivendum comparata. <i>Praefatio</i> to +<i>Maggi's</i> ed. of the <i>Poetics</i> (1550), p. 9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot266"></a>266. Spingarn, p. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="foot267"></a>267. La poetica è una facoltà, la quale insegna in quai modi si debba +imitare qualunque azione, affetto e costume, con numero, sermone ed +armonia; mescolatamente a di per sè, per remuovere gli uomini dai vizi e +accendergli alle virtù, affine che conseguano la perfezione e beatitudine +loro. <i>Lezione della poetica</i> (1590) in <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1859), II, 687.</p> + +<p><a name="foot268"></a>268. Verses 1008-1010.</p> + +<p><a name="foot269"></a>269. Verse 1055.</p> + +<p><a name="foot270"></a>270. <i>The Women at the Feast of Bacchus</i>, quoted by Emile Egger, +<i>L'Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs</i> (Paris, 1886), p. 74.</p> + +<p><a name="foot271"></a>271. <i>Protagoras</i>, 325-326, Jowett's translation.</p> + +<p><a name="foot272"></a>272. <i>Republic</i>, 596-598.</p> + +<p><a name="foot273"></a>273. <i>Ibid.</i>, 605-606.</p> + +<p><a name="foot274"></a>274. <i>Ibid.</i>, 607</p> + +<p><a name="foot275"></a>275. <i>Laws</i>, 663.</p> + +<p><a name="foot276"></a>276. <i>Poetics</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot277"></a>277. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot278"></a>278. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot279"></a>279. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot280"></a>280. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII. Cf. also XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot281"></a>281. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot282"></a>282. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot283"></a>283. <i>Politics</i>, V, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot284"></a>284. <i>Poetics</i>, VI. (Butcher). Cf. Butcher's <i>Aristotle's Theory of Fine +Art</i>, Chapter VI, for a full discussion of katharsis.</p> + +<p><a name="foot285"></a>285. <i>Politics</i>, V, vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot286"></a>286. <i>Poetics</i>, XIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot287"></a>287. <i>Panegyric</i>, § 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot288"></a>288. <i>Symposium</i>, III, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot289"></a>289. <i>Geography</i>, I, ii, 3. Trans, by H. C. Hamilton (Bohn ed, London, +1854), 1, 24-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot290"></a>290. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, trans, by F.M. Padelford under the title +<i>Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry</i> (New York, 1902), I. Cf. also +Julian, <i>Epistle</i> 42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot291"></a>291. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot292"></a>292. <i>Ibid.</i> XIV. Cf. Harrington in Smith's <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, II, +197-198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot293"></a>293. <i>Ibid.</i> XII. Cf. Chemnicensis, <i>Canons</i>, LII, in Smith, I, 421.</p> + +<p><a name="foot294"></a>294. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV. Cf. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot295"></a>295. <i>Ibid.</i>, III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot296"></a>296. + + Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae + Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae + + * * * * * + + Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis; + Celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: + Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, + Lectorem delectando, periterque monendo. + Hic meret aera liber Sosiis; hic et mare transit, + Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. + </p> + +<p><i>Ad Pisonem</i>, 333-334, 342-346.</p> + +<p><a name="foot297"></a>297. <i>Epistles</i>, II, i, 11. 126 ff. Conington's trans.</p> + +<p><a name="foot298"></a>298. <i>Metamorphoses</i>, X, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot299"></a>299. <i>De rerum natura</i>, I, 936-950.</p> + +<p><a name="foot300"></a>300. <i>Phaedrus</i>. See also <i>Republic</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot301"></a>301. <i>How to Study Poetry</i>, IV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot302"></a>302. Cf. Cicero, <i>De nat. deor.</i> i, 15-38 ff., and Hatch, <i>Hibbert +Lectures</i>, 1888, Ch. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot303"></a>303. A. Schlemm, <i>De fontibus Plutarchi commentationum De aud. poet.</i> +(Göttingen, 1893), pp. 32-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot304"></a>304. "Iam cum confluxerunt plures continuae tralationes, alia plane fit +oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν nomine +recte genere melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat." <i>Orator</i>, 94. +Cf. <i>Ad. Att.</i> ii, 20, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot305"></a>305. Quintilian, VIII, vi, 44. Isidore, <i>Etym.</i> I, xxxvii, 22.</p> + +<p><a name="foot306"></a>306. <i>De doctrina christiana</i> (397), III, 29, 40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot307"></a>307. <i>Confessions</i> (Watts's trans.), III. vi., Lionardo Bruni, <i>De +studiis et literis</i> (1405), uses the same argument to defend poetry.</p> + +<p><a name="foot308"></a>308. Terence, <i>Eun.</i> 585-589, shows a young man justifying his vices on +this ground.</p> + +<p><a name="foot309"></a>309. <i>Poetics</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot310"></a>310. <i>Literary Criticism</i>, p. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot311"></a>311. <i>Rhet.</i> II, xxi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot312"></a>312. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. (Weldon's translation).</p> + +<p><a name="foot313"></a>313. <i>De inst. orat.</i> V, xi, 6, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot314"></a>314. Edited from the edition of 1560 by G.H. Mair (Oxford, 1909), p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot315"></a>315. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot316"></a>316. "Docere debitum est, delectare honorarium, permovere necessarium." +<i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3. He gives the same threefold aims as "ut +probet, ut delectet, ut flectet," in the <i>Orator</i>, 69; and in the <i>De +oratore</i>, II, 121.</p> + +<p><a name="foot317"></a>317. <i>Vide</i> pp. 136-137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot318"></a>318. Cf. <i>ante</i>, I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot319"></a>319. <i>Controv.</i> II, 2 (10). Bornecque ed., I, 145-148.</p> + +<p><a name="foot320"></a>320. Quoted by Padelford, p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot321"></a>321. <i>Orat.</i> xi, p. 308.</p> + +<p><a name="foot322"></a>322. Padelford, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 39-43.</p> + +<p><a name="foot323"></a>323. Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen +Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, 1900), pp. 5, 18, 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot324"></a>324. Boethius, <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i>, Book I, prose 1. Boethius +lived 480-524. Cf. Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, introd. xiv ff. for references to +the surprising number of translations in most European languages +throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, +Notker, and Chaucer.</p> + +<p><a name="foot325"></a>325. <i>Ibid</i>, Book V, prose v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot326"></a>326. "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina +faciebant. Officium autem poetae in eo est ut ea, quae vere gesta sunt, in +alias species obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa +transducant." <i>Etym.</i> VIII, vii, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot327"></a>327. "Fabulas poetae quasdam delectandi causa finxerunt, quasdam ad +naturam rerum, nonnullas ad mores hominum interpretati sunt." <i>Etym.</i> I, +xl, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot328"></a>328. "Una verita ascosa sotto bella menzogna." II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot329"></a>329. <i>Epistle</i>, X, 11, 160-1. Quoted by Wicksteed, <i>Temple Classics</i>, pp. +66-67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot330"></a>330. "Vesta di figura o di colore rettorico." <i>La Vita Nuova</i>, XXV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot331"></a>331. See above, pp. 45-47.</p> + +<p><a name="foot332"></a>332. "Per nimpham fingitur caro, per iuvenem coruptorem mundus vel +dyabolus, per proprium amicum ratio." <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici +de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica</i>. Ed. by G. Mari, Romanische +Forschungen (1902) XIII, 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot333"></a>333. "Est furor Eacides ire sathanas," <i>Ibid</i>, p. 913.</p> + +<p><a name="foot334"></a>334. See above, pp. 51-55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot335"></a>335. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot336"></a>336. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot337"></a>337. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 54; see further above, p. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot338"></a>338. Cf. ante, pp. 97-99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot339"></a>339. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 47-59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot340"></a>340. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 58.</p> + +<p><a name="foot341"></a>341. I <i>anal.</i> 1a.</p> + +<p><a name="foot342"></a>342. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot343"></a>343. André Schimberg, <i>L'education morale dans les collèges de la +compagnie de Jésus en France</i> (Paris, 1913). p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot344"></a>344. <i>Opus de divisione, ordine, ac utilitate omnium scientiarum, in +poeticen apologeticum</i>. Autore fratre Hieronymo Savonarola (Venetiis, +1542), IV, pp. 36-55. Savonarola died in 1498.</p> + +<p><a name="foot345"></a>345. Cartier, "L'Esthetique de Savonarola," in Didron's <i>Annales +Archoelogiques</i> (1847). vii, 255 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot346"></a>346. "Rhetorica, Poeticaque contra: quod non adeo vere ac proprie Logicae +appellantur, neque, syllogismo fere, sed exemplo atque enthymemate, +rationibus quasi popularibus utuntur...." Poetic, furthermore, differs +from rhetoric, "neque usurpat enthymema fere, sed exemplum." Vincentius +Madius et Bartholomaeus Lombardus. In <i>Aristotelis Librum de poetica +communes explanationes</i> (Venetiis, 1550), pp. 8-9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot347"></a>347. "Onde come il loico usa per suo mezzo il più nobile strumento, ciò è +la dimostrazione o vero il sillogismo dimonstrativo; cosi usa il +dialettico il sillogismo topico; il sofista il sofistico, ciò è apparente +ed ingannevole: il retore l'entimema, e il poeta l'esempio, il quale è il +meno degno di tutti gli altri. É adunque il subbietto della poetica il +favellare finto e favoloso, ed il suo mezzo o strumento l'esempio." <i>Delia +Poetica in Generale, Lezione Una </i> I, 2. <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1850), II, 684. +In his paraphrase of this passage and in his comments, Spingarn (<i>Lit. +Crit.</i> pp. 25-26) misunderstands both his author and his rhetoric when he +says, "The subject of poetry is fiction, or invention, arrived at by means +of that form of the syllogism known as the example. Here the enthymeme or +example, which Aristotle has made the instrument of rhetoric, becomes the +instrument of poetry."</p> + +<p><a name="foot348"></a>348. <i>Rhet.</i> I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot349"></a>349. "Nimirum arbitrantur, quemadmodum Rhetorice ab Aristotele ipso +appellatur particula Dialecticae; idque propterea, quod doceat rationem, +qua enthymema applicetur ad materiam civilem: ita & Poeticen esse Logices +partem, quia aperit exempli usum in materia ficta ... at Rhetorice, & +Poetice, non solum docere student, sed etiam delectare; nec cognitionem +tantum spectant, sed & actionem. Quamquam vero hoc commune habet cum +Rhetorica, quod utraque sit famula Politicae." Gerardi Joannis Vossii, <i>De +artis poeticae, natura, ac constitutions liber</i>, cap VII, in <i>Opera</i> +(Amsterdam, 1697), III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot350"></a>350. "Inductio delectat, et est vulgo apta, propter similitudines et +exempla. Hanc argumentationem frequentant Rhetores et Poetae, praesertim +Ovidius; quia venuste ac perspicue explicat argumenta." I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot351"></a>351. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 103-104.</p> + +<p><a name="foot352"></a>352. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 119-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot353"></a>353. <i>Poetica</i> (Vinegia, 1536), p. 25. Spingarn, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot354"></a>354. "Sic dicere versibus, ut doccat, ut delectet, ut moveat." <i>De +poeta</i>, p. 102.</p> + +<p><a name="foot355"></a>355. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot356"></a>356. XII, i, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot357"></a>357. <i>De poeta</i>, p. 79. Vossius echoes the same idea from the same +rhetorical source.</p> + +<p><a name="foot358"></a>358. "Sed & docendi, & movendi, & delectandi." <i>Poetice</i> (1561), III, +xcvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot359"></a>359. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot360"></a>360. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i> p. 176.</p> + +<p><a name="foot361"></a>361. These two names were frequently connected in the renaissance.</p> + +<p><a name="foot362"></a>362. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 195.</p> + +<p><a name="foot363"></a>363. <i>Arber Reprint</i> (London, 1870), p. 151.</p> + +<p><a name="foot364"></a>364. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 142-143.</p> + +<p><a name="foot365"></a>365. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="foot366"></a>366. <i>Vide</i>, p. 132.</p> + +<p><a name="foot367"></a>367. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 77-78.</p> + +<p><a name="foot368"></a>368. Smith, <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot369"></a>369. Croll, Introd. to ed. of <i>Euphues</i> (New York, 1916), p. vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot370"></a>370. Smith, I, 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot371"></a>371. <i>School of Abuse</i> (Pub. of the Shak. Soc., 1841), Vol, 2, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot372"></a>372. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 20, 25, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot373"></a>373. Smith, I, 65.</p> + +<p><a name="foot374"></a>374. Smith, I, 73.</p> + +<p><a name="foot375"></a>375. Smith, I, 76.</p> + +<p><a name="foot376"></a>376. Smith, I, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot377"></a>377. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 86-87.</p> + +<p><a name="foot378"></a>378. <i>Lit. Crit. in the Ren.</i> 2d ed., pp. 269-274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot379"></a>379. Smith, I, 158-160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot380"></a>380. <i>Ibid.</i>, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot381"></a>381. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot382"></a>382. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 171.</p> + +<p><a name="foot383"></a>383. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot384"></a>384. Cf. above, p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot385"></a>385. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, V, xi, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot386"></a>386. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot387"></a>387. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 157.</p> + +<p><a name="foot388"></a>388. Smith, I, 169.</p> + +<p><a name="foot389"></a>389. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. + +<a name="foot390"></a>390. Smith, I, 173.</p> + +<p><a name="foot391"></a>391. Cf. St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, III, vi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot392"></a>392. Smith, I, 187. Cf. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i> I, i, and Quint. <i>De inst. orat.</i> +II, xvi, who defend rhetoric on the same ground. Sidney's "with a sword +thou maist kill thy Father, and with a sword thou maist defende thy Prince +and Country" is in Quintilian.</p> + +<p><a name="foot393"></a>393. See also p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot394"></a>394. Smith, II, 208.</p> + +<p><a name="foot395"></a>395. Smith, II, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot396"></a>396. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot397"></a>397. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, XIV. Plutarch believed that poetry gained +this end by enunciating moral and philosophical <i>sententiae</i>, not by +allegory, which Plutarch made sport of.</p> + +<p><a name="foot398"></a>398. See pp. 87-89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot399"></a>399. Smith, I, 250-252.</p> + +<p><a name="foot400"></a>400. Smith, I, 232.</p> + +<p><a name="foot401"></a>401. Smith, I, 238-239.</p> + +<p><a name="foot402"></a>402. Smith, I, 235-236.</p> + +<p><a name="foot403"></a>403. Smith, I, 248-249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot404"></a>404. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 89-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot405"></a>405. Smith, II, 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot406"></a>406. Smith, II, 115-116.</p> + +<p><a name="foot407"></a>407. Smith, II, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot408"></a>408. Smith, II, 32-40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot409"></a>409. Smith, II, 41-42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot410"></a>410. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot411"></a>411. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 135.</p> + +<p><a name="foot412"></a>412. Krapp, <i>Rise of Eng. Lit. Prose</i> (New York, 1915), pp. 408-409.</p> + +<p><a name="foot413"></a>413. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 91-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot414"></a>414. Spingarn, <i>Crit. Essays of the 17th Century</i>, I, 98, 99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot415"></a>415. Springarn, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot416"></a>416. Spingarn, I, 6-8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot417"></a>417. The author's prolog to the first book.</p> + +<p><a name="foot418"></a>418. Spingarn, I, 170.</p> + +<p><a name="foot419"></a>419. Spingarn, I, 50; for Jonson see also pp. 93-96.</p> + +<p><a name="foot420"></a>420. Spingarn, I, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot421"></a>421. <i>Ibid.</i>, 51-52.</p> + +<p><a name="foot422"></a>422. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55. Cf. Cicero, <i>ante</i> p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot423"></a>423. Ded. to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot424"></a>424. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot425"></a>425. Spingarn, I, 28-29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot426"></a>426. Ded to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot427"></a>427. Smith, II, 306.</p> + +<p><a name="foot428"></a>428. Spingarn, I, 67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot429"></a>429. Spingarn, I, 117-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot430"></a>430. A.H. Tieje, <i>Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction Prior to</i> +1740 (Minneapolis, 1916), p. 14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot431"></a>431. Spingarn, I, 186-187.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10140 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6266d68 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10140 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10140) diff --git a/old/10140-0.txt b/old/10140-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..145d9b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10140-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6209 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance +by Donald Lemen Clark + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance + A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism + +Author: Donald Lemen Clark + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [EBook #10140] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance + +A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism + +By + +Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D. +Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University + +1922 + + + + +To my Father and Mother + + + + +Preface + + + +In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on +the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This +influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance +writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric. +But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical +thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the +present day. + +The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of +rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part +Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of +poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but +by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical +terminology I have already touched on in an article on _The Requirements +of a Poet[1]_, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal +of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical +rhetoric. + +No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can +escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose _Literary +Criticism in the Renaissance_ has so carefully traced the debt of English +criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by +many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my +own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement +what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention +to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am +able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were +profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these +mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and +that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and +less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not +lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism. + +In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in +modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For +quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case +of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the +_Elizabethan Critical Essays_ edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the +_Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn, +I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a +practice would add to the convenience of the reader. + +The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of +acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia +University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided +me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously +allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English +rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly +and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to +Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond +M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard +and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is +to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration, +enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book +possible. + + + + +Contents + + + +Part First: The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry + + +I. Introductory + 1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic + +II. Classical Poetic + 1. Aristotle + 2. "Longinus" + 3. Plutarch + 4. Horace + +III. Classical Rhetoric + 1. Definitions + 2. Subject Matter + 3. Content of Classical Rhetoric + 4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic + 5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric + +IV. Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic + 1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style + 2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic + 3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools + 4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric + +V. The Middle Ages + 1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition + 2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language + +VI. Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance + 1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic + 2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric + 3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric + 4. Channels of Rhetorical Theory + +VII. Renaissance Poetic + 1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition + 2. Rhetorical Elements + +VIII. Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance + 1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism + 2. The Influence of Horace + 3. The Influence of Aristotle + 4. Manuals for Poets 5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism + + + +Part Second: The Purpose of Poetry + + +I. The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. General + 2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example + 3. Moral Improvement through Allegory + 4. The Influence of Rhetoric + +II. Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages + 2. Allegory in Mediaeval England + +III. Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose + of Poetry + 1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic + 2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics + +IV. English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + 1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric + 2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic + 3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example + + +Index of Names + + + + + +Part One + +The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry + + + + +Chapter I + +Introductory + + + +By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly +movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the +historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the +renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the +Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule +the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The +interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the +English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This +tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have +shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical +writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries +and original treatises of Italian scholars. + +The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely +discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is +known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English +renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics +to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval +development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will +be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its +development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in +the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to +show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English +renaissance. + +As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a +new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories +were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of +this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas +Wilson's _Arte of Rhetorique_ in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's _Timber_ in +1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical +theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence +first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of +Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English +criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories +of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology, +not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but +through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric. +The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical +theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an +inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages. +Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far +into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry +use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This +rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some +extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the +influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian +critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the +mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric. + + + +1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic + + +Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the _Rhetoric_ and +the _Poetics_. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical +consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his +mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, +but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical +basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the +classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly +what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace +the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in +the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in +the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry +contained many elements which historically derive from classical and +mediaeval rhetoric. + +Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical +critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in +addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in +separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of +history were composed in verse, they would still be something different +from poetry.[2] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings +are like those of the poets.[3] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric +against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like +that of the poets.[4] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some +fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a +difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of +ignoring. + +If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of +communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry +second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one +reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry +to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a +modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared +with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry. + +To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a +pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an +audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had +learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work +up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize +this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and +harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined +by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the +schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn. + +In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of +poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed +that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be +poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained. +Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and +Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching +of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did +rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch, +the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the +renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring +to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and +of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their +purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion, +therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in +Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The +object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between +nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is +to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the +other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because +also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better +understood. + +The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic +appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric +deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a +defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the +deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals +with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary +critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized +that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far +the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to +characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it +does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical +unity and movement. + +It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in +the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description +of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an +aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric +deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also +with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and +dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most +important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the +ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises +on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the +technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on +versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern +developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in +this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much +more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood +that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical +rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic. + +Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric +and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative +literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that +the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The +fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is +usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to +them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel, +who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete +and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect, +asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[5] He thus +advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the +Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has +in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence +of poetry is fiction.[6] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce +differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written +in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what +he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the +other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[7] Similar +to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and +intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and +practical.[8] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of +writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[9] + +In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation +between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the +traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical +study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between +rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive. + + + + +Chapter II + +Classical Poetic + + + +1. Aristotle + + +A survey of what Aristotle includes in his _Poetics_, what he excludes, +and what he ignores, will be a helpful initial step in an investigation of +what he meant by poetic. Five kinds of poetry are mentioned by name in the +_Poetics_: epic, dramatic, dithyrambic, nomic, and satiric; and lyric is +included by implication as a form of epic, where the poet narrates in his +own person.[10] + +The choruses, also, are lyric. Otherwise Aristotle does not discuss lyric +poetry. Of the other five kinds, nomic, dithyrambic, and satiric poetry +are mentioned only as illustrative of something Aristotle wishes to say +about epic or drama. Aristotle's _Poetics_ discusses only epic and, +especially, drama. Thus of the twenty-six books into which the _Poetics_ +is conventionally divided, five are devoted to the general theory of +poetry, three to diction, two to epic, and sixteen to drama. Although +Aristotle includes dithyrambic, nomic, satiric, and lyric poetry in his +discussion, he practically ignores them. + +On the other hand he specifically excludes from poetry such scientific +works as those of Empedocles and historical writings as those of +Herodotus.[11] The rhetorical element in the speeches of the characters of +drama or epic, Aristotle calls Thought (διάνια). Although +Aristotle includes Thought as an element in drama, he does not discuss it +in the _Poetics_, but refers his reader to the _Rhetoric_. Metrics, which +occupies so large a place in modern treatises on the theory of poetry, +Aristotle likewise mentions several times, but does not discuss. A +metrical structure he accepts as the usual practice in poetical +composition, but he rejects verse as the distinguishing mark of poetic. +Thus he refuses to classify as poetry the scientific writings which +Empedocles had composed in meter as well as the histories of Herodotus, +even if he had written them in verse. On the other hand, the mimes of +Sophron and Xenarchus, although composed in prose, he considers within the +scope of poetic.[12] + +If to Aristotle, then, verse is not the characteristic quality of poetic, +the next step in an investigation must be to discover the criterion by +which he classifies some literature as poetry and other as not poetry. The +characteristic quality, according to Aristotle, which is possessed by the +Socratic dialogs, by the Homeric epics, and by the dramas of Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, and which classifies them together as poetic, is +not verse but _mimesis_, imitation.[13] Exactly what Aristotle meant by +imitation has furnished subsequent critics with an excuse for writing many +volumes. The usual meaning of the word to the Greek, as to the modern, +seems to be little more than an aping or mimicking. Aristotle himself uses +imitate in this sense when he speaks of the delight children take in +imitation.[14] But in establishing imitation as the criterion of poetic, +Aristotle seems to have injected something of a private, or at least a +special scientific meaning into the word. As the characteristic quality of +poetic, imitation to Aristotle evidently did not mean a literal copy. +Plato had attacked poetry as unreal, a thrice-removed imitation of the +only true reality. To defend poetic against the strictures of his master +Aristotle reads more into the word than that. + +In discovering what Aristotle had in mind when he speaks of imitation, the +student must read from one treatise to another, for few writers of any +period are so addicted to the habit of cross-reference. In the +_Psychology_ Aristotle states that all stimuli received by the senses at +the moment of perception are impressed upon the mind as in wax. The images +held by the image-forming faculty are thus the after effect of sensation. +These images remain and may be recalled by the image-forming faculty. From +this store-house of images, or after effects of sensation, the reasoning +faculty derives the materials for thought as well as those for artistic +expression.[15] Imagination evidently has much to do with Aristotle's +conception of the nature of poetic. Imitation, then, to him, meant a +conscious selection and plastic mastery of the sense impressions stored as +images by the image-forming faculty of the author, whose writings are +addressed to the imagination of the reader or auditor. Furthermore, +Butcher's interpretation of "imitation of nature" seems both sound and +suggestive. According to him the imitation of nature is the imitation of +nature's ways. In this sense the act of the poet may well be called +creation. + +As imitative arts Aristotle mentions poetry, dancing, music, and painting. +They differ, he says, in their medium, objects, and manner. Poetry, +dancing, and music he classifies together because they use the similar +media of rhythm, language, or harmony either singly or combined. Music, +for instance, uses both rhythm and harmony, dancing uses rhythm alone, and +poetry uses language alone. Aristotle by this does not, as might seem, +exclude rhythm and harmony from poetry. Indeed, he states explicitly that +most forms of poetry do use all of the media mentioned: rhythm, tune, and +meter. He is only insisting that imitation in unmetrical language is still +poetry; that meter is not the characteristic element of poetic.[16] It is +important to recognize that in classifying poetry with music and dancing, +Aristotle is insisting that the common element in these arts is movement. +Movement is characteristic of poetry, as color and form are characteristic +of painting and sculpture. Thus in discussing the plot of tragedy, which +he holds to be the highest and most characteristic form of poetry, +Aristotle urges the necessity of unity and magnitude, both of which he +defines in terms not of space relations, but of movement. For instance, to +possess unity a plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end. + + A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal + necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An + end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other + thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. + A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows + it.[17] + +Furthermore, the magnitude which this dramatic movement should possess is +also discussed not in terms of bulk, but of length. + + As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms, a certain + magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in + one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length + which can easily be embraced by the memory.[18] + +It is noteworthy that to Aristotle the characteristic movement of poetic +depends on the dramatic unity and progression of a dramatic action, a +plot. In the _Rhetoric_ he shows that the arrangement of the movement of a +speech is governed by entirely different considerations. The unity of +rhetoric is not dramatic, but logical. The order of the parts of a speech +is determined not by a plot, but by the needs of presentation to an +audience. For instance, a statement of the case is given first, and then +the proof is marshalled. + +The objects of poetic imitation, Aristotle says, are character, emotion, +and deed, i.e., men in action,[19] inanimate nature and the life of dumb +animals being subordinate to these. The manner of imitating, if poetic, +Aristotle says is either narrative or dramatic. Under the narrative manner +he includes lyric, where the speaker expresses himself in the first +person, and epic, where the speaker tells his story in the third person. +In the dramatic manner he says that the characters are made to live and +move before us.[20] + +Answering Plato's charge that poetic is not real, Aristotle erects the +distinction between the real and the actual, claiming a reality for poetic +which is not the actuality of science or of practical affairs. It is thus +that he distinguishes the poet from the historian: although the historian +also uses images, he is restricted to relating what has happened--that is, +to fact; while the poet relates what should happen--what is possible +according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing +facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be +"true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of +nature."[21] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both +the characterization and the action. In the first place + + Poetry tends to express the universal--how a person of a certain type + will on occasion speak or act according to the law of probability or + necessity.[22] + +Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls +the structure of a narrative or dramatic plot in that, "what follows +should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action,"[23] +even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to +improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational +premise in an action may seem probable provided that the conclusion is +logical and made to seem real.[24] For instance, the irrational elements +in the Odyssey "are presented to the imagination with such vividness and +coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like +truth."[25] Such a result occurs only when the characters and action are +made real. We believe that which we see, even though we know in our hearts +that it is not so. + +How important Aristotle feels it to be that the spectator or reader should +see before him the characters and situations of an epic or drama is +evinced by his suggestion to the poet on the process of composing. The +author, he says, should visualize the situations he is presenting, working +out the appropriate gestures, for he who feels emotion is best at +transmitting it to an audience.[26] It is only when the poet thus +completely realizes his characters and situations that the audience can be +induced to feel sympathetically the pity and fear which produces the +_katharsis_, so important a result of successful tragedy. If human beings +did not possess that tendency to feel within themselves the emotions of +the people on the stage, they would be unable to experience vicariously +the fear animating the tragic hero. Thus tragedy, which is the type of all +poetic, depends vitally, according to Aristotle, on imaginative +realization. + + + +2. "Longinus" + + +Aristotle's theory of poetry, which influenced so profoundly the criticism +of the renaissance, was not followed by other classical treatises of the +same scope. In fact, very little Greek or Roman literary criticism is +concerned with poetical theory as compared with the keen interest of many +critics in oratory. Perhaps the most significant and valuable critical +treatise after Aristotle is that golden pamphlet _On the Sublime_ +erroneously ascribed to Longinus, which, anonymous and mutilated as it is, +still holds our attention by its sincerity, insight, and enthusiastic love +for great poetry. + +However important its contribution to classical theory of poetry, the +treatise is not specifically on poetic. In fact, it sets out as if to +treat rhetoric, and actually treats both; for it is mainly a treatise on +style, which as Aristotle says in the _Poetics_[27] is in essence the same +both in prose and verse. Nevertheless it does distinguish between rhetoric +and poetic and does contribute to the theory of poetry.[28] + +"_Sublimitas_," misleadingly translated "sublimity," the author defines +as elevation and greatness of style. It springs from the faculty of +grasping great conceptions and from passion, both gifts of nature. It is +assisted by art through the appropriate use of figures, noble diction, and +dignified and spirited composition of the words into sentences. It is the +insistence on passion, emotion, which makes the treatise _On the Sublime_ +stand out above other classical treatises on writing. Both poets and +orators attain the sublime, says the author, but passion is more +characteristic of the poets.[29] + +Passion moves the poet to intensity, which is attained by selection of +those sensory images which are significant. Thus the treatise praises the +ode by Sappho which it quotes, because the poet has taken the emotions +incident to the frenzy of love from the attendant symptoms, from +actuality, and first selected and then closely combined those which were +conspicuous and intense.[30] This intensity which is characteristic of the +poet he contrasts with the amplification of the orators, which strengthens +the fabric of an argument by insistence and is especially "appropriate in +perorations and digressions, and in all passages written for the style and +for display, in writings of historical and scientific nature." Yet +Demosthenes when moved by passion attains the sublimity of intensity and +strikes like lightning.[31] Both in oratory and in poetry sublimity is +attained by image-making, as when "moved by enthusiasm and passion, you +seem to see the things of which you speak, and place them under the eyes +of your hearers."[32] It would be difficult to phrase better the +conditions of imaginative realization. But the author felt truly that +this realization was different in poetry from what it was in rhetoric. In +commenting on a quotation from the _Orestes_, of Euripides, he says: + + There the poet saw the Furies with his own eyes, and what his + imagination presented he almost compelled his hearers to behold. + +And after an imaginative passage from the lost _Phaethon_, of the same +author, he says: + + Would you not say that the soul of the writer treads the car with the + driver, and shares the peril, and wears wings as the horses do? + +From this the rhetorical imagination differs in that it is at its best +when it has fact for its object.[33] Longinus would seem to say that the +realization of poetic is untrammeled by fact, while the imagination of the +orator is bound by the actual; it is always practical. + +Because the imaginative realization of poetry is characterized by passion, +intensity, and immediacy, the author of the treatise feels with Aristotle +that the dramatic is the most characteristically poetic. On this basis he +judges the _Odyssey_ to be less great than the _Iliad_. It is narrative +instead of dramatic; fable prevails over action; passion has degenerated +into character-drawing. This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the +qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize +character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or +for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye +instead of being told. + +The treatise makes this point exceedingly clear by two quotations which +bear repeating. + +"The author of the _Arimaspeia_ thinks these lines terrible: + + "Here too, is mighty marvel for our thought: + 'Mid seas men dwell, on water, far from land: + Wretches they are, for sorry toil is theirs; + Eyes on the stars, heart on the deep they fix; + Oft to the gods, I ween, their hands are raised; + Their inward parts in evil case upheaved. + +"Anyone, I think, will see that there is more embroidery than terror in it +all. Now for Homer: + + "As when a wave by the wild wind's blore + Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light, + And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white, + And through the sails all tattered and forlorn + Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright + Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they are borne."[34] + +The first quoted passage is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk +about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the +situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and +hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and shake with the +frightened sailors. + + + +3. Plutarch + + +But judgments like those of the appreciative and discerning author of the +treatise _On the Sublime_ are rare. Plutarch in his essay _On the Reading +of Poets_, is much more representative of late Greek criticism. This essay +is not a treatise on the theory of poetry, but a thoughtful discussion of +the place of poetry in the education of young men. Consequently the +greater part of the essay is devoted to the moral purpose of poetry, and +as such will be treated in the second section of this study. Two points, +however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical +imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting. + +The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To +Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. +"While poetry is based on imitations ... it does not resign the likeness +of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[35] As a +result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical +material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things +are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, +just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of +its loathsome subject, is praised for its art. + +Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which +led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was +a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent +poetry."[36] The false analogy, "_ut pictura poesis_," establishing, as it +does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until +Lessing exposed it in his _Laocoon_. Aristotle at the beginning had made +clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which +could have a beginning, a middle, and an end. + + + +4. Horace + + +The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are +the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a _poetic_; +it is an _ars poetica_. _Ars_, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a +practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner +himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its +philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to +become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He +says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found +of assistance." + +In structure, also, the _ars poetica_ is not a critical analysis, but a +text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental +considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to +compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so +that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; +he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter. + +The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to +line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing +of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the +most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are +between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in +that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his +emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace +says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin _ab ovo_ but +plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says +much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be +animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be +made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for +instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden +anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of +the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns +his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and +the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode +presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having +taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they +offend. + +The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is +good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is +appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. +Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript +carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a +sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem +will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. +If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his +work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A +poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better +advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his +"_ut pictura poesis_" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts +as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely. + +Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here +treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the +early renaissance. Just what the influence of the _Ars poetica_ was and +why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters. + + + + +Chapter III + +Classical Rhetoric + + + +1. Definitions + + +The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is +reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical +orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric +can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. +The _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. +In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical +theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his +whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there +were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for +their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the _Rhetoric ad +Alexandrum_, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated +in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek +text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's +rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through +the influence of his _Rhetoric_ and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus +set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct +from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, +but briefer. + + +Definitions + +"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering +all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[37] + +He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he +believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring +him to as high a point of health as possible."[38] Neither medicine nor +rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always +something incalculable. + +Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that +the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available +means of persuasion,[39] his successors were more direct, if less +accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is +persuasion,[40] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the +artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[41] But the +anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. +Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by +defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of +the audience as far as possible."[42] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is +that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the +assent of his audience.[43] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes +a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as +the _ars bene dicendi_, or good public speech.[44] Here the _bene_ implies +not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception +the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times +when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to +persuade would be dishonorable.[45] Quintilian's precepts, however, are +more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself +throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible +means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that +the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking. + + + +2. Subject Matter + + +If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion +as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[46] +says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made +persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and +successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was +almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were +or were not so, or persuading a deliberative assembly that this or that +should or should not be done. Consequently Hermagoras defines the subject +matter of rhetoric as "public questions," Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as +"communal affairs," and the _Ad Herennium_ as "whatever in customs or laws +is to the public benefit."[47] The same influence caused Cicero in his +youthful _De inventione_ to classify rhetoric as part of political +science,[48] and in the _De oratore_ to make Antonius restrict rhetoric to +public and communal affairs,[49] although in another section he returns to +Aristotle's "any subject" as the material of rhetoric[50] as does +Quintilian later.[51] + +Although Aristotle did state in his definition that any subject was the +material of rhetoric, in his classification of the varieties of speeches +he practically restricts rhetoric as did Hermagoras, Dionysius, and the +_Ad Herennium_; for here he finds but three kinds of oratory: the +deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional, ἐπιδεικτικός. Forensic +oratory he defines as that of the law court; deliberative, of the senate +or public assembly; and occasional, of eulogy and congratulation. Perhaps +the most illustrative modern examples of the third would be Fourth-of-July +addresses, funeral sermons, and appreciative articles or lectures. Aristotle +suggests that exaggeration is most appropriate to the style of occasional +oratory; for as the facts are taken for granted, it remains only to invest +them with grandeur and dignity.[52] + +Occasional oratory seems to have given no little concern to the classical +rhetoricians. Since it existed to adorn an occasion, it had to be +considered; but unlike the oratory of the forum or of the council chamber +it was not primarily practical. Quintilian comments on this; for it seems +to aim almost exclusively at gratifying its hearers,[53] in this respect +resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but +pleasure.[54] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those +of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective +"literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[55] +Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from +the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it +were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently he +declines to classify this form of oratory separately, reducing +Aristotle's three kinds of oratory to two. It is valuable, to his mind, as +the wet-nurse of the young orator, who enlarges his vocabulary and learns +composition from its practice.[56] Aristotle includes it in rhetoric; for +in its field of eulogy, panegyric, felicitation, and congratulation, it +too uses the available means of persuasion to prove some person or thing +praiseworthy or the reverse.[57] + + + +3. Content of Classical Rhetoric + + +Classical rhetoricians commonly divided their subject into five parts. +This analysis of rhetoric into _inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria_, +and _pronuntiatio_ is to all intents and purposes universal in classical +rhetoric and must be understood to give one a valid idea of its +content.[58] _Inventio_, so often lazily mistranslated as "invention," is +the art of exploring the material to discover all the arguments which may +be brought to bear in support of a proposition and in refutation of the +opposing arguments. It includes the study of arguments and fallacies; and +is that part of rhetoric which is closest neighbor to logic. The kinds of +argument treated in the classical rhetoric were two: the enthymeme, or +rhetorical syllogism; and the rhetorical induction or example. In the +practice of rhetoric _inventio_ was thus the solidest and most important +element. It included all of what to-day we might call "working up the +case." _Dispositio_ is the art of arranging the material gathered for +presentation to an audience. Aristotle insists that the essential parts of +a speech are but two: the statement and the proof. At most it may have +four: the _ex ordium_, or introduction; the _narratio_, or statement of +facts; the _confirmatio_, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and +the _peroratio_, or conclusion.[59] This is the characteristic movement of +rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot +movement of poetic.[60] The parts are capable of further analysis. +Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof +proper into _probatio_, or affirmative proof, and _refutatio_, or +refutation.[61] And the _Ad Herennium_ adds a _divisio_, which defines the +issues, between the statement of facts and the proof.[62] Cassiodorus +divides the speech into six parts[63] and so does Martianus Capella.[64] +Thomas Wilson (1553) offers seven.[65] + +The third part of rhetoric is _elocutio_, or style, the choice and +arrangement of words in a sentence. Quintilian's treatment of style is +typical. Words should be chosen which are in good use, clear, elegant, and +appropriate. The sentences should be grammatically correct, artistically +arranged, and adorned with such figures as antithesis, irony, and +metaphor.[66] Correctness is usually presupposed by the rhetoricians. To +the sound of sentences all classical treatises give an attention that +seems amazing if we forget that in Greece and Rome all literature was +spoken or read aloud. The sentence or period was considered more +rhythmically than logically, and subdivided in speech into rhythmical +parts called commas and cola. The end of the sentence was to be marked not +by a printer's sign, but by the falling cadence of the rhythm itself. +Furthermore, great care should be taken to avoid hiatus between words, as +when the first word ends and the word following begins with a vowel. But +the glory of style to the classical rhetorician lay in its use of figures. +Here rhetoric vindicated its practicality by a preoccupation with the +impractical; and here, as in analysis, rhetoric bore the seeds of its own +decay. Although Aristotle devoted relatively little space to the +rhetorical figures, later treatises emphasized them more and more until in +post-classical and in mediaeval rhetoric little else is discussed. The +figures of course had to be classified. First there were the _figurae +verborum_, or figures of language, which sought agreeable sounds alone or +in combination, such as antitheses, rhymes, and assonances. Then the +_figurae sententiarum_, or figures of thought, such as rhetorical +questions, hints, and exclamations.[67] Quintilian classifies as tropes +words or phrases converted from their proper signification to another. +Among these are metaphor, irony, and allegory. In our day we consider as +figures of speech only the classical tropes, and indeed Aristotle pays +little attention to the others. He says that in prose one should use only +literal names of things, and metaphors, or tropes[68]--which therefore are +not literal names but substituted names. For instance in this metaphor, +which Aristotle quotes from Homer, "The arrow flew,"[69] "flew" is not the +literal word to express the idea. Only birds fly, reminds the practical +person. Max Eastman has pertinently called attention to the fact that it +is only to rhetoric, which is a practical activity, that these figures are +indirect expressions, or substituted names. Apostrophe is not a turning +away in poetic, because in poetic there is no argument to turn away from. +Rather in poetic it is a turning toward the essential images of +realization, as metaphor in poetic is direct, not indirect, because in +poetic a word that suggests the salient parts or qualities of things will +always stand out over the general names of things.[70] + +The last two parts of rhetoric, _memoria_ and _pronuntiatio_, are really +not permanent parts of rhetoric, but only of the rhetoric of spoken +address. _Memoria_, the art of memory, did not mean to the Greeks and +Romans the art of learning by heart a written speech, but rather the art +of keeping ready for use a fund of argumentative material, together with +the features of the case which the speaker might be pleading. The +discussion of it in the treatises is usually an exposition of the mnemonic +system of visual association, the discovery of which is ascribed to +Simonides. Cicero deliberately leaves a discussion of _memoria_ out of his +_Orator_, because as he says, it is common to many arts;[71] and the Dutch +scholar Vossius in the renaissance denied that it was a part of +rhetoric.[72] _Pronuntiatio_, or delivery, has also been found hardly an +integral part of rhetoric. It is concerned with the use both of the voice +and of gesture. Quintilian, for instance, records the effectiveness of +clinging to the judge's knees, or of bringing into the court room the +weeping child of the accused.[73] Aristotle discusses only the use of the +voice.[74] + +Thus classical rhetoric was almost exclusively restricted to the +practical oratory of persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome a +mastery of rhetoric gave its possessor political power; for by persuasive +public speech a public man could gain a following by defending his clients +in the law courts, and influence the destinies of the state by his +deliberations in the legislative assembly. As long as these republican +institutions prevailed, the theory and practice of rhetoric continued to +be sound and practical. + + + +4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic + + +Implicit in Aristotle and throughout classical literary criticism there is +a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the +metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing +characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially +practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the Greeks and Romans as +something quite different from poetic and infinitely more important in +education and public life. But however clear-cut this distinction may be +in principle, in practical application there is rarely to be found such +ideal isolation. + +Aristotle, for instance, carries rhetoric bodily over into poetic by +including Thought, διάνοιᾰ, as the third in importance of the constituent +elements of tragedy.[75] This Thought is the intellectual element in +conduct, and in drama is embodied not in action, but in speech.[76] +Aristotle says, + + It is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given + circumstances. In the case of oratory, this is the function of the + political art and of the art of rhetoric. Concerning thought, we may + assume what is said in the _Rhetoric_, to which inquiry the subject more + properly belongs. Under thought is included every effect which has to be + produced by speech, the subdivisions being--proof and refutation; the + excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger and the like; the + suggestion of importance or its opposite.[77] + +This is a transfer of the content of rhetoric to poetic, but poetic +remains an art of imitation. Imaginative realization of the life of man +would be incomplete if the characters in a narrative or in a drama did not +use the same rhetorical art as do the characters of actual life. The poets +justly carry over rhetoric when the scene demands it, and have often +proved themselves excellent rhetoricians. Quintilian praises the +peroration of Priam's speech begging Achilles for the body of Hector,[78] +and Cicero gives a rhetorical analysis of the speech of the old man in the +_Andria_ of Terence, where the arrangement is especially appropriate to +the character of the speaker.[79] Norden, therefore, seems to go too far +in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.[80] +Dante remains an excellent poet when he puts into the mouth of Virgil that +persuasive speech to Cato in the first canto of the _Purgatorio_. Antony's +speech in _Julius Caesar_ is the best known modern example of the +legitimate place of rhetoric in poetic. + + + +5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric + + +Just as rhetoric is justly carried over into poetic when in the +realization of a character or situation a speech must be made or conduct +rationalized, so poetic is constantly utilized by the orator. Public +speech would be less persuasive if the characteristic imaginative +qualities of poetic were excluded. The ideas and propositions of rhetoric +would most ineffectually reach an audience if they were not made vivid. +That rhetoric is not thus made synonymous with poetic is due to the fact +that in rhetoric the images exist to illuminate the concept, while in +poetic they are woven into the movement of the plot. Oratory, like poetry, +is emotional, as Longinus asserts.[81] Cicero phrases the aim of the +orator as "docere, delectare, et movere," to prove, to delight, to move +emotionally.[82] The vividness and emotion, as well as the charm, of +poetic are indispensable in attaining the ultimate aim of rhetoric-- +persuasion. The orator must be himself moved, according to Quintilian,[83] +just as the poet, according to Aristotle.[84] That essential quality, +indeed, of poetic, the realization of character and situation which +presents vividly a situation or event to the mind's eye of the reader or +hearer so that he seems to participate in the action and vicariously live +through it, was incorporated into rhetoric as ἐνέγεια, a figure of speech. +There petrified in an alien substance, this characteristic quality of +poetic was transmitted to another age which knew of it through no other +source.[85] Thus a successful orator narrated with descriptive vividness +the circumstances, for instance, of a cruel murder, and even dramatized, +speaking now in the person of one actor, now of another, the situation +which he was endeavoring to realize for his audience. He was thus enabled +better to carry his audience with him to his ultimate goal of persuasion. + +But though rhetoric might for the moment thus borrow poetic, and though +poetic might borrow rhetoric, the two remained distinct in the large, each +conceived as having its own movement, its composition, distinct from that +of the other. + + + + +Chapter IV + +Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic + + + +1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style + + +The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically +in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in +this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of +recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of +the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[86] while the +modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the +sophists.[87] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity +between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century +B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between +Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous +Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so +elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than +to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself +on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his +discourses as in poems.[88] + +That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and +poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is +common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the +_Rhetoric_ he refers to the _Poetics_ for a fuller discussion of +metaphor.[89] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great +attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment. +Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not +to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical, +a set rhythm, a meter, is appropriate only to verse.[90] + +A distinction between the style of poetic and of rhetoric similar to that +of Aristotle is maintained by Cicero, but the distinction was losing its +sharpness. In the _Orator_ he considers the orator and the poet as similar +in style, but not identical. Formerly rhythm and meter were the +distinguishing marks of the poet, but the orators in his days, he says, +made increasing use of rhythm. Meter is a vice in an orator and should be +shunned. The poet has greater license in compounding and inventing words. +Both prose and verse, he adds, may be characterized by brilliant imagery +and headlong sweep.[91] The only essential difference between Cicero's +treatment of style and that of Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle had +shown imagery to be an integral part of poetic, Cicero felt it both in +poetic and in rhetoric to be superadded as a decoration. Whether or not +this difference was caused by lack of discrimination on the part of +Cicero, his position was at least in line with a tendency which in later +criticism received increasing development. Both the poet and the orator, +he says, use the same methods of ornament,[92] and the orator uses almost +the language of poetry.[93] And again, in a phrase which was taken up and +repeated for fifteen hundred years, the poets are nearest kin to the +orators.[94] + + + +2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and in Poetic + + +But the public interest in style was increasingly comparable to that in +athletic agility. As Socrates applauded the dancing girl who leaped +through the dagger-studded hoop,[95] the popular audience of imperial Rome +was delighted at a clever turn of speech, a surprising rhythm, or a +startling comparison. Literary study of style in occasional oratory must +have been extensive and extravagant at a very early date, to judge by the +rebukes of such practical speakers as Alcidamas. Moreover, such stylistic +artifice as was practiced and taught by Gorgias, Isocrates, and other +sophists crept into tragedy, says Norden, beginning with Agathon.[96] The +result was that with the poets style became as it had become with the +sophists, an end in itself. The epideictic orators became less orators and +more poets, and the poets cultivated less the characteristic vividness and +movement of poetic than those turns of style which began in oratory. + +Thus it was very natural that the discussions of artistic prose in the +treatises of the later rhetoricians should be copiously illustrated by +quotations from the poets, and that the poets should, in turn, be +influenced in the direction of further sophistical niceties by the +rhetorical treatises on style, such as those of Demetrius and Dionysius of +Halicarnassus, who devoted whole treatises to style alone. The obsession +of style is well exemplified by a comparison of Dionysius and Longinus in +their discussion of Sappho's literary art. Longinus praises her passion, +and her masterful selection of images which realize it for the reader, +while Dionysius, no less enthusiastic, points out that in the ode which he +quotes there is not a single case of hiatus. Dionysius is here much the +more characteristic of his age, as he is in his belief that there is very +little difference indeed between prose and verse. Longinus, while showing +the relations of rhetoric and poetic, keeps the two apart; Dionysius draws +them together. To Dionysius the best prose is that which resembles verse +although not entirely in meter, and the best poetry that which resembles +beautiful prose. By this he means that the poet should use enjambment +freely and should vary the length and form of his clauses, so that the +sense should not uniformly conclude with the metrical line.[97] In this +regard he would approve of Shakespeare's later blank verse much more than +of his earlier because it is freer and more like conversation. Thus, to +Dionysius, the diction of prose and the diction of poetry approach each +other as a limit. + + + +3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation School + + +Later antiquity carried the mingling further in the same direction. As +time went on, the over-refinement and literary sophistication of the +florid school of oratory became more and more powerful. The puritan +reaction of the Roman Atticists in the direction of the simplicity of +Lysias defeated itself in over emphasis and ended in establishing coldness +and aridity as literary ideals. Such a jejune style could never hold a +Roman audience, and Cicero in theory and in practice took as model not +only Demosthenes, but also Isocrates. As Roman liberty was lost under the +Caesars, style very naturally assumed greater and greater importance. +Bornecque has shown that the strife of the forum and the genuine debates +of the senate no longer kept tough the sinews of public speech, and the +orators sank back in lassitude on the remaining harmless but unreal +occasional oratory and on the fictitious declamations of the schools.[98] +In these declamation schools under the Empire the boys debated such +imaginary questions as this: A reward is offered to one who shall kill a +tyrant. A. enters the palace and kills the tyrant's son, whereupon the +father commits suicide. Is A. entitled to the reward? In the repertory of +Lucian occurs a show piece on each side of this proposition. For two +hundred years there had been no pirates in the Mediterranean; yet in the +declamation schools pirates abounded, and questions turned upon points of +law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite +cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the +adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the +declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with +frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The +master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, +would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his +pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[99] + +The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no +better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. +Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. +Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I +will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie +unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other +side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But +I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The +court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in +shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where +figures were appreciated.[100] But in spite of the ridiculous performance +of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, +in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased +popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[101] style +continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were +applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque +has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so +unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to +attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss +in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not +surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the +Christian era the sense of composition seems to have disappeared from +Latin literature."[102] Thus Quintilian lamented that in his day the well +constructed periods of Cicero appealed less to the perverted popular taste +than the brilliant but disjointed epigrams of Seneca. + + + +4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric + + +As style gained this preponderence in rhetoric, it continued to increase +its hold on poetic. While the rhetoricians were exemplifying from the +poets their schemes and tropes, their well joined words, "smooth, soft as +a maiden's face,"[103] the poets on their part were assiduously practicing +all the rhetorical devices of style. Thus the literature of the silver-age +is rhetorical. The custom of public readings by the author encouraged +clever writing and a declamatory manner,[104] even had the poets not +received their education in the only popular institutions of higher +instruction--the declamation schools. The fustian which passed for poetry +and equally well for history is well illustrated by the contempt of the +hard-headed Lucian for those historians who were unable to distinguish +history from poetry. "What!" he exclaims, "bedizen history like her +sister? As well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up +with purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his +cheeks; faugh, what an object one would make of him with such +defilements!"[105] But meretricious ornament was popular, and poets, +historians, and orators alike scrambled to see who could most adorn his +speech. Quintilian's pleas for the purer taste of a former age fell on +deaf ears, and despite his warnings orators imitated the style of the +poets, and the poets imitated the style of the orators.[106] Gorgias may +or may not have learned his style from the ancient poets of Greece, but +the poets of the silver age learned from the tribe of Gorgias. + +Not only did poetry and oratory suffer from the same bad taste in +straining for brilliance of style, but in practice, as Bornecque has +shown, both poetry and oratory suffered for lack of structure. The poets +paid so much attention to style that they neglected plot construction and +the vivid realization of character and situation. The orators paid so much +attention to style that they lost the art of composing sentences, and of +arranging sound arguments in such a way as to persuade an audience. In +effect there was a tendency for the late Latin writers to ignore those +elements of structure and movement wherein poetry and oratory most differ, +and stress unduly the elements of style wherein they have the most in +common. Indeed, so completely did any fundamental distinction between +poetic and rhetoric become blurred that in the second century Annaeus +Florus was able to offer as a debatable question, "Is Virgil an orator or +a poet?"[107] + + + + +Chapter V + +The Middle Ages + + + +1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition + + +The seven liberal arts of mediaeval education carried the blending almost +to the absorption of poetic by rhetoric, and the debasement of rhetoric +itself to a consideration of style alone. + +As for poetic, it had no distinct place except in the analyses of the +grammaticus, who from classical times had prepared boys for the schools of +rhetoric partly by analyzing with them the style of admirable passages. +These passages were commonly taken from the poets, whose art was thus +considered mainly as an art of words and applied to the art of the orator. +Consequently, as a result of this tradition, poetic in the middle ages was +commonly grouped with grammar or with rhetoric, although Isidore includes +it in his section on theology.[108] + +The rhetorical treatises of the middle ages exhibit two phases. On the one +hand the earlier post-classical treatises composed by Martianus Capella, +Cassiodorus, and Isidore, all inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, are +fairly close to the classical tradition of Quintilian. Their weakness +consists not in that they restricted rhetoric to style, but in that their +whole treatment of rhetorical theory was compact, arid, and schematic. The +second phase of mediaeval rhetoric is characteristic of a geographical +position more remote from the center of classical culture. Thus it is in +the rhetorical treatises of England and Germany in the middle ages that +rhetoric was to the greatest extent restricted to a consideration of +style. Illustrative of this tendency is the fact that the only surviving +rhetorical work by the Venerable Bede is a treatise on the rhetorical +figures. + +But although the conventional study of rhetoric in such condensed +treatment as that of the sections in Martianus, Isidore, or Cassiodorus, +was definitely intrenched in the educational system of the seven liberal +arts, it had no vitality. In the first place these treatises gave only the +dry husks of rhetoric, the conventional analyses, the stock definitions. +In the second place rhetoric was little applied. The political life of +western Europe centered in the camp, not in the forum. The classical +tradition of trial by a large jury, as the Areopagus or the Centumviri, +had given place to trial before the regal or manorial court. Thus rhetoric +dried up and lost whatever reality it had possessed in imperial Rome. + +But if the middle ages had no opportunity to apply rhetoric in its +function of persuasion in communal affairs, they did have real need of an +art of writing letters and of preparing lay or ecclesiastical documents, +such as contracts, wills, and records, and of preaching sermons. Thus in +the teaching of the schools, as well as in practice, the oration gave +place to the epistle and dictamen. "Dictare" was to write letters or +prepare documents. And the rhetorical treatise or "_ars rhetorica_" often +yielded to the "_ars prosandi_," or the "_ars dictandi_."[109] + +A characteristic treatise of this sort is the _Poetria_ of the Englishman +John of Garland (c. 1270). In his introductory chapter John explains that +he has divided the subject into seven parts: + + First is explained the theory of invention; then the manner of selecting + material; third, the arrangement and the manner of ornamentation; next, + the parts of a dictamen; fifth, the faults in all kinds of composition + (dictandi); sixth is arranged a treatise concerning rhetorical ornament + as necessary in meter as in prose, namely, the figures of speech and the + abbreviation and amplification of the material; seventh and last are + subjoined examples of courtly correspondence and scholastic dictamen, + pleasantly composed in verse and rhythms, and in diverse meters.[110] + +Under the head of invention John gives definitions, several examples of +good letters, a long list of proverbs under appropriate captions so that +the letter writer can quickly find the one to fit his context, and an +"elegiac, bucolic, ethic love poem" in fifty leonine verses, accompanied +by an inevitable allegorical interpretation.[111] Then he comes to +selection. Tully, he admits, puts arrangement after invention, "but," he +pleads, "in writing letters and documents poetically the art of selection +after that of invention is useful."[112] For he thinks of selection only +as the selection of words. A writer, he says, should select his words and +images according to the persons addressed. The court should be addressed +in the grand style; the city, in the middle style; and the country, in the +mean style.[113] One should arrange in three columns in a note-book the +words and comparisons appropriate to each style so that the material will +be handy when he wishes to write a letter. These principles John +illustrates with leonine verses and ecclesiastical epistles. Under +arrangement he says that all material must be so arranged as to have a +beginning, a middle, and an end. Then there are nine ways to begin a poem +and nine ways to begin a dictamen or epistle. Next he states that there +are six parts to an oration: "exordium, narracio, peticio, confirmacio, +confutacio, conclusio."[114] As an example of this division of the oration +into parts he quotes a long poem which persuades its reader to take up the +cross. Still under the general head of arrangement John explains the ten +ways of amplifying material. The tenth, "interpretacio," he illustrates by +telling a joke, and then amplifying it into a little comedy. "Comedy," he +says, "is a jocose poem beginning in sadness and ending in joy: a tragedy +is a poem composed in the grand style beginning in joy and ending in +grief."[115] Next follow the six metrical faults, the faults of +salutations in letters, a classification of the different kinds of poems, +and further talk on different styles in writing. His sixth chapter, on +ornament in meter and prose, presents what he has up to this left unsaid +about style. It includes a list of fifty-seven figures of speech (_colores +verborum_) and eighteen figures of thought (_colores sententiarum_). This +is logically followed by the ten attributes of man. The seventh and final +chapter gives a long narrative poem of the horrific variety as an example +of tragedy and several letters as examples of dictamen. + +Such a digest shows better than any generalization a complete confusion of +poetic and rhetoric. Poems were to be written according to the formulae of +orations; allegory throve. Infinite pains were to be expended on the +worthless niceties of conceited metrical structure and rhetorical figures. +Garland has neither real poetic nor real rhetoric. + + + +2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language + + +As to the late middle ages rhetoric had come to mean to all intents +nothing more than style, it is frequently personified in picturesque +mediaeval allegory, never as being engaged in any useful occupation, but +as adding beauty, color, or charm to life. In the _Anticlaudianus_ of +Alanus de Insulis, Rhetoric is represented as painting and gilding the +pole of the Chariot of Prudence.[116] In the rhymed compendium of +universal knowledge which its author, Thomasin von Zirclaria, justly calls +_Der Wälsche Gast_, for learning was indeed a foreign guest in thirteenth +century Germany, rhetoric appears in a similar rôle. "Rhetoric," says +Thomasin, "clothes our speech with beautiful colors,"[117] and he gives as +his authority, "Tulljus, Quintiljan, Sidônjus," although Apollinaris +Sidonius seems to be the only one of the trio he had ever read.[118] This +theory lived to a vigorous old age. Palmieri, in his _Della Vita Civile_ +(1435), defines rhetoric as "the theory of speaking ornamentally."[119] +And Lydgate traces all the beauty of rhetoric to Calliope, "that with thyn +hony swete sugrest tongis of rethoricyens."[120] + +The most complete example, however, of the mediaeval restriction of +rhetoric to style, and of the absorption of poetic by rhetoric is afforded +by Lydgate in his _Court of Sapyence._ The passages which refer to +rhetoric are given in full because they can otherwise be consulted only +in the Caxton edition of 1481 or in the black letter copy printed by +Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.[121] + +_Introductory verses._ + + O Clyo lady moost facundyous + O ravysshynge delyte of eloquence + O gylted goddes gaye and gloryous + Enspyred with the percynge influence + Of delycate hevenly complacence + Within my mouth let dystyll of thy shoures + And forge my tonge to gladde myn auditoures. + + Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes + With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute + Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes + And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute + So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute + The redolent dulcour aromatyke + Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke. + + +_The section of rhetoric._ + + Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence + Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous + With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence + Within her parlour fresshe and precyous + Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous + Her audytours gan to all Joye converte + Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte. + + And many clerke had lust her for to here + Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance + Eche worde of her depured was so clere + And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce + That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce + Her termes gay as facunde soverayne + Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane. + + She taught them the crafte of endytynge + Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be + Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge + Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte + Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be + Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse + Whiche is Coma Colym perydus. + + Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont + And wolde conceyve the colours purperate + Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt + And to Galfryde the poete laureate + To Janneus a clerke of grete estate + Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke + Of this mater there groundely may he loke. + + In Tullius also moost eloquent + The chosen spouse unto this lady free + His gylted craft and gloyre in content + Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see + Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre + The bookes of lawe and of physyke good + Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood. + + In prose and metre of all kynde ywys + This lady blyssed had lust for to playe + With her was blesens Richarde pophys + Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay + With maters vere poetes in good array + Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace + Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace. + +Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context +than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of +rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as _docere, delectare, et movere_, only +the _delectare_ remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial +invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with +the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers +to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to +the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in +Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with +ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part +of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses +the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures +of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "_colores verborum_." And when he refers +to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical +divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et +periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of +"elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, +and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's +rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical +rhetoric--style. + +But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded +to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as +the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more +than this style, he does not say so. + +Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. +Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term +rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A +rhetor was one who was a master of style.[122] Henryson, for instance, +calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[123] Chaucer admired Petrarch +for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[124] and +was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of +brytagne,"[125] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by +John Walton.[126] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the +steps of rhetoric,[127] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and +asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[128] Bokenham calls +Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[129] and as late as +1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our +language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[130] The entire period was +thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited +at its best in the works of the poets. + +The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in +his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he +calls _The Pastime of Pleasure_ (1506). He begins, of course, with an +apology for + + Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes + Without rethorycke or coloure crafty; + Nothinge I am experte in poetry + As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[131] + +And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: + + O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge + Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[132] + +The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two +greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their +rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber +gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned +and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of +incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers +of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his +literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what +rhetoric is, + + Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason + Man for to governe wel and prudently; + His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[133] + +It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the +beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour +to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of +the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. +Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells. + +Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical +rhetoric.[134] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the +classical _inventio_. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," +discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, +who is familiar with the _inventio_ of classical rhetoric, concerned as it +is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection +with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted +not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and +explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a +defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term _inventio_ is +thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from +rhetoric to poetic. + +In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a +speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians +because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to +competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word +rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even +have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. +At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical _dispositio_ only in +name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic. + +Pronunciation (_pronuntiatio_), or delivery, of course applies to either +poets or orators. But whereas classical writers applied it to the orator's +use of voice and gesture, Hawes applies it only to the poet's reading +aloud. He recommends that when a poet reads his verses, he should make his +voice dolorous in bewailing a woeful tragedy, and his countenance glad in +joyful matter. It is important, however, that the reading poet be not +boisterous or unmannered. Let him be moderate, gentle, and seemly. The +final section, that on memory, comes closer to its classical sense than +does any other. Here the mnemonic system of "places," supposedly invented +by Simonides, is explained obscurely. Even more obscure is its +applicability to Hawes's subject. + +It is noteworthy that the chapter on Elocution (_elocutio_), +or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. +Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to +rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain +_inventio_; 12, _dispositio_; 40, _elocutio_; 8, _pronuntiatio_; +and 8, _memoria_. "Elocusyon," says Hawes, "exorneth the mater." + + The golden rethoryke is good refeccion + And to the reader ryght consolation.[135] + +Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. +Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, +dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they +gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold. But +beyond these picturesque generalizations there is little trace in Hawes of +any discussion of style such as one would find in a classical treatise. A +few figures of speech are mentioned, but not dwelt upon. Hawes +consistently confines himself to poetry. Tully, the only orator mentioned, +shares a line with Virgil. The main concern is with the devices used by +the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an +adjunct of the poet. + + my mayster Lydgate veryfyde + The depured rethoryke in Englysh language; + To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed + That the vyle termes should nothing arage + As like a pye to chatter in a cage, + But for to speke with rethoryke formally.[136] + +In a word, the whole traditional division of rhetoric is transferred to +poetry, and at the same time both rhetoric and poetic are limited to the +single part which they have in common--diction. The style cultivated by +this focus is ornamental and elaborate. If Lydgate or Hawes had believed +that rhetoric included more than aureate language, surely the scope of +their treatises would have afforded them opportunity to correct this +impression. Each of them is endeavoring to present a compendium of +universal knowledge according to the conventional analysis of the seven +liberal arts. Illustrative details might be omitted, but not important +sections of the subject matter. + +The meanings of words change, and with such changes we have no quarrel. It +is important, however, that we should know what the English middle ages +meant by rhetoric if we are to appreciate how powerful was the tradition +of the middle ages and in what direction it influenced the literary +criticism of the English renaissance. To resume, the middle ages thought +of poetry as being composed of two elements: a profitable subject matter +(_doctrina_), and style (_eloquentia_). The profitable subject matter was +theoretically supplied by the allegory. This will be discussed in the +second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical +discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been +shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric. + + + + +Chapter VI + +Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance + + + +1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic + + +But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of +Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in +life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament. Such a +serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic, +accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with +smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the +ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful +content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to +hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly +entitles _De inventione dialectica_, he defines logic as the art of +speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in +a speech.[137] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains +"_elocutio_," style; and logic carries over "_inventio_," as his title +shows, and "_dispositio_." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic +extremes of rhetoric he shows by denying to oratory any aim of pleasing +and moving. Of Cicero's threefold purpose, to teach, to please, and to +move, he retains only teaching as pertinent to effective public speech. +"Docere," to teach, he uses in the classical sense which includes proof as +well as instruction. Thus he says it has two parts: exposition and +argument.[138] The parts of a speech he reduces to the minimum proposed by +Aristotle: the statement and the proof. Thus although Agricola admits that +rhetoric is most beautiful, he will have none of her. + +Following this lead, Thomas Wilson, the English rhetorician and statesman, +defines logic and rhetoric as follows: + + Logic is occupied about all matters, and doeth plainlie and nakedly set + forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by way of argumentation. + Rhetorike useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those matters + with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at large.[139] + +According to Agricola and Wilson logic has supplanted rhetoric in finding +all possible means of persuasion in any subject. Following Peter +Ramus,[140] Wilson finds that logic has two parts: _judicium_, "Framyng of +thinges aptlie together, and knittyng words for the purpose accordynglie," +and _inventio_, "Findyng out matter, and searchyng stuffe agreable to the +cause."[141] Hermagoras and others had in antiquity considered _judicium_, +or judgment, as a part of rhetoric,[142] although Quintilian thought it +less a part of rhetoric than necessary to all parts.[143] _Inventio_, of +course, has always been the most important part of rhetoric. This same +carrying over of the content of classical rhetoric into logic is further +illustrated by Abraham Fraunce, who divides his _Lawiers Logic_ (1588) +into two parts: invention and disposition. + + + +2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric + + +But while the survival of the mediaeval notion that rhetoric was concerned +mainly with style thus gave over in the English Renaissance _inventio_ and +_dispositio_ to logic, there naturally remained nothing of classical +rhetoric but _elocutio_ and _pronuntiatio_. A brief survey of the English +rhetorics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will show +that this was the case. Richard Sherry devotes an entire book to style in +his "Treatise of Schemes and Tropes" (1550).[144] He begins by defining +"eloquucion, the third part of Rhetoric," as the dressing up of thought. +Rhetoric to him had not in theory become style, but style is the only part +which he finds interesting enough to treat. His schemes and tropes are of +course the rhetorical figures; but let him explain them in his own artless +way. "A scheme is the fashion of a word, sayyng or sentence, otherwyse +wrytten or spoken then after the vulgar and comon usage. A trope is a +movynge and changynge of a worde or sentence, from thyr owne significacion +into another which may agree with it by a similitude." Henry Peacham's +_Garden of Eloquence, Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric_ +(1577) likewise deals only with the rhetorical figures. + +In the anonymous, _The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike_ (1584),[145] +rhetoric is denned as "an arte of speaking finelie. It hath two parts, +garnishing of speach, called Eloqution, and garnishing of the manner of +utterance, called Pronunciation."[146] Thus by definition rhetoric +includes only style and delivery. Under garnishing of speech the author +treats only the rhetorical figures. This restriction of style to figures +is characteristic. The rhythm of prose upon which classical treatises on +style lavished such enthusiastic pains is practically ignored in those +English treatises. The _comma, colon_, and _periodus_ which to classical +authors signified rhythmical units in the sentence movement had already +come to mean to most people only marks of punctuation.[147] Garnishing of +utterance Fenner does not discuss at all. + +In _The Arcadian Rhetorike_ (1588), Abraham Fraunce treats both. +"Rhetorike," he says, "is an Art of Speaking. It hath two parts, Eloqution +and Pronuntiation. Eloqution is the first part of Rhetorike, concerning +the ordering and trimming of speech. It hath two parts, Congruity and +Braverie." Congruity (as pertaining more to grammar) he does not discuss. +"Braverie of speach consisteth of tropes or turnings, and in figures or +fashionings."[148] The remainder of the first book deals with meter and +verse forms, baldly of prose rhythm, epizeuxis, conceited verses, and +various rhetorical figures. The second book deals with the voice and +gestures. This rhetoric of Fraunce's, then, complements his _Lawiers +Logike_ of the same year, the latter dealing with the finding out and +arrangement of arguments in a speech, and the former with style and +delivery. Rhetoric is thus concerned only with stylistic artifice in verse +as well as in prose. + +The same tradition is upheld by Charles Butler, who in his Latin school +rhetoric (1600) defines rhetoric as the art of ornate speech and divides +it into _elocutio_, a discussion of the tropes and figures, and +_pronuntiatio_, the use of voice and gesture.[149] And John Barton is +worse. In his _Art of Rhetorick_ (1634) he says: + + Rhetorick is the skill of using daintie words, and comely deliverie, + whereby to work upon men's affections. It hath two parts, adornation and + action. Adornation consisteth in the sweetness of the phrase, and is + seen in tropes and figures. + +He continues: + + There are foure kinds of tropes, substitution, comprehension, + comparation, simulation. The affection of a trope is the quality whereby + it requires a second resolution. These affections are five: abuse, + duplication, continuation, superlocution, sublocution. A figure is an + affecting kind of speech without consideration had of any borrowed + sense. A figure is two-fold: relative and independent, + +and he names over in his jargon the six figures which are of each +kind.[150] If this be rhetoric, perhaps there was justification for John +Smith's _The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvailed_ (1657), which continued the +fallacious tradition by dividing rhetoric into elocution and +pronunciation. + +This perversion of rhetoric which considered it as concerned only with +style, or aureate language, was not restricted to the school books. The +popular use of rhetoric as synonymous with "fine honeyed speech,"[151] is +seen in a passage from _Old Fortunatus_, where it carries the modern +connotation of a meretricious substitute for genuine feeling, as where +Agripyne says, + + "Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his + affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home spun + stuff; there's no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric."[152] + + + +3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric + + +A half century before Smith unveiled the mysteries of rhetoric, Bacon had +in his _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) pointed out the fallacies of the +renaissance obsession with style. He briefly traces the causes of the +renaissance study of language and adds: + + "This grew speedily to an excesse; for men began to hunt more after + wordes than matter, and more after the choisenesse of the Phrase and the + round and cleane composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of + the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their workes with + tropes and figures, then after the weight of matter, worth of subject, + soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement."[153] + +Sooner or later the school books had to reform. The Latin school rhetoric +of Thomas Vicars (1621), after one has perused the treatise of his +predecessors and contemporaries, is so conservative as to appear +startling. It has all the air of a novelty. Yet all he does is to return +to the classical tradition by defining rhetoric as the art of correct or +effective speech having five parts: _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_, +_memoria_, and _pronuntiatio_[154]. And Thomas Farnaby, whose _Index +Rhetoricus_ appeared in six editions between 1633 and 1654, gives a fairly +proportioned treatment of _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_, and +_actio_. _Memoria_ he omits, following here, as elsewhere, the sound +leadership of Vossius. + + + +4. Channels of Classical Theory + + +This perversion of rhetorical theory in the middle ages and early +renaissance had resulted not from mere wrong-headedness on the part of the +rhetoricians, but from the limited knowledge of classical tradition during +the middle ages. Especially was this true in those parts of western +Europe, such as England, which were remote from the Mediterranean +countries which better preserved the heritage of Greece and Rome. +Moreover, the most important classical treatises on the theory of +poetry--by Aristotle and Longinus--were almost unknown throughout the +middle ages, and the rhetorical writings of Cicero and Quintilian were +known only in fragments. + +Servatus Lupus (805-862), Abbot of Ferrieres and a learned man, was +unusual in his scholarship; for he knew not only the rhetoric _Ad +Herennium_ which was believed to be Cicero's but also the _De oratore_ and +fragments of Quintilian.[155] The current rhetorical treatises of the +middle ages were Cicero's _De inventione_, and the _Ad Herennium._ The _De +oratore_ was used but slightly, and the _Brutus_ and the _Orator_ not at +all.[156] What little classical rhetoric there is in Stephen Hawes was +derived from the _Ad Herennium_. + +The survival and popularity of the _Ad Herennium_ during this period is +one of the most interesting phenomena of rhetorical history. Of the +classical treatises on rhetoric which survive to-day it undoubtedly +arouses the least interest and can contribute the least to modern +education or criticism. Yet it is the most characteristic Latin rhetoric +we possess. It is a text-book of rhetoric which was used in the Roman +schools. In fact, Cicero's _De inventione_ is so much like it that some +suspect that Cicero's notes which he took in school got into circulation +and forced the publication of his professor's lectures. Aristotle's +philosophy of rhetoric, Cicero's charming dialog on his profession, +Quintilian's treatise on the teaching of rhetoric--none of these is a +text-book. The rhetoric _Ad Herennium_ is. It is clear and orderly in its +organization. It defines all the technical terms which it uses, and +illustrates its principles. As one might expect, it delights in +over-analysis, in categories and sub-categories, the four kinds of causes, +the three virtues of the _narratio_. In the hands of a skilled teacher of +composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly +would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical +or literary treatises. Thus in Guarino's school at Ferrara (1429-1460) the +_Ad Herennium_ was regarded as the quintessence of pure Ciceronian +doctrine of oratory, and was made the starting point and standing +authority in teaching rhetoric. In more advanced classes it was +supplemented by the _De oratore, Orator_, and what was known of +Quintilian.[157] The _Ciceronianus_ of Erasmus testifies that by the next +century the scholarship of the renaissance had discovered that the _Ad +Herennium_ was not from the pen of Cicero, and that the _De inventione_ +was considered apologetically by its famous author, who wrote his _De +oratore_ to supersede the more youthful treatise.[158] But six years after +the publication of the _Ciceronianus_ of Erasmus, the edition of Cicero's +_Opera_ published in Basel in 1534 still incorporates the _Ad Herennium_, +and Thomas Wilson in England owes most of his first book and part of the +second of his _Arte of Rhetorique_ to its anonymous author, whom he +believed to be Cicero. For instance in his section on _Devision_ as a part +of a speech, Wilson says, "Tullie would not have a devision to be made, +of, or above three partes at the moste, nor lesse then three neither, if +neede so required."[159] + +"Tullie" says no such thing. Indeed, Cicero never considers _divisio_ as +one of the parts of a speech. But the _Ad Herennium_ does make _divisio_ a +part of a speech,[160] and does require not over three parts.[161] As late +as 1612, Thomas Heywood quotes the authority of "Tully, in his booke _Ad +Caium Herennium_."[162] + +The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is +well illustrated by a count of the manuscripts preserved. In the libraries +of Europe today there exist seventy-nine manuscripts of the _De +inventione_, eighty-three of the _Ad Herennium_, forty of the _De +oratore_, fourteen of the _Brutus_, and twenty of the _Orator._[163] Thus +in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the _De +inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_.[164] The _De inventione_ is the source +for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric +known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters +of it into Italian.[165] Although mutilated codices of the _De oratore_ +and the _Orator_ were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, +complete manuscripts of these most important works were not known previous +to 1422.[166] The _Ad Herennium_ and the _De inventione_ were first +printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers +(1476) was the _Ad Herennium_ under the usual mediaeval title of the +_Rhetorica nova_. The first edition of the _De oratore_ was printed in the +monastery of Subaco about 1466. The _Brutus_ first appeared in Rome (1469) +in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[167] +Before its first printing the _Orator_ was used as a reference book for +advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara. + +Castiglione's indebtedness to the _De oratore_ is well known, but few +notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's +dedicatory paragraphs of the _Orator._ + +But in England the first reference to the _Orator_ appears in Ascham's +_Scholemaster_ (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[168] +Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the +pseudo-Ciceronian _Ad Herennium_ and from the youthful _De inventione_, +not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them. +Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred +years after it had been displaced in Italy. + +The _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a +Latin translation by Hermanus Allemanus (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's +commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores +Graeci_ (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of +Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin +version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[169] This was +frequently reissued in the _Opera_ of Aristotle together with the +_Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in +the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the _Poetics_ in Pazzi's +translation. As the true _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, known to the renaissance +as the _Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten_, was so frequently published with +the spurious _Rhetorica_, references to Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ in the +sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell +whether the _Rhetoric_ required to be read by Oxford students in the +fifteenth century[170] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, +however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were +available, that the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle had so slight an influence on +English rhetorical theory. + +The _De institutione oratoria_ of Quintilian was too long to be preserved +intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well +known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, +and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by +Cassiodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth +century until Poggio discovered the complete manuscript at St. Gall in +1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis +of an incomplete manuscript Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth +century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous +enthusiast made a selection of the _Flores Quintilianei_.[171] Thus, while +the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the +Ciceronian tradition rested on the _De inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_, +the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the +treatises of Cassiodorus and Isidore, passed current throughout the middle +ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world +of scholars welcomed a familiar friend. + +Other classical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly. +The _De compositione verborum_ of Dionysius of Halicarnassus received its +first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by +Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend +of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, +when the _Scholemaster_ was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, +but shows no great familiarity with the text.[172] + +The _De sublimitate_ of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England. +Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, +once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at +Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of +its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his _Index +Rhetoricus_ (1633). The advance of classical scholarship in England is +indeed no better illustrated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited +sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, +Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an +imposing list of sources. + + "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, + Demetrius Phal,[173] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus _De + sublimitate_, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martianus + Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, + Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, + Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A. + Valladero." + +Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover +to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in +Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as +to others, both classical and mediaeval. + +With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions +of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of +the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in +mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the +lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such +classical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In +the second place, the recovery of classical criticism in the Italian +renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of classical +theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, +did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in classical +antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that classical theories of +poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost +as slow head against English mediaeval tradition. + + + + +Chapter VII + +Renaissance Poetic + + + +1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition + + +In concluding his authoritative study, _A History of Literary Criticism in +the Renaissance_, Spingarn asserts that before the sixteenth century, +"Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical +treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those +upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the _Institutions +Oratoriae_ of Quintilian, and the _De Legendis Gentilium Libris_ of Basil +the Great."[174] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great +change was brought about by the publication of the classical critical +writings, especially the _Poetics_ of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval +criteria of _doctrina_ and _eloquentia_ were superseded by many new ones. + +The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a +separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone +into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be +summarized as follows: + +The recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_ brought about a complete change in +poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing +and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a +hundred years later. + +_The Poetics_ had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin +abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew +translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac +translation of the Greek.[175] Although the _Poetics_ was not included in +the Aldine _Aristotle_ (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was +printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the _Rhetoric_ for the first time at +Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text +was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ (1508)[176] badly +edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the +Basel edition of Aristotle's _Opera_ (1538) with Filelfo's version of the +_Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of +Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the _Rhetoric_. Robortelli +edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by +Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by +Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the _De Poeta_ (1559) of Minturno and +the _Poetics_ (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories +were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the _Scholemaster_ (1570), +and never elucidated before Sidney's _Defense of Poesie_ (c. 1583, pub. +1595). + +But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of +the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_, renaissance +theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has +summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as passing through +three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and +philology.[177] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in +the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance +the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has +pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the classical +theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those +who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his +poem on great poems of classical antiquity, some critics suggested, he +could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle +for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The +rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are +stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to +the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary +models. + +Although with good taste as well as classical erudition Ascham preferred +Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view +was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with +style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, +but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to +the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but +also on account of his moral maxims or _sententiae_. In England the two +greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this +high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, +_Gorbuduc_, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are +stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully +taught.[178] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those +elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity +and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence." + +The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable +subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely +evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the +essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as +in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The +commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that +of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical +treatises. + +Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were +an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[179] +Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a +poet; Livy a historian.[180] Castelvetro probably came nearest to +Aristotle in asserting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in +prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is +prose.[181] Vossius anticipates Prickard's explanation of Aristotle by +defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To +him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a +historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[182] These are only a few +examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly +studied. + + + +2. Rhetorical Elements + + +This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse +was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction +between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle +ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable +subject matter _(doctrina)_ and style (_eloquentia_). If the definition +goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator +lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use +of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be +written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic +difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the +middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of +style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in +Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll +has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the +case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[183] + +In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is +frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars +whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the +vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the _Poetics_ +practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized +in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's +over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, +low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) +of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[184] Maggi[185] and +Tifernas[186] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest +neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by +meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same +material,[187] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to +discriminate in their choice of words.[188] + +As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but +Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the +_narratio_ of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of +facts. Confusing the _narratio_ of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says: + + There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and + perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second + and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[189] + +Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is +supposed by classical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of +his speech.[190] Furthermore, says Pontanus, one can write very good +poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[191] No wonder Luis Vives +complained in his _De Causis Corruptarum Artium_, + + The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two + that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call + rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language. + The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put + eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[192] + +From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive +studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical +elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The +Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the +overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of +the sounder critical theories of classical antiquity. Their service to +subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the +whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few +cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance + + + +1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism + + +Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry +formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth +century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which +Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance +theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval +tradition and from the classical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual +displacements of these elements by the sounder classical tradition which +reached England from Italy. + +"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given +up to rhetorical study."[193] In his period he includes Cox and Wilson, +the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he +characterizes as one of classification and metrical studies, he says, "A +long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a +rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[194] These +two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered +together. + +Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the +art of poetry. The rhetorics of Cox (1524) and Wilson (1553) were +rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of +a direct contact with classical rhetoric. Because Cox founded his treatise +on the sound scholarship of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of +his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely +under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on +rhetoric in England. + +Another scholar in classical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose +_Scholemaster_ (1570) contains the first reference in England to +Aristotle's _Poetics_. But except as a teacher of language and of +literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he +classifies literature into _genres_ of poetry, history, philosophy, and +oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and +Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a +field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the +result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of +individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power +than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's _Absolon_ and +Buchanan's _Iephthe_ he considers the best tragedies of his age because +only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and +Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, +and in imitation of good models.[195] Watson he especially praises for his +refusal to publish _Absolon_ because in several places an anapest was +substituted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of classical +rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness. + +The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the classical +treatises, but from the middle ages. His _Certayne Notes of Instruction_ +(1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the +English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of +grammar, following the classical tradition; but in France prosody had +regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As +Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in +the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired +Gascoigne.[196] + +Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, +borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas +Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, +Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie +of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies +is illustrated by his own example. + +If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither +praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are +_trita et obvia_. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby +my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake +to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the +prayse of hir commendacion.[197] + +By far the greater part of Gascoigne's treatise is devoted to metrics and +to style. One can use, he says, the same figures or tropes in verse as are +used in prose. It is noteworthy that in this treatise on making verses +Gascoigne restricts himself to externals of form and style. When he does +discuss the subject-matter of poetry, instead of emphasizing the +seriousness of content, he talks about his mistress' "cristal eye." + +What has been said about Gascoigne applies almost equally well to the +_Schort Treatise_ (1584) of James VI which was modeled on it. Like +Gascoigne's _Notes_, it is rhetorical and concerned with only the +externals of poetry. The treatise is almost entirely a metrical study, +although the author does call attention to three special ornaments of +verse, which are comparisons, epithets, and proverbs. The other figures of +rhetoric which are so appropriate to poetry James says may be studied in +Du Bellay. In both these writers, poetry is treated in the categories of +the middle ages. Poetry to them is composed of subject-matter and style. +The characteristic structure and movement of poetry is not considered at +all. + + + +2. The Influence of Horace + + +Thus far there had been no fundamental criticism of poetic in England, no +attempt to arrive at the basis of critical theory. Horace had been known +long before, but not until Drant's translation of the _Ars Poetica_ into +English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in +England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is +George Whetstone's _Dedication to Promos and Cassandra_ (1578). The +passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of +classicism. Whetstone inveighs against the English dramatist who "in three +howers ronnes throwe the worlde, marryes, gets children, makes Children +men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from +Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel."[198] This is the earliest record in +England of an insistence on unity of time and place. Then he urges the +claims of decorum in comedy. The poet should not make clowns the +companions of kings, nor put wise counsels into the mouth of fools. "For, +to worke a comedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct, yonge men +should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lascivious, +Boyes unhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye."[199] + +It is interesting that this conception of the characters in a drama should +ultimately trace back through many perversions to Aristotle's rhetorical +theory. There are three kinds of proof, says Aristotle in the _Rhetoric_: +the character of the speaker, the production of a certain disposition in +the audience, and the argument of the speech itself. The last kind of +proof is derived from logic; the first two, from psychology.[200] +Consequently, Aristotle devotes almost a third of his _Rhetoric_, the +second book, to an elaborate exposition of the passions (πάθη) of men, so +that the orator may know how to excite or allay them according as the +necessities of his case demand, and a full explanation of the character (ᤦθος) +of men, that the speaker may know how to impress upon his audience his own +trustworthiness, and adapt his arguments to the character of the +particular audience which he is addressing. Varieties of character in an +audience depend upon its passions, its virtues and vices, its age or +youth, and its position in life.[201] Aristotle's generalizations on the +character of young people and old, of the wealthy, noble and powerful, +display penetrating acumen. That flesh and blood character realizations in +drama or story could be attained by this method Aristotle never intended. +He is talking of public address. But the study of characterization as part +of the education of an orator became fixed in the curriculum of rhetoric +schools. The boys were supposed to study certain types of persons and then +write character sketches to show their sharpness of observation. +Theophrastus, Aristotle's favorite student and successor as head of the +school in Athens, wrote his _Characters_ to show how it was done, and did +it with such ability as to elevate the school exercise to a literary +form. These "characters" were epitomized in the Latin rhetorics and the +school exercises continued. The rhetoric _Ad Herennium_ calls them +_notatio_,[202] Cicero, _descriptio_,[203] and Quintilian, _mores_.[204] + +Quintilian furthermore makes interesting comments on the use of the +character sketches by the poets. Character (Greek: ᤦθος) in oratory, he +says, is similar to comedy, as the passions (πάθος) are to tragedy.[205] +Professor Butcher calls attention to the early influence of the character +sketches on the middle comedy. Here the "humours," to anticipate Ben +Jonson, give names not only to the characters of the play, but to the +plays themselves.[206] As adopted by the drama, the orator's view that +people of a certain age and rank are likely to behave in certain fashions +was perverted to the dramatical law of _decorum_, that people of certain +age or rank must on the stage act up to this generalization of what was +characteristic. This law of decorum was formulated by Horace in his _Ars +Poetica_,[207] whence it was derived by the renaissance. Thomas Wilson, +in his _Arte of Rhetorique_, gives a Theophrastian character sketch as an +illustration of the figure _descriptio_. + + "As in speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch + peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of + his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire + of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a + Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this thirtie Winter. He spent + once a groate at good ale, being forced through companie, and taken + short at his words, whereupon he hath taken such conceipt since that + time, that it hath almost cost him his life."[208] + +In 1592 Casaubon edited Theophrastus in Latin. Thereafter the character +sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of +remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[209] In the theory of the drama +the rhetorical method of characterization, fixed as the law of decorum, +flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England +from Whetstone on it was made much of. Thus a rhetorical tradition of +classical pedagogy, derived ultimately from Aristotle, and a poetical +tradition of later classical drama, derived from Horace, coincide in the +English renaissance. + +In _The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender_ (1579), for +instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye +where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach."[210] The +archaisms are defended in the first place, indeed, because they are +appropriate to rustic speakers, but in the second because Cicero says that +ancient words make the style seem grave and reverend. Further praise E.K. +grants the author because he avoids loose sentence structure and affects +the oratorical period. "Now, for the knitting of sentences, whych they +call the ioynts and members thereof, and for all the compasse of the +speach, it is round without roughness."[211] The "ioynts and members" are +the _cola_ and _commas_ of the oratorical prose rhythm. Stanyhurst in the +_Dedication_ to his translation of Virgil (1582), like E. K., is concerned +with style rather than matter, and of course primarily with the revival +of classical meters, a subject already so thoroughly investigated that it +need not be gone into here.[212] Stanyhurst's praise of Virgil is largely +concerned with formal and rhetorical excellences. + + Our _Virgil_ dooth laboure, in telling as yt were a _Cantorburye tale_, + too ferret owt the secretes of _Nature_, with woordes so fitlye coucht, + wyth verses so smoothlye slyckte, with sentences so featlye ordered, + with orations so neatlie burnisht, with similitudes so aptly applyed, + with eeche _decorum_ so duely observed, as in truth hee hath in right + purchased too hym self thee name of a surpassing poet, thee fame of an + od oratoure, and thee admiration of a profound philosopher.[213] + +Thus in accord with the mediseval tradition he analyzes poetry into +profitable subject matter and style. + + + +3. The Influence of Aristotle + + +In 1579 the Puritan attack on poetry and the stage began with Gosson's +_School of Abuse._[214] and was answered by Lodge's _Defence of Poetry_ in +the same year. The attack and defense both rested on moral, not aesthetic, +sanctions and will be discussed in a later section. It is only in Sidney's +_Defense_ (c. 1583) and that of his follower Harington that theories of +the nature of poetry are included. And with Sidney the Aristotelianism of +the Italian renaissance makes its first appearance in English +criticism.[215] + +"Poesie," writes Sidney, "therefore is an arte of imitation, for so +Aristotle termeth it in his word _Mimesis_, that is to say, a +representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speake metaphorically, +a speaking picture."[216] Thus not only Aristotle's imitation enters +English criticism, but Plutarch's speaking picture as well, with all the +power of its false analogy. That Sidney himself was not, however, carried +away by the analogy is apparent from other passages. Aristotle, +classifying poetic with music and dancing as a time art with its essence +in movement, had insisted that a poem must have a beginning, a middle, and +an end--qualities which do not exist in space. So in the most quoted +passage from Sidney's _Defense_, it is a "tale forsooth," which draws old +men from the chimney corner, and children from play,[217] and "the +narration" which furnishes the groundplot of poesie.[218] Thus he +introduces into English criticism, as an important element of poetry, the +essentially sound idea that the characteristic structure of poetry lies in +its narrative and dramatic movement. Poetry cannot lie because it never +pretends to fact. He establishes this assertion on Aristotle's "universal +not the particular" as the basis of poetic. Sidney had followed Scaliger +in classifying poets into three kinds: the theological, the philosophical, +and the right poets. The third class, the real poets, he says, "borrow +nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, onely rayned with +learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and +should be."[219] + +In considering the vehicle of poetic Sidney parts company with Scaliger +and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the +characteristic mark of poetry. The _Cyropaedia_ of Xenophon, and the +_Theagines and Cariclea_ of Heliodorus are poems, although written in +prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although +indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest +rayment."[220] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater +aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," +and "seates," from the mnemonic system of Simonides usually incorporated +in the section on memory in the classical rhetorics.[221] Furthermore, +Sidney is the first in England to insist on the vividness of realization +which comes from the poet's being himself moved. Discussing lyric poetry, +Sidney says: + + But truely many of such writings as come under the banner of + unresistable love, if I were a Mistres, would never perswade mee they + were in love; so coldely they apply fiery speeches, as men that had + rather red Lovers writings, and so caught up certaine swelling + phrases,... then that in truth they feele those passions, which easily + (as I think) may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness or _Energia_ (as + the Greeks call it), of the writer.[222] + +Sidney's _Energia_ came to him from the rhetorics of Aristotle and +Quintilian via the _Poetice_ of Scaliger.[223] _Energia_, the vivifying +quality of poetry, had at the earliest age been adopted by rhetoric to +lend power to persuasion. Carefully preserved among the figures of +rhetoric, it had survived the middle ages, and appears in Wilson's _Arte +of Rhetoric_ as "an evident declaration of a thing, as though we saw it +even now done." + +Sidney makes _energia_ an essential quality of poetic; but even with him +it seems to have a rhetorical cast. It is especially to be used, says +Sidney, by a lover to persuade his mistress, urging her to yield while yet +her beauty endures. This _genre_ of versified oration to one's mistress +was unusually popular in Elizabethan England. It may even be one reason +for Bacon's classification of lyric poetry as part of rhetoric.[224] +Although _energia_ does belong to both poetic and rhetoric, as +pseudo-Longinus implies,[225] there seems to be here a definitely +rhetorical conception of poetic style. Sidney, however, keeps the +classical distinction between rhetoric and poetic, although he was +conscious of their contact in diction. "Both," he says with Aristotle, +"have an affinity in this wordish consideration."[226] While many +renaissance critics interpreted this affinity as permitting rhetorical +elaboration in poetry as well as in prose, Sidney with innate good taste +pleaded for more restraint. The diction of the writers of lyrics is even +worse, he says, than their content. + + So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence apparalled, or rather + disguised, in a Curtizan-like painted affectation: one time with so + farre fette words, they seem monsters, but must seem strangers to any + poore English man, another tyme with coursing of a Letter as if they + were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary; another tyme, with + figures and flowers extreamelie winter-starved.[227] + +Prose writers, he adds, are as badly infected as "versers," even scholars +and preachers. That he himself was infected appears in the examples of +interminable "tropes" and "schemes" quoted by Fraunce in his _Arcadian +Rhetoric_ (1588) from Sidney's own _Arcadia_. But the concession of his +own style to the habit of his age did not involve any fundamental +confusion of rhetoric with poetic. + +Thus Sidney's _Defense of Poesie_, by domesticating in England the +Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing +mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that +Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and +from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to +expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought +which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney +instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years +established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases +toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism +profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is +interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the +mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show +classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable +residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval. + + + +4. Manuals for Poets + + +Before William Webbe wrote his _Discourse of English Poetry_ (1586) there +had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive +study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely +glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James +attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were +primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the +Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as +a main object. In his _Discourse_ Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose +in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on +English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to +discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be +aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much +attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, +poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall _Eloquution_, +as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one +descent."[228] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by +eloquence, he cites Lyly's _Euphues_. + + Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave + composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make + tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, + in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine + sence.[229] + +Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to +be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. +Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in +style. He adds: + + Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning + and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure + of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an apt + composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the hearers + eares even whether soever it lysteth, that _Plato_ affirmeth + therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to + persuade.[230] + +The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and +rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have +poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of +diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the +diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse +and oratory in prose. + + Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in + measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion + of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt + and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly + called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[231] + +Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come +seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best +known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the +_Discourse_ is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into +matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval +_doctrina_, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are +derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the +figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical +meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His +treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with +an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his +treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of +poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from +the _Ars Poetica_, and the _Epistles_. + +Perhaps the author of _The Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), +generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the +some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to +write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, +Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to +write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise +an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, +Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes +most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and +satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the +Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of +poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his +inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles +Aristotle and Horace.[232] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the +importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in +war, engineering and politics.[234] That the art of poetry is eminently +teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill +appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by +reason and gathered by experience.[233] It is verse, according to +Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This +makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more +eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and +set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it +sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so +beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best +persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[235] +Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more +beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better +able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and +history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, +and so on. The second book, _Of Proportion_, 70 pages, is a treatise on +metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English +versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures +such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is +devoted to classical meters. In his third book, _Of Ornament_, 165 pages, +Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of +speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, +Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[236]. Professor +Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his _Poetic and Verse +Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth_, because, he says, it does not fall +within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as +applicable to prose as to verse[237]. That Puttenham did include it, +however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading +public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the +ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be +seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly +embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and +bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham. + + This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which + be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his + language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or + passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment[238]. + +The figures Puttenham divides according to his own scheme. First come the +figures _auricular_ peculiar to the poets, then the figures _sensable_ +common to the poets and the rhetoricians, and finally the figures +_sententious_ appropriate to the orators alone. After he has explained the +first two varieties, however, and enters on the third, Puttenham says: + + Now if our presupposall be true, that the Poet is of all other the most + auncient Orator, as he that by good and pleasant perswasions first + reduced the wilde and beastly people into publicke societies and + civilitie of life, insinuating unto them, under fictions with sweete and + coloured speeches, many wholesome lessons and doctrines, then no doubt + there is nothing so fitte for him, as to be furnished with all the + figures that be _Rhetoricall_, and such as do most beautifie language + with eloquence and sententiousness. So as if we should intreate our + maker to play also the Orator, and whether it be to pleade, or to + praise, or to advise, that in all three cases he may utter and also + perswade both copiously and vehemently[239]. + +Puttenham was writing in the same age and with the same tradition which +defined Rhetoric as the art of ornament in speech. The only difference +between oratory and poetry lay in that the latter was composed in verse. + + + +5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism + + +From Puttenham to Bacon no serious contributions were made to the general +theory of poetry. Critical attention was absorbed by controversies of +Campion and Daniel over native and classical versification, and the +flyting of Harvey and Nash. Harvey was a classical scholar and rhetorician +who knew that poetry and oratory were different things, and believed verse +to be the mark of the first and prose of the latter[240]. He preferred the +periodic style of Isocrates and Ascham to the tricksy pages of +Euphues[241]. Chapman, likewise, considered verse the mark of poetry, and +prose of rhetoric[242]. + +In the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) Bacon clears up some of the +misconceptions of the English renaissance by judicious borrowing from the +Italian. He says: + + Poesie is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part + restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly + referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of + Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever + that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & + divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or + Matter. In the first sense it is but a _Character_ of stile, and + belongeth to Arts of speeche. In the later, it is, as hath beene saide, + one of the principall Portions of learning, and is nothing else but + _Fained History_, which may be stiled as well in Prose as in Verse.[243] + +Bacon's focus of attention on the substance of poetry is in keeping with +his attack on mere sophistication of style in rhetoric. Poetry as style +does not interest him. Like Castelvetro and Sidney, he considers the +vehicle of verse not essential to poetry, which, as a product of the +imagination, he considers to be occupied with fiction. To Bacon, perhaps, +the imagination seems to be too much the organ of make-believe, imaging +things which never were on land or under the sea. Nevertheless his claim +for the imagination is fortunate in ruling out those theories of art which +set up slavish fidelity to fact, under the name of imitation, as the +essence of poetry. Bacon was not concerned with formulating a complete +theory of poetry, but his pithy _obiter dicta_ were influential in further +establishing the sounder criticism of the Italian classicists. + +As Spingarn points out, Ben Jonson was first led to classicism in poetical +theory by the example of Sidney.[244] But during the intervening years +the scholars of Holland had supplanted those of Italy; and whereas Sidney +derived his Aristotelianism from Scaliger and Minturno, Jonson derived his +even more from Pontanus, Heinsius, and Lipsius and from the Latin +rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian. + + A Poet (says Jonson) is a Maker, or a fainer: His Art, an Art of + imitation or faining, expressing the life of man in fit measure, + numbers, and harmony.... Hence hee is called a _Poet_, not he which + writeth in measure only, but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and + writes things like the truth. For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, + the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke or Poeme.[245] + +So convinced was Jonson that the essence of poetry does not lie in verse +but in fiction that Drummond reports, "he thought not Bartas a Poet, but a +Verser, because he wrote not fiction."[246] Jonson was misled by the false +analogy of poetry and painting. + + _Poetry_ and _Picture_ are Arts of a like nature, and both are busie + about imitation. It was excellently said of _Plutarch, Poetry_ was a + speaking Picture, and _Picture_ a mute _Poesie_. For they both invent, + fame, and devise many things.[247] + +This structural and static conception of poetry is well exemplified by his +comparisons. Whereas Aristotle classified poetry with music and dance, +Jonson compares the epic or dramatic plot to a house. The epic is like a +palace and so requires more space than a drama. The influence of Jonson +was beneficial, however, in that he did emphasize in poetry the element of +structure which the middle ages had largely neglected.[248] In his ideals +of style Jonson is rhetorical. In the twelve sections of _Timber_ which he +devotes to rhetoric he incorporates a sound treatise on prose style, +urging restraint and perspicuity as especial virtues. In his nine sections +on poetry he says nothing about style, except to quote Oicero to the +effect that "the _Poet_ is the nearest Borderer upon the Orator, and +expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers." It would +seem that the section on style in oratory was meant to serve for poetry as +well. Jonson's own methods of comparison, as related to Drummond, would +bear this out: "That he wrote all his (verses) first in prose."[249] From +the same authority one may learn that "He recommended to my reading +Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he +lived with me," and "That Quintilian's 6, 7, 8, bookes were not only to be +read, but altogether digested,"[250] Though Jonson makes no more +distinction than Petrarch, between Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian as +authorities on poetical style,[251] his rhetorical cast does not imply the +style advocated by Webbe and Puttenham. This was the exuberant style of +mediaeval rhetoric, whereas by temperament and scholarly training Jonson +threw his influence in favor of the classical rhetorical style of the best +period. + +The influence of Bacon in favor of the sound rhetoric of Cicero and +Quintilian, seconded by that of Jonson, finally did away with the +mediaeval ideal of rhetoric as being one with aureate language and +embroidered style. The stylistic exuberance of the Elizabethans gave place +to a more restrained and polished phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, +for instance, in his _Hypercritica_ (c. 1618) warns the historians against +the style of the _Arcadia_. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better +becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical +Notions."[252] Henry Reynolds, in his _Mythomystes_ (c. 1633), although he +goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces +the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers of +rhetoric and versification as mere accidents of poetry.[253] In his +_Anacrisis_ (1634) the Earl of Stirling likewise urges that "language is +but the Apparel of Poesy."[254] The "but" marks the difference between the +ideals of two ages. Fiction remains for him the essence of poetry, for +fiction in prose is poetry. But he will not go the whole way with Jonson +and deny the name of poet to one whose material is not fictitious.[255] + +Unfortunately, for English criticism, Milton wrote very little on the +theory of poetry. His casual remarks, however, show such enlightened +scholarship and keen insight that what little he did write makes up in +importance what it lacks in bulk. In the Treatise _Of Education_ (1644) he +refers to the sublime art of poetry "which in _Aristotle's poetics_, in +_Horace_, and the _Italian_ commentaries of _Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni_, +and others, teaches what the laws are of a true _Epic_ poem, what of a +_Dramatic_, what of a _Lyric_, what decorum is, which is the grand master +peece to observe."[256] His rhetoric, also, he knew at first hand from the +best classical sources. He gives as his authorities Plato, Aristotle, +Phalereus,[257] Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.[258] This is the first time +that an English critic mentions the treatise _On the Sublime_ in +connection with poetry. It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Milton, +while citing the only surviving literary critic of classical antiquity who +gave proper emphasis to the importance of passion in poetry,[259] should +himself be the first English critical writer to urge for passion the same +importance. This he does in his famous differentiation of rhetoric and +poetic. In the educational scheme, he says, after mathematics should be +studied logic and rhetoric "To which Poetry would be made subsequent or +indeed rather precedent, as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate."[260] Milton has sometimes been thought to be +here defining poetry, but he is only distinguishing it from rhetoric. A +definition of poetry he never attempted. Meter he deemed essential to +poetry,[261] but rime he disliked. Thus, as far as he goes, Milton +represents the best in English renaissance criticism. He knew at first +hand the best classical treatises on poetic and on rhetoric; and he +recognized the distinctions which the ancients had made between them. + +With the English literary criticism in the second half of the Seventeenth +Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, +this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed +three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the +slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and +the modifications which they underwent in the process. Gregory Smith calls +attention to the influence of Sidney and Daniel in establishing "the claim +of English criticism as an instrument of power outside the craft of +rhetoricians and scholars."[262] Of the English critical writers Ascham +is the foremost of the scholarly type; Harvey is the only other example. +Thomas Wilson, although he wrote a rhetoric, wrote a better one in many +ways because he was not a professional rhetorician, but a man of affairs. +Gascoigne, Lodge, Spenser, were poets who incidentally wrote on the +technic of their art or in defence of its value. Sidney, the poet, +courtier, and soldier, wrote not from the musty alcoves of libraries. +Webbe, it is true, was a pedant, but certainly not a scholar. Puttenham +was a bad poet, a well-read man, and a courtier. Jonson's scholarship was +thorough, but sweetened and ventilated by his activities as poet and +dramatist. Bacon was a scholar, but even more a philosopher and a +statesman. Milton, our most scholarly poet, during most of his life could +not keep his mind and pen from church and national politics. Indeed, +during the entire English renaissance there was no professional critic. +Literary criticism was not a field to be tilled, but a wood to be explored +by busy men who could find time for the exploit. + +This amateur character of English critics accounts in a measure for the +slowness with which classical and Italian renaissance critical theories +filtered into England; for a statesman or a soldier is less likely to be +up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose +business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful +influence in the same direction was the characteristic English +conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of thought to Italian +innovations. + +This same common-sense conservatism accounts also for the modifications of +Italian renaissance critical theories before they were incorporated into +the fund of English criticism. Classical meters, slavish imitation of the +ancients, close adherence to the rules of unity and decorum never made +much headway in the English renaissance. Such contaminations of poetic by +rhetoric as are clearest seem to arise not from the new Italian influence, +but from the mediaeval tradition. + +To sum up, classical critics had recognized two categories of literature: +a fine art, poetic; and a practical art, rhetoric. Poetic they thought +characterized by narrative or dramatic structure or movement, and by +vividness of realization, and by passion. Rhetoric was characterized by a +logical structure determined by the necessity of persuading an audience. +Although most classical critics accepted prose as characteristic of +rhetoric, and verse of poetry, Aristotle pointed out that the distinction +was far more fundamental. As these two kinds of literature had a common +ground in diction, there was a tendency from very early times for them to +merge. In the artistic degeneracy of late Latin literature both rhetoric +and poetic paid less attention to structure and other elements which +distinguished them, and more attention to style, which they had in common. +Moreover, under the influence of sophistical rhetoric, preoccupied with +style, poetic and rhetoric practiced the same rhetorical artifices. As a +result Virgil might be either an orator or a poet. This was the rhetoric +which the middle ages inherited. To them rhetoric was synonymous with +stylistic beauty. Poetry was a compound of _doctrina_ and _eloquentia_, in +other words of theology and style, in verse. In England this mediaeval +tradition persisted into the seventeenth century, as the school rhetorics +and the treatises on poetry show. The English renaissance poetic never +freed itself from this influence of mediaeval rhetoric until the middle of +the seventeenth century. With the recovery of classical literature and +literary criticism, the new theories were interpreted in the light of the +old ideas. + +On its creative side the renaissance sought to produce in the vernacular a +literature comparable to that of Greece or Rome. Thus literary criticism +was prescriptive, and the typical treatises were text-books. Rhetoric, +which had long been taught, very naturally furnished the methods, the +teachers, and in many cases the subject matter for this instruction in +poetry. As has been shown in the preceding section of this study, the +renaissance theory of poetry was rhetorical in its obsession with style, +especially the figures of speech, in its abiding faith in the efficacy of +rules; and in its belief that the poet, no less than the orator, is +occupied with persuasion. This latter rhetorical view that the poet's +office is to persuade will be studied more fully in the following section +on "The Purpose of Poetry." The traditional view is that by persuading the +reader to adhere to the good and shun the evil the poet achieves the +proper end of poetry--moral improvement. + + + + + +Part Two + +The Purpose of Poetry + + + + +Chapter I + +The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +1. General + + +To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to +say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section +of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of +the second assertion for the first. + +As has been shown,[263] the classical critics were in substantial +agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of +discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of +classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the +reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to +moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not +formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's +definition of tragedy from the _Poetics_[264] with his definition of +rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as + + a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of + actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of + correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy + lives.[265] + +The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, +was formulated by Varchi.[266] + + Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain + actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony, + together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and + inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true + happiness and beatitude.[267] + +I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an +educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation +of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the +tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical +rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; +and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance +those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the +classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance. + + + +2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example + + +The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the +reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in _The +Frogs_ of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting +and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the +points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his +ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be +better citizens and worthier men."[268] Aeschylus then goes on to show +that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the +military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he +accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on +the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts +to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but +we, the poets, are teachers of men."[269] + +This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, +teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by +Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, +"forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of +others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one +time."[270] + +The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the +_Protagoras_, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an +exposition of the conventional Greek opinion. + + When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what + is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into + his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at + school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and + praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to + learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become + like them.[271] + +It is in the _Republic_, of course, that Plato enunciates his capital +objections to poetry. The first objection is that poetry as an imitative +art is three removes from truth. The divine powers, for instance, create +the idea of a table--the only true table. A carpenter makes a particular +table which is not the real, but only an appearance. A graphic artist +making a picture of this appearance is only an imitator of appearances. +"And the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore thrice removed from the +king and from the truth."[272] The second objection which Plato raises +against poetry is that poetry is addressed to the passional element in +man. The man of noble spirit and philosophy will not lament his +misfortunes, especially in public, while the lower orders of intellect are +likely to express all their feelings with greater freedom, and thus +furnish the poet with easier subjects for imitation. Consequently poetry +has the power of harming the good, for a good man will be in raptures at +the excellences of the poet who stirs his feelings most by representing a +hero in an emotional condition. As a result, when he himself suffers +sorrow or is moved by his own passions, it becomes more difficult for him +to repress his feelings.[273] Plato thus examines the popular contention +that the study of poetry educates the moral character of a man, and still +maintaining that it should be a moral force for good, demonstrates to his +own satisfaction that it fails to have the supposed beneficial effect +because it is three removes from truth, and because it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism in conduct. Plato's moral standard of poetry is +even better illustrated, perhaps, by the kind of poetry which he does not +ban from his ideal commonwealth. "We must remain firm in our conviction," +he says, "that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only +poetry which ought to be admitted into our state." As his utmost +concession to poetry, he will admit her if her defenders can prove "not +only that she is pleasant, but also useful to states and to human +life."[274] According to a later view, to be sure, Plato has been thought +to justify pleasure of a most refined and exalted variety as an end of +art. "The view which identifies the pleasant and the just and the good and +the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency."[275] In view, +however, of other pronouncements, such an endeavor to father upon him the +hedonistic theory of the purpose of art seems strained and ineffective. + +It was to justify poetry against the attacks of Plato that Aristotle +advanced a hedonistic view of poetry and propounded his theory of +katharsis. Nowhere in the _Poetics_ does Aristotle explicitly state that +the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Indirect evidence, however, is +plentiful. For instance, Aristotle justifies poetry as an imitative art +because children learn by imitation and the pleasure in imitation is +universal.[276] Furthermore, plot in tragedy is more important than +character; for in painting, a confused mass of colors gives less pleasure +than a chalk drawing of a portrait.[277] Beauty in any art depends in a +measure on magnitude; therefore a play must not be too short.[278] Most of +the tragic poets of Greece derived their plots from a limited number of +well known stories. But Aristotle justifies Agathon for departing from +this custom and making both his plot and characters fictitious, for the +plays of Agathon give none the less pleasure.[279] But not all pleasure, +he says, is appropriate to tragedy. In comedy we are pleased to see +enemies walk off the stage as friends, but in tragedy the "pleasure which +the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through +imitation."[280] Marvels, too, and wonders in poetry he justifies because +"the wonderful is pleasing; as may be inferred from the fact that everyone +tells a story with additions of his own, knowing that his hearers like it. +It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies +skilfully."[281] And at the very end of the _Poetics_, where he is +endeavoring to prove that tragedy is a higher art than epic, he does so by +showing that drama has all the epic elements, and in addition music and +spectacle, which produce the most vivid of pleasures. Moreover the drama +is more compact; "for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one +which is diluted."[282] Thus, in the _Poetics_, Aristotle takes a +non-moral attitude toward literature, although in the _Politics_[283] he +grants that poetry and music are eminently serviceable in conveying moral +instruction to young people. His mature attitude is well illustrated in +contrast with that of Aristophanes. Aristophanes criticises Euripides +severely as a perverter of Athenian morality. Aristotle mentions Euripides +about twenty times in the _Poetics_, and frequently criticises him +adversely, not, however, for his evil moral influence, but because he uses +his choruses badly, and is faulty in character-drawing. + +In answer to Plato's second objection to poetry, that it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism, Aristotle propounded his theory of katharsis. +"Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action ... through pity and +fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."[284] That +Aristotle had in mind an analogy with medicine is better understood from a +passage in the _Politics_ which describes the beneficial effect of music +on patients suffering from religious ecstasy. The stimulating music +furnishes the patient with an outlet for the expression of his religious +fervor. Afterwards, says Aristotle, the patients "fall back into their +normal state, as if they had undergone a medical or purgative +treatment."[285] Thus the theory of katharsis seems to have the same basis +as the modern psychological theory which encourages the expression of +emotions in their milder form lest, if inhibited, they gather added power +and finally burst disastrously through all restraints. Consequently, +although hedonist theorists have been anxious to establish katharsis on a +purely aesthetic foundation, it seems that the theory has inescapable +moral implications. To be sure, Aristotle in the same section of the +_Politics_ says that the emotional result of katharsis is "harmless joy," +and in the _Poetics_ he says that pity and fear produce the appropriate +pleasure of tragedy. Nevertheless Aristotle is answering Plato's +objections to unrestrained emotionalism, and by his theory of katharsis +endeavors to show not only that the emotional excitation of tragedy is +harmless to the spectator, but that it is actually good for him. + +But if the spectator is to derive these emotional excitations from +tragedy, his aesthetic experience cannot be passive. Aristotle recommends +as the ideal tragic hero a man not preeminently good nor unusually +depraved, but a man between these extremes; "for pity is aroused by +unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like +ourselves."[286] Evidently, then, through his imagination the spectator +must in a lively fashion participate in the action of the drama. Not only +is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he +identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions. + +But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral +grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. +Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion. Isocrates believes +that Homer was prized by the earlier Greeks because his poems instilled a +hatred of the barbarians, and kindled in the hearts of the readers a +desire to emulate the heroes who fought against Troy.[287] One might think +that the hatred of the barbarians was not the highest degree of morality, +but perhaps for the political integrity of Greece it was. That Homer +especially was supposed to have a moral influence is illustrated also by +Xenophon. Niceratus, in the _Symposium_, is telling the diners of what +knowledge he is most proud. "My father," he says, "in his pains to make me +a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems."[288] + +Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek +thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief. + + Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the + amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition + to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, + guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our + tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise + man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens + of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for + the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[289] + +This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's +essay _On the Study of Poetry_ that it is difficult to quote from him +without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught +poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely +as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[290] in his +reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are +pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch +believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards +because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be +taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously +avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make +poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking +and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[291] The profit of poetry he +believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very +highly such _sententiae_ as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and +"know thyself."[292] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so +heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them +in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For +instance: + + Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied + who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his + advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not + envy.[293] + +But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of +example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction +and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and +presenting fictitious narratives."[294] For instance, according to +Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her +ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that +such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that +frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the +only man who does such a thing in the _Iliad_ is that lascivious and +adulterous fellow Paris.[295] It is interesting that this essay of +Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of +the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance +and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603. + +The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry +as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman +was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman +criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes +been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, +for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but +about the purpose of the poet. + + Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are + at once pleasant and profitable. + +His reason for favoring the third view is important. + + Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect + austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval + of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This + book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and + prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[296] + +But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his +poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an +educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive +manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to +emulate. + + His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean + The boyish ear from words and tales unclean; + As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, + And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind; + He tells of worthy precedents, displays + The example of the past to after days, + Consoles affliction, and disease allays.[297] + +Moreover the consensus of conventional opinion in the Roman world was that +the study of the poets did succeed in moulding the moral character of the +youth. Apuleius, writing of a certain virtuous young man, the hero of one +of the episodes of the _Metamorphoses_, makes the following incidental +remark: "The master of the house had a young son well instructed in good +literature, and consequently remarkable for his piety and modesty."[298] + +Although Lucretius may not have been assured of the moral value, he was +so convinced of the seductive powers of poetry that he deliberately +utilized them to make palatable the forbidding thoughts of his essay _On +the Nature of Things_. The long passage is worth quoting entire because +his comparison is borrowed so frequently by renaissance critics to +illustrate the poetic doctrine of pleasurable profit. Lucretius says: + + But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter wormwood to + children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow + liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may + find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink the bitter juice of + the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be injured, but rather, being + recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this + argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it + has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was + desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in + sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the honey + of the Muses.[299] + +From this survey of classical opinion we may conclude that the public +looked for two things in poetry: pleasure and profit. Eratosthenes took an +extreme view in seeking pleasure alone. Both Aristotle and Horace +emphasized the pleasure to be derived from poetry, although neither denied +that poetry is beneficial. Horace takes almost a cynical view in +suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others +improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the +book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral +value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth. This view is well +exemplified in the quotations from Aristophanes, Xenophon, Strabo, and +especially Plutarch. But even Plutarch, who goes so far as to suggest +emending the poets to make their effect more moral, does not suggest that +the purpose of poetry is to afford moral instruction. He distinguishes; +some poetry is distinctly immoral and should be enjoyed only for its art. +Other poetry is moral in its effect, and consequently should be utilized +extensively by the school-master in educating young men. For such purposes +no poetry was thought to be better than Homer, whose epics furnish so many +examples of heroic conduct. + + + +3. Moral Improvement through Allegory + + +When the Roman arms conquered a new city, the story runs, the commander of +the forces took over in the name of the Emperor the gods; but before the +gates of Jerusalem this ceremony proved ineffective. The fathers of the +Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing +that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the +philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, +according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its +presentation. Furthermore, the gods of the Greeks were immoral and +furnished their worshippers with bad examples of conduct. Long before +Tertullian the moral philosophers of antiquity had already attacked the +poetry of Greece and Rome on the ground of immorality. Plato in his day +called the war between philosophy and poetry "age-long." The ancient +Greeks had considered Homer and Hesiod as the inspired recorders of the +facts of religion. They had looked to the poets for moral dogma and +example. Of necessity the philosophers condemned the poets for the +immorality of their thievish, lying, and adulterous pantheon. + +When the Christian fathers were confronted with the Syriac gospel of the +youth of Jesus, they called a council to declare it apochryphal. Lest +some devout reader should take literally the love poetry of the Canticles, +the fathers allegorized it as the love of Christ for his Church. +Unfortunately for Greek religion the philosophers did not determine which +episodes in the histories of the gods were valid as doctrine and which +were fictitious. They did, however, anticipate the fathers in their +allegorical interpretations. Socrates in the _Phaedrus_ laughs at +allegory;[300] and Plutarch believes that the poets intended to teach a +moral idea by example instead of expressing a hidden meaning by allegory. +For him allegory involved distortion and perversion. "For some men +_distort_ these stories and _pervert_ them into allegories or what the men +of old times called hidden meanings ὑπόνοιαι."[301] But allegory none the +less flourished. Theognis of Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and Stesimbrotus of +Thasos, were assiduous and startling in their interpretations.[302] The +Greek allegorical interpretations were of two kinds: one an explanation +of the secrets of nature, the other the teaching of morality.[303] +Although the practice was very old, the word "allegory" is not recorded +before Cicero, who says: + + When the imagery of the metaphor is sustained for a long time, the + nature of the style assuredly becomes changed. Consequently the Greeks + call this sort of thing allegory.... But he is nearer the truth who + calls all of these metaphors.[304] + +From Cicero on, allegory has a long history as a rhetorical figure--a +trope.[305] St. Augustine recommends that students of the scriptures study +the rhetorical figures so that they may be able to interpret the tropes in +the Bible, such as allegory.[306] + +The result will always be the same whenever the poets are considered +theologians and moral teachers. They will be condemned or allegorized. +Fortunate are the poets when they are not believed. "How much better," +exclaims St. Augustine, "are these fables of the poets" than the false +religious notions of the Manichees. "But Medea flying, although I chanted +sometimes, yet I maintained not the truth of; and though I heard it sung, +I believed it not: but these phantasies I thoroughly believed."[307] For +it is only when one believes devoutly that Zeus procured access to Danae +in a shower of gold, that his action gives a divine sanction to such +traffic in beauty on the agora or in the forum.[308] It is only when the +poets make no pretense of recounting facts that they can escape the +clutches of the philosophers. It was to save the poets from such attacks +that Aristotle asserts that poetry deals with the universal, not with the +particular.[309] Or, as Spingarn explains his meaning, "Poetry has little +regard for the actuality of specific event, but aims at the reality of an +eternal probability."[310] + + + +4. The Influence of Rhetoric + + +Thus the general consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry has +inescapable moral effects on those who listen or read. The moralists, +especially the Stoics, when confronted with traditional poetry whose +literal significance was immoral, leaned toward allegorical +interpretations which brought out a kernel of truth. The greater number, +however, of Greeks and Romans in the classical period believed that poetry +exerted the most potent influence for good when it enunciated crisp moral +maxims and afforded examples of heroic conduct which young people could be +induced to follow. + +In all these respects the classical view of poetic has much in common with +classical rhetoric. Allegory has been shown to have had a long history as +an extended metaphor--a rhetorical figure. Maxims are considered fully by +Aristotle as aids to persuasion in rhetoric.[311] The exemplum is +obviously a stock means of rhetoric. + +"Examples," says Aristotle, "are of two kinds, one consisting in the +allegation of historical facts, and the other in the invention of facts +for oneself. Invention comprises illustration on the one hand and ... +fables on the other." Then he tells how Aesop defended a demagogue by the +fable of the fox caught in the cleft of a rock. The fox was infested with +dog-ticks which sucked his blood. A benevolent hedge-hog offered to remove +the ticks, but the fox declined the kind offer on the ground that his +ticks were already full of blood and had ceased to annoy him much, whereas +if they were removed, a new colony of ticks would establish themselves and +thus entirely drain him of blood. "Yes, and in your case, men of Samos," +said Aesop, "my client will not do much further mischief--he has already +made his fortune--but, if you put him to death, there will come others who +are poor and who will consume all the revenues of the state by their +embezzlements."[312] "Fables," continues the shrewd master of those who +know, "have this advantage that, while historical parallels are hard to +find, it is comparatively easy to find fables." Quintilian, like +Aristotle, believes in the persuasive efficacy of examples. But Quintilian +has less faith in the probative value of fictitious examples than he has +in those drawn from authentic history. He thinks that fables are most +effective with a rustic and ingenuous audience, which "captivated by their +pleasure in the story, give assent to that which pleases them."[313] Thus +Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people to the senators by telling them the +fable of the revolt of the members against the belly. And Thomas Wilson, +in his _Arte of Rhetorique_, repeats the story, in his section on +examples, and ascribes to Themistocles the fox story which Aristotle tells +of Aesop.[314] + +But Aristotle, Quintilian, and Wilson are talking about rhetoric. Very +justly they believe that if one wants to persuade an audience to a course +of action, he must interest his audience sufficiently to hold their +attention. As Wilson sagely remarks, "For except men finde delite, they +will not long abide: delite them and winne them."[315] Cicero expressed in +memorable phrase the relationship between proof and pleasure as +instruments to persuasion and added a third element. He classified the +aims of an orator as "to teach, to please, to move" (_docere, delectare, +movere_). The teaching is the appeal to the intellect of the hearer by +means of proof. The pleasure is afforded by a euphonious style, and by +fables and stories. The audience is moved to action by the appeal to their +feelings.[316] + +Not until the renaissance did writers on the theory of poetry carry over +Cicero's threefold aim of the orator and make it apply to the poet.[317] +But already in post-classical times rhetoric had, as Seneca the father +clearly shows, vitiated the Latin poetry of the Silver Age. Under the +Empire the declamation schools in Rome had a profound influence on +literature.[318] It could not be otherwise in a society where the school +of rhetoric was the only temple of higher education, for which the +grammaticus, or elementary professor of literature, was constrained to +prepare his students. Rhetoric was the organon of Roman education, and +declamation was the aim of rhetoric. It was such an educational system +which prepared Ovid and Lucan for their careers as poets and men of +letters. Seneca the father records the brilliant declamations of Ovid as a +schoolboy, quoting at some length his plea for a wife who threw herself +over a cliff on hearing of the death of her husband, and calling attention +to several passages in Ovid's poems where the poet has borrowed the clever +sayings of his professors in the school of rhetoric.[319] Ovid makes his +characters prove that they are moved by passion instead of being +passionate in word and deed. He vitiates his emotions with his wit. This +is characteristic of almost all the poets who attended the declamation +schools. They talk about situations and characters instead of realizing +them. They write as if they were speaking to an audience. One can almost +see the gestures, the wait for applause after the enunciation of a noble +platitude. Not only historically, but also in the worst modern sense this +is rhetoric. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such a preoccupation +with rhetoric, such a sustained search for all possible means of +persuasion, should have strengthened rather than weakened the utilitarian +theory of poetry. The school-master endeavored to mould the characters of +his students by examples from heroic poetry; the teacher of rhetoric, in +turn, taught them that to persuade an audience they must prove, please, +and move, and that ficticious examples were about as persuasive as +historical parallels and much easier to find. When the student left school +he continued to seek means of persuasion in canvassing votes, pleading in +the courts, or deliberating in the senate. If he became a poet, he did not +forget the lessons of his youth; or if he became a teacher of literature +or a professor of rhetoric, he perpetuated the tradition. + + + + +Chapter II + +Mediaeval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +With the breaking up of the Empire the stream of classical culture was +restricted to a narrow channel--the Church. Opposed as it was to pagan +morals and theology, the church could honestly retain classical literature +only if it were allegorized. This explains the allegorical nature of +mediaeval poetry and of poetical theory. + +From the beginning the learning of the Church was of pagan origin. St. +Augustine was a professor of rhetoric and the author of a treatise on +aesthetics before he wrote the _City of God_, and his _Confessions_. In +fact, he never quite got over being a professor of rhetoric. Clement of +Alexandria was a product of the same rhetoric schools and an excellent +teacher of his subject before he recognized the divine origin of +Christianity. St. Basil was a college friend of Gregory Nazianzen and of +Julian, later emperor and apostate, when the three studied rhetoric at +Athens. Indeed, the most cunningly cruel decree which Julian later +promulgated against the Christians forbade them the use of the ancient +pagan literature of Greece and Rome. This decree Basil bitterly resented. +"I forgo all the rest," he says, "riches, birth, honor, authority, and all +the goods here below of which the charm vanishes like a dream; but I cling +to oratory nor do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, +which I have undertaken to master it."[320] + +But within the Church the lovers of Greek literature did not have it all +their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely +attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, +and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the +traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. +Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a +guide to morals.[321] + + + +1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages + + +Allegorical interpretation was the main weapon of the apologists for +poetry. The basis, indeed, of the Gnostic heresies of the second and third +centuries was an allegorical interpretation of the Greek poets and +philosophers and of the Scriptures. This soon degenerated into an +extravagant system of speculative mysticism. Clement of Alexandria and +Origen rejected the extravagances, but sought to retain the mysticism of +the Gnostics. They reconciled Greek literature and the Scriptures by +allegorizing both, much as today Darwin and Genesis are reconciled by +allegorizing Genesis.[322] Thus in the declining years of the Roman Empire +the rhetoricians had become ecclesiastics, and the Church had adopted +pagan literature with allegorical interpretation. + +This tradition dominated the middle ages; Lady Theology reigned over the +kingdom of the seven liberal arts, and to make Homer and Virgil +theological it was necessary that they be interpreted allegorically. As +Vossler has shown, theology and philosophy furnished, during the middle +ages, the subject matter of poetry; they were the _utile_ of Horace. The +_dulce_ became for them too exclusively the pleasing garment of style and +story.[323] + +Throughout the middle ages, however, many continued to look askance at +poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in +prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the +friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write +dreary verses of complaint. But these poetical Muses Philosophy sent +packing. "Who has allowed," said she, "these common strumpets of the +theatre to come near this sick man? Not only do they fail to assuage his +sorrows, but they feed and nourish them with sweet venom. They are not +fruitful nor profitable. They destroy the fruits of reason, for they hold +the hearts of men."[324] Here Philosophy is voicing the objections of +Plato. The arts are attacked because they are not successfully +utilitarian, and because they appeal to the emotions instead of to the +reason. In a later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the objection. He +postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, +imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, +intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God +instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he +shares with the lower animals.[325] + +But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by +allegory. When Isidore of Seville (†633 or 636), for instance, was +compiling his book of universal knowledge, the _Etymologiae_, he +incorporated his section on the poets in the chapter entitled _Concerning +the Church and the Sects_. So between a section devoted to the +_Philosophers of the Gentiles_ and a section entitled _Concerning Sibyls_ +he wrote concerning the poets as follows: + + Sometimes, however, the poets were called theologians, because they used + to compose songs concerning the gods. In doing this, however, it is the + office of the poets to render what has actually been done in a different + guise with a certain beauty of covert figures.[326] + +The poet, to Isidore, was the inspired bard who sings of the gods and the +eternal verities, not directly, but under the veil of a beautiful +allegory. Among these allegorical or indirect means of expression used by +the poet to veil truth are fables. + + The poets invent fables sometimes to give pleasure; sometimes they are + interpreted to explain the nature of things, sometimes to throw light on + the manners of men.[327] + +His illustrations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For +instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of +man and horse, the swiftness of human life. + +It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the +middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the _Convivio_ (c. +1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper +method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded +in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the +allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these +tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[328] The reason +this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the +fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to +say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three +disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may +understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The +fourth sense is the analogical. Here the text may be literally true, but +contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but +the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear +from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which +he discusses the interpretations of his _Commedia_. "Although these mystic +senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called +allegorical."[329] That the "beauteous fiction," the _bella menzogna_, of +allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a passage in the _Vita +Nuova_. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, +speaking and laughing on the assumption that as a poet he is licensed to +use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a +true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to +clothe the nakedness of truth.[330] + + + +2. Allegory in Mediaeval England + + +England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the +thirteenth century. In his _Poetria_, John of Garland[331] explains +allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes. +"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; +under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the +friend, reason."[332] In another illustrative poem, this time introduced +to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts +between the "_confirmacio_," and the "_confutacio_," an "_expositio +mistica_" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The +fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[333] + +As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ is as mediaeval as +the _Romance of the Rose_.[334] In this allegory of the education and love +adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke +to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven +liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space. In the chapter on +_inventio_, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her +traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all +possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their +purpose, and their fame. + +The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire +period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of +allegory. + + To make of nought reason sentencious + Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. + For often under a fayre fayned fable + A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[335] + +This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old +poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their +invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets +against sloth. + + The special treasure + Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo! + +Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues. + + Your hole desyre was set + Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,... + To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame. + +Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great +conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such illustrious +models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a +condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents +them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude +people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the +poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, +she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the +people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they +would praise and appreciate the moral poets. + +The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, +as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the +middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to +theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on _inventio_, is conducting a +defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth +under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it +is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men. + +The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, +to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets +did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds. + + And under colour of this beste, pryvely + The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[336] + +The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For +instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his +shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy. +Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus +in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the +hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, +to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the +redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, +Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable +into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical +adornment of figures and so forth. + +The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he +says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts +with love of virtue. Lydgate's _Falls of Princes_ is an especially great +poem, + + A good ensample for us to dispyse + This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[337] + +Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning +pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making +ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he +insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts. + +This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is +to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of +allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, +where, as has been shown, the recovery of classical culture made slow +progress.[338] + + + + +Chapter III + +Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of +Poetry + + +In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the +Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[339] that the characteristic +opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line, + + Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae. + +The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to +combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the +notable exceptions of Bernardo Tasso and Castelvetro, who claimed no +further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general +conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was +simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[340]" This +chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where +they help the reader to understand better the situation in English +criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done +two influences which affected the renaissance view not a +little--scholastic philosophy and the classical rhetorics. + +To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are +directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part +of it.[341] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic +in logic, whereas Aristotle had classified the three arts as coördinate +within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by +the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[342] The appearance of +this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a +gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, +in favor of the classical view which considered example as the best +vehicle for moral improvement. + +In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly +delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of +classical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often +become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming +discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of +classical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on +example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a +pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most +advanced class, the Dido episode was deleted from the _Æneid_.[343] + +Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as +parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric +by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the +poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting +representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, +the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to +virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of +logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of +sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating +a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port? +The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures +overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, +parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, +the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of +theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition. +Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their +material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the +poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor +only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, +praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He +incites to lust and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral +actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be +condemned.[344] + + + +1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic + + +The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola +derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[345] persisted for four centuries, +rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the +renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition +of Aristotle's _Poetics_ (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and +poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in +this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and +example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses +example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[346] + +Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the _Lezione_ (1553) +of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says: + + Just as the logician uses for his means the noblest of all instruments, + that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the + dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, + that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and + the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject + of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or + instrument is the example.[347] + +This has its ultimate source in the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, who made the +following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at +demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at +persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a +rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise +unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on +opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, +usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[348] + +The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the +treatise _On the Nature of the Art of Poetry_ (1647) of the Dutch scholar +Vossius, who writes: + + As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that + especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be + utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be + thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in + fictitious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove + something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but + action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that + both are the servants of the state.[349] + +Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to +promote desirable action. + +How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well illustrated by +the _Ars Rhetorica_ of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in +1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is +discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, +or induction. + + Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience + because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently + used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains + attractively and clearly.[350] + +Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to +make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them +were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make +other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of +proof. + + + +2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics + + +A more explicit influence on the renaissance belief that the function of +poetry is to improve social morality is readily seen in the definitions of +poetry which have already been quoted from Lombardus and Varchi, who +formulated their definitions of poetry by combining Aristotle's definition +of tragedy with his definition of rhetoric.[351] Another explicit +borrowing from classical rhetoric was of Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to delight, to persuade (_docere, delectare, +permovere_).[352] Several important Italian critics carried this +terminology over into their theories of poetry along with the purpose +which has always animated rhetoric--persuasion. + +Making Horace a point of departure, Daniello, in 1536, says that the +function of the poet is to teach and delight, but more than that--to +persuade. He must move his readers to share the emotions of his +characters, to shun vice, and embrace virtue.[353] This extreme rhetorical +parallel was further insisted on by Minturno (1559), who defined the duty +of a poet as so to speak in verse as to teach, to delight, and to +move.[354] And as Aristotle had affirmed in his _Rhetoric_ that the +character of the speaker was one of the three essential elements in +persuasion,[355] Minturno is constrained to make the moral character of +the poet an indispensable quality of his poetry. Thus he borrows Cato's +definition of the orator as a "good man skilled in public speech" (vir +bonus dicendi peritus) from Quintilian,[356] and defines the poet as "a +good man skilled in speech and imitation" (poeta vir bonus dicendi et +imitandi peritus).[357] + +Like Minturno, Scaliger insisted that poetry must teach, move, and +delight.[358] It is thus the result in action which Minturno and Scaliger +emphasize. The poet must work on the feelings of his reader so that he +shall embrace and imitate the good, and spurn the evil. Philosophy, +oratory, and poetry have thus one end--and only one--persuasion.[359] +Without the "movere," the incentive to action, of course poetry could not +serve its purpose of moral improvement on which the renaissance so sternly +insisted. A reader might enjoy a story, play, or poem which presented +impeccable examples of virtue rewarded and vice punished, or which +abounded in noble platitudes gilded with wit, and still smile and be a +villain. It was thus inevitable that an acceptance of the moral purpose of +poetry should sooner or later drive any logical minded critic of poetry +completely into the camp of rhetoric. There the poet would find a +complete panoply of arms forged for the arousing of the feelings in an +audience, and for stirring the springs of action. He could make his +readers hate sin by the same means Demosthenes made his hearers hate +Philip, and love any virtue by appropriating the methods of Cicero _Pro +Archia_. According to this belief, the difference between poetic and +rhetoric was minimized. In theory a poem or a speech might indifferently +be composed either in prose or in verse. Both endeavored to teach, to +please, and to move. Both looked toward persuasion as an object. The +speech used the enthymeme and the example as proofs, while the poem used +the example to a greater, and the enthymeme to a lesser degree. Both in +theory and in practice the example was regarded as being a pleasanter +argument than the precept, as well as being more effective. This was the +age of Ciceronianism. The school-masters of Europe had recently +rediscovered imitation as the royal road to learning, and in their system +of language teaching emphasized imitation of classical authors more than +following the precepts of the grammarians or of the rhetoricians. The +epigram of Seneca, "longum iter per praecepta, breve per exempla," was the +popular catchword of the age. The example was popular. + +Thus by the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian critics had +formulated a logical and self-consistent theory of the purpose of poetry. +Inheritors of the allegorical theory of the middle ages, which they in +part discarded, and discoverers of classical rhetoric which they carried +over bodily into their theories of poetry, they passed on to France, +Germany, and England their rhetorical theories. The purpose of poetry, as +well as of rhetoric, was to them persuasion--to teach, to please, to move. +The instrument of poetry was the rhetorical example. + + + + +Chapter IV + +English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry + + + +In England the Italian interpretations of the literary criticism of Greece +and Rome made slow headway against the established traditions of the +middle ages. In particular the vogue of allegory did not yield to the idea +of the moral example transferred from rhetoric to poetic. + + + +1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric + + +When Thomas Wilson published the first edition of his _Arte of Rhetorique_ +in 1553, the corpus of Greek criticism in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ had +been in print forty-five years, and the commentaries of Dolce, Daniello, +Robortelli, and Maggi were available. But Wilson wrote a very good +rhetoric with no books before him but Quintilian, Cicero and the rhetoric +_Ad Herennium_, which he thought to be Cicero's, Erasmus, Plutarch _De +audiendis poetis_, and St. Basil. His treatment of poetry is quite +naturally, then, that of a rhetorician who had been reared in the +mediaeval tradition of allegory. + +Allegory in the sense of Quintilian as a trope, an extended metaphor, +Wilson mentions only once. His instance will bear quotation: + + It is evil putting strong Wine into weake vesselles, that is to say, it + is evil trusting some women with weightie matters. The English Proverbes + gathered by John Heywood, helpe well in this behalfe, the which commonly + are nothing els but Allegories, and darke devised sentences.[360] + +Allegory in its more general mediaeval sense of the kernel of moral truth +within the brilliant husk of the poet's fables he discusses at greater +length elsewhere with full exemplification. + + For by them we may talke at large and win men by persuasion, if we + declare beforehand that these tales were not fained of such wisemen + without cause. + +This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by +orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. +That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure. + + For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the + same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment + of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of + Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... + As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[361] In the _Iliades_ + are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the _Odissea_ + is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and + wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they + durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde + men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the + wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might + understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[362] + +Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the +moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story +of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. +The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the +best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not +meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid +covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George +in like manner allegorically. + +But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned +with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example +as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and +enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, +and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on +the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate +pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his +comment on the use of stories in argument. + +Nor does Roger Ascham in his _Scholemaster_, written between 1563-1568 and +published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of +poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a +school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in +their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, +not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[363] That he is not blind to the +fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be +its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. +The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master +must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[364] And the same +fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his +famous condemnation of the _Morte Darthur_ "the whole pleasure of which +booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold +bawdrye,"[365] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems +and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, +Loyola and Vives.[366] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory +as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a +classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If +he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example +pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance +guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the +theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the +function of poetry is to teach by example. + + + +2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic + + +Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and +school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's +treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his _Certayne Notes of +Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme_.[367] The title is not +misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its +philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a +passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of +his mistress. + + If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange + discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by + the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes _per + Allegoriam_.[368] + +Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation +schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his +mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him +the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the _Epistles_ of +Ovid and the _Love Letters_ of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified +speech-making. Wilson recommended the _Proverbs_ of Heywood as furnishing +"allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his +_Euphues_ Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries +generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables +which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the +_Similia_ and _Adagia_, of Erasmus, and from the _Emblems_ of +Alciati.[369] + +So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized +device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George +Whetstone's _Dedication_ to his _Promos and Cassandra_. For Whetstone +asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte +as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the +conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[370] +That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme +application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of +the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of +the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's +_Dedication_ was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his +attack against poetry and poets in his _School of Abuse_, which was +answered by Lodge and Sidney in their _Apologies_. In this controversy, in +which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his +_Touchstone for Time_ (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and +the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the +attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose +of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the +Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this +moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and +the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble +function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did +not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole. + +Gosson writes: + + The right use of auncient poetrie was to have the notable exploytes of + worthy captaines, the holesome councels of good fathers and vertuous + lives of predecessors set down in numbers, and sung to the instrument at + solemne feastes, that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from + kissing the cup too often, and the sense of the other put them in minde + of things past, and chaulke out the way to do the like.[371] + +The benefit, according to Gosson, which poetry should produce is that of +good moral example. Moral doctrine, he believes accessible in the +churches, and against the poets he urges that the evil social environment +of the theatre offsets the benefit to be derived even from good plays. +What profits the moral lesson of such a play if after witnessing the +performance a man walk away with a woman whose acquaintance he has just +made in the theatre.[372] He may drink wine, he may play cards, he may +even enter a brothel. + +In his _Defence of Poetry_ (1579), Lodge retreats to the caverns of the +middle ages to equip himself with arms. Under the influence of Campano, +who died in 1477, he advances allegory as the explanation which makes the +apparently light and trifling poets moral teachers of the utmost +seriousness. Addressing Gosson he exclaims: + + Did you never reade that under the persons of beastes many abuses were + dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye that whatsoever ether Virgil + did write of his gnatt or Ovid of his fley was all covertly to declare + abuse?... You remember not that under the person of Aeneas in Virgil the + practice of a dilligent captaine is described; you know not that the + creation is signified in the Image of Prometheus; the fall of pryde in + the person of Narcissus.[373] + +And he quotes Lactantius as comparing poetry with the Scriptures. If +either are taken literally, they will seem false. We should judge by the +poet's hidden meaning.[374] The purpose of the poets, to Lodge, was "In +the way of pleasure to draw men to wisdome." When he defends comedy, Lodge +drifts away from allegory. Terence and Plautus he praises for furnishing +examples of virtue and vice upon the boards, thus to amend the manners of +his auditors. He believed that poetry did amend manners, and correct +abuses--if properly used. But he is very quick to admit the very abuses +which Gosson attacked. + + I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry: I will admit the expullcion + of such enormities, poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in + it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it.[375] I + must confess with Aristotle that men are greatly delighted with + imitation, and that it were good to bring those things on stage that + were altogether tending to vertue; all this I admit and hartely wysh, + but you say unlesse the thinge be taken away the vice will continue. Nay + I say if the style were changed the practise would profit.[376] + +Thus he defends poetry bcause it teaches morality by example and by +allegory. + +With that higher intelligence and learning which have already been +contrasted with the unthinking acceptance of his times[377] Sir Philip +Sidney wrote his _Apologie for Poetrie_. In this dignified and vigorous +pamphlet, written about 1583, and published in 1595, Sidney presents the +best and most consistent argument for the moral purpose of poetry that +appeared in England. That the main line of his argument and his best +material is drawn from Minturno and Scaliger, as Spingarn has +demonstrated,[378] in no way invalidates his claim to distinction. The +purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and +delight,[379] "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, +with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to +know a poet by."[380] But as the end of all earthly learning is virtuous +action, in Sidney's mind, he agrees with Minturno and Scaliger in +borrowing from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the orator: to teach, +to delight, to move. Sidney says that the poets "imitate both to _delight_ +and _teach_, and delight to _move_ men to take the goodnes in hande ... +and _teach_, to make them know that goodnes whereunto they are +mooved."[381] It is incredible that he did not know this terminology as +rhetoric. Poetry, he believes, fails if it does not persuade its reader to +abandon evil and adopt good. + + And that _mooving_ is of a higher degree than _teaching_, it may by this + appeare, that it is well nigh the cause of teaching. For who will be + taught, if he bee not mooved with desire to be taught? and what so much + good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of morall doctrine) + as that it mooveth one to do that which it dooth teach?[382] + +The effectiveness of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in +its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which +is too frequently quoted incompletely, + + commeth to you with words sent in delightful proportion, either + accompanied with, or prepared for, the well inchaunting skill of + Musicke; and with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which + holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And + _pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from + wickedness to vertue_: even as the childe is often brought to take most + wholsom things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant + tast.[383] + +According to Sidney, then, it is the very purpose of poetry to win men to +virtue by pleasant instruction. The argument of poetry in accomplishing +this end is primarily the example. Sidney compares very elaborately +philosophy, history, and poetry in an endeavor to show that poetry is the +most effective instrument for forwarding virtue. In the first place poetry +is better adapted than philosophy to win men to virtue because it +persuades both by precepts and by examples, while philosophy persuades by +precepts alone. His sanction for this high opinion of the persuasive power +of example is the rhetorical commonplace of the renaissance that the way +is long by precept and short by example.[384] To enforce this point he +tells the story of how Menenius Agrippa won over the people of Rome to +support the Senate by telling them the story of the revolt of the members +against the belly. Quintilian[385] and Wilson[386] had already told this +story to prove the effectiveness of the example as a rhetorical argument, +a device of the public speaker. + +The main advantage which poetry possesses over history, Sidney goes on, is +that while the historian must stick to his facts, which too frequently are +unedifying, the poet can and does create a world better than nature, and +presents to his reader ideal figures of human conduct such as Pylades, +Cyrus, and Æneas.[387] This is Sidney's application of Aristotle's +assertion that history is particular and poetic universal; history records +things as they are and poetic as they are, worse than they are, or better. +Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some +of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to +add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true +example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned +to the highest key of passion);"[388] and here he is drawing from +Aristotle's _Rhetoric._[389] Through admiration of the noble persons of +poetry, the reader is won to a desire for emulation. "Who readeth _Æneas_ +carrying olde _Anchises_ on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune +to perfourme so excellent an acte?"[390] + +Although Sidney believes the principal moral value of poetry to reside in +its power to teach and move by the use of examples, he devotes at least +half a page to the beneficent effect of parables and allegories. The +parables which he uses, however, are all Christian, and the allegories are +all the _Fables_ of Æsop. From the allegorical interpretation of poetry +current in the middle ages and to a scarcely less degree among his English +contemporaries Sidney remains conspicuously aloof. + +In answering the specific charges against poetry, that it is a waste of +time, the mother of lies, the nurse of abuse, and rejected by Plato, +Sidney asserts that a thing which moves men to virtue so effectively as +poetry cannot be a waste of time; that since poetry pretends not to +literal truth, it cannot lie,[391] that poetry does not abuse man's wit, +but man's wit abuses poetry, for "shall the abuse of a thing make the +right use odious?"[393] and that Plato objected not to poetry but to its +abuse. + +Sir John Harington[392] who published his _Brief Apologie of Poetrie_ in +1591, four years before the publication of Sidney's _Apologie_, based much +of his treatise on Sidney. Unfortunately, he did not digest fully the +arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand +knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. +In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line +of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit +punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in +verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant +and the profitable."[394] The objection that poets lie Harington meets as +Sidney does, "But poets never affirming any for true, but presenting them +to us as fables and imitations, cannot lye though they would."[395] At +this point Harington parts company with his master and goes back to the +middle ages. + + The ancient Poets have indeed wrapped as it were in their writings + divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or mysteries + thereof. First of all for the litteral sence (as it were the utmost + barke or ryne) they set downe in manner of an historie the acts and + notable exploits of some persons worthie memorie: then in the same + fiction, as a second rine and somewhat more fine, as it were nearer to + the pith and marrow, they place the Morall sence profitable for the + active life of man, approving vertuous actions and condemning the + contrarie. Many times also under the selfesame words they comprehend + some true understanding of naturall Philosophie, or sometimes of + politike government, and now and then of divinitie: and these same + sences that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call the + Allegorie.[396] + +Nothing could be more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain +the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of +Perseus and the Gorgon--the highest allegory being theological. Further, +to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of +profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, +Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by +allegorical stories. To Harington, then, poetry is useful as an +introduction to Philosophy. Paraphrasing Plutarch _On the Reading of +Poets_, he says: + + So young men do like best that Philosophy that is not Philosophie, or + that is not delivered as Philosophie, and such are the pleasant writings + of learned Poets, that are the popular Philosophers and the popular + divines.[397] + +_A Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586) by the laborious but uninspired +tutor, William Webbe,[398] is not a defense; but interspersed among his +remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, +ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of +poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and +comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's +conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements +to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[399] In appraising the +methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his +contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation +of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the +instruction of manners and precepts of good life[400]. And he finds much +profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they +abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the +moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people +who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the +beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he +seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the +effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The +_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, for instance, + + though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall + inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth + of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and + sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good + counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly + read.[401] + +Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of +the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or +cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in +delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his +emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to +the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he +believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as +its motivating purpose[402]. And again, after descanting on the +exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable +things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of +poetry as containing "all such _Epigrammes_, _Elegies_, and delectable +ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight +thereof.[403] + +Like Webbe, the author of _The Arte of English Poesie_ (1589) ascribed to +Puttenham,[404] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, +however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. +Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may +be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what +may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is +worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham, + + is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in + phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, + the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & + reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of + sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & + sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate + myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and + cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for + recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest + or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, + dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill + example.[405] + +The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, +emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been +objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification +nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the +commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the +convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[406] But Puttenham does +not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be +released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, +dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil +examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest." + +Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the +mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of +lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and +courtiers,[407] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire +was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend +the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the +mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a +vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the +amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters +under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[408] Here Puttenham +pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in +satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to +allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be +wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is +most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde +of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more +universally satisfie then example."[409] It is on this account that +historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For +the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should +be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for +pleasure. + + Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether + fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no + less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but + often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his + pleasure.[410] + +This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all +history was a moral example[411] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic +fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two +as almost interchangeable.[412] + +Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both +the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, +Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, +but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[413] +accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the +_Hypercritica_ (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a +kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation +from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[414] + + + +3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example + + +A most interesting view of the purpose of poetry was evolved in the brain +of Francis Bacon--that baffling complexity of mediaeval tradition and +penetrating original thought. To him the use of feigned history, as he +defines poetry, "hath beene to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the +minde of man in those points wherein the Nature of things doth deny +it."[415] That is, poetry represents the world as greater, more just, and +more pleasant than it really is. "So as it appeareth that _Poesie_ +serveth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie, and to delectation." +Here Bacon seems to imply that the essential pleasure of poetry is in +affording vicarious experience through imaginative realization. Poetry +does this by "submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the +minde." It truly makes a world nearer to our heart's desire. But while +Bacon derives the moral benefit of poetry from examples of conduct and +outcomes of events more nearly just than those of actual life, when he +analyses poetry into its kinds, he makes a place for allegory. In this +division he provides for narrative, drama, and allegory. But with +penetration he sees what few renaissance critics had noted before--that +allegory is of two varieties. The first variety is essentially the same as +a rhetorical example; it is an extended metaphor used as an argument to +enforce a point and thus persuade an audience. The fables of Aesop are +such allegories or examples; and they are useful because they make their +point more interestingly than other arguments and more clearly. The other +sort of allegory, says Bacon, instead of illuminating the idea, obscures +it. "That is, when the Secrets and Misteries of Religion, Pollicy, or +Philosophy, are involved in Fables or Parables." He then gives political +allegorical interpretations of the myths of Briareus and of the Centaur +and suddenly adds: "Nevertheless in many the like incounters, I doe rather +think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the +Morall was first and thereupon the fable framed."[416] Bacon's final +conclusion seems to be that, although allegorical poetry does exist, +allegory is not essential to poetry and that the wholesale allegorizing of +the middle ages was far off the mark. In his suspicion that in most cases +the fable was first and the interpretation after, Bacon was in complete +agreement with Rabelais in the prologue of _Gargantua_.[417] At any rate +Bacon seems to have given the _coup de grace_ to allegory in England. + +Under the influence of Pico della Mirandola it was resurrected from its +tomb by Henry Reynolds; but it was a much less moral allegory and a more +mystical. In his _Mythomystes_ (licensed 1632) Reynolds admits, that the +ancients mingled moral instruction in their poetry, but reprehends this as +an abuse. Prose is the proper vehicle of moral doctrine and should have +been employed by Spenser. The true function of poetry, then, is to give +secret knowledge of the mysteries of nature to the initiated. Thus the +story of the rape of Proserpine signifies, when allegorically interpreted; +"the putrefaction and succeeding generation of the Seedes we commit to +Pluto, or the earth."[418] This is the most plausible example of mystical +interpretation to be found in the whole treatise. + +To the allegorist, the fable or plot in epic or dramatic poetry was only a +rind to cover attractively the kernel of truth. It was a means to an end, +not an end in itself. As the influence of Aristotle's _Poetics_ spreading +through Italy, Germany, France, and England, gave the plot or fable more +importance, allegory lost its hold on the minds of the critics. When Ben +Jonson writes in his _Timber_ "For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, +the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke or _Poeme_"[419] the change had +come. Jonson, like Sidney, was steeped in classical criticism as +interpreted and spread abroad by the sixteenth-century critics of the +continent. But while Sidney made a place for allegory in his scheme of +poetry, Jonson does not so much as mention it. His idea of the teaching +power of poetry, for to him poetry and painting both behold pleasure and +profit as their common object,[420] is rhetorical--depending on precept +and example--and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy +is "a dulcet and gentle _Philosophy_, which leades on and guides us by the +hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[421] +Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their +common purpose of securing persuasion; for he says: + + "The _Poet_ is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all + his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, + and above him in his strengths: Because in moving the minds of men, and + stirring of affections, in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves + her eminence, hee chiefly excells."[422] + +In his dedication to _Volpone_ he says this power of persuasion which the +poet possesses to so eminent a degree is to be applied to the moral +well-being of men, "to inform men in the best reason of living."[423] +Himself a writer for the theatre, Jonson is naturally more concerned with +comedy and tragedy than he is with any narrative forms of poetry. And to +him the office of the comic poet is "to imitate justice and instruct to +life--or stirre up gentle affections."[424] In _Timber_ he iterates the +same praise of poetry as being no less effective than philosophy in +instructing men to good life, and informing their manners, but as even +more effective in that it persuades men to good where philosophy threatens +and compels. In order to accomplish this beneficial effect on public +morals, the poet must have an exact knowledge of all virtues and vices +with ability to render the one loved and the other hated.[425] As a +natural result of this conception, so similar to Cicero's demand that the +orator must know all things and in line with Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, +Jonson concludes that the poet, like Quintilian's orator, must himself be +a good man; for how else will he be able "to informe _yong-men_ to all +good disciplines, inflame _growne-men_ to all great vertues, keepe _old +men_ in their best and supreme state."[426] + +Aside from Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through +to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are +identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, +or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his +preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled _Achilles' Shield_ +(1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in +the _Iliad_,[427] and enunciates the same idea in his _Prefaces_ of +1610-16.[428] Peacham, in his _Compleat Gentleman_ (1622), repeats the +usual commonplaces to the effect that poetry is a dulcet philosophy, for +the most part lifted from Puttenham.[429] In his _Argenis_ (1621) Barclay +reminds his reader of the children who for so many centuries had shunned +the cup of physic until the bitter taste had been removed by sweet syrop. +Thus also, says he, is it with the moral value of poetry disguised with +sweet music. "Virtues and vices I will frame, and the rewards of them +shall suite to both"; for it is on the moral example of poetic justice +that Barclay depends. The models of virtue will be followed.[430] + +The Earl of Stirling, in _Anacrisis_ (1634?) acknowledges the works of the +poets to be the chief springs of learning, "both for Profit and Pleasure, +showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they +are." Consequently he has a high opinion of the _Cyropaedia_ of Xenophon, +the _Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney, and other such poems, as "affording +many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes."[431] These types +the reader is expected to imitate in his own conduct, guided by the moral +precepts with which the poet must not neglect to decorate his work. + + * * * * * + +Within the period of this study two views were taken of the moral element +in poetry. With the exception of Sidney and Jonson, who knew the theories +of the Italian renaissance, the English critics believed with Horace that +poetry was at once pleasant and profitable, and agreed with Plutarch that +poetry, if rightly used, would be of benefit in the education of youth. +But there was little tendency to follow this to the conclusion of +asserting that because poetry has a moral effect on the reader, it is the +purpose of poetry as an art to exert this moral effect for the good of +society. Most of these critics believed that the moral effect which poetry +did exert came through allegory. In this respect, as has been shown, they +were carrying on the traditions of the middle ages. + +The opposing view derived ultimately from the classical rhetorics, and +entered England through the criticism of the Italian +scholars--particularly Minturno and Scaliger. Starting from the saying of +Horace that poets aim to please or profit, or please and profit together, +these critics borrowed from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to please, to move, and applied these three aims to the +poet. Accordingly, to them the poet has the same aim as the +orator--persuasion. He pleases not for the sake of giving pleasure, but +for the sake of winning his readers so that he may better attain his real +object of teaching morality and moving men to action in its practice. The +emphasis on the example as the means of attaining this end was further +derived from scholastic philosophy which, as has been shown, classed +logic, rhetoric, and poetic together as instruments for attaining truth +and improving the morality of the state. Furthermore, according to this +scholastic view, the three arts differed only as they utilized different +means to attain this end. Logic used the demonstrative syllogism and the +scientific induction, rhetoric used the enthymeme or rhetorical syllogism +and the example or popular induction, poetic used the example alone. +According to the renaissance developments of this last view, allegory was +emphasized less and less as the example was felt to be more appropriate. +Thus Sidney and Jonson, the outstanding classicists in English renaissance +criticism, exhibit to the highest degree the influence of the most +rhetorical of Italian renaissance critics. They alone in England assert +that the purpose of poetry is to move men to virtuous action. + + * * * * * + +Thus a study of rhetorical terminology in English renaissance theories of +poetry throws into sharp relief the fact that all criticism of the fine +art of literature in England in the 16th century and the first half of the +17th century was profoundly influenced by rhetoric. This influence was +two-fold. On the one hand the less scholarly critics perpetuated the +popular traditions of rhetoric which they inherited from the middle ages. +These traditions of allegory and the ornate style were, as has been shown, +in turn derived from post-classical rhetoric. On the other hand the more +scholarly critics applied to poetry the canons of classical rhetoric which +they derived in part from the classics themselves and in part from the +critics of the Italian renaissance. + +In one sense this has been a study of critical perversions. Although many +of the critics of the English renaissance are remarkable for their wisdom +and discerning judgments, their writings are far less valuable than those +of Longinus and Aristotle. But Aristotle and Longinus did not allow their +theories of poetry to be contaminated by rhetoric. The best modern critics +have studied and understood the classical treatises on poetic and have +consequently avoided the confusion between rhetoric and poetic into which +many renaissance critics fell. Others have not been so fortunate. For +these the object-lesson of renaissance failure should serve as a warning. + + + + +Index + + + +Abelard +Aeschylus +Aesop +Agathon +Agricola, Rudolph +Alanus de Insulis +Alciati +Alcidamas +Albucius +Aldus +Alfarabi +Alstedius +Anaxagoras +Annaeus Florus +Appian +Apsinus +Apthonius +Apuleius +Aristenetus +Aristophanes +Aristotle +Aristides +Ascham +Athenagoras +Augustine +Averroes + +Bacon, Francis +Barclay, John +Barton, John +Basil the Great +Bede +Bokenham +Boccaccio +Bolton, Edmund +Bornecque, Henri +Boethius +Brunetto Latini +Butcher, S.H. +Buchanan, George +Budé +Butler, Charles + +Can Grande +Campano, G. +Campion, Thomas +Casaubon +Cassiodorus +Castelvetro +Castiglione +Cato +Caussinus, N. +Chapman, G. +Chaucer +Chemnicensis, Georgius +Cicero +Clement of Alexandria +Cox, Leonard +Croce, B. +Croll, Morris +Curio Fortunatus + +Daniel, Samuel +Daniello +Dante +Darwin, Charles +Demetrius +Demosthenes +de Worde, Wynkyn +Dio Chrysostom +Dionysius of Halicarnassus +Dolce +Drant, Thomas +Drummond of Hawthornden +DuBellay +Ducas +DuCygne, M. +Dunbar, William + +Earle, John +Eastman, Max +Empedocles +Emporio +Erasmus +Eratosthenes +Estienne, Henri +Etienne de Rouen +Euripides + +Farnaby, Thomas +Fenner, Dudley +Filelfo +Fraunce, Abraham + +Gascoigne +George of Trebizond (Trapezuntius) +Gorgias +Gosson, Stephen +Gower +Gregory Nazianzen +Guarino +Guevara + +Hall, Joseph +Harington, John +Harvey, Gabriel +Hawes, Stephen +Heinsius, D. +Henryson +Heliodorus +Herodotus +Hermagoras +Hermannus Allemanus +Hermogenes +Hilary of Poitiers +Holland, P. +Homer +Horace +Hermas +Hesiod +Heywood, John + +Isidore of Seville +Isocrates + +James I +James VI +Jerome +John of Garland +John of Salisbury +Jonson, Ben +Julian + +Kechermann + +Lactantius +Langhorne +Lipisius +Livy +Lodge +Lombardus, B. +Longinus +Loyola +Lucan +Lucian +Lucretius +Lydgate, John +Lyly, John +Lyndesay, David. +Lysias + +Maggi +Martial +Martianus Capella +Mazzoni +Melanchthon +Menander +Menenius Agrippa +Milton +Minturno + +Nash, T. +Newman, J.H. +Norden, Eduard +North, Sir Thomas + +Origen +Overbury, Thomas +Ovid + +Palmieri +Pazzi +Peacham, Henry +Petrarch +Piccolomini +Pico della Mirandola +Plato +Plautus +Pliny +Plutarch +Poggio +Pontanus, Jacob +Prickard, A. O. +Puttenham + +Quintilian + +Rabelais +Ramus, Peter +Reynolds, Henry +Robortelli +Ronsard +Rufinus + +Sappho +Savonarola +Scaliger, J.C. +Schelling, Felix +Segni +Seneca +Servatus Lupus +Shakespeare +Sherry, Richard +Sidney +Sidonius, Apollinaris +Simonides +Smith, John +Soarez +Socrates +Sopatrus +Sophocles +Sophron +Spenser +Spingarn, J.E. +Stanyhurst +Stesimbrotus of Thasos +Strabo +Strebaeus +Sturm, John + +Tacitus +Tasso, B. +Tatian +Terence +Tertullian +Theognis of Rhegium +Theon +Theophilus +Theophrastus +Themistocles +Thomas Aquinas +Thomasin von Zirclaria +Tifernas +Timocles + +Valla +Valladero, A. +Van Hook, L. +Varchi +Vettore +Vicars, Thomas +Victor, Julius +Victorino, Mario +Vida +Virgil +Vives, L. +Vossius (J.G. Voss) +Vossler, Karl + +Wackernagel, Jacob +Walton, John +Watson, Thomas +Webbe, William +Whetstone, George +William of Malmesbury +Wilson, Thomas + +Xenarchus +Xenophon + + + + + +Footnotes: + + + +[1] _Modern Philology_, Vol. XVI, No. 8, Dec., 1918. + +[2] _Poetics_, I, 8. + +[3] _Quomodo historia conscribenda sit_, 8. + +[4] _De institutione oratoria_, X, ii, 21. + +[5] _Poetik, Rhetorik, und Stilistik_ (Halle, 1886), pp. 14, 261. + +[6] _Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics_, Ed. A.S. Cook +(Boston, 1891), pp. 10-11. + +[7] _Estetica_ (Milano, 1902), I, II, and appendix. + +[8] _Enjoyment of Poetry_ (New York, 1916), p. 66. + +[9] Georges Renard, _La method scientifique de l'histoire littéraire_. +(Paris, 1900), p. 385. + +[10] III, 1. + +[11] I, 8; and IX, 2. + +[12] Prickard thinks Aristotle misread in this passage. According to +Prickard, Aristotle means that poetry must be in meter, but that not all +meter is poetry. Aristotle's _Poetics_, p. 60. Most critics do not share +Prickard's opinion. + +[13] _Ibid._, I, 6. + +[14] _Ibid._, IV, 2. + +[15] _Psychology_, ed. E. Wallace, III, 3, cf. also introd., p. 77, ff. + +[16] _Poetics_, I. + +[17] VII, 3. + +[18] VII, 5. + +[19] S.H. Butcher, _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_, p. 123. +Poetics, II, 1. + +[20] III, 1. + +[21] _Ibid._, IX. + +[22] _Ibid._, IX, 3-4; of. XV, 6. + +[23] _Ibid._, X, 3. + +[24] _Ibid._, XXIV, 9-10. + +[25] Butcher, _op. cit._ p. 392. + +[26] _Poetics_, XVII. + +[27] VI, 18. + +[28] Longinus, _On the Sublime_, trans, by A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906) I +and XXXIII. The treatise has been variously ascribed to the first and +fourth centuries. A valuable edition of the text accompanied by +translation and critical apparatus, was published by W. Rhys Roberts, +Cambridge University Press. + +[29] _Ibid._, VIII. + +[30] _Ibid._, X. + +[31] _Ibid._, XII. + +[32] _Ibid._, XV. This is almost exactly Aristotle's phrase in the +_Rhetoric_. + +[33] _Ibid._ + +[34] _Ibid_, X. + +[35] _De audiendis poetis_, VII, VIII. + +[36] III. + +[37] _Rhetoric_ (J. E. C. Welldon's trans., London, 1886), I, ii. + +[38] _Rhetoric_, I, i. + +[39] _Ibid._, I, i. + +[40] Wilkin's ed. of Cic. _De oratore_, introd. p. 56. + +[41] Cope, _Introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristotle_ (London, 1867), p. +149. + +[42] _Ad Herennium_, I, 2. Published in the _Opera Rhetorica_ of Cicero, +edited by W. Friedrich for Teubner (Leipzig, 1893), Vol. 1. + +[43] _De oratore_, I, 138. + +[44] _De institutione oratoria_, II, xv, 38. + +[45] _Ibid._, XI, i, 9-11. The "vir bonus dicendi peritus" is from Cato. + +[46] _Gorgias_, St. 453. + +[47] _Loci cit._ + +[48] I, v. + +[49] I, 213. + +[50] _Op. cit._, I, 64. + +[51] _De inst. orat._, II, xxi, 4. + +[52] _Rhet._, I, ix. + +[53] _De inst. orat._, III, iv, 6. + +[54] _Ibid._, X, i, 28. + +[55] γραθική, Rhet. III, xii. + +[56] _Orator_, 37-38. + +[57] _Rhet._, I, ix. + +[58] _Ad Herennium_, I, 2; Cicero, _De inventione_, I, vii. _De oratore_, +I, 142; Quintilian, _De inst. orat._, III, iii, i. + +[59] Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, III, xiii-xix; Cicero, _Partit. orat._, 15. + +[60] See above, pp. 13-14. + +[61] Cicero, _De oratore_, I. 143; Quint., _De inst. orat._, III, ix. + +[62] I, 4. Cicero, also, _De invent._, I, xiv. + +[63] _Opera omnia_ (1622), p. 1028. + +[64] _De nuptiis_, 544-560. + +[65] _The Arte of Rhet._, p. 7. + +[66] _De inst. orat._, VIII, i, I + +[67] _De inst. orat._, VIII, vi, I ff. + +[68] _Rhetoric_, III, ii. + +[69] _Ibid._, III, xi. + +[70] _Enjoyment of Poetry_, pp. 76-78. The best classical treatments of +style are to be found in Arist. _Rhet._, III; Cic., _Orat._; Quint., _De +inst. orat._, VIII, x; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De comp. verb._; and +Demetrius, _De elocutione_. + +[71] Sec. 54. + +[72] _Commentarioum Rhetoricorum libri_ IV, I, i, 3, in his _Opera_, III. +(Amsterdam, 1697). + +[73] VI, 1. + +[74] _Rhet._, III, 1. + +[75] The six elements are Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, +and Song. _Poetics_, VI, 7 and 16. + +[76] Butcher, _op. cit._, pp. 339-343. + +[77] _Poetics_, VI, 16, and XIX, 1-2. + +[78] _De inst. orat._, X, i, 46-51. + +[79] _De inventione_, I, xxiii, 33. + +[80] _Die antike kunstprosa_ (Leipzig, 1898), p. 884, note 3. + +[81] See above, p. 17. + +[82] _De optimo genere oratorum_, I, 3; _Orator_, 69; _De oratore_, II, +28. + +[83] _De inst. orat._, VI, ii, 25-36. + +[84] _Poetics_, XVII, 2. + +[85] Arist. _Rhet._, III. xi; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De Lysia_, 7; +Quintilian, VIII, iii, 62. + +[86] _Rhetoric_, III, i. + +[87] _Op. cit._, pp. 883-884. + +[88] La Rue Van Hook, "Alcidamas _versus_ Isocrates," _Classical Weekly_, +XII (Jan. 20, 1919), p. 90. Professor Van Hook here presents the only +English translation of Alcidamas, _On the Sophists_. Isocrates made his +reply in his speech _On the Antidosis_. + +[89] _Rhetoric_, III, ii. + +[90] _Ibid._, III, viii. + +[91] _Orator_, 66-68. + +[92] _De oratore_, I, 70. + +[93] "Verba prope poetarum," _ibid._, I, 128. + +[94] "Id primum in poetis cerni licet, quibus est proxima cognatio cum +oratoribus." _De orat._, III, 27. cf. also I, 70. + +[95] Xenophon, _Banquet_, II, 11-14. + +[96] _Die antike kunstprosa_, pp. 75-79. + +[97] _De compositione verborum_, XXV-XXVI. + +[98] Sénèque le rheteur, _Controverses et suasoires_, ed. Henri Bornecque +(Paris). Introduction pp. 20 ff. + +[99] _Ibid._ + +[100] _Op. cit._ vol. II, p. 5. + +[101] _Dialogus_, 20. + +[102] _Op. cit._, Introd. p. 23. + +[103] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, _De comp. verb._, XXIII. + +[104] Hardie, _Lectures_, VII, p. 281. + +[105] _Quomodo historia conscribenda sit_, Sec. 8. Trans, of Lucian by +H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler (Oxford, 4 vols., 1905). + +[106] Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas +et historicos, in illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos +putemus. _De inst. orat_, X, ii, 21. + +[107] Virgilius orator an poeta? quoted by Karl Vossler, _Poetische +Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance_. (Berlin, 1900) p. 42, note +2. + +[108] _Etymologiae_, II. + +[109] P. Abelson, _The Seven Liberal Arts_ (New York, 1906), p. 60, ff. + +[110] _Poetria magistri Johannis anglici de arte prosayca metrica et +rithmica_, ed. by G. Mari, _Romanische Forschungen_ (1902), XIII, p. 883 +ff. + +[111] _Ibid._, p. 894. + +[112] _Ibid._, p. 897. + +[113] Cf. G. L. Hendrickson, "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient +Characters of Style," _Am. Jour. of Phil._ (1905), xxvi, p. 249. + +[114] Cf. the _auctor ad Her._, I, 4, who gives them as exordium, +narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio. + +[115] _Ibid._, p. 918. + +[116] III, 3. + +[117] "Rhetoricâ, kleit unser rede mit varwe schône." Ed. by H. Rückert, +_Bibl. der Deutsch. Lit._, Vol. 30, 1. 8924. + +[118] Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (430-488) can be consulted in a +modern ed. by Paulus Mohr (Leipzig, 1895). + +[119] Doctrina dell' ornato parlare." Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._ p. 75. + +[120] _Chron. Troy_ (1412-20), Prol. 57. + +[121] I am indebted to my friend Dr. Mark Van Doren for the transcript +which I am here publishing. + +[122] _Mor. Fab._ Prol. 3. (c. 1580). + +[123] _Poems_, LXV, 10 (1500-20). + +[124] _Clerk's Prolog._ 32. + +[125] _Life of our Lady_ (1409-1411), (Caxton) lvii b. + +[126] Trans, of Boethius (1410), quoted by Skeat, _Chaucer_, II, xvii. + +[127] _Kingis Q._ (1423), CXCVII. + +[128] _Test. Papyngo_ (1530), II. + +[129] _Seyntys_ (1447), Roxb. 41. + +[130] _Serp. Devision_, c. iii b. + +[131] Reprinted from the ed. of 1555 for the Percy Society (London, 1845), +p. 2. + +[132] _Ibid._, p. 55. + +[133] _Ibid._, p. 28. + +[134] _See_ p. 27. + +[135] _Ibid._, p. 37. + +[136] _Ibid._, p. 46. + +[137] "Proximum grammatice docet, quae emendate & aperte loquendi vim +tradit: Proximum _rhetorice, quae ornatum orationis cultum que & omnes +capiendarum aurium illecebras invenit_. Quod reliquum igitur est videbitur +sibi dialectice vendicare, probabliter dicere de qualibet re, quae +deducitur in orationem." _De inventione dialectica_ (Paris, 1535), II, 2. +cf. also II, 3. + +Cf. "_Gram_ loquitur; _Dia_ vera docet; _Rhet_ verba colorat." Nicolaus de +Orbellis (d. 1455), quoted by Sandys, p. 644. + +[138] _Ibid._, I, 1. + +[139] _Rule of Reason_ (1551), p. 5. Fraunce, _Lawiers Logike_, takes the +same view. + +[140] _Dialecticae libri duo_, A. Talaei praelectionibus illustrati +(Paris, 1560), I, 2. + +[141] _Rule of Reason_, p. 3. + +[142] Wilkins introd. to Cic. _De orat._, p. 57. + +[143] _De inst. orat._, VI., v, 1-2. + +[144] Printed in London by John Day, without a date. The dedication is +dated Dec. 13, 1550. The title page says it was "written fyrst in +Latin--by Erasmus." + +[145] Ascribed to Dudley Tenner by Foster Watson, _The English Grammar +Schools_ (Cambridge, 1908), p. 89. + +[146] Chapter IX. + +[147] Thomas Heywood, _Apology for Actors_ (London, 1612), in _Pub. Shak. +Soc._, Vol. III, p. 29. + +[148] Book I, ch. 1. + +[149] "Rhetorica est ars ornate dicendi." _Rhetoricae libri duo quorum +prior de tropis & figuris, posterior de voce & gestu praecepit: in usum +scholarum postremo recogniti._ (London, 1629) + +[150] _The Art of Rhetorick concisely and completely handled, exemplified +out of Holy Writ_, etc. (London, 1634) + +[151] Dekker and Middleton, _The Roaring Girl_, III, 3. + +[152] Dekker, III, 1. + +[153] Spingarn, _Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, I, 2. + +[154] χειραγωγια _Manductio ad Artem Rhetoricam ante paucos annos +in privatum scholarium usum concinnata_ (London, 1621). "Rhetorica est ars +recte dicendi, etc." + +[155] Norden, _op. cit._, pp. 699-703. + +[156] A.C. Clark, _Ciceronianism_, in _Eng. Lit. and the Classics_, ed. +Gordon (Oxford, 1912), p. 128. + +[157] Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._, p. 45. + +[158] Erasmus, _Dialogus, cui titulus ciceronianus, sive, de optimo +dicendi genere_, in _Opera omnia_ (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703), I. It was +composed in 1528. + +[159] _Arte of Rhet._, p. 109. + +[160] I, 4. Wilson follows the analysis on p. 7. + +[161] I, x, 17. + +[162] _An Apology for Actors_, p. 29. + +[163] This count is based on the Cicero MSS. listed by P. Deschamps, +_Essai bibliographique sur M. T. Ciceron_ (Paris. 1863). Appendix. + +[164] H. Rashdall, _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, +1895), I, 249. + +[165] J. E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, p. 590. + +[166] Sandys, p. 624 _seq._ + +[167] Deschamps, _op. cit._, pp. 59-63. + +[168] Arber reprint, p. 124. + +[169] M. Schwab, _Bibliographie d'Aristote_ (Paris, 1896). + +[170] Rashdall, II, 457. + +[171] Fierville, C. _M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber +primus_ (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for +the first time the complete texts of these abridgments in an appendix. + +[172] Arber, p. 95. + +[173] The pseudo-Demetrius, author of the _De elecutione_. + +[174] P. 316. + +[175] Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, pp. 541-2. + +[176] M. Schwab, _op. cit._ + +[177] _Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance_ (Berlin, +1900), p. 88. + +[178] _Defense_, in Smith, I, 196-197. + +[179] Vossius, _De artis poeticae natura_, II, 3-4. + +[180] _Poetics_, I, 2. + +[181] _Poetica_, 23, 190. + +[182] _De artis poeticae natura_, II, 4. + +[183] _Euphues_, edited by M. W. Croll and H. Clemens (New York), Introd. +iv. + +[184] Preface to Maggi's _Aristotle_ (1550), p. 2. + +[185] Prolog. _ibid._, p. 15. + +[186] Spingarn, p. 312. + +[187] Jacob Pontanus, S. J., _Poeticarum institutionum libri tres_ +(Ingolstadi, 1594), p. 36. + +[188] _Ibid_, p. 81. + +[189] "Tres autem sunt virtutes narrationis, brevitas, perspicuitas, +probabilitas. Secundam & tertiam diligentissime consectabitur Epicus, +earumque rationem a Rhetoricae magistris percepiet," p. 72. These three +virtues of a "narratio" are based on the analysis of the _Rhetorica ad +Alexandrum_. + +[190] Arist., _Rhet._, III. 16. + +[191] _Op. cit_,, p. 26. + +[192] Spingarn, p. 313. + +[193] _Lit. Crit._, p. 255. + +[194] _Ibid._, p. 262. + +[195] Arber, pp. 138-141. + +[196] Spingarn, pp. 174, 256. + +[197] Smith, I, 48. + +[198] Smith, I, 59. + +[199] _Ibid._, p. 60. + +[200] I, 2. + +[201] II, 12. + +[202] IV, 63. + +[203] _Topics_, 83. + +[204] VI, ii, 8 _seq._ Quintilian also uses the Greek terms. + +[205] X, i, 46-131. + +[206] _Op. cit._, pp. 275-398. + +[207] II, 154 seq. + +[208] P. 187. + +[209] G.S. Gordon, "Theophrastus" in _Eng. Lit. and the Classics_, p. +49-86. + +[210] Smith, I, 128 + +[211] _Ibid._, 130-131. + +[212] Cf. Spingarn, pp. 298-304, for a good account of reformed versifying +in England. + +[213] Smith, I, 137. + +[214] John Northbrooke anticipated Gosson by two years in his attack on +the stage, but did not include poets in his title. + +[215] Spingam, pp. 256-258. + +[216] Smith, I, 158. + +[217] _Ibid._, I, 172. + +[218] _Ibid._, I, 185. + +[219] _Ibid._, I, 158-159. + +[220] _Ibid._, I, 160. + +[221] I, 183. + +[222] I, 201. + +[223] Arist. _Rhet._, III, 2; Quint. VIII, iii. 62; Scaliger, iii, 25. Cf. +ante p. 33. + +[224] _De aug._ II, 13. + +[225] See pp. 18, 19. + +[226] I, 203. + +[227] I, 202. + +[228] Smith, I, 227-228. + +[229] I, 256. + +[230] I, 231. + +[231] I, 247-248. + +[232] I, i. + +[233] I, ii. + +[234] I, viii. + +[235] I, iv. + +[236] La Rue Van Hook, "Greek Rhetorical Terminology in Puttenham's _The +Arte of English Poesie." Trans. of the Am. Phil. Ass._ (1914) XLV, 111. +Puttenham was also familiar with the _ad Herennium_ and with _Cicero_. + +[237] (Philadelphia, 1891), p. 59. + +[238] III, i. + +[239] III, xix, p. 206 Arber reprint; of. also p. 230, on the figure +_Merismus_ or the Distributor, and the remainder of the chapter. + +[240] Smith, II, 249, 282. + +[241] _Ibid_, II, 274. + +[242] Preface to Homer, in Spingarn, _Critical Essays of the Seventeenth +Century_, I, 81. + +[243] Spingarn, I, 5. + +[244] _Literary Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, Introduction_, I, +xiii. + +[245] _Timber_, Sec. 128. Cf. _Pastime of Pleasure_, VIII, 29. + +[246] Spingarn, I, 211. + +[247] _Timber_, Sec. 109. + +[248] _Timber_, Sees. 132-133. + +[249] Spingarn, I, 214. + +[250] _Ibid._, p. 210, 213. + +[251] Vossler, _op. cit._, p. 48. + +[252] Spingarn, I, 107. + +[253] _Ibid._, I, 142. + +[254] _Ibid._, I, 182. + +[255] _Ibid._, I, 188, 185. + +[256] Spingarn, I, 206. + +[257] Pseudo-Demetrius, _De elocutione_. + +[258] The _De sublimitate_. + +[259] _De sublimitate_, VIII. + +[260] Spingarn, I, 206. + +[261] _Reason of Church Government_ (1641), in Spingarn, I, 194. + +[262] _Introd. to Eliz. Crit. Essays_, I, lxx. + +[263] Pp. 23-25. + +[264] VI, 2. + +[265] Poetica est facultas videndi quodcunque accommodatum est ad +imitationem cuiusque actionis, affectionis, moris, suavi sermone, ad vitam +corrigendam & ad bene beateque vivendum comparata. _Praefatio_ to +_Maggi's_ ed. of the _Poetics_ (1550), p. 9. + +[266] Spingarn, p. 35. + +[267] La poetica è una facoltà, la quale insegna in quai modi si debba +imitare qualunque azione, affetto e costume, con numero, sermone ed +armonia; mescolatamente a di per sè, per remuovere gli uomini dai vizi e +accendergli alle virtù, affine che conseguano la perfezione e beatitudine +loro. _Lezione della poetica_ (1590) in _Opere_ (Trieste, 1859), II, 687. + +[268] Verses 1008-1010. + +[269] Verse 1055. + +[270] _The Women at the Feast of Bacchus_, quoted by Emile Egger, +_L'Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs_ (Paris, 1886), p. 74. + +[271] _Protagoras_, 325-326, Jowett's translation. + +[272] _Republic_, 596-598. + +[273] _Ibid._, 605-606. + +[274] _Ibid._, 607 + +[275] _Laws_, 663. + +[276] _Poetics_, IV, 2. + +[277] _Ibid._, VI, 15. + +[278] _Ibid._, VII. + +[279] _Ibid._, IX, 7. + +[280] _Ibid._, XIII. Cf. also XXVI. + +[281] _Ibid._, XXIV. + +[282] _Ibid._, XXVI. + +[283] _Politics_, V, v. + +[284] _Poetics_, VI. (Butcher). Cf. Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Fine +Art_, Chapter VI, for a full discussion of katharsis. + +[285] _Politics_, V, vii. + +[286] _Poetics_, XIII. + +[287] _Panegyric_, § 159. + +[288] _Symposium_, III, 5. + +[289] _Geography_, I, ii, 3. Trans, by H. C. Hamilton (Bohn ed, London, +1854), 1, 24-25. + +[290] _De audiendis poetis_, trans, by F.M. Padelford under the title +_Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry_ (New York, 1902), I. Cf. also +Julian, _Epistle_ 42. + +[291] _Ibid._ + +[292] _Ibid._ XIV. Cf. Harrington in Smith's _Eliz. Crit. Essays_, II, +197-198. + +[293] _Ibid._ XII. Cf. Chemnicensis, _Canons_, LII, in Smith, I, 421. + +[294] _Ibid._, IV. Cf. Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, II, xx. + +[295] _Ibid._, III. + +[296] + + Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae + Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae + + * * * * * + + Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis; + Celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: + Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, + Lectorem delectando, periterque monendo. + Hic meret aera liber Sosiis; hic et mare transit, + Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. + + +_Ad Pisonem_, 333-334, 342-346. + +[297] _Epistles_, II, i, 11. 126 ff. Conington's trans. + +[298] _Metamorphoses_, X, 2. + +[299] _De rerum natura_, I, 936-950. + +[300] _Phaedrus_. See also _Republic_, II. + +[301] _How to Study Poetry_, IV. + +[302] Cf. Cicero, _De nat. deor._ i, 15-38 ff., and Hatch, _Hibbert +Lectures_, 1888, Ch. III. + +[303] A. Schlemm, _De fontibus Plutarchi commentationum De aud. poet._ +(Göttingen, 1893), pp. 32-36. + +[304] "Iam cum confluxerunt plures continuae tralationes, alia plane fit +oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν nomine recte genere +melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat." _Orator_, 94. Cf. _Ad. +Att._ ii, 20, 3. + +[305] Quintilian, VIII, vi, 44. Isidore, _Etym._ I, xxxvii, 22. + +[306] _De doctrina christiana_ (397), III, 29, 40. + +[307] _Confessions_ (Watts's trans.), III. vi., Lionardo Bruni, _De +studiis et literis_ (1405), uses the same argument to defend poetry. + +[308] Terence, _Eun._ 585-589, shows a young man justifying his vices on +this ground. + +[309] _Poetics_, IX. + +[310] _Literary Criticism_, p. 18. + +[311] _Rhet._ II, xxi. + +[312] _Rhetoric_, II, xx. (Weldon's translation). + +[313] _De inst. orat._ V, xi, 6, 19. + +[314] Edited from the edition of 1560 by G.H. Mair (Oxford, 1909), p. 198. + +[315] _Ibid._, p. 3. + +[316] "Docere debitum est, delectare honorarium, permovere necessarium." +_De optimo genere oratorum_, I, 3. He gives the same threefold aims as "ut +probet, ut delectet, ut flectet," in the _Orator_, 69; and in the _De +oratore_, II, 121. + +[317] _Vide_ pp. 136-137. + +[318] Cf. _ante_, I, iv. + +[319] _Controv._ II, 2 (10). Bornecque ed., I, 145-148. + +[320] Quoted by Padelford, p. 36. + +[321] _Orat._ xi, p. 308. + +[322] Padelford, _op. cit._ pp. 39-43. + +[323] Karl Vossler, _Poetische Theorien in der italienischen +Frührenaissance_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 5, 18, 45. + +[324] Boethius, _De consolatione philosophiae_, Book I, prose 1. Boethius +lived 480-524. Cf. Skeat, _Chaucer_, II, introd. xiv ff. for references to +the surprising number of translations in most European languages +throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, +Notker, and Chaucer. + +[325] _Ibid_, Book V, prose v. + +[326] "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina +faciebant. Officium autem poetae in eo est ut ea, quae vere gesta sunt, in +alias species obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa +transducant." _Etym._ VIII, vii, 9-10. + +[327] "Fabulas poetae quasdam delectandi causa finxerunt, quasdam ad +naturam rerum, nonnullas ad mores hominum interpretati sunt." _Etym._ I, +xl, 3. + +[328] "Una verita ascosa sotto bella menzogna." II, 1. + +[329] _Epistle_, X, 11, 160-1. Quoted by Wicksteed, _Temple Classics_, pp. +66-67. + +[330] "Vesta di figura o di colore rettorico." _La Vita Nuova_, XXV. + +[331] See above, pp. 45-47. + +[332] "Per nimpham fingitur caro, per iuvenem coruptorem mundus vel +dyabolus, per proprium amicum ratio." _Poetria magistri Johannis anglici +de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica_. Ed. by G. Mari, Romanische +Forschungen (1902) XIII, 894. + +[333] "Est furor Eacides ire sathanas," _Ibid_, p. 913. + +[334] See above, pp. 51-55. + +[335] _Pastime of Pleasure_, p. 29. + +[336] _Ibid._, p. 38. + +[337] _Ibid._, p. 54; see further above, p. 54. + +[338] Cf. ante, pp. 97-99. + +[339] _Lit. Crit._, p. 47-59. + +[340] _Ibid._, p. 58. + +[341] I _anal._ 1a. + +[342] _Lit. Crit._, p. 25. + +[343] André Schimberg, _L'education morale dans les collèges de la +compagnie de Jésus en France_ (Paris, 1913). p. 138. + +[344] _Opus de divisione, ordine, ac utilitate omnium scientiarum, in +poeticen apologeticum_. Autore fratre Hieronymo Savonarola (Venetiis, +1542), IV, pp. 36-55. Savonarola died in 1498. + +[345] Cartier, "L'Esthetique de Savonarola," in Didron's _Annales +Archoelogiques_ (1847). vii, 255 ff. + +[346] "Rhetorica, Poeticaque contra: quod non adeo vere ac proprie Logicae +appellantur, neque, syllogismo fere, sed exemplo atque enthymemate, +rationibus quasi popularibus utuntur...." Poetic, furthermore, differs +from rhetoric, "neque usurpat enthymema fere, sed exemplum." Vincentius +Madius et Bartholomaeus Lombardus. In _Aristotelis Librum de poetica +communes explanationes_ (Venetiis, 1550), pp. 8-9. + +[347] "Onde come il loico usa per suo mezzo il più nobile strumento, ciò è +la dimostrazione o vero il sillogismo dimonstrativo; cosi usa il +dialettico il sillogismo topico; il sofista il sofistico, ciò è apparente +ed ingannevole: il retore l'entimema, e il poeta l'esempio, il quale è il +meno degno di tutti gli altri. É adunque il subbietto della poetica il +favellare finto e favoloso, ed il suo mezzo o strumento l'esempio." _Delia +Poetica in Generale, Lezione Una _ I, 2. _Opere_ (Trieste, 1850), II, 684. +In his paraphrase of this passage and in his comments, Spingarn (_Lit. +Crit._ pp. 25-26) misunderstands both his author and his rhetoric when he +says, "The subject of poetry is fiction, or invention, arrived at by means +of that form of the syllogism known as the example. Here the enthymeme or +example, which Aristotle has made the instrument of rhetoric, becomes the +instrument of poetry." + +[348] _Rhet._ I, ii. + +[349] "Nimirum arbitrantur, quemadmodum Rhetorice ab Aristotele ipso +appellatur particula Dialecticae; idque propterea, quod doceat rationem, +qua enthymema applicetur ad materiam civilem: ita & Poeticen esse Logices +partem, quia aperit exempli usum in materia ficta ... at Rhetorice, & +Poetice, non solum docere student, sed etiam delectare; nec cognitionem +tantum spectant, sed & actionem. Quamquam vero hoc commune habet cum +Rhetorica, quod utraque sit famula Politicae." Gerardi Joannis Vossii, _De +artis poeticae, natura, ac constitutions liber_, cap VII, in _Opera_ +(Amsterdam, 1697), III. + +[350] "Inductio delectat, et est vulgo apta, propter similitudines et +exempla. Hanc argumentationem frequentant Rhetores et Poetae, praesertim +Ovidius; quia venuste ac perspicue explicat argumenta." I, ii. + +[351] _Vide_, pp. 103-104. + +[352] _Vide_, pp. 119-120. + +[353] _Poetica_ (Vinegia, 1536), p. 25. Spingarn, p. 48. + +[354] "Sic dicere versibus, ut doccat, ut delectet, ut moveat." _De +poeta_, p. 102. + +[355] _Rhetoric_, I, ii. + +[356] XII, i, 1. + +[357] _De poeta_, p. 79. Vossius echoes the same idea from the same +rhetorical source. + +[358] "Sed & docendi, & movendi, & delectandi." _Poetice_ (1561), III, +xcvii. + +[359] _Ibid._, I, i. + +[360] _Arte of Rhet._ p. 176. + +[361] These two names were frequently connected in the renaissance. + +[362] _Ibid_, p. 195. + +[363] _Arber Reprint_ (London, 1870), p. 151. + +[364] _Ibid._, pp. 142-143. + +[365] _Ibid._, p. 80. + +[366] _Vide_, p. 132. + +[367] _Vide_, pp. 77-78. + +[368] Smith, _Eliz. Crit. Essays_, I, 48. + +[369] Croll, Introd. to ed. of _Euphues_ (New York, 1916), p. vii. + +[370] Smith, I, 60. + +[371] _School of Abuse_ (Pub. of the Shak. Soc., 1841), Vol, 2, p. 15. + +[372] _Ibid._, pp. 20, 25, 29. + +[373] Smith, I, 65. + +[374] Smith, I, 73. + +[375] Smith, I, 76. + +[376] Smith, I, 83. + +[377] _Vide_, pp. 86-87. + +[378] _Lit. Crit. in the Ren._ 2d ed., pp. 269-274. + +[379] Smith, I, 158-160. + +[380] _Ibid._, 160. + +[381] _Ibid._, I, 159. + +[382] _Ibid._, I, 171. + +[383] _Ibid._, p. 172. + +[384] Cf. above, p. 138. + +[385] _De inst. orat._, V, xi, 19. + +[386] _Arte of Rhet._, p. 198. + +[387] _Ibid._, I, 157. + +[388] Smith, I, 169. + +[389] _Rhetoric_, II, xx. + +[390] Smith, I, 173. + +[391] Cf. St. Augustine, _Confessions_, III, vi. + +[392] Smith, I, 187. Cf. Arist. _Rhet._ I, i, and Quint. _De inst. orat._ +II, xvi, who defend rhetoric on the same ground. Sidney's "with a sword +thou maist kill thy Father, and with a sword thou maist defende thy Prince +and Country" is in Quintilian. + +[393] See also p. 38. + +[394] Smith, II, 208. + +[395] Smith, II, 201. + +[396] _Ibid._ + +[397] _De audiendis poetis_, XIV. Plutarch believed that poetry gained +this end by enunciating moral and philosophical _sententiae_, not by +allegory, which Plutarch made sport of. + +[398] See pp. 87-89. + +[399] Smith, I, 250-252. + +[400] Smith, I, 232. + +[401] Smith, I, 238-239. + +[402] Smith, I, 235-236. + +[403] Smith, I, 248-249. + +[404] _Vide_, pp. 89-92. + +[405] Smith, II, 25. + +[406] Smith, II, 115-116. + +[407] Smith, II, 160. + +[408] Smith, II, 32-40. + +[409] Smith, II, 41-42. + +[410] _Ibid._ + +[411] Woodward, _Educ. in the Ren._ p. 135. + +[412] Krapp, _Rise of Eng. Lit. Prose_ (New York, 1915), pp. 408-409. + +[413] _Vide_, pp. 91-92. + +[414] Spingarn, _Crit. Essays of the 17th Century_, I, 98, 99. + +[415] Springarn, I, 6. + +[416] Spingarn, I, 6-8. + +[417] The author's prolog to the first book. + +[418] Spingarn, I, 170. + +[419] Spingarn, I, 50; for Jonson see also pp. 93-96. + +[420] Spingarn, I, 29. + +[421] _Ibid._, 51-52. + +[422] _Ibid._, p. 55. Cf. Cicero, _ante_ p. 37. + +[423] Ded. to _Volpone_, Spingarn, I. 15. + +[424] _Ibid._ + +[425] Spingarn, I, 28-29. + +[426] Ded to _Volpone_, Spingarn, I, 12. + +[427] Smith, II, 306. + +[428] Spingarn, I, 67. + +[429] Spingarn, I, 117-120. + +[430] A.H. Tieje, _Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction Prior to_ +1740 (Minneapolis, 1916), p. 14. + +[431] Spingarn, I, 186-187. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance +by Donald Lemen Clark + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + +***** This file should be named 10140-0.txt or 10140-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/4/10140/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance + A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism + +Author: Donald Lemen Clark + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [EBook #10140] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance</h1> + +<h2>A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism</h2> + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.<br /> +Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University</h2> + +<p align="center">1922</p> + + + + +<p align="center" style="margin: 2em">To my Father and Mother</p> + + + + +<h2>Preface</h2> + + + +<p>In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on +the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This +influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance +writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric. +But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical +thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the +present day.</p> + +<p>The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of +rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part +Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of +poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but +by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical +terminology I have already touched on in an article on <i>The Requirements +of a Poet[<a href="#foot1">1</a>]</i>, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal +of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical +rhetoric.</p> + +<p>No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can +escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose <i>Literary +Criticism in the Renaissance</i> has so carefully traced the debt of English +criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by +many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my +own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement +what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention +to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am +able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were +profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these +mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and +that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and +less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not +lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism.</p> + +<p>In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in +modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For +quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case +of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the +<i>Elizabethan Critical Essays</i> edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the +<i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn, +I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a +practice would add to the convenience of the reader.</p> + +<p>The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of +acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia +University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided +me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously +allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English +rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly +and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to +Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond +M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard +and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is +to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration, +enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book +possible.</p> + + + + +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + +<p><b>Part First: </b> <a href="#1">The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#1-1">Introductory</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-1-1">The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-2">Classical Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-2-1">Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-2">"Longinus"</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-3">Plutarch</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-4">Horace</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-3">Classical Rhetoric</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-3-1">Definitions</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-2">Subject Matter</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-3">Content of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-4">Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-5">Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-4">Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-4-1">The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-2">The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-3">The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-4">The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-5">The Middle Ages</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-5-1">The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-5-2">Rhetoric as Aureate Language</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-6">Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-6-1">The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-2">The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-3">The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-4">Channels of Rhetorical Theory</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-7">Renaissance Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-7-1">The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-7-2">Rhetorical Elements</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-8">Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-8-1">The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-2">The Influence of Horace</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-3">The Influence of Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-4">Manuals for Poets</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-5">Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + + +<p><b>Part Second:</b> <a href="#2">The Purpose of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#2-1">The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-1-1">General</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-2">Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-3">Moral Improvement through Allegory</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-4">The Influence of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-2">Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-2-1">Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-2-2">Allegory in Mediaeval England</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-3">Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose + of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-3-1">The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-3-2">The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-4">English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-4-1">Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-2">Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-3">The Displacement of Allegory by Example</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + +<p><a href="#index">Index of Names</a></p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="1"></a>Part One<br /> + +The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +Introductory</h3> + + + +<p>By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly +movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the +historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the +renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the +Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule +the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The +interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the +English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This +tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have +shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical +writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries +and original treatises of Italian scholars.</p> + +<p>The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely +discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is +known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English +renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics +to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval +development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will +be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its +development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in +the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to +show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English +renaissance.</p> + +<p>As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a +new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories +were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of +this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas +Wilson's <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's <i>Timber</i> in +1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical +theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence +first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of +Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English +criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories +of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology, +not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but +through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric. +The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical +theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an +inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages. +Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far +into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry +use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This +rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some +extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the +influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian +critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the +mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-1-1"></a>1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the <i>Rhetoric</i> and +the <i>Poetics</i>. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical +consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his +mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, +but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical +basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the +classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly +what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace +the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in +the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in +the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry +contained many elements which historically derive from classical and +mediaeval rhetoric.</p> + +<p>Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical +critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in +addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in +separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of +history were composed in verse, they would still be something different +from poetry.[<a href="#foot2">2</a>] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings +are like those of the poets.[<a href="#foot3">3</a>] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric +against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like +that of the poets.[<a href="#foot4">4</a>] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some +fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a +difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of +ignoring.</p> + +<p>If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of +communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry +second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one +reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry +to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a +modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared +with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry.</p> + +<p>To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a +pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an +audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had +learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work +up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize +this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and +harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined +by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the +schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn.</p> + +<p>In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of +poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed +that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be +poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained. +Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and +Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching +of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did +rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch, +the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the +renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring +to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and +of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their +purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion, +therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in +Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The +object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between +nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is +to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the +other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because +also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better +understood.</p> + +<p>The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic +appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric +deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a +defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the +deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals +with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary +critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized +that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far +the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to +characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it +does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical +unity and movement.</p> + +<p>It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in +the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description +of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an +aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric +deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also +with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and +dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most +important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the +ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises +on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the +technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on +versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern +developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in +this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much +more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood +that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical +rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic.</p> + +<p>Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric +and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative +literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that +the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The +fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is +usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to +them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel, +who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete +and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect, +asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[<a href="#foot5">5</a>] He thus +advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the +Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has +in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence +of poetry is fiction.[<a href="#foot6">6</a>] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce +differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written +in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what +he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the +other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[<a href="#foot7">7</a>] Similar +to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and +intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and +practical.[<a href="#foot8">8</a>] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of +writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[<a href="#foot9">9</a>]</p> + +<p>In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation +between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the +traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical +study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between +rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Classical Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-1"></a>1. Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>A survey of what Aristotle includes in his <i>Poetics</i>, what he excludes, +and what he ignores, will be a helpful initial step in an investigation of +what he meant by poetic. Five kinds of poetry are mentioned by name in the +<i>Poetics</i>: epic, dramatic, dithyrambic, nomic, and satiric; and lyric is +included by implication as a form of epic, where the poet narrates in his +own person.[<a href="#foot10">10</a>]</p> + +<p>The choruses, also, are lyric. Otherwise Aristotle does not discuss lyric +poetry. Of the other five kinds, nomic, dithyrambic, and satiric poetry +are mentioned only as illustrative of something Aristotle wishes to say +about epic or drama. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> discusses only epic and, +especially, drama. Thus of the twenty-six books into which the <i>Poetics</i> +is conventionally divided, five are devoted to the general theory of +poetry, three to diction, two to epic, and sixteen to drama. Although +Aristotle includes dithyrambic, nomic, satiric, and lyric poetry in his +discussion, he practically ignores them.</p> + +<p>On the other hand he specifically excludes from poetry such scientific +works as those of Empedocles and historical writings as those of +Herodotus.[<a href="#foot11">11</a>] The rhetorical element in the speeches of the characters of +drama or epic, Aristotle calls Thought (διάνια). Although +Aristotle includes Thought as an element in drama, he does not discuss it +in the <i>Poetics</i>, but refers his reader to the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Metrics, which +occupies so large a place in modern treatises on the theory of poetry, +Aristotle likewise mentions several times, but does not discuss. A +metrical structure he accepts as the usual practice in poetical +composition, but he rejects verse as the distinguishing mark of poetic. +Thus he refuses to classify as poetry the scientific writings which +Empedocles had composed in meter as well as the histories of Herodotus, +even if he had written them in verse. On the other hand, the mimes of +Sophron and Xenarchus, although composed in prose, he considers within the +scope of poetic.[<a href="#foot12">12</a>]</p> + +<p>If to Aristotle, then, verse is not the characteristic quality of poetic, +the next step in an investigation must be to discover the criterion by +which he classifies some literature as poetry and other as not poetry. The +characteristic quality, according to Aristotle, which is possessed by the +Socratic dialogs, by the Homeric epics, and by the dramas of Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, and which classifies them together as poetic, is +not verse but <i>mimesis</i>, imitation.[<a href="#foot13">13</a>] Exactly what Aristotle meant by +imitation has furnished subsequent critics with an excuse for writing many +volumes. The usual meaning of the word to the Greek, as to the modern, +seems to be little more than an aping or mimicking. Aristotle himself uses +imitate in this sense when he speaks of the delight children take in +imitation.[<a href="#foot14">14</a>] But in establishing imitation as the criterion of poetic, +Aristotle seems to have injected something of a private, or at least a +special scientific meaning into the word. As the characteristic quality of +poetic, imitation to Aristotle evidently did not mean a literal copy. +Plato had attacked poetry as unreal, a thrice-removed imitation of the +only true reality. To defend poetic against the strictures of his master +Aristotle reads more into the word than that.</p> + +<p>In discovering what Aristotle had in mind when he speaks of imitation, the +student must read from one treatise to another, for few writers of any +period are so addicted to the habit of cross-reference. In the +<i>Psychology</i> Aristotle states that all stimuli received by the senses at +the moment of perception are impressed upon the mind as in wax. The images +held by the image-forming faculty are thus the after effect of sensation. +These images remain and may be recalled by the image-forming faculty. From +this store-house of images, or after effects of sensation, the reasoning +faculty derives the materials for thought as well as those for artistic +expression.[<a href="#foot15">15</a>] Imagination evidently has much to do with Aristotle's +conception of the nature of poetic. Imitation, then, to him, meant a +conscious selection and plastic mastery of the sense impressions stored as +images by the image-forming faculty of the author, whose writings are +addressed to the imagination of the reader or auditor. Furthermore, +Butcher's interpretation of "imitation of nature" seems both sound and +suggestive. According to him the imitation of nature is the imitation of +nature's ways. In this sense the act of the poet may well be called +creation.</p> + +<p>As imitative arts Aristotle mentions poetry, dancing, music, and painting. +They differ, he says, in their medium, objects, and manner. Poetry, +dancing, and music he classifies together because they use the similar +media of rhythm, language, or harmony either singly or combined. Music, +for instance, uses both rhythm and harmony, dancing uses rhythm alone, and +poetry uses language alone. Aristotle by this does not, as might seem, +exclude rhythm and harmony from poetry. Indeed, he states explicitly that +most forms of poetry do use all of the media mentioned: rhythm, tune, and +meter. He is only insisting that imitation in unmetrical language is still +poetry; that meter is not the characteristic element of poetic.[<a href="#foot16">16</a>] It is +important to recognize that in classifying poetry with music and dancing, +Aristotle is insisting that the common element in these arts is movement. +Movement is characteristic of poetry, as color and form are characteristic +of painting and sculpture. Thus in discussing the plot of tragedy, which +he holds to be the highest and most characteristic form of poetry, +Aristotle urges the necessity of unity and magnitude, both of which he +defines in terms not of space relations, but of movement. For instance, to +possess unity a plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end.</p> + +<blockquote> A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal + necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An + end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other + thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. + A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows + it.[<a href="#foot17">17</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore, the magnitude which this dramatic movement should possess is +also discussed not in terms of bulk, but of length.</p> + +<blockquote> As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms, a certain + magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in + one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length + which can easily be embraced by the memory.[<a href="#foot18">18</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is noteworthy that to Aristotle the characteristic movement of poetic +depends on the dramatic unity and progression of a dramatic action, a +plot. In the <i>Rhetoric</i> he shows that the arrangement of the movement of a +speech is governed by entirely different considerations. The unity of +rhetoric is not dramatic, but logical. The order of the parts of a speech +is determined not by a plot, but by the needs of presentation to an +audience. For instance, a statement of the case is given first, and then +the proof is marshalled.</p> + +<p>The objects of poetic imitation, Aristotle says, are character, emotion, +and deed, i.e., men in action,[<a href="#foot19">19</a>] inanimate nature and the life of dumb +animals being subordinate to these. The manner of imitating, if poetic, +Aristotle says is either narrative or dramatic. Under the narrative manner +he includes lyric, where the speaker expresses himself in the first +person, and epic, where the speaker tells his story in the third person. +In the dramatic manner he says that the characters are made to live and +move before us.[<a href="#foot20">20</a>]</p> + +<p>Answering Plato's charge that poetic is not real, Aristotle erects the +distinction between the real and the actual, claiming a reality for poetic +which is not the actuality of science or of practical affairs. It is thus +that he distinguishes the poet from the historian: although the historian +also uses images, he is restricted to relating what has happened--that is, +to fact; while the poet relates what should happen--what is possible +according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing +facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be +"true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of +nature."[<a href="#foot21">21</a>] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both +the characterization and the action. In the first place</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry tends to express the universal--how a person of a certain type + will on occasion speak or act according to the law of probability or + necessity.[<a href="#foot22">22</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls +the structure of a narrative or dramatic plot in that, "what follows +should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action,"[<a href="#foot23">23</a>] +even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to +improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational +premise in an action may seem probable provided that the conclusion is +logical and made to seem real.[<a href="#foot24">24</a>] For instance, the irrational elements +in the Odyssey "are presented to the imagination with such vividness and +coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like +truth."[<a href="#foot25">25</a>] Such a result occurs only when the characters and action are +made real. We believe that which we see, even though we know in our hearts +that it is not so.</p> + +<p>How important Aristotle feels it to be that the spectator or reader should +see before him the characters and situations of an epic or drama is +evinced by his suggestion to the poet on the process of composing. The +author, he says, should visualize the situations he is presenting, working +out the appropriate gestures, for he who feels emotion is best at +transmitting it to an audience.[<a href="#foot26">26</a>] It is only when the poet thus +completely realizes his characters and situations that the audience can be +induced to feel sympathetically the pity and fear which produces the +<i>katharsis</i>, so important a result of successful tragedy. If human beings +did not possess that tendency to feel within themselves the emotions of +the people on the stage, they would be unable to experience vicariously +the fear animating the tragic hero. Thus tragedy, which is the type of all +poetic, depends vitally, according to Aristotle, on imaginative +realization.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-2"></a>2. "Longinus"</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle's theory of poetry, which influenced so profoundly the criticism +of the renaissance, was not followed by other classical treatises of the +same scope. In fact, very little Greek or Roman literary criticism is +concerned with poetical theory as compared with the keen interest of many +critics in oratory. Perhaps the most significant and valuable critical +treatise after Aristotle is that golden pamphlet <i>On the Sublime</i> +erroneously ascribed to Longinus, which, anonymous and mutilated as it is, +still holds our attention by its sincerity, insight, and enthusiastic love +for great poetry.</p> + +<p>However important its contribution to classical theory of poetry, the +treatise is not specifically on poetic. In fact, it sets out as if to +treat rhetoric, and actually treats both; for it is mainly a treatise on +style, which as Aristotle says in the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot27">27</a>] is in essence the same +both in prose and verse. Nevertheless it does distinguish between rhetoric +and poetic and does contribute to the theory of poetry.[<a href="#foot28">28</a>]</p> + +<p>"<i>Sublimitas</i>," misleadingly translated "sublimity," the author defines +as elevation and greatness of style. It springs from the faculty of +grasping great conceptions and from passion, both gifts of nature. It is +assisted by art through the appropriate use of figures, noble diction, and +dignified and spirited composition of the words into sentences. It is the +insistence on passion, emotion, which makes the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> +stand out above other classical treatises on writing. Both poets and +orators attain the sublime, says the author, but passion is more +characteristic of the poets.[<a href="#foot29">29</a>]</p> + +<p>Passion moves the poet to intensity, which is attained by selection of +those sensory images which are significant. Thus the treatise praises the +ode by Sappho which it quotes, because the poet has taken the emotions +incident to the frenzy of love from the attendant symptoms, from +actuality, and first selected and then closely combined those which were +conspicuous and intense.[<a href="#foot30">30</a>] This intensity which is characteristic of the +poet he contrasts with the amplification of the orators, which strengthens +the fabric of an argument by insistence and is especially "appropriate in +perorations and digressions, and in all passages written for the style and +for display, in writings of historical and scientific nature." Yet +Demosthenes when moved by passion attains the sublimity of intensity and +strikes like lightning.[<a href="#foot31">31</a>] Both in oratory and in poetry sublimity is +attained by image-making, as when "moved by enthusiasm and passion, you +seem to see the things of which you speak, and place them under the eyes +of your hearers."[<a href="#foot32">32</a>] It would be difficult to phrase better the +conditions of imaginative realization. But the author felt truly that +this realization was different in poetry from what it was in rhetoric. In +commenting on a quotation from the <i>Orestes</i>, of Euripides, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> There the poet saw the Furies with his own eyes, and what his + imagination presented he almost compelled his hearers to behold.</blockquote> + +<p>And after an imaginative passage from the lost <i>Phaethon</i>, of the same +author, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Would you not say that the soul of the writer treads the car with the + driver, and shares the peril, and wears wings as the horses do?</blockquote> + +<p>From this the rhetorical imagination differs in that it is at its best +when it has fact for its object.[<a href="#foot33">33</a>] Longinus would seem to say that the +realization of poetic is untrammeled by fact, while the imagination of the +orator is bound by the actual; it is always practical.</p> + +<p>Because the imaginative realization of poetry is characterized by passion, +intensity, and immediacy, the author of the treatise feels with Aristotle +that the dramatic is the most characteristically poetic. On this basis he +judges the <i>Odyssey</i> to be less great than the <i>Iliad</i>. It is narrative +instead of dramatic; fable prevails over action; passion has degenerated +into character-drawing. This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the +qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize +character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or +for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye +instead of being told.</p> + +<p>The treatise makes this point exceedingly clear by two quotations which +bear repeating.</p> + +<p>"The author of the <i>Arimaspeia</i> thinks these lines terrible:</p> + +<blockquote> "Here too, is mighty marvel for our thought:<br /> +'Mid seas men dwell, on water, far from land:<br /> +Wretches they are, for sorry toil is theirs;<br /> +Eyes on the stars, heart on the deep they fix;<br /> +Oft to the gods, I ween, their hands are raised;<br /> +Their inward parts in evil case upheaved.</blockquote> + +<p>"Anyone, I think, will see that there is more embroidery than terror in it +all. Now for Homer:</p> + +<blockquote> "As when a wave by the wild wind's blore<br /> +Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light,<br /> +And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white,<br /> +And through the sails all tattered and forlorn<br /> +Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright<br /> +Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they are borne."[<a href="#foot34">34</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The first quoted passage is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk +about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the +situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and +hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and shake with the +frightened sailors.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-3"></a>3. Plutarch</h4> + + +<p>But judgments like those of the appreciative and discerning author of the +treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> are rare. Plutarch in his essay <i>On the Reading +of Poets</i>, is much more representative of late Greek criticism. This essay +is not a treatise on the theory of poetry, but a thoughtful discussion of +the place of poetry in the education of young men. Consequently the +greater part of the essay is devoted to the moral purpose of poetry, and +as such will be treated in the second section of this study. Two points, +however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical +imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting.</p> + +<p>The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To +Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. +"While poetry is based on imitations ... it does not resign the likeness +of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[<a href="#foot35">35</a>] As a +result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical +material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things +are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, +just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of +its loathsome subject, is praised for its art.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which +led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was +a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent +poetry."[<a href="#foot36">36</a>] The false analogy, "<i>ut pictura poesis</i>," establishing, as it +does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until +Lessing exposed it in his <i>Laocoon</i>. Aristotle at the beginning had made +clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which +could have a beginning, a middle, and an end.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-4"></a>4. Horace</h4> + + +<p>The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are +the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a <i>poetic</i>; +it is an <i>ars poetica</i>. <i>Ars</i>, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a +practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner +himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its +philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to +become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He +says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found +of assistance."</p> + +<p>In structure, also, the <i>ars poetica</i> is not a critical analysis, but a +text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental +considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to +compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so +that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; +he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter.</p> + +<p>The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to +line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing +of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the +most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are +between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in +that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his +emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace +says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin <i>ab ovo</i> but +plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says +much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be +animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be +made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for +instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden +anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of +the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns +his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and +the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode +presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having +taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they +offend.</p> + +<p>The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is +good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is +appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. +Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript +carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a +sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem +will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. +If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his +work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A +poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better +advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his +"<i>ut pictura poesis</i>" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts +as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely.</p> + +<p>Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here +treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the +early renaissance. Just what the influence of the <i>Ars poetica</i> was and +why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Classical Rhetoric</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-1"></a>1. Definitions</h4> + + +<p>The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is +reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical +orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric +can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. +The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. +In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical +theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his +whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there +were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for +their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the <i>Rhetoric ad +Alexandrum</i>, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated +in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek +text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's +rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through +the influence of his <i>Rhetoric</i> and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus +set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct +from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, +but briefer.</p> + + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">Definitions</p> + +<p>"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering +all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[<a href="#foot37">37</a>]</p> + +<p>He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he +believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring +him to as high a point of health as possible."[<a href="#foot38">38</a>] Neither medicine nor +rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always +something incalculable.</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that +the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available +means of persuasion,[<a href="#foot39">39</a>] his successors were more direct, if less +accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is +persuasion,[<a href="#foot40">40</a>] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the +artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[<a href="#foot41">41</a>] But the +anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. +Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by +defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of +the audience as far as possible."[<a href="#foot42">42</a>] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is +that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the +assent of his audience.[<a href="#foot43">43</a>] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes +a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as +the <i>ars bene dicendi</i>, or good public speech.[<a href="#foot44">44</a>] Here the <i>bene</i> implies +not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception +the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times +when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to +persuade would be dishonorable.[<a href="#foot45">45</a>] Quintilian's precepts, however, are +more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself +throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible +means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that +the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-2"></a>2. Subject Matter</h4> + + +<p>If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion +as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[<a href="#foot46">46</a>] +says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made +persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and +successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was +almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were +or were not so, or persuading a deliberative assembly that this or that +should or should not be done. Consequently Hermagoras defines the subject +matter of rhetoric as "public questions," Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as +"communal affairs," and the <i>Ad Herennium</i> as "whatever in customs or laws +is to the public benefit."[<a href="#foot47">47</a>] The same influence caused Cicero in his +youthful <i>De inventione</i> to classify rhetoric as part of political +science,[<a href="#foot48">48</a>] and in the <i>De oratore</i> to make Antonius restrict rhetoric to +public and communal affairs,[<a href="#foot49">49</a>] although in another section he returns to +Aristotle's "any subject" as the material of rhetoric[<a href="#foot50">50</a>] as does +Quintilian later.[<a href="#foot51">51</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle did state in his definition that any subject was the +material of rhetoric, in his classification of the varieties of speeches +he practically restricts rhetoric as did Hermagoras, Dionysius, and the +<i>Ad Herennium</i>; for here he finds but three kinds of oratory: the +deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional, ἐπιδεικτικός. +Forensic oratory he defines as that of the law court; deliberative, of the +senate or public assembly; and occasional, of eulogy and congratulation. +Perhaps the most illustrative modern examples of the third would be +Fourth-of-July addresses, funeral sermons, and appreciative articles or +lectures. Aristotle suggests that exaggeration is most appropriate to the +style of occasional oratory; for as the facts are taken for granted, it +remains only to invest them with grandeur and dignity.[<a href="#foot52">52</a>]</p> + +<p>Occasional oratory seems to have given no little concern to the classical +rhetoricians. Since it existed to adorn an occasion, it had to be +considered; but unlike the oratory of the forum or of the council chamber +it was not primarily practical. Quintilian comments on this; for it seems +to aim almost exclusively at gratifying its hearers,[<a href="#foot53">53</a>] in this respect +resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but +pleasure.[<a href="#foot54">54</a>] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those +of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective +"literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[<a href="#foot55">55</a>] +Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from +the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it +were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently he +declines to classify this form of oratory separately, reducing +Aristotle's three kinds of oratory to two. It is valuable, to his mind, as +the wet-nurse of the young orator, who enlarges his vocabulary and learns +composition from its practice.[<a href="#foot56">56</a>] Aristotle includes it in rhetoric; for +in its field of eulogy, panegyric, felicitation, and congratulation, it +too uses the available means of persuasion to prove some person or thing +praiseworthy or the reverse.[<a href="#foot57">57</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-3"></a>3. Content of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Classical rhetoricians commonly divided their subject into five parts. +This analysis of rhetoric into <i>inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria</i>, +and <i>pronuntiatio</i> is to all intents and purposes universal in classical +rhetoric and must be understood to give one a valid idea of its +content.[<a href="#foot58">58</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, so often lazily mistranslated as "invention," is +the art of exploring the material to discover all the arguments which may +be brought to bear in support of a proposition and in refutation of the +opposing arguments. It includes the study of arguments and fallacies; and +is that part of rhetoric which is closest neighbor to logic. The kinds of +argument treated in the classical rhetoric were two: the enthymeme, or +rhetorical syllogism; and the rhetorical induction or example. In the +practice of rhetoric <i>inventio</i> was thus the solidest and most important +element. It included all of what to-day we might call "working up the +case." <i>Dispositio</i> is the art of arranging the material gathered for +presentation to an audience. Aristotle insists that the essential parts of +a speech are but two: the statement and the proof. At most it may have +four: the <i>ex ordium</i>, or introduction; the <i>narratio</i>, or statement of +facts; the <i>confirmatio</i>, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and +the <i>peroratio</i>, or conclusion.[<a href="#foot59">59</a>] This is the characteristic movement of +rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot +movement of poetic.[<a href="#foot60">60</a>] The parts are capable of further analysis. +Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof +proper into <i>probatio</i>, or affirmative proof, and <i>refutatio</i>, or +refutation.[<a href="#foot61">61</a>] And the <i>Ad Herennium</i> adds a <i>divisio</i>, which defines the +issues, between the statement of facts and the proof.[<a href="#foot62">62</a>] Cassiodorus +divides the speech into six parts[<a href="#foot63">63</a>] and so does Martianus Capella.[<a href="#foot64">64</a>] +Thomas Wilson (1553) offers seven.[<a href="#foot65">65</a>]</p> + +<p>The third part of rhetoric is <i>elocutio</i>, or style, the choice and +arrangement of words in a sentence. Quintilian's treatment of style is +typical. Words should be chosen which are in good use, clear, elegant, and +appropriate. The sentences should be grammatically correct, artistically +arranged, and adorned with such figures as antithesis, irony, and +metaphor.[<a href="#foot66">66</a>] Correctness is usually presupposed by the rhetoricians. To +the sound of sentences all classical treatises give an attention that +seems amazing if we forget that in Greece and Rome all literature was +spoken or read aloud. The sentence or period was considered more +rhythmically than logically, and subdivided in speech into rhythmical +parts called commas and cola. The end of the sentence was to be marked not +by a printer's sign, but by the falling cadence of the rhythm itself. +Furthermore, great care should be taken to avoid hiatus between words, as +when the first word ends and the word following begins with a vowel. But +the glory of style to the classical rhetorician lay in its use of figures. +Here rhetoric vindicated its practicality by a preoccupation with the +impractical; and here, as in analysis, rhetoric bore the seeds of its own +decay. Although Aristotle devoted relatively little space to the +rhetorical figures, later treatises emphasized them more and more until in +post-classical and in mediaeval rhetoric little else is discussed. The +figures of course had to be classified. First there were the <i>figurae +verborum</i>, or figures of language, which sought agreeable sounds alone or +in combination, such as antitheses, rhymes, and assonances. Then the +<i>figurae sententiarum</i>, or figures of thought, such as rhetorical +questions, hints, and exclamations.[<a href="#foot67">67</a>] Quintilian classifies as tropes +words or phrases converted from their proper signification to another. +Among these are metaphor, irony, and allegory. In our day we consider as +figures of speech only the classical tropes, and indeed Aristotle pays +little attention to the others. He says that in prose one should use only +literal names of things, and metaphors, or tropes[<a href="#foot68">68</a>]--which therefore are +not literal names but substituted names. For instance in this metaphor, +which Aristotle quotes from Homer, "The arrow flew,"[<a href="#foot69">69</a>] "flew" is not the +literal word to express the idea. Only birds fly, reminds the practical +person. Max Eastman has pertinently called attention to the fact that it +is only to rhetoric, which is a practical activity, that these figures are +indirect expressions, or substituted names. Apostrophe is not a turning +away in poetic, because in poetic there is no argument to turn away from. +Rather in poetic it is a turning toward the essential images of +realization, as metaphor in poetic is direct, not indirect, because in +poetic a word that suggests the salient parts or qualities of things will +always stand out over the general names of things.[<a href="#foot70">70</a>]</p> + +<p>The last two parts of rhetoric, <i>memoria</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>, are really +not permanent parts of rhetoric, but only of the rhetoric of spoken +address. <i>Memoria</i>, the art of memory, did not mean to the Greeks and +Romans the art of learning by heart a written speech, but rather the art +of keeping ready for use a fund of argumentative material, together with +the features of the case which the speaker might be pleading. The +discussion of it in the treatises is usually an exposition of the mnemonic +system of visual association, the discovery of which is ascribed to +Simonides. Cicero deliberately leaves a discussion of <i>memoria</i> out of his +<i>Orator</i>, because as he says, it is common to many arts;[<a href="#foot71">71</a>] and the Dutch +scholar Vossius in the renaissance denied that it was a part of +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot72">72</a>] <i>Pronuntiatio</i>, or delivery, has also been found hardly an +integral part of rhetoric. It is concerned with the use both of the voice +and of gesture. Quintilian, for instance, records the effectiveness of +clinging to the judge's knees, or of bringing into the court room the +weeping child of the accused.[<a href="#foot73">73</a>] Aristotle discusses only the use of the +voice.[<a href="#foot74">74</a>]</p> + +<p>Thus classical rhetoric was almost exclusively restricted to the +practical oratory of persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome a +mastery of rhetoric gave its possessor political power; for by persuasive +public speech a public man could gain a following by defending his clients +in the law courts, and influence the destinies of the state by his +deliberations in the legislative assembly. As long as these republican +institutions prevailed, the theory and practice of rhetoric continued to +be sound and practical.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-4"></a>4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Implicit in Aristotle and throughout classical literary criticism there is +a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the +metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing +characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially +practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the Greeks and Romans as +something quite different from poetic and infinitely more important in +education and public life. But however clear-cut this distinction may be +in principle, in practical application there is rarely to be found such +ideal isolation.</p> + +<p>Aristotle, for instance, carries rhetoric bodily over into poetic by +including Thought, διάνοιᾰ, as the third in importance of the +constituent elements of tragedy.[<a href="#foot75">75</a>] This Thought is the intellectual +element in conduct, and in drama is embodied not in action, but in +speech.[<a href="#foot76">76</a>] Aristotle says,</p> + +<blockquote> It is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given + circumstances. In the case of oratory, this is the function of the + political art and of the art of rhetoric. Concerning thought, we may + assume what is said in the <i>Rhetoric</i>, to which inquiry the subject more + properly belongs. Under thought is included every effect which has to be + produced by speech, the subdivisions being--proof and refutation; the + excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger and the like; the + suggestion of importance or its opposite.[<a href="#foot77">77</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This is a transfer of the content of rhetoric to poetic, but poetic +remains an art of imitation. Imaginative realization of the life of man +would be incomplete if the characters in a narrative or in a drama did not +use the same rhetorical art as do the characters of actual life. The poets +justly carry over rhetoric when the scene demands it, and have often +proved themselves excellent rhetoricians. Quintilian praises the +peroration of Priam's speech begging Achilles for the body of Hector,[<a href="#foot78">78</a>] +and Cicero gives a rhetorical analysis of the speech of the old man in the +<i>Andria</i> of Terence, where the arrangement is especially appropriate to +the character of the speaker.[<a href="#foot79">79</a>] Norden, therefore, seems to go too far +in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.[<a href="#foot80">80</a>] +Dante remains an excellent poet when he puts into the mouth of Virgil that +persuasive speech to Cato in the first canto of the <i>Purgatorio</i>. Antony's +speech in <i>Julius Caesar</i> is the best known modern example of the +legitimate place of rhetoric in poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-5"></a>5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Just as rhetoric is justly carried over into poetic when in the +realization of a character or situation a speech must be made or conduct +rationalized, so poetic is constantly utilized by the orator. Public +speech would be less persuasive if the characteristic imaginative +qualities of poetic were excluded. The ideas and propositions of rhetoric +would most ineffectually reach an audience if they were not made vivid. +That rhetoric is not thus made synonymous with poetic is due to the fact +that in rhetoric the images exist to illuminate the concept, while in +poetic they are woven into the movement of the plot. Oratory, like poetry, +is emotional, as Longinus asserts.[<a href="#foot81">81</a>] Cicero phrases the aim of the +orator as "docere, delectare, et movere," to prove, to delight, to move +emotionally.[<a href="#foot82">82</a>] The vividness and emotion, as well as the charm, of +poetic are indispensable in attaining the ultimate aim of rhetoric-- +persuasion. The orator must be himself moved, according to Quintilian,[<a href="#foot83">83</a>] +just as the poet, according to Aristotle.[<a href="#foot84">84</a>] That essential quality, +indeed, of poetic, the realization of character and situation which +presents vividly a situation or event to the mind's eye of the reader or +hearer so that he seems to participate in the action and vicariously live +through it, was incorporated into rhetoric as ἐνέγεια, a figure +of speech. There petrified in an alien substance, this characteristic +quality of poetic was transmitted to another age which knew of it through +no other source.[<a href="#foot85">85</a>] Thus a successful orator narrated with descriptive +vividness the circumstances, for instance, of a cruel murder, and even +dramatized, speaking now in the person of one actor, now of another, the +situation which he was endeavoring to realize for his audience. He was +thus enabled better to carry his audience with him to his ultimate goal of +persuasion.</p> + +<p>But though rhetoric might for the moment thus borrow poetic, and though +poetic might borrow rhetoric, the two remained distinct in the large, each +conceived as having its own movement, its composition, distinct from that +of the other.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-1"></a>1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</h4> + + +<p>The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically +in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in +this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of +recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of +the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[<a href="#foot86">86</a>] while the +modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the +sophists.[<a href="#foot87">87</a>] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity +between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century +B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between +Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous +Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so +elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than +to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself +on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his +discourses as in poems.[<a href="#foot88">88</a>]</p> + +<p>That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and +poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is +common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the +<i>Rhetoric</i> he refers to the <i>Poetics</i> for a fuller discussion of +metaphor.[<a href="#foot89">89</a>] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great +attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment. +Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not +to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical, +a set rhythm, a meter, is appropriate only to verse.[<a href="#foot90">90</a>]</p> + +<p>A distinction between the style of poetic and of rhetoric similar to that +of Aristotle is maintained by Cicero, but the distinction was losing its +sharpness. In the <i>Orator</i> he considers the orator and the poet as similar +in style, but not identical. Formerly rhythm and meter were the +distinguishing marks of the poet, but the orators in his days, he says, +made increasing use of rhythm. Meter is a vice in an orator and should be +shunned. The poet has greater license in compounding and inventing words. +Both prose and verse, he adds, may be characterized by brilliant imagery +and headlong sweep.[<a href="#foot91">91</a>] The only essential difference between Cicero's +treatment of style and that of Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle had +shown imagery to be an integral part of poetic, Cicero felt it both in +poetic and in rhetoric to be superadded as a decoration. Whether or not +this difference was caused by lack of discrimination on the part of +Cicero, his position was at least in line with a tendency which in later +criticism received increasing development. Both the poet and the orator, +he says, use the same methods of ornament,[<a href="#foot92">92</a>] and the orator uses almost +the language of poetry.[<a href="#foot93">93</a>] And again, in a phrase which was taken up and +repeated for fifteen hundred years, the poets are nearest kin to the +orators.[<a href="#foot94">94</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-2"></a>2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>But the public interest in style was increasingly comparable to that in +athletic agility. As Socrates applauded the dancing girl who leaped +through the dagger-studded hoop,[<a href="#foot95">95</a>] the popular audience of imperial Rome +was delighted at a clever turn of speech, a surprising rhythm, or a +startling comparison. Literary study of style in occasional oratory must +have been extensive and extravagant at a very early date, to judge by the +rebukes of such practical speakers as Alcidamas. Moreover, such stylistic +artifice as was practiced and taught by Gorgias, Isocrates, and other +sophists crept into tragedy, says Norden, beginning with Agathon.[<a href="#foot96">96</a>] The +result was that with the poets style became as it had become with the +sophists, an end in itself. The epideictic orators became less orators and +more poets, and the poets cultivated less the characteristic vividness and +movement of poetic than those turns of style which began in oratory.</p> + +<p>Thus it was very natural that the discussions of artistic prose in the +treatises of the later rhetoricians should be copiously illustrated by +quotations from the poets, and that the poets should, in turn, be +influenced in the direction of further sophistical niceties by the +rhetorical treatises on style, such as those of Demetrius and Dionysius of +Halicarnassus, who devoted whole treatises to style alone. The obsession +of style is well exemplified by a comparison of Dionysius and Longinus in +their discussion of Sappho's literary art. Longinus praises her passion, +and her masterful selection of images which realize it for the reader, +while Dionysius, no less enthusiastic, points out that in the ode which he +quotes there is not a single case of hiatus. Dionysius is here much the +more characteristic of his age, as he is in his belief that there is very +little difference indeed between prose and verse. Longinus, while showing +the relations of rhetoric and poetic, keeps the two apart; Dionysius draws +them together. To Dionysius the best prose is that which resembles verse +although not entirely in meter, and the best poetry that which resembles +beautiful prose. By this he means that the poet should use enjambment +freely and should vary the length and form of his clauses, so that the +sense should not uniformly conclude with the metrical line.[<a href="#foot97">97</a>] In this +regard he would approve of Shakespeare's later blank verse much more than +of his earlier because it is freer and more like conversation. Thus, to +Dionysius, the diction of prose and the diction of poetry approach each +other as a limit.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-3"></a>3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation School</h4> + + +<p>Later antiquity carried the mingling further in the same direction. As +time went on, the over-refinement and literary sophistication of the +florid school of oratory became more and more powerful. The puritan +reaction of the Roman Atticists in the direction of the simplicity of +Lysias defeated itself in over emphasis and ended in establishing coldness +and aridity as literary ideals. Such a jejune style could never hold a +Roman audience, and Cicero in theory and in practice took as model not +only Demosthenes, but also Isocrates. As Roman liberty was lost under the +Caesars, style very naturally assumed greater and greater importance. +Bornecque has shown that the strife of the forum and the genuine debates +of the senate no longer kept tough the sinews of public speech, and the +orators sank back in lassitude on the remaining harmless but unreal +occasional oratory and on the fictitious declamations of the schools.[<a href="#foot98">98</a>] +In these declamation schools under the Empire the boys debated such +imaginary questions as this: A reward is offered to one who shall kill a +tyrant. A. enters the palace and kills the tyrant's son, whereupon the +father commits suicide. Is A. entitled to the reward? In the repertory of +Lucian occurs a show piece on each side of this proposition. For two +hundred years there had been no pirates in the Mediterranean; yet in the +declamation schools pirates abounded, and questions turned upon points of +law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite +cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the +adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the +declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with +frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The +master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, +would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his +pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[<a href="#foot99">99</a>]</p> + +<p>The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no +better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. +Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. +Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I +will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie +unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other +side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But +I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The +court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in +shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where +figures were appreciated.[<a href="#foot100">100</a>] But in spite of the ridiculous performance +of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, +in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased +popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[<a href="#foot101">101</a>] style +continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were +applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque +has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so +unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to +attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss +in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not +surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the +Christian era the sense of composition seems to have disappeared from +Latin literature."[<a href="#foot102">102</a>] Thus Quintilian lamented that in his day the well +constructed periods of Cicero appealed less to the perverted popular taste +than the brilliant but disjointed epigrams of Seneca.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-4"></a>4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>As style gained this preponderence in rhetoric, it continued to increase +its hold on poetic. While the rhetoricians were exemplifying from the +poets their schemes and tropes, their well joined words, "smooth, soft as +a maiden's face,"[<a href="#foot103">103</a>] the poets on their part were assiduously practicing +all the rhetorical devices of style. Thus the literature of the silver-age +is rhetorical. The custom of public readings by the author encouraged +clever writing and a declamatory manner,[<a href="#foot104">104</a>] even had the poets not +received their education in the only popular institutions of higher +instruction--the declamation schools. The fustian which passed for poetry +and equally well for history is well illustrated by the contempt of the +hard-headed Lucian for those historians who were unable to distinguish +history from poetry. "What!" he exclaims, "bedizen history like her +sister? As well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up +with purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his +cheeks; faugh, what an object one would make of him with such +defilements!"[<a href="#foot105">105</a>] But meretricious ornament was popular, and poets, +historians, and orators alike scrambled to see who could most adorn his +speech. Quintilian's pleas for the purer taste of a former age fell on +deaf ears, and despite his warnings orators imitated the style of the +poets, and the poets imitated the style of the orators.[<a href="#foot106">106</a>] Gorgias may +or may not have learned his style from the ancient poets of Greece, but +the poets of the silver age learned from the tribe of Gorgias.</p> + +<p>Not only did poetry and oratory suffer from the same bad taste in +straining for brilliance of style, but in practice, as Bornecque has +shown, both poetry and oratory suffered for lack of structure. The poets +paid so much attention to style that they neglected plot construction and +the vivid realization of character and situation. The orators paid so much +attention to style that they lost the art of composing sentences, and of +arranging sound arguments in such a way as to persuade an audience. In +effect there was a tendency for the late Latin writers to ignore those +elements of structure and movement wherein poetry and oratory most differ, +and stress unduly the elements of style wherein they have the most in +common. Indeed, so completely did any fundamental distinction between +poetic and rhetoric become blurred that in the second century Annaeus +Florus was able to offer as a debatable question, "Is Virgil an orator or +a poet?"[<a href="#foot107">107</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-5"></a>Chapter V<br /> + +The Middle Ages</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-1"></a>1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>The seven liberal arts of mediaeval education carried the blending almost +to the absorption of poetic by rhetoric, and the debasement of rhetoric +itself to a consideration of style alone.</p> + +<p>As for poetic, it had no distinct place except in the analyses of the +grammaticus, who from classical times had prepared boys for the schools of +rhetoric partly by analyzing with them the style of admirable passages. +These passages were commonly taken from the poets, whose art was thus +considered mainly as an art of words and applied to the art of the orator. +Consequently, as a result of this tradition, poetic in the middle ages was +commonly grouped with grammar or with rhetoric, although Isidore includes +it in his section on theology.[<a href="#foot108">108</a>]</p> + +<p>The rhetorical treatises of the middle ages exhibit two phases. On the one +hand the earlier post-classical treatises composed by Martianus Capella, +Cassiodorus, and Isidore, all inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, are +fairly close to the classical tradition of Quintilian. Their weakness +consists not in that they restricted rhetoric to style, but in that their +whole treatment of rhetorical theory was compact, arid, and schematic. The +second phase of mediaeval rhetoric is characteristic of a geographical +position more remote from the center of classical culture. Thus it is in +the rhetorical treatises of England and Germany in the middle ages that +rhetoric was to the greatest extent restricted to a consideration of +style. Illustrative of this tendency is the fact that the only surviving +rhetorical work by the Venerable Bede is a treatise on the rhetorical +figures.</p> + +<p>But although the conventional study of rhetoric in such condensed +treatment as that of the sections in Martianus, Isidore, or Cassiodorus, +was definitely intrenched in the educational system of the seven liberal +arts, it had no vitality. In the first place these treatises gave only the +dry husks of rhetoric, the conventional analyses, the stock definitions. +In the second place rhetoric was little applied. The political life of +western Europe centered in the camp, not in the forum. The classical +tradition of trial by a large jury, as the Areopagus or the Centumviri, +had given place to trial before the regal or manorial court. Thus rhetoric +dried up and lost whatever reality it had possessed in imperial Rome.</p> + +<p>But if the middle ages had no opportunity to apply rhetoric in its +function of persuasion in communal affairs, they did have real need of an +art of writing letters and of preparing lay or ecclesiastical documents, +such as contracts, wills, and records, and of preaching sermons. Thus in +the teaching of the schools, as well as in practice, the oration gave +place to the epistle and dictamen. "Dictare" was to write letters or +prepare documents. And the rhetorical treatise or "<i>ars rhetorica</i>" often +yielded to the "<i>ars prosandi</i>," or the "<i>ars dictandi</i>."[<a href="#foot109">109</a>]</p> + +<p>A characteristic treatise of this sort is the <i>Poetria</i> of the Englishman +John of Garland (c. 1270). In his introductory chapter John explains that +he has divided the subject into seven parts:</p> + +<blockquote> First is explained the theory of invention; then the manner of selecting + material; third, the arrangement and the manner of ornamentation; next, + the parts of a dictamen; fifth, the faults in all kinds of composition + (dictandi); sixth is arranged a treatise concerning rhetorical ornament + as necessary in meter as in prose, namely, the figures of speech and the + abbreviation and amplification of the material; seventh and last are + subjoined examples of courtly correspondence and scholastic dictamen, + pleasantly composed in verse and rhythms, and in diverse meters.[<a href="#foot110">110</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Under the head of invention John gives definitions, several examples of +good letters, a long list of proverbs under appropriate captions so that +the letter writer can quickly find the one to fit his context, and an +"elegiac, bucolic, ethic love poem" in fifty leonine verses, accompanied +by an inevitable allegorical interpretation.[<a href="#foot111">111</a>] Then he comes to +selection. Tully, he admits, puts arrangement after invention, "but," he +pleads, "in writing letters and documents poetically the art of selection +after that of invention is useful."[<a href="#foot112">112</a>] For he thinks of selection only +as the selection of words. A writer, he says, should select his words and +images according to the persons addressed. The court should be addressed +in the grand style; the city, in the middle style; and the country, in the +mean style.[<a href="#foot113">113</a>] One should arrange in three columns in a note-book the +words and comparisons appropriate to each style so that the material will +be handy when he wishes to write a letter. These principles John +illustrates with leonine verses and ecclesiastical epistles. Under +arrangement he says that all material must be so arranged as to have a +beginning, a middle, and an end. Then there are nine ways to begin a poem +and nine ways to begin a dictamen or epistle. Next he states that there +are six parts to an oration: "exordium, narracio, peticio, confirmacio, +confutacio, conclusio."[<a href="#foot114">114</a>] As an example of this division of the oration +into parts he quotes a long poem which persuades its reader to take up the +cross. Still under the general head of arrangement John explains the ten +ways of amplifying material. The tenth, "interpretacio," he illustrates by +telling a joke, and then amplifying it into a little comedy. "Comedy," he +says, "is a jocose poem beginning in sadness and ending in joy: a tragedy +is a poem composed in the grand style beginning in joy and ending in +grief."[<a href="#foot115">115</a>] Next follow the six metrical faults, the faults of +salutations in letters, a classification of the different kinds of poems, +and further talk on different styles in writing. His sixth chapter, on +ornament in meter and prose, presents what he has up to this left unsaid +about style. It includes a list of fifty-seven figures of speech (<i>colores +verborum</i>) and eighteen figures of thought (<i>colores sententiarum</i>). This +is logically followed by the ten attributes of man. The seventh and final +chapter gives a long narrative poem of the horrific variety as an example +of tragedy and several letters as examples of dictamen.</p> + +<p>Such a digest shows better than any generalization a complete confusion of +poetic and rhetoric. Poems were to be written according to the formulae of +orations; allegory throve. Infinite pains were to be expended on the +worthless niceties of conceited metrical structure and rhetorical figures. +Garland has neither real poetic nor real rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-2"></a>2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language</h4> + + +<p>As to the late middle ages rhetoric had come to mean to all intents +nothing more than style, it is frequently personified in picturesque +mediaeval allegory, never as being engaged in any useful occupation, but +as adding beauty, color, or charm to life. In the <i>Anticlaudianus</i> of +Alanus de Insulis, Rhetoric is represented as painting and gilding the +pole of the Chariot of Prudence.[<a href="#foot116">116</a>] In the rhymed compendium of +universal knowledge which its author, Thomasin von Zirclaria, justly calls +<i>Der Wälsche Gast</i>, for learning was indeed a foreign guest in thirteenth +century Germany, rhetoric appears in a similar rôle. "Rhetoric," says +Thomasin, "clothes our speech with beautiful colors,"[<a href="#foot117">117</a>] and he gives as +his authority, "Tulljus, Quintiljan, Sidônjus," although Apollinaris +Sidonius seems to be the only one of the trio he had ever read.[<a href="#foot118">118</a>] This +theory lived to a vigorous old age. Palmieri, in his <i>Della Vita Civile</i> +(1435), defines rhetoric as "the theory of speaking ornamentally."[<a href="#foot119">119</a>] +And Lydgate traces all the beauty of rhetoric to Calliope, "that with thyn +hony swete sugrest tongis of rethoricyens."[<a href="#foot120">120</a>]</p> + +<p>The most complete example, however, of the mediaeval restriction of +rhetoric to style, and of the absorption of poetic by rhetoric is afforded +by Lydgate in his <i>Court of Sapyence.</i> The passages which refer to +rhetoric are given in full because they can otherwise be consulted only +in the Caxton edition of 1481 or in the black letter copy printed by +Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.[<a href="#foot121">121</a>]</p> + +<i>Introductory verses.</i> + +<blockquote> O Clyo lady moost facundyous<br /> +O ravysshynge delyte of eloquence<br /> +O gylted goddes gaye and gloryous<br /> +Enspyred with the percynge influence<br /> +Of delycate hevenly complacence<br /> +Within my mouth let dystyll of thy shoures<br /> +And forge my tonge to gladde myn auditoures.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes<br /> +With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute<br /> +Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes<br /> +And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute<br /> +So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute<br /> +The redolent dulcour aromatyke<br /> +Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke.</blockquote> + + +<p align="center"><i>The section of rhetoric.</i></p> + +<blockquote> Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence<br /> +Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous<br /> +With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence<br /> +Within her parlour fresshe and precyous<br /> +Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous<br /> +Her audytours gan to all Joye converte<br /> +Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>And many clerke had lust her for to here<br /> +Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance<br /> +Eche worde of her depured was so clere<br /> +And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce<br /> +That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce<br /> +Her termes gay as facunde soverayne<br /> +Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>She taught them the crafte of endytynge<br /> +Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be<br /> +Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge<br /> +Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte<br /> +Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be<br /> +Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse<br /> +Whiche is Coma Colym perydus.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont<br /> +And wolde conceyve the colours purperate<br /> +Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt<br /> +And to Galfryde the poete laureate<br /> +To Janneus a clerke of grete estate<br /> +Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke<br /> +Of this mater there groundely may he loke.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In Tullius also moost eloquent<br /> +The chosen spouse unto this lady free<br /> +His gylted craft and gloyre in content<br /> +Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see<br /> +Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre<br /> +The bookes of lawe and of physyke good<br /> +Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In prose and metre of all kynde ywys<br /> +This lady blyssed had lust for to playe<br /> +With her was blesens Richarde pophys<br /> +Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay<br /> +With maters vere poetes in good array<br /> +Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace<br /> +Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.</blockquote> + +<p>Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context +than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of +rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as <i>docere, delectare, et movere</i>, only +the <i>delectare</i> remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial +invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with +the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers +to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to +the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in +Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with +ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part +of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses +the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures +of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "<i>colores verborum</i>." And when he refers +to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical +divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et +periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of +"elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, +and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's +rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical +rhetoric--style.</p> + +<p>But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded +to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as +the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more +than this style, he does not say so.</p> + +<p>Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. +Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term +rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A +rhetor was one who was a master of style.[<a href="#foot122">122</a>] Henryson, for instance, +calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[<a href="#foot123">123</a>] Chaucer admired Petrarch +for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[<a href="#foot124">124</a>] and +was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of +brytagne,"[<a href="#foot125">125</a>] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by +John Walton.[<a href="#foot126">126</a>] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the +steps of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot127">127</a>] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and +asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot128">128</a>] Bokenham calls +Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[<a href="#foot129">129</a>] and as late as +1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our +language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[<a href="#foot130">130</a>] The entire period was +thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited +at its best in the works of the poets.</p> + +<p>The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in +his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he +calls <i>The Pastime of Pleasure</i> (1506). He begins, of course, with an +apology for</p> + +<blockquote> Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes<br /> +Without rethorycke or coloure crafty;<br /> +Nothinge I am experte in poetry<br /> +As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[<a href="#foot131">131</a>]</blockquote> + +And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: + +<blockquote> O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge<br /> +Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[<a href="#foot132">132</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two +greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their +rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber +gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned +and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of +incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers +of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his +literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what +rhetoric is,</p> + +<blockquote> Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason<br /> +Man for to governe wel and prudently;<br /> +His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[<a href="#foot133">133</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the +beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour +to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of +the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. +Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells.</p> + +<p>Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot134">134</a>] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the +classical <i>inventio</i>. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," +discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, +who is familiar with the <i>inventio</i> of classical rhetoric, concerned as it +is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection +with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted +not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and +explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a +defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term <i>inventio</i> is +thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from +rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a +speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians +because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to +competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word +rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even +have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. +At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical <i>dispositio</i> only in +name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>Pronunciation (<i>pronuntiatio</i>), or delivery, of course applies to either +poets or orators. But whereas classical writers applied it to the orator's +use of voice and gesture, Hawes applies it only to the poet's reading +aloud. He recommends that when a poet reads his verses, he should make his +voice dolorous in bewailing a woeful tragedy, and his countenance glad in +joyful matter. It is important, however, that the reading poet be not +boisterous or unmannered. Let him be moderate, gentle, and seemly. The +final section, that on memory, comes closer to its classical sense than +does any other. Here the mnemonic system of "places," supposedly invented +by Simonides, is explained obscurely. Even more obscure is its +applicability to Hawes's subject.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that the chapter on Elocution (<i>elocutio</i>), +or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. +Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to +rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain +<i>inventio</i>; 12, <i>dispositio</i>; 40, <i>elocutio</i>; 8, <i>pronuntiatio</i>; and 8, <i>memoria</i>. "Elocusyon," says Hawes, "exorneth the mater."</p> + +<blockquote> The golden rethoryke is good refeccion<br /> +And to the reader ryght consolation.[<a href="#foot135">135</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. +Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, +dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they +gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold. But +beyond these picturesque generalizations there is little trace in Hawes of +any discussion of style such as one would find in a classical treatise. A +few figures of speech are mentioned, but not dwelt upon. Hawes +consistently confines himself to poetry. Tully, the only orator mentioned, +shares a line with Virgil. The main concern is with the devices used by +the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an +adjunct of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> my mayster Lydgate veryfyde<br /> +The depured rethoryke in Englysh language;<br /> +To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed<br /> +That the vyle termes should nothing arage<br /> +As like a pye to chatter in a cage,<br /> +But for to speke with rethoryke formally.[<a href="#foot136">136</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In a word, the whole traditional division of rhetoric is transferred to +poetry, and at the same time both rhetoric and poetic are limited to the +single part which they have in common--diction. The style cultivated by +this focus is ornamental and elaborate. If Lydgate or Hawes had believed +that rhetoric included more than aureate language, surely the scope of +their treatises would have afforded them opportunity to correct this +impression. Each of them is endeavoring to present a compendium of +universal knowledge according to the conventional analysis of the seven +liberal arts. Illustrative details might be omitted, but not important +sections of the subject matter.</p> + +<p>The meanings of words change, and with such changes we have no quarrel. It +is important, however, that we should know what the English middle ages +meant by rhetoric if we are to appreciate how powerful was the tradition +of the middle ages and in what direction it influenced the literary +criticism of the English renaissance. To resume, the middle ages thought +of poetry as being composed of two elements: a profitable subject matter +(<i>doctrina</i>), and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). The profitable subject matter was +theoretically supplied by the allegory. This will be discussed in the +second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical +discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been +shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-6"></a>Chapter VI<br /> + +Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-1"></a>1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic</h4> + + +<p>But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of +Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in +life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament. Such a +serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic, +accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with +smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the +ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful +content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to +hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly +entitles <i>De inventione dialectica</i>, he defines logic as the art of +speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in +a speech.[<a href="#foot137">137</a>] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains +"<i>elocutio</i>," style; and logic carries over "<i>inventio</i>," as his title +shows, and "<i>dispositio</i>." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic +extremes of rhetoric he shows by denying to oratory any aim of pleasing +and moving. Of Cicero's threefold purpose, to teach, to please, and to +move, he retains only teaching as pertinent to effective public speech. +"Docere," to teach, he uses in the classical sense which includes proof as +well as instruction. Thus he says it has two parts: exposition and +argument.[<a href="#foot138">138</a>] The parts of a speech he reduces to the minimum proposed by +Aristotle: the statement and the proof. Thus although Agricola admits that +rhetoric is most beautiful, he will have none of her.</p> + +<p>Following this lead, Thomas Wilson, the English rhetorician and statesman, +defines logic and rhetoric as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Logic is occupied about all matters, and doeth plainlie and nakedly set + forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by way of argumentation. + Rhetorike useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those matters + with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at large.[<a href="#foot139">139</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Agricola and Wilson logic has supplanted rhetoric in finding +all possible means of persuasion in any subject. Following Peter +Ramus,[<a href="#foot140">140</a>] Wilson finds that logic has two parts: <i>judicium</i>, "Framyng of +thinges aptlie together, and knittyng words for the purpose accordynglie," +and <i>inventio</i>, "Findyng out matter, and searchyng stuffe agreable to the +cause."[<a href="#foot141">141</a>] Hermagoras and others had in antiquity considered <i>judicium</i>, +or judgment, as a part of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot142">142</a>] although Quintilian thought it +less a part of rhetoric than necessary to all parts.[<a href="#foot143">143</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, of +course, has always been the most important part of rhetoric. This same +carrying over of the content of classical rhetoric into logic is further +illustrated by Abraham Fraunce, who divides his <i>Lawiers Logic</i> (1588) +into two parts: invention and disposition.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-2"></a>2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>But while the survival of the mediaeval notion that rhetoric was concerned +mainly with style thus gave over in the English Renaissance <i>inventio</i> and +<i>dispositio</i> to logic, there naturally remained nothing of classical +rhetoric but <i>elocutio</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>. A brief survey of the English +rhetorics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will show +that this was the case. Richard Sherry devotes an entire book to style in +his "Treatise of Schemes and Tropes" (1550).[<a href="#foot144">144</a>] He begins by defining +"eloquucion, the third part of Rhetoric," as the dressing up of thought. +Rhetoric to him had not in theory become style, but style is the only part +which he finds interesting enough to treat. His schemes and tropes are of +course the rhetorical figures; but let him explain them in his own artless +way. "A scheme is the fashion of a word, sayyng or sentence, otherwyse +wrytten or spoken then after the vulgar and comon usage. A trope is a +movynge and changynge of a worde or sentence, from thyr owne significacion +into another which may agree with it by a similitude." Henry Peacham's +<i>Garden of Eloquence, Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric</i> +(1577) likewise deals only with the rhetorical figures.</p> + +<p>In the anonymous, <i>The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike</i> (1584),[<a href="#foot145">145</a>] +rhetoric is denned as "an arte of speaking finelie. It hath two parts, +garnishing of speach, called Eloqution, and garnishing of the manner of +utterance, called Pronunciation."[<a href="#foot146">146</a>] Thus by definition rhetoric +includes only style and delivery. Under garnishing of speech the author +treats only the rhetorical figures. This restriction of style to figures +is characteristic. The rhythm of prose upon which classical treatises on +style lavished such enthusiastic pains is practically ignored in those +English treatises. The <i>comma, colon</i>, and <i>periodus</i> which to classical +authors signified rhythmical units in the sentence movement had already +come to mean to most people only marks of punctuation.[<a href="#foot147">147</a>] Garnishing of +utterance Fenner does not discuss at all.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Arcadian Rhetorike</i> (1588), Abraham Fraunce treats both. +"Rhetorike," he says, "is an Art of Speaking. It hath two parts, Eloqution +and Pronuntiation. Eloqution is the first part of Rhetorike, concerning +the ordering and trimming of speech. It hath two parts, Congruity and +Braverie." Congruity (as pertaining more to grammar) he does not discuss. +"Braverie of speach consisteth of tropes or turnings, and in figures or +fashionings."[<a href="#foot148">148</a>] The remainder of the first book deals with meter and +verse forms, baldly of prose rhythm, epizeuxis, conceited verses, and +various rhetorical figures. The second book deals with the voice and +gestures. This rhetoric of Fraunce's, then, complements his <i>Lawiers +Logike</i> of the same year, the latter dealing with the finding out and +arrangement of arguments in a speech, and the former with style and +delivery. Rhetoric is thus concerned only with stylistic artifice in verse +as well as in prose.</p> + +<p>The same tradition is upheld by Charles Butler, who in his Latin school +rhetoric (1600) defines rhetoric as the art of ornate speech and divides +it into <i>elocutio</i>, a discussion of the tropes and figures, and +<i>pronuntiatio</i>, the use of voice and gesture.[<a href="#foot149">149</a>] And John Barton is +worse. In his <i>Art of Rhetorick</i> (1634) he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Rhetorick is the skill of using daintie words, and comely deliverie, + whereby to work upon men's affections. It hath two parts, adornation and + action. Adornation consisteth in the sweetness of the phrase, and is + seen in tropes and figures.</blockquote> + +<p>He continues:</p> + +<blockquote> There are foure kinds of tropes, substitution, comprehension, + comparation, simulation. The affection of a trope is the quality whereby + it requires a second resolution. These affections are five: abuse, + duplication, continuation, superlocution, sublocution. A figure is an + affecting kind of speech without consideration had of any borrowed + sense. A figure is two-fold: relative and independent,</blockquote> + +<p>and he names over in his jargon the six figures which are of each +kind.[<a href="#foot150">150</a>] If this be rhetoric, perhaps there was justification for John +Smith's <i>The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvailed</i> (1657), which continued the +fallacious tradition by dividing rhetoric into elocution and +pronunciation.</p> + +<p>This perversion of rhetoric which considered it as concerned only with +style, or aureate language, was not restricted to the school books. The +popular use of rhetoric as synonymous with "fine honeyed speech,"[<a href="#foot151">151</a>] is +seen in a passage from <i>Old Fortunatus</i>, where it carries the modern +connotation of a meretricious substitute for genuine feeling, as where +Agripyne says,</p> + +<blockquote> "Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his + affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home spun + stuff; there's no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric."[<a href="#foot152">152</a>]</blockquote> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-3"></a>3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>A half century before Smith unveiled the mysteries of rhetoric, Bacon had +in his <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) pointed out the fallacies of the +renaissance obsession with style. He briefly traces the causes of the +renaissance study of language and adds:</p> + +<blockquote> "This grew speedily to an excesse; for men began to hunt more after + wordes than matter, and more after the choisenesse of the Phrase and the + round and cleane composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of + the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their workes with + tropes and figures, then after the weight of matter, worth of subject, + soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement."[<a href="#foot153">153</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sooner or later the school books had to reform. The Latin school rhetoric +of Thomas Vicars (1621), after one has perused the treatise of his +predecessors and contemporaries, is so conservative as to appear +startling. It has all the air of a novelty. Yet all he does is to return +to the classical tradition by defining rhetoric as the art of correct or +effective speech having five parts: <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, +<i>memoria</i>, and <i>pronuntiatio</i>[<a href="#foot154">154</a>]. And Thomas Farnaby, whose <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> appeared in six editions between 1633 and 1654, gives a fairly +proportioned treatment of <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, and +<i>actio</i>. <i>Memoria</i> he omits, following here, as elsewhere, the sound +leadership of Vossius.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-4"></a>4. Channels of Classical Theory</h4> + + +<p>This perversion of rhetorical theory in the middle ages and early +renaissance had resulted not from mere wrong-headedness on the part of the +rhetoricians, but from the limited knowledge of classical tradition during +the middle ages. Especially was this true in those parts of western +Europe, such as England, which were remote from the Mediterranean +countries which better preserved the heritage of Greece and Rome. +Moreover, the most important classical treatises on the theory of +poetry--by Aristotle and Longinus--were almost unknown throughout the +middle ages, and the rhetorical writings of Cicero and Quintilian were +known only in fragments.</p> + +<p>Servatus Lupus (805-862), Abbot of Ferrieres and a learned man, was +unusual in his scholarship; for he knew not only the rhetoric <i>Ad +Herennium</i> which was believed to be Cicero's but also the <i>De oratore</i> and +fragments of Quintilian.[<a href="#foot155">155</a>] The current rhetorical treatises of the +middle ages were Cicero's <i>De inventione</i>, and the <i>Ad Herennium.</i> The <i>De +oratore</i> was used but slightly, and the <i>Brutus</i> and the <i>Orator</i> not at +all.[<a href="#foot156">156</a>] What little classical rhetoric there is in Stephen Hawes was +derived from the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.</p> + +<p>The survival and popularity of the <i>Ad Herennium</i> during this period is +one of the most interesting phenomena of rhetorical history. Of the +classical treatises on rhetoric which survive to-day it undoubtedly +arouses the least interest and can contribute the least to modern +education or criticism. Yet it is the most characteristic Latin rhetoric +we possess. It is a text-book of rhetoric which was used in the Roman +schools. In fact, Cicero's <i>De inventione</i> is so much like it that some +suspect that Cicero's notes which he took in school got into circulation +and forced the publication of his professor's lectures. Aristotle's +philosophy of rhetoric, Cicero's charming dialog on his profession, +Quintilian's treatise on the teaching of rhetoric--none of these is a +text-book. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> is. It is clear and orderly in its +organization. It defines all the technical terms which it uses, and +illustrates its principles. As one might expect, it delights in +over-analysis, in categories and sub-categories, the four kinds of causes, +the three virtues of the <i>narratio</i>. In the hands of a skilled teacher of +composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly +would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical +or literary treatises. Thus in Guarino's school at Ferrara (1429-1460) the +<i>Ad Herennium</i> was regarded as the quintessence of pure Ciceronian +doctrine of oratory, and was made the starting point and standing +authority in teaching rhetoric. In more advanced classes it was +supplemented by the <i>De oratore, Orator</i>, and what was known of +Quintilian.[<a href="#foot157">157</a>] The <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus testifies that by the next +century the scholarship of the renaissance had discovered that the <i>Ad +Herennium</i> was not from the pen of Cicero, and that the <i>De inventione</i> +was considered apologetically by its famous author, who wrote his <i>De +oratore</i> to supersede the more youthful treatise.[<a href="#foot158">158</a>] But six years after +the publication of the <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus, the edition of Cicero's +<i>Opera</i> published in Basel in 1534 still incorporates the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +and Thomas Wilson in England owes most of his first book and part of the +second of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> to its anonymous author, whom he +believed to be Cicero. For instance in his section on <i>Devision</i> as a part +of a speech, Wilson says, "Tullie would not have a devision to be made, +of, or above three partes at the moste, nor lesse then three neither, if +neede so required."[<a href="#foot159">159</a>]</p> + +<p>"Tullie" says no such thing. Indeed, Cicero never considers <i>divisio</i> as +one of the parts of a speech. But the <i>Ad Herennium</i> does make <i>divisio</i> a +part of a speech,[<a href="#foot160">160</a>] and does require not over three parts.[<a href="#foot161">161</a>] As late +as 1612, Thomas Heywood quotes the authority of "Tully, in his booke <i>Ad +Caium Herennium</i>."[<a href="#foot162">162</a>]</p> + +<p>The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is +well illustrated by a count of the manuscripts preserved. In the libraries +of Europe today there exist seventy-nine manuscripts of the <i>De +inventione</i>, eighty-three of the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, forty of the <i>De +oratore</i>, fourteen of the <i>Brutus</i>, and twenty of the <i>Orator.</i>[<a href="#foot163">163</a>] Thus +in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the <i>De +inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.[<a href="#foot164">164</a>] The <i>De inventione</i> is the source +for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric +known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters +of it into Italian.[<a href="#foot165">165</a>] Although mutilated codices of the <i>De oratore</i> +and the <i>Orator</i> were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, +complete manuscripts of these most important works were not known previous +to 1422.[<a href="#foot166">166</a>] The <i>Ad Herennium</i> and the <i>De inventione</i> were first +printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers +(1476) was the <i>Ad Herennium</i> under the usual mediaeval title of the +<i>Rhetorica nova</i>. The first edition of the <i>De oratore</i> was printed in the +monastery of Subaco about 1466. The <i>Brutus</i> first appeared in Rome (1469) +in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[<a href="#foot167">167</a>] +Before its first printing the <i>Orator</i> was used as a reference book for +advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara.</p> + +<p>Castiglione's indebtedness to the <i>De oratore</i> is well known, but few +notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's +dedicatory paragraphs of the <i>Orator.</i></p> + +<p>But in England the first reference to the <i>Orator</i> appears in Ascham's +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[<a href="#foot168">168</a>] +Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the +pseudo-Ciceronian <i>Ad Herennium</i> and from the youthful <i>De inventione</i>, +not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them. +Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred +years after it had been displaced in Italy.</p> + +<p>The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a +Latin translation by Hermanus Allemanus (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's +commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores +Graeci</i> (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of +Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin +version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[<a href="#foot169">169</a>] This was +frequently reissued in the <i>Opera</i> of Aristotle together with the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in +the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the <i>Poetics</i> in Pazzi's +translation. As the true <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, known to the renaissance +as the <i>Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten</i>, was so frequently published with +the spurious <i>Rhetorica</i>, references to Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i> in the +sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell +whether the <i>Rhetoric</i> required to be read by Oxford students in the +fifteenth century[<a href="#foot170">170</a>] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, +however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were +available, that the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle had so slight an influence on +English rhetorical theory.</p> + +<p>The <i>De institutione oratoria</i> of Quintilian was too long to be preserved +intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well +known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, +and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by +Cassiodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth +century until Poggio discovered the complete manuscript at St. Gall in +1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis +of an incomplete manuscript Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth +century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous +enthusiast made a selection of the <i>Flores Quintilianei</i>.[<a href="#foot171">171</a>] Thus, while +the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the +Ciceronian tradition rested on the <i>De inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the +treatises of Cassiodorus and Isidore, passed current throughout the middle +ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world +of scholars welcomed a familiar friend.</p> + +<p>Other classical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly. +The <i>De compositione verborum</i> of Dionysius of Halicarnassus received its +first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by +Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend +of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, +when the <i>Scholemaster</i> was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, +but shows no great familiarity with the text.[<a href="#foot172">172</a>]</p> + +<p>The <i>De sublimitate</i> of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England. +Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, +once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at +Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of +its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> (1633). The advance of classical scholarship in England is +indeed no better illustrated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited +sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, +Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an +imposing list of sources.</p> + +<blockquote> "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, + Demetrius Phal,[<a href="#foot173">173</a>] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus <i>De + sublimitate</i>, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martianus + Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, + Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, + Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A. + Valladero."</blockquote> + +<p>Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover +to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in +Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as +to others, both classical and mediaeval.</p> + +<p>With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions +of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of +the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in +mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the +lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such +classical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In +the second place, the recovery of classical criticism in the Italian +renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of classical +theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, +did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in classical +antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that classical theories of +poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost +as slow head against English mediaeval tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-7"></a>Chapter VII<br /> + +Renaissance Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-1"></a>1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>In concluding his authoritative study, <i>A History of Literary Criticism in +the Renaissance</i>, Spingarn asserts that before the sixteenth century, +"Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical +treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those +upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the <i>Institutions +Oratoriae</i> of Quintilian, and the <i>De Legendis Gentilium Libris</i> of Basil +the Great."[<a href="#foot174">174</a>] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great +change was brought about by the publication of the classical critical +writings, especially the <i>Poetics</i> of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval +criteria of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i> were superseded by many new ones.</p> + +<p>The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a +separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone +into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be +summarized as follows:</p> + +<p>The recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> brought about a complete change in +poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing +and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a +hundred years later.</p> + +<p><i>The Poetics</i> had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin +abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew +translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac +translation of the Greek.[<a href="#foot175">175</a>] Although the <i>Poetics</i> was not included in +the Aldine <i>Aristotle</i> (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was +printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the <i>Rhetoric</i> for the first time at +Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text +was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> (1508)[<a href="#foot176">176</a>] badly +edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the +Basel edition of Aristotle's <i>Opera</i> (1538) with Filelfo's version of the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of +Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Robortelli +edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by +Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by +Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the <i>De Poeta</i> (1559) of Minturno and +the <i>Poetics</i> (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories +were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the <i>Scholemaster</i> (1570), +and never elucidated before Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i> (c. 1583, pub. +1595).</p> + +<p>But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of +the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, renaissance +theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has +summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as passing through +three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and +philology.[<a href="#foot177">177</a>] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in +the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance +the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has +pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the classical +theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those +who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his +poem on great poems of classical antiquity, some critics suggested, he +could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle +for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The +rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are +stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to +the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary +models.</p> + +<p>Although with good taste as well as classical erudition Ascham preferred +Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view +was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with +style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, +but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to +the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but +also on account of his moral maxims or <i>sententiae</i>. In England the two +greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this +high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, +<i>Gorbuduc</i>, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are +stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully +taught.[<a href="#foot178">178</a>] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those +elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity +and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence."</p> + +<p>The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable +subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely +evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the +essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as +in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The +commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that +of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical +treatises.</p> + +<p>Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were +an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[<a href="#foot179">179</a>] +Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a +poet; Livy a historian.[<a href="#foot180">180</a>] Castelvetro probably came nearest to +Aristotle in asserting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in +prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is +prose.[<a href="#foot181">181</a>] Vossius anticipates Prickard's explanation of Aristotle by +defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To +him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a +historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[<a href="#foot182">182</a>] These are only a few +examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly +studied.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-2"></a>2. Rhetorical Elements</h4> + + +<p>This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse +was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction +between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle +ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable +subject matter <i>(doctrina)</i> and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). If the definition +goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator +lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use +of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be +written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic +difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the +middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of +style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in +Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll +has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the +case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[<a href="#foot183">183</a>]</p> + +<p>In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is +frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars +whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the +vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the <i>Poetics</i> +practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized +in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's +over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, +low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) +of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[<a href="#foot184">184</a>] Maggi[<a href="#foot185">185</a>] and +Tifernas[<a href="#foot186">186</a>] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest +neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by +meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same +material,[<a href="#foot187">187</a>] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to +discriminate in their choice of words.[<a href="#foot188">188</a>]</p> + +<p>As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but +Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the +<i>narratio</i> of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of +facts. Confusing the <i>narratio</i> of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says:</p> + +<blockquote> There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and + perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second + and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot189">189</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is +supposed by classical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of +his speech.[<a href="#foot190">190</a>] Furthermore, says Pontanus, one can write very good +poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[<a href="#foot191">191</a>] No wonder Luis Vives +complained in his <i>De Causis Corruptarum Artium</i>,</p> + +<blockquote> The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two + that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call + rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language. + The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put + eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[<a href="#foot192">192</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive +studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical +elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The +Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the +overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of +the sounder critical theories of classical antiquity. Their service to +subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the +whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few +cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-8"></a>Chapter VIII<br /> + +Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-1"></a>1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</h4> + + +<p>Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry +formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth +century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which +Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance +theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval +tradition and from the classical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual +displacements of these elements by the sounder classical tradition which +reached England from Italy.</p> + +<p>"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given +up to rhetorical study."[<a href="#foot193">193</a>] In his period he includes Cox and Wilson, +the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he +characterizes as one of classification and metrical studies, he says, "A +long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a +rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[<a href="#foot194">194</a>] These +two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered +together.</p> + +<p>Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the +art of poetry. The rhetorics of Cox (1524) and Wilson (1553) were +rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of +a direct contact with classical rhetoric. Because Cox founded his treatise +on the sound scholarship of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of +his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely +under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on +rhetoric in England.</p> + +<p>Another scholar in classical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) contains the first reference in England to +Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>. But except as a teacher of language and of +literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he +classifies literature into <i>genres</i> of poetry, history, philosophy, and +oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and +Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a +field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the +result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of +individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power +than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's <i>Absolon</i> and +Buchanan's <i>Iephthe</i> he considers the best tragedies of his age because +only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and +Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, +and in imitation of good models.[<a href="#foot195">195</a>] Watson he especially praises for his +refusal to publish <i>Absolon</i> because in several places an anapest was +substituted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of classical +rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness.</p> + +<p>The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the classical +treatises, but from the middle ages. His <i>Certayne Notes of Instruction</i> +(1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the +English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of +grammar, following the classical tradition; but in France prosody had +regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As +Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in +the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired +Gascoigne.[<a href="#foot196">196</a>]</p> + +<p>Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, +borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas +Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, +Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie +of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies +is illustrated by his own example.</p> + +<p>If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither +praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are +<i>trita et obvia</i>. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby +my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake +to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the +prayse of hir commendacion.[<a href="#foot197">197</a>]</p> + +<p>By far the greater part of Gascoigne's treatise is devoted to metrics and +to style. One can use, he says, the same figures or tropes in verse as are +used in prose. It is noteworthy that in this treatise on making verses +Gascoigne restricts himself to externals of form and style. When he does +discuss the subject-matter of poetry, instead of emphasizing the +seriousness of content, he talks about his mistress' "cristal eye."</p> + +<p>What has been said about Gascoigne applies almost equally well to the +<i>Schort Treatise</i> (1584) of James VI which was modeled on it. Like +Gascoigne's <i>Notes</i>, it is rhetorical and concerned with only the +externals of poetry. The treatise is almost entirely a metrical study, +although the author does call attention to three special ornaments of +verse, which are comparisons, epithets, and proverbs. The other figures of +rhetoric which are so appropriate to poetry James says may be studied in +Du Bellay. In both these writers, poetry is treated in the categories of +the middle ages. Poetry to them is composed of subject-matter and style. +The characteristic structure and movement of poetry is not considered at +all.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-2"></a>2. The Influence of Horace</h4> + + +<p>Thus far there had been no fundamental criticism of poetic in England, no +attempt to arrive at the basis of critical theory. Horace had been known +long before, but not until Drant's translation of the <i>Ars Poetica</i> into +English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in +England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is +George Whetstone's <i>Dedication to Promos and Cassandra</i> (1578). The +passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of +classicism. Whetstone inveighs against the English dramatist who "in three +howers ronnes throwe the worlde, marryes, gets children, makes Children +men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from +Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel."[<a href="#foot198">198</a>] This is the earliest record in +England of an insistence on unity of time and place. Then he urges the +claims of decorum in comedy. The poet should not make clowns the +companions of kings, nor put wise counsels into the mouth of fools. "For, +to worke a comedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct, yonge men +should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lascivious, +Boyes unhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye."[<a href="#foot199">199</a>]</p> + +<p>It is interesting that this conception of the characters in a drama should +ultimately trace back through many perversions to Aristotle's rhetorical +theory. There are three kinds of proof, says Aristotle in the <i>Rhetoric</i>: +the character of the speaker, the production of a certain disposition in +the audience, and the argument of the speech itself. The last kind of +proof is derived from logic; the first two, from psychology.[<a href="#foot200">200</a>] +Consequently, Aristotle devotes almost a third of his <i>Rhetoric</i>, the +second book, to an elaborate exposition of the passions (πάθη) of men, so that the orator may know how to +excite or allay them according as the necessities of his case demand, and +a full explanation of the character (ᤦθος) +of men, that the speaker may know how to impress upon his audience his own +trustworthiness, and adapt his arguments to the character of the +particular audience which he is addressing. Varieties of character in an +audience depend upon its passions, its virtues and vices, its age or +youth, and its position in life.[<a href="#foot201">201</a>] Aristotle's generalizations on the +character of young people and old, of the wealthy, noble and powerful, +display penetrating acumen. That flesh and blood character realizations in +drama or story could be attained by this method Aristotle never intended. +He is talking of public address. But the study of characterization as part +of the education of an orator became fixed in the curriculum of rhetoric +schools. The boys were supposed to study certain types of persons and then +write character sketches to show their sharpness of observation. +Theophrastus, Aristotle's favorite student and successor as head of the +school in Athens, wrote his <i>Characters</i> to show how it was done, and did +it with such ability as to elevate the school exercise to a literary +form. These "characters" were epitomized in the Latin rhetorics and the +school exercises continued. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> calls them +<i>notatio</i>,[<a href="#foot202">202</a>] Cicero, <i>descriptio</i>,[<a href="#foot203">203</a>] and Quintilian, <i>mores</i>.[<a href="#foot204">204</a>]</p> + +<p>Quintilian furthermore makes interesting comments on the use of the +character sketches by the poets. Character (ᤦθος) in +oratory, he says, is similar to comedy, as the passions (πάθος) +are to tragedy.[<a href="#foot205">205</a>] Professor Butcher calls attention to the early +influence of the character sketches on the middle comedy. Here the +"humours," to anticipate Ben Jonson, give names not only to the characters +of the play, but to the plays themselves.[<a href="#foot206">206</a>] As adopted by the drama, +the orator's view that people of a certain age and rank are likely to +behave in certain fashions was perverted to the dramatical law of +<i>decorum</i>, that people of certain age or rank must on the stage act +up to this generalization of what was characteristic. This law of decorum +was formulated by Horace in his <i>Ars Poetica</i>,[<a href="#foot207">207</a>] whence it was +derived by the renaissance. Thomas Wilson, in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, +gives a Theophrastian character sketch as an illustration of the figure +<i>descriptio</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> As in speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch + peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of + his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire + of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a + Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this thirtie Winter. He spent + once a groate at good ale, being forced through companie, and taken + short at his words, whereupon he hath taken such conceipt since that + time, that it hath almost cost him his life."[<a href="#foot208">208</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In 1592 Casaubon edited Theophrastus in Latin. Thereafter the character +sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of +remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[<a href="#foot209">209</a>] In the theory of the drama +the rhetorical method of characterization, fixed as the law of decorum, +flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England +from Whetstone on it was made much of. Thus a rhetorical tradition of +classical pedagogy, derived ultimately from Aristotle, and a poetical +tradition of later classical drama, derived from Horace, coincide in the +English renaissance.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender</i> (1579), for +instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye +where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach."[<a href="#foot210">210</a>] The +archaisms are defended in the first place, indeed, because they are +appropriate to rustic speakers, but in the second because Cicero says that +ancient words make the style seem grave and reverend. Further praise E.K. +grants the author because he avoids loose sentence structure and affects +the oratorical period. "Now, for the knitting of sentences, whych they +call the ioynts and members thereof, and for all the compasse of the +speach, it is round without roughness."[<a href="#foot211">211</a>] The "ioynts and members" are +the <i>cola</i> and <i>commas</i> of the oratorical prose rhythm. Stanyhurst in the +<i>Dedication</i> to his translation of Virgil (1582), like E. K., is concerned +with style rather than matter, and of course primarily with the revival +of classical meters, a subject already so thoroughly investigated that it +need not be gone into here.[<a href="#foot212">212</a>] Stanyhurst's praise of Virgil is largely +concerned with formal and rhetorical excellences.</p> + +<blockquote> Our <i>Virgil</i> dooth laboure, in telling as yt were a <i>Cantorburye tale</i>, + too ferret owt the secretes of <i>Nature</i>, with woordes so fitlye coucht, + wyth verses so smoothlye slyckte, with sentences so featlye ordered, + with orations so neatlie burnisht, with similitudes so aptly applyed, + with eeche <i>decorum</i> so duely observed, as in truth hee hath in right + purchased too hym self thee name of a surpassing poet, thee fame of an + od oratoure, and thee admiration of a profound philosopher.[<a href="#foot213">213</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus in accord with the mediseval tradition he analyzes poetry into +profitable subject matter and style.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-3"></a>3. The Influence of Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>In 1579 the Puritan attack on poetry and the stage began with Gosson's +<i>School of Abuse.</i>[<a href="#foot214">214</a>] and was answered by Lodge's <i>Defence of Poetry</i> in +the same year. The attack and defense both rested on moral, not aesthetic, +sanctions and will be discussed in a later section. It is only in Sidney's +<i>Defense</i> (c. 1583) and that of his follower Harington that theories of +the nature of poetry are included. And with Sidney the Aristotelianism of +the Italian renaissance makes its first appearance in English +criticism.[<a href="#foot215">215</a>]</p> + +<p>"Poesie," writes Sidney, "therefore is an arte of imitation, for so +Aristotle termeth it in his word <i>Mimesis</i>, that is to say, a +representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speake metaphorically, +a speaking picture."[<a href="#foot216">216</a>] Thus not only Aristotle's imitation enters +English criticism, but Plutarch's speaking picture as well, with all the +power of its false analogy. That Sidney himself was not, however, carried +away by the analogy is apparent from other passages. Aristotle, +classifying poetic with music and dancing as a time art with its essence +in movement, had insisted that a poem must have a beginning, a middle, and +an end--qualities which do not exist in space. So in the most quoted +passage from Sidney's <i>Defense</i>, it is a "tale forsooth," which draws old +men from the chimney corner, and children from play,[<a href="#foot217">217</a>] and "the +narration" which furnishes the groundplot of poesie.[<a href="#foot218">218</a>] Thus he +introduces into English criticism, as an important element of poetry, the +essentially sound idea that the characteristic structure of poetry lies in +its narrative and dramatic movement. Poetry cannot lie because it never +pretends to fact. He establishes this assertion on Aristotle's "universal +not the particular" as the basis of poetic. Sidney had followed Scaliger +in classifying poets into three kinds: the theological, the philosophical, +and the right poets. The third class, the real poets, he says, "borrow +nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, onely rayned with +learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and +should be."[<a href="#foot219">219</a>]</p> + +<p>In considering the vehicle of poetic Sidney parts company with Scaliger +and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the +characteristic mark of poetry. The <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, and the +<i>Theagines and Cariclea</i> of Heliodorus are poems, although written in +prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although +indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest +rayment."[<a href="#foot220">220</a>] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater +aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," +and "seates," from the mnemonic system of Simonides usually incorporated +in the section on memory in the classical rhetorics.[<a href="#foot221">221</a>] Furthermore, +Sidney is the first in England to insist on the vividness of realization +which comes from the poet's being himself moved. Discussing lyric poetry, +Sidney says:</p> + +<blockquote> But truely many of such writings as come under the banner of + unresistable love, if I were a Mistres, would never perswade mee they + were in love; so coldely they apply fiery speeches, as men that had + rather red Lovers writings, and so caught up certaine swelling + phrases,... then that in truth they feele those passions, which easily + (as I think) may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness or <i>Energia</i> (as + the Greeks call it), of the writer.[<a href="#foot222">222</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sidney's <i>Energia</i> came to him from the rhetorics of Aristotle and +Quintilian via the <i>Poetice</i> of Scaliger.[<a href="#foot223">223</a>] <i>Energia</i>, the vivifying +quality of poetry, had at the earliest age been adopted by rhetoric to +lend power to persuasion. Carefully preserved among the figures of +rhetoric, it had survived the middle ages, and appears in Wilson's <i>Arte +of Rhetoric</i> as "an evident declaration of a thing, as though we saw it +even now done."</p> + +<p>Sidney makes <i>energia</i> an essential quality of poetic; but even with him +it seems to have a rhetorical cast. It is especially to be used, says +Sidney, by a lover to persuade his mistress, urging her to yield while yet +her beauty endures. This <i>genre</i> of versified oration to one's mistress +was unusually popular in Elizabethan England. It may even be one reason +for Bacon's classification of lyric poetry as part of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot224">224</a>] +Although <i>energia</i> does belong to both poetic and rhetoric, as +pseudo-Longinus implies,[<a href="#foot225">225</a>] there seems to be here a definitely +rhetorical conception of poetic style. Sidney, however, keeps the +classical distinction between rhetoric and poetic, although he was +conscious of their contact in diction. "Both," he says with Aristotle, +"have an affinity in this wordish consideration."[<a href="#foot226">226</a>] While many +renaissance critics interpreted this affinity as permitting rhetorical +elaboration in poetry as well as in prose, Sidney with innate good taste +pleaded for more restraint. The diction of the writers of lyrics is even +worse, he says, than their content.</p> + +<blockquote> So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence apparalled, or rather + disguised, in a Curtizan-like painted affectation: one time with so + farre fette words, they seem monsters, but must seem strangers to any + poore English man, another tyme with coursing of a Letter as if they + were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary; another tyme, with + figures and flowers extreamelie winter-starved.[<a href="#foot227">227</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Prose writers, he adds, are as badly infected as "versers," even scholars +and preachers. That he himself was infected appears in the examples of +interminable "tropes" and "schemes" quoted by Fraunce in his <i>Arcadian +Rhetoric</i> (1588) from Sidney's own <i>Arcadia</i>. But the concession of his +own style to the habit of his age did not involve any fundamental +confusion of rhetoric with poetic.</p> + +<p>Thus Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i>, by domesticating in England the +Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing +mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that +Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and +from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to +expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought +which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney +instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years +established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases +toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism +profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is +interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the +mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show +classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable +residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-4"></a>4. Manuals for Poets</h4> + + +<p>Before William Webbe wrote his <i>Discourse of English Poetry</i> (1586) there +had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive +study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely +glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James +attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were +primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the +Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as +a main object. In his <i>Discourse</i> Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose +in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on +English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to +discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be +aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much +attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, +poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall <i>Eloquution</i>, +as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one +descent."[<a href="#foot228">228</a>] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by +eloquence, he cites Lyly's <i>Euphues</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave + composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make + tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, + in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine + sence.[<a href="#foot229">229</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to +be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. +Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in +style. He adds:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning + and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure + of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an + apt composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the + hearers eares even whether soever it lysteth, that <i>Plato</i> affirmeth + therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to + persuade.[<a href="#foot230">230</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and +rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have +poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of +diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the +diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse +and oratory in prose.</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in + measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion + of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt + and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly + called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[<a href="#foot231">231</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come +seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best +known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the +<i>Discourse</i> is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into +matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval +<i>doctrina</i>, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are +derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the +figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical +meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His +treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with +an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his +treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of +poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from +the <i>Ars Poetica</i>, and the <i>Epistles</i>.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589), +generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the +some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to +write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, +Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to +write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise +an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, +Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes +most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and +satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the +Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of +poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his +inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles +Aristotle and Horace.[<a href="#foot232">232</a>] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the +importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in +war, engineering and politics.[<a href="#foot234">234</a>] That the art of poetry is eminently +teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill +appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by +reason and gathered by experience.[<a href="#foot233">233</a>] It is verse, according to +Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This +makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more +eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and +set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it +sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so +beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best +persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[<a href="#foot235">235</a>] +Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more +beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better +able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and +history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, +and so on. The second book, <i>Of Proportion</i>, 70 pages, is a treatise on +metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English +versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures +such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is +devoted to classical meters. In his third book, <i>Of Ornament</i>, 165 pages, +Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of +speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, +Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[<a href="#foot236">236</a>]. Professor +Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his <i>Poetic and Verse +Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth</i>, because, he says, it does not fall +within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as +applicable to prose as to verse[<a href="#foot237">237</a>]. That Puttenham did include it, +however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading +public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the +ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be +seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly +embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and +bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham.</p> + +<blockquote> This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which + be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his + language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or + passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment[<a href="#foot238">238</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>The figures Puttenham divides according to his own scheme. First come the +figures <i>auricular</i> peculiar to the poets, then the figures <i>sensable</i> +common to the poets and the rhetoricians, and finally the figures +<i>sententious</i> appropriate to the orators alone. After he has explained the +first two varieties, however, and enters on the third, Puttenham says:</p> + +<blockquote> Now if our presupposall be true, that the Poet is of all other the most + auncient Orator, as he that by good and pleasant perswasions first + reduced the wilde and beastly people into publicke societies and + civilitie of life, insinuating unto them, under fictions with sweete and + coloured speeches, many wholesome lessons and doctrines, then no doubt + there is nothing so fitte for him, as to be furnished with all the + figures that be <i>Rhetoricall</i>, and such as do most beautifie language + with eloquence and sententiousness. So as if we should intreate our + maker to play also the Orator, and whether it be to pleade, or to + praise, or to advise, that in all three cases he may utter and also + perswade both copiously and vehemently[<a href="#foot239">239</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>Puttenham was writing in the same age and with the same tradition which +defined Rhetoric as the art of ornament in speech. The only difference +between oratory and poetry lay in that the latter was composed in verse.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-5"></a>5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</h4> + + +<p>From Puttenham to Bacon no serious contributions were made to the general +theory of poetry. Critical attention was absorbed by controversies of +Campion and Daniel over native and classical versification, and the +flyting of Harvey and Nash. Harvey was a classical scholar and rhetorician +who knew that poetry and oratory were different things, and believed verse +to be the mark of the first and prose of the latter[<a href="#foot240">240</a>]. He preferred the +periodic style of Isocrates and Ascham to the tricksy pages of +Euphues[<a href="#foot241">241</a>]. Chapman, likewise, considered verse the mark of poetry, and +prose of rhetoric[<a href="#foot242">242</a>].</p> + +<p>In the <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) Bacon clears up some of the +misconceptions of the English renaissance by judicious borrowing from the +Italian. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> Poesie is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part + restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly + referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of + Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever + that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & + divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or + Matter. In the first sense it is but a <i>Character</i> of stile, and + belongeth to Arts of speeche. In the later, it is, as hath beene saide, + one of the principall Portions of learning, and is nothing else but + <i>Fained History</i>, which may be stiled as well in Prose as in Verse.[<a href="#foot243">243</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Bacon's focus of attention on the substance of poetry is in keeping with +his attack on mere sophistication of style in rhetoric. Poetry as style +does not interest him. Like Castelvetro and Sidney, he considers the +vehicle of verse not essential to poetry, which, as a product of the +imagination, he considers to be occupied with fiction. To Bacon, perhaps, +the imagination seems to be too much the organ of make-believe, imaging +things which never were on land or under the sea. Nevertheless his claim +for the imagination is fortunate in ruling out those theories of art which +set up slavish fidelity to fact, under the name of imitation, as the +essence of poetry. Bacon was not concerned with formulating a complete +theory of poetry, but his pithy <i>obiter dicta</i> were influential in further +establishing the sounder criticism of the Italian classicists.</p> + +<p>As Spingarn points out, Ben Jonson was first led to classicism in poetical +theory by the example of Sidney.[<a href="#foot244">244</a>] But during the intervening years +the scholars of Holland had supplanted those of Italy; and whereas Sidney +derived his Aristotelianism from Scaliger and Minturno, Jonson derived his +even more from Pontanus, Heinsius, and Lipsius and from the Latin +rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian.</p> + +<blockquote> A Poet (says Jonson) is a Maker, or a fainer: His Art, an Art of + imitation or faining, expressing the life of man in fit measure, + numbers, and harmony.... Hence hee is called a <i>Poet</i>, not he which + writeth in measure only, but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and + writes things like the truth. For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, + the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke or Poeme.[<a href="#foot245">245</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>So convinced was Jonson that the essence of poetry does not lie in verse +but in fiction that Drummond reports, "he thought not Bartas a Poet, but a +Verser, because he wrote not fiction."[<a href="#foot246">246</a>] Jonson was misled by the false +analogy of poetry and painting.</p> + +<blockquote> <i>Poetry</i> and <i>Picture</i> are Arts of a like nature, and both are busie + about imitation. It was excellently said of <i>Plutarch, Poetry</i> was a + speaking Picture, and <i>Picture</i> a mute <i>Poesie</i>. For they both invent, + fame, and devise many things.[<a href="#foot247">247</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This structural and static conception of poetry is well exemplified by his +comparisons. Whereas Aristotle classified poetry with music and dance, +Jonson compares the epic or dramatic plot to a house. The epic is like a +palace and so requires more space than a drama. The influence of Jonson +was beneficial, however, in that he did emphasize in poetry the element of +structure which the middle ages had largely neglected.[<a href="#foot248">248</a>] In his ideals +of style Jonson is rhetorical. In the twelve sections of <i>Timber</i> which he +devotes to rhetoric he incorporates a sound treatise on prose style, +urging restraint and perspicuity as especial virtues. In his nine sections +on poetry he says nothing about style, except to quote Oicero to the +effect that "the <i>Poet</i> is the nearest Borderer upon the Orator, and +expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers." It would +seem that the section on style in oratory was meant to serve for poetry as +well. Jonson's own methods of comparison, as related to Drummond, would +bear this out: "That he wrote all his (verses) first in prose."[<a href="#foot249">249</a>] From +the same authority one may learn that "He recommended to my reading +Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he +lived with me," and "That Quintilian's 6, 7, 8, bookes were not only to be +read, but altogether digested,"[<a href="#foot250">250</a>] Though Jonson makes no more +distinction than Petrarch, between Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian as +authorities on poetical style,[<a href="#foot251">251</a>] his rhetorical cast does not imply the +style advocated by Webbe and Puttenham. This was the exuberant style of +mediaeval rhetoric, whereas by temperament and scholarly training Jonson +threw his influence in favor of the classical rhetorical style of the best +period.</p> + +<p>The influence of Bacon in favor of the sound rhetoric of Cicero and +Quintilian, seconded by that of Jonson, finally did away with the +mediaeval ideal of rhetoric as being one with aureate language and +embroidered style. The stylistic exuberance of the Elizabethans gave place +to a more restrained and polished phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, +for instance, in his <i>Hypercritica</i> (c. 1618) warns the historians against +the style of the <i>Arcadia</i>. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better +becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical +Notions."[<a href="#foot252">252</a>] Henry Reynolds, in his <i>Mythomystes</i> (c. 1633), although he +goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces +the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers of +rhetoric and versification as mere accidents of poetry.[<a href="#foot253">253</a>] In his +<i>Anacrisis</i> (1634) the Earl of Stirling likewise urges that "language is +but the Apparel of Poesy."[<a href="#foot254">254</a>] The "but" marks the difference between the +ideals of two ages. Fiction remains for him the essence of poetry, for +fiction in prose is poetry. But he will not go the whole way with Jonson +and deny the name of poet to one whose material is not fictitious.[<a href="#foot255">255</a>]</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, for English criticism, Milton wrote very little on the +theory of poetry. His casual remarks, however, show such enlightened +scholarship and keen insight that what little he did write makes up in +importance what it lacks in bulk. In the Treatise <i>Of Education</i> (1644) he +refers to the sublime art of poetry "which in <i>Aristotle's poetics</i>, in +<i>Horace</i>, and the <i>Italian</i> commentaries of <i>Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni</i>, +and others, teaches what the laws are of a true <i>Epic</i> poem, what of a +<i>Dramatic</i>, what of a <i>Lyric</i>, what decorum is, which is the grand master +peece to observe."[<a href="#foot256">256</a>] His rhetoric, also, he knew at first hand from the +best classical sources. He gives as his authorities Plato, Aristotle, +Phalereus,[<a href="#foot257">257</a>] Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.[<a href="#foot258">258</a>] This is the first time +that an English critic mentions the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> in +connection with poetry. It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Milton, +while citing the only surviving literary critic of classical antiquity who +gave proper emphasis to the importance of passion in poetry,[<a href="#foot259">259</a>] should +himself be the first English critical writer to urge for passion the same +importance. This he does in his famous differentiation of rhetoric and +poetic. In the educational scheme, he says, after mathematics should be +studied logic and rhetoric "To which Poetry would be made subsequent or +indeed rather precedent, as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate."[<a href="#foot260">260</a>] Milton has sometimes been thought to be +here defining poetry, but he is only distinguishing it from rhetoric. A +definition of poetry he never attempted. Meter he deemed essential to +poetry,[<a href="#foot261">261</a>] but rime he disliked. Thus, as far as he goes, Milton +represents the best in English renaissance criticism. He knew at first +hand the best classical treatises on poetic and on rhetoric; and he +recognized the distinctions which the ancients had made between them.</p> + +<p>With the English literary criticism in the second half of the Seventeenth +Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, +this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed +three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the +slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and +the modifications which they underwent in the process. Gregory Smith calls +attention to the influence of Sidney and Daniel in establishing "the claim +of English criticism as an instrument of power outside the craft of +rhetoricians and scholars."[<a href="#foot262">262</a>] Of the English critical writers Ascham +is the foremost of the scholarly type; Harvey is the only other example. +Thomas Wilson, although he wrote a rhetoric, wrote a better one in many +ways because he was not a professional rhetorician, but a man of affairs. +Gascoigne, Lodge, Spenser, were poets who incidentally wrote on the +technic of their art or in defence of its value. Sidney, the poet, +courtier, and soldier, wrote not from the musty alcoves of libraries. +Webbe, it is true, was a pedant, but certainly not a scholar. Puttenham +was a bad poet, a well-read man, and a courtier. Jonson's scholarship was +thorough, but sweetened and ventilated by his activities as poet and +dramatist. Bacon was a scholar, but even more a philosopher and a +statesman. Milton, our most scholarly poet, during most of his life could +not keep his mind and pen from church and national politics. Indeed, +during the entire English renaissance there was no professional critic. +Literary criticism was not a field to be tilled, but a wood to be explored +by busy men who could find time for the exploit.</p> + +<p>This amateur character of English critics accounts in a measure for the +slowness with which classical and Italian renaissance critical theories +filtered into England; for a statesman or a soldier is less likely to be +up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose +business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful +influence in the same direction was the characteristic English +conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of thought to Italian +innovations.</p> + +<p>This same common-sense conservatism accounts also for the modifications of +Italian renaissance critical theories before they were incorporated into +the fund of English criticism. Classical meters, slavish imitation of the +ancients, close adherence to the rules of unity and decorum never made +much headway in the English renaissance. Such contaminations of poetic by +rhetoric as are clearest seem to arise not from the new Italian influence, +but from the mediaeval tradition.</p> + +<p>To sum up, classical critics had recognized two categories of literature: +a fine art, poetic; and a practical art, rhetoric. Poetic they thought +characterized by narrative or dramatic structure or movement, and by +vividness of realization, and by passion. Rhetoric was characterized by a +logical structure determined by the necessity of persuading an audience. +Although most classical critics accepted prose as characteristic of +rhetoric, and verse of poetry, Aristotle pointed out that the distinction +was far more fundamental. As these two kinds of literature had a common +ground in diction, there was a tendency from very early times for them to +merge. In the artistic degeneracy of late Latin literature both rhetoric +and poetic paid less attention to structure and other elements which +distinguished them, and more attention to style, which they had in common. +Moreover, under the influence of sophistical rhetoric, preoccupied with +style, poetic and rhetoric practiced the same rhetorical artifices. As a +result Virgil might be either an orator or a poet. This was the rhetoric +which the middle ages inherited. To them rhetoric was synonymous with +stylistic beauty. Poetry was a compound of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i>, in +other words of theology and style, in verse. In England this mediaeval +tradition persisted into the seventeenth century, as the school rhetorics +and the treatises on poetry show. The English renaissance poetic never +freed itself from this influence of mediaeval rhetoric until the middle of +the seventeenth century. With the recovery of classical literature and +literary criticism, the new theories were interpreted in the light of the +old ideas.</p> + +<p>On its creative side the renaissance sought to produce in the vernacular a +literature comparable to that of Greece or Rome. Thus literary criticism +was prescriptive, and the typical treatises were text-books. Rhetoric, +which had long been taught, very naturally furnished the methods, the +teachers, and in many cases the subject matter for this instruction in +poetry. As has been shown in the preceding section of this study, the +renaissance theory of poetry was rhetorical in its obsession with style, +especially the figures of speech, in its abiding faith in the efficacy of +rules; and in its belief that the poet, no less than the orator, is +occupied with persuasion. This latter rhetorical view that the poet's +office is to persuade will be studied more fully in the following section +on "The Purpose of Poetry." The traditional view is that by persuading the +reader to adhere to the good and shun the evil the poet achieves the +proper end of poetry--moral improvement.</p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="2"></a>Part Two<br /> + +The Purpose of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-1"></a>1. General</h4> + + +<p>To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to +say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section +of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of +the second assertion for the first.</p> + +<p>As has been shown,[<a href="#foot263">263</a>] the classical critics were in substantial +agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of +discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of +classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the +reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to +moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not +formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's +definition of tragedy from the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot264">264</a>] with his definition of +rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as</p> + +<blockquote> a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of + actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of + correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy + lives.[<a href="#foot265">265</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, +was formulated by Varchi.[<a href="#foot266">266</a>]</p> + +<blockquote> Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain + actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony, + together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and + inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true + happiness and beatitude.[<a href="#foot267">267</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an +educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation +of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the +tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical +rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; +and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance +those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the +classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-2"></a>2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</h4> + + +<p>The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the +reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in <i>The +Frogs</i> of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting +and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the +points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his +ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be +better citizens and worthier men."[<a href="#foot268">268</a>] Aeschylus then goes on to show +that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the +military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he +accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on +the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts +to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but +we, the poets, are teachers of men."[<a href="#foot269">269</a>]</p> + +<p>This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, +teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by +Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, +"forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of +others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one +time."[<a href="#foot270">270</a>]</p> + +<p>The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the +<i>Protagoras</i>, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an +exposition of the conventional Greek opinion.</p> + +<blockquote> When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what + is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into + his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at + school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and + praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to + learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become + like them.[<a href="#foot271">271</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is in the <i>Republic</i>, of course, that Plato enunciates his capital +objections to poetry. The first objection is that poetry as an imitative +art is three removes from truth. The divine powers, for instance, create +the idea of a table--the only true table. A carpenter makes a particular +table which is not the real, but only an appearance. A graphic artist +making a picture of this appearance is only an imitator of appearances. +"And the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore thrice removed from the +king and from the truth."[<a href="#foot272">272</a>] The second objection which Plato raises +against poetry is that poetry is addressed to the passional element in +man. The man of noble spirit and philosophy will not lament his +misfortunes, especially in public, while the lower orders of intellect are +likely to express all their feelings with greater freedom, and thus +furnish the poet with easier subjects for imitation. Consequently poetry +has the power of harming the good, for a good man will be in raptures at +the excellences of the poet who stirs his feelings most by representing a +hero in an emotional condition. As a result, when he himself suffers +sorrow or is moved by his own passions, it becomes more difficult for him +to repress his feelings.[<a href="#foot273">273</a>] Plato thus examines the popular contention +that the study of poetry educates the moral character of a man, and still +maintaining that it should be a moral force for good, demonstrates to his +own satisfaction that it fails to have the supposed beneficial effect +because it is three removes from truth, and because it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism in conduct. Plato's moral standard of poetry is +even better illustrated, perhaps, by the kind of poetry which he does not +ban from his ideal commonwealth. "We must remain firm in our conviction," +he says, "that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only +poetry which ought to be admitted into our state." As his utmost +concession to poetry, he will admit her if her defenders can prove "not +only that she is pleasant, but also useful to states and to human +life."[<a href="#foot274">274</a>] According to a later view, to be sure, Plato has been thought +to justify pleasure of a most refined and exalted variety as an end of +art. "The view which identifies the pleasant and the just and the good and +the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency."[<a href="#foot275">275</a>] In view, +however, of other pronouncements, such an endeavor to father upon him the +hedonistic theory of the purpose of art seems strained and ineffective.</p> + +<p>It was to justify poetry against the attacks of Plato that Aristotle +advanced a hedonistic view of poetry and propounded his theory of +katharsis. Nowhere in the <i>Poetics</i> does Aristotle explicitly state that +the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Indirect evidence, however, is +plentiful. For instance, Aristotle justifies poetry as an imitative art +because children learn by imitation and the pleasure in imitation is +universal.[<a href="#foot276">276</a>] Furthermore, plot in tragedy is more important than +character; for in painting, a confused mass of colors gives less pleasure +than a chalk drawing of a portrait.[<a href="#foot277">277</a>] Beauty in any art depends in a +measure on magnitude; therefore a play must not be too short.[<a href="#foot278">278</a>] Most of +the tragic poets of Greece derived their plots from a limited number of +well known stories. But Aristotle justifies Agathon for departing from +this custom and making both his plot and characters fictitious, for the +plays of Agathon give none the less pleasure.[<a href="#foot279">279</a>] But not all pleasure, +he says, is appropriate to tragedy. In comedy we are pleased to see +enemies walk off the stage as friends, but in tragedy the "pleasure which +the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through +imitation."[<a href="#foot280">280</a>] Marvels, too, and wonders in poetry he justifies because +"the wonderful is pleasing; as may be inferred from the fact that everyone +tells a story with additions of his own, knowing that his hearers like it. +It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies +skilfully."[<a href="#foot281">281</a>] And at the very end of the <i>Poetics</i>, where he is +endeavoring to prove that tragedy is a higher art than epic, he does so by +showing that drama has all the epic elements, and in addition music and +spectacle, which produce the most vivid of pleasures. Moreover the drama +is more compact; "for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one +which is diluted."[<a href="#foot282">282</a>] Thus, in the <i>Poetics</i>, Aristotle takes a +non-moral attitude toward literature, although in the <i>Politics</i>[<a href="#foot283">283</a>] he +grants that poetry and music are eminently serviceable in conveying moral +instruction to young people. His mature attitude is well illustrated in +contrast with that of Aristophanes. Aristophanes criticises Euripides +severely as a perverter of Athenian morality. Aristotle mentions Euripides +about twenty times in the <i>Poetics</i>, and frequently criticises him +adversely, not, however, for his evil moral influence, but because he uses +his choruses badly, and is faulty in character-drawing.</p> + +<p>In answer to Plato's second objection to poetry, that it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism, Aristotle propounded his theory of katharsis. +"Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action ... through pity and +fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."[<a href="#foot284">284</a>] That +Aristotle had in mind an analogy with medicine is better understood from a +passage in the <i>Politics</i> which describes the beneficial effect of music +on patients suffering from religious ecstasy. The stimulating music +furnishes the patient with an outlet for the expression of his religious +fervor. Afterwards, says Aristotle, the patients "fall back into their +normal state, as if they had undergone a medical or purgative +treatment."[<a href="#foot285">285</a>] Thus the theory of katharsis seems to have the same basis +as the modern psychological theory which encourages the expression of +emotions in their milder form lest, if inhibited, they gather added power +and finally burst disastrously through all restraints. Consequently, +although hedonist theorists have been anxious to establish katharsis on a +purely aesthetic foundation, it seems that the theory has inescapable +moral implications. To be sure, Aristotle in the same section of the +<i>Politics</i> says that the emotional result of katharsis is "harmless joy," +and in the <i>Poetics</i> he says that pity and fear produce the appropriate +pleasure of tragedy. Nevertheless Aristotle is answering Plato's +objections to unrestrained emotionalism, and by his theory of katharsis +endeavors to show not only that the emotional excitation of tragedy is +harmless to the spectator, but that it is actually good for him.</p> + +<p>But if the spectator is to derive these emotional excitations from +tragedy, his aesthetic experience cannot be passive. Aristotle recommends +as the ideal tragic hero a man not preeminently good nor unusually +depraved, but a man between these extremes; "for pity is aroused by +unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like +ourselves."[<a href="#foot286">286</a>] Evidently, then, through his imagination the spectator +must in a lively fashion participate in the action of the drama. Not only +is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he +identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions.</p> + +<p>But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral +grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. +Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion. Isocrates believes +that Homer was prized by the earlier Greeks because his poems instilled a +hatred of the barbarians, and kindled in the hearts of the readers a +desire to emulate the heroes who fought against Troy.[<a href="#foot287">287</a>] One might think +that the hatred of the barbarians was not the highest degree of morality, +but perhaps for the political integrity of Greece it was. That Homer +especially was supposed to have a moral influence is illustrated also by +Xenophon. Niceratus, in the <i>Symposium</i>, is telling the diners of what +knowledge he is most proud. "My father," he says, "in his pains to make me +a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems."[<a href="#foot288">288</a>]</p> + +<p>Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek +thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief.</p> + +<blockquote> Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the + amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition + to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, + guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our + tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise + man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens + of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for + the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[<a href="#foot289">289</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's +essay <i>On the Study of Poetry</i> that it is difficult to quote from him +without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught +poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely +as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[<a href="#foot290">290</a>] in his +reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are +pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch +believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards +because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be +taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously +avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make +poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking +and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[<a href="#foot291">291</a>] The profit of poetry he +believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very +highly such <i>sententiae</i> as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and +"know thyself."[<a href="#foot292">292</a>] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so +heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them +in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For +instance:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied + who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his + advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not + envy.[<a href="#foot293">293</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of +example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction +and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and +presenting fictitious narratives."[<a href="#foot294">294</a>] For instance, according to +Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her +ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that +such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that +frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the +only man who does such a thing in the <i>Iliad</i> is that lascivious and +adulterous fellow Paris.[<a href="#foot295">295</a>] It is interesting that this essay of +Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of +the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance +and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603.</p> + +<p>The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry +as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman +was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman +criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes +been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, +for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but +about the purpose of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are + at once pleasant and profitable.</blockquote> + +<p>His reason for favoring the third view is important.</p> + +<blockquote> Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect + austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval + of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This + book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and + prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[<a href="#foot296">296</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his +poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an +educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive +manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to +emulate.</p> + +<blockquote> His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean<br /> +The boyish ear from words and tales unclean;<br /> +As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind,<br /> +And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind;<br /> +He tells of worthy precedents, displays<br /> +The example of the past to after days,<br /> +Consoles affliction, and disease allays.[<a href="#foot297">297</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Moreover the consensus of conventional opinion in the Roman world was that +the study of the poets did succeed in moulding the moral character of the +youth. Apuleius, writing of a certain virtuous young man, the hero of one +of the episodes of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, makes the following incidental +remark: "The master of the house had a young son well instructed in good +literature, and consequently remarkable for his piety and modesty."[<a href="#foot298">298</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Lucretius may not have been assured of the moral value, he was +so convinced of the seductive powers of poetry that he deliberately +utilized them to make palatable the forbidding thoughts of his essay <i>On +the Nature of Things</i>. The long passage is worth quoting entire because +his comparison is borrowed so frequently by renaissance critics to +illustrate the poetic doctrine of pleasurable profit. Lucretius says:</p> + +<blockquote> But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter wormwood to + children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow + liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may + find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink the bitter juice of + the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be injured, but rather, being + recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this + argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it + has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was + desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in + sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the honey + of the Muses.[<a href="#foot299">299</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this survey of classical opinion we may conclude that the public +looked for two things in poetry: pleasure and profit. Eratosthenes took an +extreme view in seeking pleasure alone. Both Aristotle and Horace +emphasized the pleasure to be derived from poetry, although neither denied +that poetry is beneficial. Horace takes almost a cynical view in +suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others +improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the +book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral +value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth. This view is well +exemplified in the quotations from Aristophanes, Xenophon, Strabo, and +especially Plutarch. But even Plutarch, who goes so far as to suggest +emending the poets to make their effect more moral, does not suggest that +the purpose of poetry is to afford moral instruction. He distinguishes; +some poetry is distinctly immoral and should be enjoyed only for its art. +Other poetry is moral in its effect, and consequently should be utilized +extensively by the school-master in educating young men. For such purposes +no poetry was thought to be better than Homer, whose epics furnish so many +examples of heroic conduct.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-3"></a>3. Moral Improvement through Allegory</h4> + + +<p>When the Roman arms conquered a new city, the story runs, the commander of +the forces took over in the name of the Emperor the gods; but before the +gates of Jerusalem this ceremony proved ineffective. The fathers of the +Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing +that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the +philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, +according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its +presentation. Furthermore, the gods of the Greeks were immoral and +furnished their worshippers with bad examples of conduct. Long before +Tertullian the moral philosophers of antiquity had already attacked the +poetry of Greece and Rome on the ground of immorality. Plato in his day +called the war between philosophy and poetry "age-long." The ancient +Greeks had considered Homer and Hesiod as the inspired recorders of the +facts of religion. They had looked to the poets for moral dogma and +example. Of necessity the philosophers condemned the poets for the +immorality of their thievish, lying, and adulterous pantheon.</p> + +<p>When the Christian fathers were confronted with the Syriac gospel of the +youth of Jesus, they called a council to declare it apochryphal. Lest +some devout reader should take literally the love poetry of the Canticles, +the fathers allegorized it as the love of Christ for his Church. +Unfortunately for Greek religion the philosophers did not determine which +episodes in the histories of the gods were valid as doctrine and which +were fictitious. They did, however, anticipate the fathers in their +allegorical interpretations. Socrates in the <i>Phaedrus</i> laughs at +allegory;[<a href="#foot300">300</a>] and Plutarch believes that the poets intended to teach a +moral idea by example instead of expressing a hidden meaning by allegory. +For him allegory involved distortion and perversion. "For some men +<i>distort</i> these stories and <i>pervert</i> them into allegories or what the men +of old times called hidden meanings ὑπόνοιαι."[<a href="#foot301">301</a>] But +allegory none the less flourished. Theognis of Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and +Stesimbrotus of Thasos, were assiduous and startling in their +interpretations.[<a href="#foot302">302</a>] The Greek allegorical interpretations were of two +kinds: one an explanation of the secrets of nature, the other the teaching +of morality.[<a href="#foot303">303</a>] Although the practice was very old, the word "allegory" +is not recorded before Cicero, who says:</p> + +<blockquote> When the imagery of the metaphor is sustained for a long time, the + nature of the style assuredly becomes changed. Consequently the Greeks + call this sort of thing allegory.... But he is nearer the truth who + calls all of these metaphors.[<a href="#foot304">304</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From Cicero on, allegory has a long history as a rhetorical figure--a +trope.[<a href="#foot305">305</a>] St. Augustine recommends that students of the scriptures study +the rhetorical figures so that they may be able to interpret the tropes in +the Bible, such as allegory.[<a href="#foot306">306</a>]</p> + +<p>The result will always be the same whenever the poets are considered +theologians and moral teachers. They will be condemned or allegorized. +Fortunate are the poets when they are not believed. "How much better," +exclaims St. Augustine, "are these fables of the poets" than the false +religious notions of the Manichees. "But Medea flying, although I chanted +sometimes, yet I maintained not the truth of; and though I heard it sung, +I believed it not: but these phantasies I thoroughly believed."[<a href="#foot307">307</a>] For +it is only when one believes devoutly that Zeus procured access to Danae +in a shower of gold, that his action gives a divine sanction to such +traffic in beauty on the agora or in the forum.[<a href="#foot308">308</a>] It is only when the +poets make no pretense of recounting facts that they can escape the +clutches of the philosophers. It was to save the poets from such attacks +that Aristotle asserts that poetry deals with the universal, not with the +particular.[<a href="#foot309">309</a>] Or, as Spingarn explains his meaning, "Poetry has little +regard for the actuality of specific event, but aims at the reality of an +eternal probability."[<a href="#foot310">310</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-4"></a>4. The Influence of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Thus the general consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry has +inescapable moral effects on those who listen or read. The moralists, +especially the Stoics, when confronted with traditional poetry whose +literal significance was immoral, leaned toward allegorical +interpretations which brought out a kernel of truth. The greater number, +however, of Greeks and Romans in the classical period believed that poetry +exerted the most potent influence for good when it enunciated crisp moral +maxims and afforded examples of heroic conduct which young people could be +induced to follow.</p> + +<p>In all these respects the classical view of poetic has much in common with +classical rhetoric. Allegory has been shown to have had a long history as +an extended metaphor--a rhetorical figure. Maxims are considered fully by +Aristotle as aids to persuasion in rhetoric.[<a href="#foot311">311</a>] The exemplum is +obviously a stock means of rhetoric.</p> + +<p>"Examples," says Aristotle, "are of two kinds, one consisting in the +allegation of historical facts, and the other in the invention of facts +for oneself. Invention comprises illustration on the one hand and ... +fables on the other." Then he tells how Aesop defended a demagogue by the +fable of the fox caught in the cleft of a rock. The fox was infested with +dog-ticks which sucked his blood. A benevolent hedge-hog offered to remove +the ticks, but the fox declined the kind offer on the ground that his +ticks were already full of blood and had ceased to annoy him much, whereas +if they were removed, a new colony of ticks would establish themselves and +thus entirely drain him of blood. "Yes, and in your case, men of Samos," +said Aesop, "my client will not do much further mischief--he has already +made his fortune--but, if you put him to death, there will come others who +are poor and who will consume all the revenues of the state by their +embezzlements."[<a href="#foot312">312</a>] "Fables," continues the shrewd master of those who +know, "have this advantage that, while historical parallels are hard to +find, it is comparatively easy to find fables." Quintilian, like +Aristotle, believes in the persuasive efficacy of examples. But Quintilian +has less faith in the probative value of fictitious examples than he has +in those drawn from authentic history. He thinks that fables are most +effective with a rustic and ingenuous audience, which "captivated by their +pleasure in the story, give assent to that which pleases them."[<a href="#foot313">313</a>] Thus +Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people to the senators by telling them the +fable of the revolt of the members against the belly. And Thomas Wilson, +in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, repeats the story, in his section on +examples, and ascribes to Themistocles the fox story which Aristotle tells +of Aesop.[<a href="#foot314">314</a>]</p> + +<p>But Aristotle, Quintilian, and Wilson are talking about rhetoric. Very +justly they believe that if one wants to persuade an audience to a course +of action, he must interest his audience sufficiently to hold their +attention. As Wilson sagely remarks, "For except men finde delite, they +will not long abide: delite them and winne them."[<a href="#foot315">315</a>] Cicero expressed in +memorable phrase the relationship between proof and pleasure as +instruments to persuasion and added a third element. He classified the +aims of an orator as "to teach, to please, to move" (<i>docere, delectare, +movere</i>). The teaching is the appeal to the intellect of the hearer by +means of proof. The pleasure is afforded by a euphonious style, and by +fables and stories. The audience is moved to action by the appeal to their +feelings.[<a href="#foot316">316</a>]</p> + +<p>Not until the renaissance did writers on the theory of poetry carry over +Cicero's threefold aim of the orator and make it apply to the poet.[<a href="#foot317">317</a>] +But already in post-classical times rhetoric had, as Seneca the father +clearly shows, vitiated the Latin poetry of the Silver Age. Under the +Empire the declamation schools in Rome had a profound influence on +literature.[<a href="#foot318">318</a>] It could not be otherwise in a society where the school +of rhetoric was the only temple of higher education, for which the +grammaticus, or elementary professor of literature, was constrained to +prepare his students. Rhetoric was the organon of Roman education, and +declamation was the aim of rhetoric. It was such an educational system +which prepared Ovid and Lucan for their careers as poets and men of +letters. Seneca the father records the brilliant declamations of Ovid as a +schoolboy, quoting at some length his plea for a wife who threw herself +over a cliff on hearing of the death of her husband, and calling attention +to several passages in Ovid's poems where the poet has borrowed the clever +sayings of his professors in the school of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot319">319</a>] Ovid makes his +characters prove that they are moved by passion instead of being +passionate in word and deed. He vitiates his emotions with his wit. This +is characteristic of almost all the poets who attended the declamation +schools. They talk about situations and characters instead of realizing +them. They write as if they were speaking to an audience. One can almost +see the gestures, the wait for applause after the enunciation of a noble +platitude. Not only historically, but also in the worst modern sense this +is rhetoric. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such a preoccupation +with rhetoric, such a sustained search for all possible means of +persuasion, should have strengthened rather than weakened the utilitarian +theory of poetry. The school-master endeavored to mould the characters of +his students by examples from heroic poetry; the teacher of rhetoric, in +turn, taught them that to persuade an audience they must prove, please, +and move, and that ficticious examples were about as persuasive as +historical parallels and much easier to find. When the student left school +he continued to seek means of persuasion in canvassing votes, pleading in +the courts, or deliberating in the senate. If he became a poet, he did not +forget the lessons of his youth; or if he became a teacher of literature +or a professor of rhetoric, he perpetuated the tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Mediaeval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>With the breaking up of the Empire the stream of classical culture was +restricted to a narrow channel--the Church. Opposed as it was to pagan +morals and theology, the church could honestly retain classical literature +only if it were allegorized. This explains the allegorical nature of +mediaeval poetry and of poetical theory.</p> + +<p>From the beginning the learning of the Church was of pagan origin. St. +Augustine was a professor of rhetoric and the author of a treatise on +aesthetics before he wrote the <i>City of God</i>, and his <i>Confessions</i>. In +fact, he never quite got over being a professor of rhetoric. Clement of +Alexandria was a product of the same rhetoric schools and an excellent +teacher of his subject before he recognized the divine origin of +Christianity. St. Basil was a college friend of Gregory Nazianzen and of +Julian, later emperor and apostate, when the three studied rhetoric at +Athens. Indeed, the most cunningly cruel decree which Julian later +promulgated against the Christians forbade them the use of the ancient +pagan literature of Greece and Rome. This decree Basil bitterly resented. +"I forgo all the rest," he says, "riches, birth, honor, authority, and all +the goods here below of which the charm vanishes like a dream; but I cling +to oratory nor do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, +which I have undertaken to master it."[<a href="#foot320">320</a>]</p> + +<p>But within the Church the lovers of Greek literature did not have it all +their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely +attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, +and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the +traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. +Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a +guide to morals.[<a href="#foot321">321</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-1"></a>1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</h4> + + +<p>Allegorical interpretation was the main weapon of the apologists for +poetry. The basis, indeed, of the Gnostic heresies of the second and third +centuries was an allegorical interpretation of the Greek poets and +philosophers and of the Scriptures. This soon degenerated into an +extravagant system of speculative mysticism. Clement of Alexandria and +Origen rejected the extravagances, but sought to retain the mysticism of +the Gnostics. They reconciled Greek literature and the Scriptures by +allegorizing both, much as today Darwin and Genesis are reconciled by +allegorizing Genesis.[<a href="#foot322">322</a>] Thus in the declining years of the Roman Empire +the rhetoricians had become ecclesiastics, and the Church had adopted +pagan literature with allegorical interpretation.</p> + +<p>This tradition dominated the middle ages; Lady Theology reigned over the +kingdom of the seven liberal arts, and to make Homer and Virgil +theological it was necessary that they be interpreted allegorically. As +Vossler has shown, theology and philosophy furnished, during the middle +ages, the subject matter of poetry; they were the <i>utile</i> of Horace. The +<i>dulce</i> became for them too exclusively the pleasing garment of style and +story.[<a href="#foot323">323</a>]</p> + +<p>Throughout the middle ages, however, many continued to look askance at +poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in +prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the +friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write +dreary verses of complaint. But these poetical Muses Philosophy sent +packing. "Who has allowed," said she, "these common strumpets of the +theatre to come near this sick man? Not only do they fail to assuage his +sorrows, but they feed and nourish them with sweet venom. They are not +fruitful nor profitable. They destroy the fruits of reason, for they hold +the hearts of men."[<a href="#foot324">324</a>] Here Philosophy is voicing the objections of +Plato. The arts are attacked because they are not successfully +utilitarian, and because they appeal to the emotions instead of to the +reason. In a later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the objection. He +postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, +imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, +intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God +instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he +shares with the lower animals.[<a href="#foot325">325</a>]</p> + +<p>But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by +allegory. When Isidore of Seville (†633 or 636), for instance, was +compiling his book of universal knowledge, the <i>Etymologiae</i>, he +incorporated his section on the poets in the chapter entitled <i>Concerning +the Church and the Sects</i>. So between a section devoted to the +<i>Philosophers of the Gentiles</i> and a section entitled <i>Concerning Sibyls</i> +he wrote concerning the poets as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Sometimes, however, the poets were called theologians, because they used + to compose songs concerning the gods. In doing this, however, it is the + office of the poets to render what has actually been done in a different + guise with a certain beauty of covert figures.[<a href="#foot326">326</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poet, to Isidore, was the inspired bard who sings of the gods and the +eternal verities, not directly, but under the veil of a beautiful +allegory. Among these allegorical or indirect means of expression used by +the poet to veil truth are fables.</p> + +<blockquote> The poets invent fables sometimes to give pleasure; sometimes they are + interpreted to explain the nature of things, sometimes to throw light on + the manners of men.[<a href="#foot327">327</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>His illustrations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For +instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of +man and horse, the swiftness of human life.</p> + +<p>It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the +middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the <i>Convivio</i> (c. +1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper +method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded +in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the +allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these +tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[<a href="#foot328">328</a>] The reason +this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the +fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to +say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three +disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may +understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The +fourth sense is the analogical. Here the text may be literally true, but +contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but +the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear +from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which +he discusses the interpretations of his <i>Commedia</i>. "Although these mystic +senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called +allegorical."[<a href="#foot329">329</a>] That the "beauteous fiction," the <i>bella menzogna</i>, of +allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a passage in the <i>Vita +Nuova</i>. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, +speaking and laughing on the assumption that as a poet he is licensed to +use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a +true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to +clothe the nakedness of truth.[<a href="#foot330">330</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-2"></a>2. Allegory in Mediaeval England</h4> + + +<p>England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the +thirteenth century. In his <i>Poetria</i>, John of Garland[<a href="#foot331">331</a>] explains +allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes. +"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; +under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the +friend, reason."[<a href="#foot332">332</a>] In another illustrative poem, this time introduced +to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts +between the "<i>confirmacio</i>," and the "<i>confutacio</i>," an "<i>expositio +mistica</i>" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The +fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[<a href="#foot333">333</a>]</p> + +<p>As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i> is as mediaeval as +the <i>Romance of the Rose</i>.[<a href="#foot334">334</a>] In this allegory of the education and love +adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke +to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven +liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space. In the chapter on +<i>inventio</i>, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her +traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all +possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their +purpose, and their fame.</p> + +<p>The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire +period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of +allegory.</p> + +<blockquote> To make of nought reason sentencious + Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. + For often under a fayre fayned fable + A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[<a href="#foot335">335</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old +poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their +invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets +against sloth.</p> + +<blockquote> The special treasure<br /> +Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo!</blockquote> + +<p>Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues.</p> + +<blockquote> Your hole desyre was set<br /> +Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,...<br /> +To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great +conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such illustrious +models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a +condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents +them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude +people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the +poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, +she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the +people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they +would praise and appreciate the moral poets.</p> + +<p>The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, +as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the +middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to +theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on <i>inventio</i>, is conducting a +defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth +under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it +is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men.</p> + +<p>The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, +to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets +did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds.</p> + +<blockquote> And under colour of this beste, pryvely<br /> +The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[<a href="#foot336">336</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For +instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his +shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy. +Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus +in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the +hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, +to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the +redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, +Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable +into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical +adornment of figures and so forth.</p> + +<p>The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he +says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts +with love of virtue. Lydgate's <i>Falls of Princes</i> is an especially great +poem,</p> + +<blockquote> A good ensample for us to dispyse<br /> +This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[<a href="#foot337">337</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning +pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making +ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he +insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts.</p> + +<p>This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is +to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of +allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, +where, as has been shown, the recovery of classical culture made slow +progress.[<a href="#foot338">338</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of +Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the +Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[<a href="#foot339">339</a>] that the characteristic +opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line,</p> + +<blockquote> Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae.</blockquote> + +<p>The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to +combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the +notable exceptions of Bernardo Tasso and Castelvetro, who claimed no +further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general +conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was +simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[<a href="#foot340">340</a>]" This +chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where +they help the reader to understand better the situation in English +criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done +two influences which affected the renaissance view not a +little--scholastic philosophy and the classical rhetorics.</p> + +<p>To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are +directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part +of it.[<a href="#foot341">341</a>] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic +in logic, whereas Aristotle had classified the three arts as coördinate +within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by +the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[<a href="#foot342">342</a>] The appearance of +this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a +gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, +in favor of the classical view which considered example as the best +vehicle for moral improvement.</p> + +<p>In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly +delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of +classical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often +become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming +discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of +classical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on +example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a +pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most +advanced class, the Dido episode was deleted from the <i>Æneid</i>.[<a href="#foot343">343</a>]</p> + +<p>Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as +parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric +by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the +poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting +representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, +the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to +virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of +logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of +sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating +a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port? +The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures +overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, +parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, +the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of +theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition. +Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their +material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the +poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor +only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, +praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He +incites to lust and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral +actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be +condemned.[<a href="#foot344">344</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-1"></a>1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</h4> + + +<p>The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola +derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[<a href="#foot345">345</a>] persisted for four centuries, +rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the +renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition +of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and +poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in +this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and +example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses +example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[<a href="#foot346">346</a>]</p> + +<p>Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the <i>Lezione</i> (1553) +of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says:</p> + +<blockquote> Just as the logician uses for his means the noblest of all instruments, + that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the + dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, + that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and + the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject + of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or + instrument is the example.[<a href="#foot347">347</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This has its ultimate source in the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, who made the +following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at +demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at +persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a +rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise +unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on +opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, +usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[<a href="#foot348">348</a>]</p> + +<p>The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the +treatise <i>On the Nature of the Art of Poetry</i> (1647) of the Dutch scholar +Vossius, who writes:</p> + +<blockquote> As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that + especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be + utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be + thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in + fictitious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove + something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but + action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that + both are the servants of the state.[<a href="#foot349">349</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to +promote desirable action.</p> + +<p>How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well illustrated by +the <i>Ars Rhetorica</i> of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in +1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is +discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, +or induction.</p> + +<blockquote> Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience + because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently + used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains + attractively and clearly.[<a href="#foot350">350</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to +make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them +were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make +other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of +proof.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-2"></a>2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</h4> + + +<p>A more explicit influence on the renaissance belief that the function of +poetry is to improve social morality is readily seen in the definitions of +poetry which have already been quoted from Lombardus and Varchi, who +formulated their definitions of poetry by combining Aristotle's definition +of tragedy with his definition of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot351">351</a>] Another explicit +borrowing from classical rhetoric was of Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to delight, to persuade (<i>docere, delectare, +permovere</i>).[<a href="#foot352">352</a>] Several important Italian critics carried this +terminology over into their theories of poetry along with the purpose +which has always animated rhetoric--persuasion.</p> + +<p>Making Horace a point of departure, Daniello, in 1536, says that the +function of the poet is to teach and delight, but more than that--to +persuade. He must move his readers to share the emotions of his +characters, to shun vice, and embrace virtue.[<a href="#foot353">353</a>] This extreme rhetorical +parallel was further insisted on by Minturno (1559), who defined the duty +of a poet as so to speak in verse as to teach, to delight, and to +move.[<a href="#foot354">354</a>] And as Aristotle had affirmed in his <i>Rhetoric</i> that the +character of the speaker was one of the three essential elements in +persuasion,[<a href="#foot355">355</a>] Minturno is constrained to make the moral character of +the poet an indispensable quality of his poetry. Thus he borrows Cato's +definition of the orator as a "good man skilled in public speech" (vir +bonus dicendi peritus) from Quintilian,[<a href="#foot356">356</a>] and defines the poet as "a +good man skilled in speech and imitation" (poeta vir bonus dicendi et +imitandi peritus).[<a href="#foot357">357</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Minturno, Scaliger insisted that poetry must teach, move, and +delight.[<a href="#foot358">358</a>] It is thus the result in action which Minturno and Scaliger +emphasize. The poet must work on the feelings of his reader so that he +shall embrace and imitate the good, and spurn the evil. Philosophy, +oratory, and poetry have thus one end--and only one--persuasion.[<a href="#foot359">359</a>] +Without the "movere," the incentive to action, of course poetry could not +serve its purpose of moral improvement on which the renaissance so sternly +insisted. A reader might enjoy a story, play, or poem which presented +impeccable examples of virtue rewarded and vice punished, or which +abounded in noble platitudes gilded with wit, and still smile and be a +villain. It was thus inevitable that an acceptance of the moral purpose of +poetry should sooner or later drive any logical minded critic of poetry +completely into the camp of rhetoric. There the poet would find a +complete panoply of arms forged for the arousing of the feelings in an +audience, and for stirring the springs of action. He could make his +readers hate sin by the same means Demosthenes made his hearers hate +Philip, and love any virtue by appropriating the methods of Cicero <i>Pro +Archia</i>. According to this belief, the difference between poetic and +rhetoric was minimized. In theory a poem or a speech might indifferently +be composed either in prose or in verse. Both endeavored to teach, to +please, and to move. Both looked toward persuasion as an object. The +speech used the enthymeme and the example as proofs, while the poem used +the example to a greater, and the enthymeme to a lesser degree. Both in +theory and in practice the example was regarded as being a pleasanter +argument than the precept, as well as being more effective. This was the +age of Ciceronianism. The school-masters of Europe had recently +rediscovered imitation as the royal road to learning, and in their system +of language teaching emphasized imitation of classical authors more than +following the precepts of the grammarians or of the rhetoricians. The +epigram of Seneca, "longum iter per praecepta, breve per exempla," was the +popular catchword of the age. The example was popular.</p> + +<p>Thus by the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian critics had +formulated a logical and self-consistent theory of the purpose of poetry. +Inheritors of the allegorical theory of the middle ages, which they in +part discarded, and discoverers of classical rhetoric which they carried +over bodily into their theories of poetry, they passed on to France, +Germany, and England their rhetorical theories. The purpose of poetry, as +well as of rhetoric, was to them persuasion--to teach, to please, to move. +The instrument of poetry was the rhetorical example.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In England the Italian interpretations of the literary criticism of Greece +and Rome made slow headway against the established traditions of the +middle ages. In particular the vogue of allegory did not yield to the idea +of the moral example transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-1"></a>1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>When Thomas Wilson published the first edition of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> +in 1553, the corpus of Greek criticism in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> had +been in print forty-five years, and the commentaries of Dolce, Daniello, +Robortelli, and Maggi were available. But Wilson wrote a very good +rhetoric with no books before him but Quintilian, Cicero and the rhetoric +<i>Ad Herennium</i>, which he thought to be Cicero's, Erasmus, Plutarch <i>De +audiendis poetis</i>, and St. Basil. His treatment of poetry is quite +naturally, then, that of a rhetorician who had been reared in the +mediaeval tradition of allegory.</p> + +<p>Allegory in the sense of Quintilian as a trope, an extended metaphor, +Wilson mentions only once. His instance will bear quotation:</p> + +<blockquote> It is evil putting strong Wine into weake vesselles, that is to say, it + is evil trusting some women with weightie matters. The English Proverbes + gathered by John Heywood, helpe well in this behalfe, the which commonly + are nothing els but Allegories, and darke devised sentences.[<a href="#foot360">360</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Allegory in its more general mediaeval sense of the kernel of moral truth +within the brilliant husk of the poet's fables he discusses at greater +length elsewhere with full exemplification.</p> + +<blockquote> For by them we may talke at large and win men by persuasion, if we + declare beforehand that these tales were not fained of such wisemen + without cause.</blockquote> + +<p>This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by +orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. +That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure.</p> + +<blockquote> For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the + same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment + of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of + Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... + As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[<a href="#foot361">361</a>] In the <i>Iliades</i> + are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the <i>Odissea</i> + is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and + wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they + durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde + men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the + wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might + understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[<a href="#foot362">362</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the +moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story +of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. +The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the +best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not +meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid +covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George +in like manner allegorically.</p> + +<p>But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned +with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example +as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and +enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, +and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on +the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate +pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his +comment on the use of stories in argument.</p> + +<p>Nor does Roger Ascham in his <i>Scholemaster</i>, written between 1563-1568 and +published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of +poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a +school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in +their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, +not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[<a href="#foot363">363</a>] That he is not blind to the +fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be +its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. +The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master +must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[<a href="#foot364">364</a>] And the same +fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his +famous condemnation of the <i>Morte Darthur</i> "the whole pleasure of which +booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold +bawdrye,"[<a href="#foot365">365</a>] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems +and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, +Loyola and Vives.[<a href="#foot366">366</a>] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory +as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a +classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If +he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example +pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance +guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the +theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the +function of poetry is to teach by example.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-2"></a>2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and +school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's +treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his <i>Certayne Notes of +Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme</i>.[<a href="#foot367">367</a>] The title is not +misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its +philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a +passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of +his mistress.</p> + +<blockquote> If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange + discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by + the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes <i>per + Allegoriam</i>.[<a href="#foot368">368</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation +schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his +mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him +the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the <i>Epistles</i> of +Ovid and the <i>Love Letters</i> of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified +speech-making. Wilson recommended the <i>Proverbs</i> of Heywood as furnishing +"allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his +<i>Euphues</i> Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries +generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables +which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the +<i>Similia</i> and <i>Adagia</i>, of Erasmus, and from the <i>Emblems</i> of +Alciati.[<a href="#foot369">369</a>]</p> + +<p>So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized +device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George +Whetstone's <i>Dedication</i> to his <i>Promos and Cassandra</i>. For Whetstone +asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte +as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the +conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[<a href="#foot370">370</a>] +That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme +application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of +the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of +the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's +<i>Dedication</i> was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his +attack against poetry and poets in his <i>School of Abuse</i>, which was +answered by Lodge and Sidney in their <i>Apologies</i>. In this controversy, in +which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his +<i>Touchstone for Time</i> (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and +the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the +attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose +of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the +Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this +moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and +the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble +function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did +not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole.</p> + +<p>Gosson writes:</p> + +<blockquote> The right use of auncient poetrie was to have the notable exploytes of + worthy captaines, the holesome councels of good fathers and vertuous + lives of predecessors set down in numbers, and sung to the instrument at + solemne feastes, that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from + kissing the cup too often, and the sense of the other put them in minde + of things past, and chaulke out the way to do the like.[<a href="#foot371">371</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>The benefit, according to Gosson, which poetry should produce is that of +good moral example. Moral doctrine, he believes accessible in the +churches, and against the poets he urges that the evil social environment +of the theatre offsets the benefit to be derived even from good plays. +What profits the moral lesson of such a play if after witnessing the +performance a man walk away with a woman whose acquaintance he has just +made in the theatre.[<a href="#foot372">372</a>] He may drink wine, he may play cards, he may +even enter a brothel.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Defence of Poetry</i> (1579), Lodge retreats to the caverns of the +middle ages to equip himself with arms. Under the influence of Campano, +who died in 1477, he advances allegory as the explanation which makes the +apparently light and trifling poets moral teachers of the utmost +seriousness. Addressing Gosson he exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote> Did you never reade that under the persons of beastes many abuses were + dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye that whatsoever ether Virgil + did write of his gnatt or Ovid of his fley was all covertly to declare + abuse?... You remember not that under the person of Aeneas in Virgil the + practice of a dilligent captaine is described; you know not that the + creation is signified in the Image of Prometheus; the fall of pryde in + the person of Narcissus.[<a href="#foot373">373</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>And he quotes Lactantius as comparing poetry with the Scriptures. If +either are taken literally, they will seem false. We should judge by the +poet's hidden meaning.[<a href="#foot374">374</a>] The purpose of the poets, to Lodge, was "In +the way of pleasure to draw men to wisdome." When he defends comedy, Lodge +drifts away from allegory. Terence and Plautus he praises for furnishing +examples of virtue and vice upon the boards, thus to amend the manners of +his auditors. He believed that poetry did amend manners, and correct +abuses--if properly used. But he is very quick to admit the very abuses +which Gosson attacked.</p> + +<blockquote> I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry: I will admit the expullcion + of such enormities, poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in + it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it.[<a href="#foot375">375</a>] I + must confess with Aristotle that men are greatly delighted with + imitation, and that it were good to bring those things on stage that + were altogether tending to vertue; all this I admit and hartely wysh, + but you say unlesse the thinge be taken away the vice will continue. Nay + I say if the style were changed the practise would profit.[<a href="#foot376">376</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus he defends poetry bcause it teaches morality by example and by +allegory.</p> + +<p>With that higher intelligence and learning which have already been +contrasted with the unthinking acceptance of his times[<a href="#foot377">377</a>] Sir Philip +Sidney wrote his <i>Apologie for Poetrie</i>. In this dignified and vigorous +pamphlet, written about 1583, and published in 1595, Sidney presents the +best and most consistent argument for the moral purpose of poetry that +appeared in England. That the main line of his argument and his best +material is drawn from Minturno and Scaliger, as Spingarn has +demonstrated,[<a href="#foot378">378</a>] in no way invalidates his claim to distinction. The +purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and +delight,[<a href="#foot379">379</a>] "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, +with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to +know a poet by."[<a href="#foot380">380</a>] But as the end of all earthly learning is virtuous +action, in Sidney's mind, he agrees with Minturno and Scaliger in +borrowing from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the orator: to teach, +to delight, to move. Sidney says that the poets "imitate both to <i>delight</i> +and <i>teach</i>, and delight to <i>move</i> men to take the goodnes in hande ... +and <i>teach</i>, to make them know that goodnes whereunto they are +mooved."[<a href="#foot381">381</a>] It is incredible that he did not know this terminology as +rhetoric. Poetry, he believes, fails if it does not persuade its reader to +abandon evil and adopt good.</p> + +<blockquote> And that <i>mooving</i> is of a higher degree than <i>teaching</i>, it may by this + appeare, that it is well nigh the cause of teaching. For who will be + taught, if he bee not mooved with desire to be taught? and what so much + good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of morall doctrine) + as that it mooveth one to do that which it dooth teach?[<a href="#foot382">382</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The effectiveness of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in +its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which +is too frequently quoted incompletely,</p> + +<blockquote> commeth to you with words sent in delightful proportion, either + accompanied with, or prepared for, the well inchaunting skill of + Musicke; and with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which + holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And + <i>pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from + wickedness to vertue</i>: even as the childe is often brought to take most + wholsom things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant + tast.[<a href="#foot383">383</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Sidney, then, it is the very purpose of poetry to win men to +virtue by pleasant instruction. The argument of poetry in accomplishing +this end is primarily the example. Sidney compares very elaborately +philosophy, history, and poetry in an endeavor to show that poetry is the +most effective instrument for forwarding virtue. In the first place poetry +is better adapted than philosophy to win men to virtue because it +persuades both by precepts and by examples, while philosophy persuades by +precepts alone. His sanction for this high opinion of the persuasive power +of example is the rhetorical commonplace of the renaissance that the way +is long by precept and short by example.[<a href="#foot384">384</a>] To enforce this point he +tells the story of how Menenius Agrippa won over the people of Rome to +support the Senate by telling them the story of the revolt of the members +against the belly. Quintilian[<a href="#foot385">385</a>] and Wilson[<a href="#foot386">386</a>] had already told this +story to prove the effectiveness of the example as a rhetorical argument, +a device of the public speaker.</p> + +<p>The main advantage which poetry possesses over history, Sidney goes on, is +that while the historian must stick to his facts, which too frequently are +unedifying, the poet can and does create a world better than nature, and +presents to his reader ideal figures of human conduct such as Pylades, +Cyrus, and Æneas.[<a href="#foot387">387</a>] This is Sidney's application of Aristotle's +assertion that history is particular and poetic universal; history records +things as they are and poetic as they are, worse than they are, or better. +Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some +of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to +add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true +example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned +to the highest key of passion);"[<a href="#foot388">388</a>] and here he is drawing from +Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric.</i>[<a href="#foot389">389</a>] Through admiration of the noble persons of +poetry, the reader is won to a desire for emulation. "Who readeth <i>Æneas</i> +carrying olde <i>Anchises</i> on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune +to perfourme so excellent an acte?"[<a href="#foot390">390</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Sidney believes the principal moral value of poetry to reside in +its power to teach and move by the use of examples, he devotes at least +half a page to the beneficent effect of parables and allegories. The +parables which he uses, however, are all Christian, and the allegories are +all the <i>Fables</i> of Æsop. From the allegorical interpretation of poetry +current in the middle ages and to a scarcely less degree among his English +contemporaries Sidney remains conspicuously aloof.</p> + +<p>In answering the specific charges against poetry, that it is a waste of +time, the mother of lies, the nurse of abuse, and rejected by Plato, +Sidney asserts that a thing which moves men to virtue so effectively as +poetry cannot be a waste of time; that since poetry pretends not to +literal truth, it cannot lie,[<a href="#foot391">391</a>] that poetry does not abuse man's wit, +but man's wit abuses poetry, for "shall the abuse of a thing make the +right use odious?"[<a href="#foot393">393</a>] and that Plato objected not to poetry but to its +abuse.</p> + +<p>Sir John Harington[<a href="#foot392">392</a>] who published his <i>Brief Apologie of Poetrie</i> in +1591, four years before the publication of Sidney's <i>Apologie</i>, based much +of his treatise on Sidney. Unfortunately, he did not digest fully the +arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand +knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. +In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line +of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit +punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in +verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant +and the profitable."[<a href="#foot394">394</a>] The objection that poets lie Harington meets as +Sidney does, "But poets never affirming any for true, but presenting them +to us as fables and imitations, cannot lye though they would."[<a href="#foot395">395</a>] At +this point Harington parts company with his master and goes back to the +middle ages.</p> + +<blockquote> The ancient Poets have indeed wrapped as it were in their writings + divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or mysteries + thereof. First of all for the litteral sence (as it were the utmost + barke or ryne) they set downe in manner of an historie the acts and + notable exploits of some persons worthie memorie: then in the same + fiction, as a second rine and somewhat more fine, as it were nearer to + the pith and marrow, they place the Morall sence profitable for the + active life of man, approving vertuous actions and condemning the + contrarie. Many times also under the selfesame words they comprehend + some true understanding of naturall Philosophie, or sometimes of + politike government, and now and then of divinitie: and these same + sences that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call the + Allegorie.[<a href="#foot396">396</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Nothing could be more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain +the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of +Perseus and the Gorgon--the highest allegory being theological. Further, +to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of +profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, +Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by +allegorical stories. To Harington, then, poetry is useful as an +introduction to Philosophy. Paraphrasing Plutarch <i>On the Reading of +Poets</i>, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> So young men do like best that Philosophy that is not Philosophie, or + that is not delivered as Philosophie, and such are the pleasant writings + of learned Poets, that are the popular Philosophers and the popular + divines.[<a href="#foot397">397</a>]</blockquote> + +<p><i>A Discourse of English Poetrie</i> (1586) by the laborious but uninspired +tutor, William Webbe,[<a href="#foot398">398</a>] is not a defense; but interspersed among his +remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, +ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of +poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and +comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's +conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements +to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[<a href="#foot399">399</a>] In appraising the +methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his +contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation +of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the +instruction of manners and precepts of good life[<a href="#foot400">400</a>]. And he finds much +profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they +abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the +moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people +who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the +beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he +seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the +effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The +<i>Metamorphoses</i> of Ovid, for instance,</p> + +<blockquote> though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall + inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth + of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and + sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good + counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly + read.[<a href="#foot401">401</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of +the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or +cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in +delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his +emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to +the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he +believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as +its motivating purpose[<a href="#foot402">402</a>]. And again, after descanting on the +exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable +things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of +poetry as containing "all such <i>Epigrammes</i>, <i>Elegies</i>, and delectable +ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight +thereof.[<a href="#foot403">403</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Webbe, the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589) ascribed to +Puttenham,[<a href="#foot404">404</a>] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, +however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. +Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may +be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what +may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is +worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham,</p> + +<blockquote> is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in + phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, + the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & + reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of + sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & + sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate + myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and + cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for + recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest + or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, + dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill + example.[<a href="#foot405">405</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, +emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been +objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification +nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the +commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the +convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[<a href="#foot406">406</a>] But Puttenham does +not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be +released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, +dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil +examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest."</p> + +<p>Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the +mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of +lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and +courtiers,[<a href="#foot407">407</a>] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire +was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend +the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the +mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a +vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the +amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters +under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[<a href="#foot408">408</a>] Here Puttenham +pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in +satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to +allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be +wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is +most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde +of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more +universally satisfie then example."[<a href="#foot409">409</a>] It is on this account that +historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For +the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should +be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for +pleasure.</p> + +<blockquote> Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether + fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no + less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but + often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his + pleasure.[<a href="#foot410">410</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all +history was a moral example[<a href="#foot411">411</a>] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic +fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two +as almost interchangeable.[<a href="#foot412">412</a>]</p> + +<p>Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both +the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, +Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, +but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[<a href="#foot413">413</a>] +accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the +<i>Hypercritica</i> (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a +kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation +from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[<a href="#foot414">414</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-3"></a>3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example</h4> + + +<p>A most interesting view of the purpose of poetry was evolved in the brain +of Francis Bacon--that baffling complexity of mediaeval tradition and +penetrating original thought. To him the use of feigned history, as he +defines poetry, "hath beene to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the +minde of man in those points wherein the Nature of things doth deny +it."[<a href="#foot415">415</a>] That is, poetry represents the world as greater, more just, and +more pleasant than it really is. "So as it appeareth that <i>Poesie</i> +serveth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie, and to delectation." +Here Bacon seems to imply that the essential pleasure of poetry is in +affording vicarious experience through imaginative realization. Poetry +does this by "submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the +minde." It truly makes a world nearer to our heart's desire. But while +Bacon derives the moral benefit of poetry from examples of conduct and +outcomes of events more nearly just than those of actual life, when he +analyses poetry into its kinds, he makes a place for allegory. In this +division he provides for narrative, drama, and allegory. But with +penetration he sees what few renaissance critics had noted before--that +allegory is of two varieties. The first variety is essentially the same as +a rhetorical example; it is an extended metaphor used as an argument to +enforce a point and thus persuade an audience. The fables of Aesop are +such allegories or examples; and they are useful because they make their +point more interestingly than other arguments and more clearly. The other +sort of allegory, says Bacon, instead of illuminating the idea, obscures +it. "That is, when the Secrets and Misteries of Religion, Pollicy, or +Philosophy, are involved in Fables or Parables." He then gives political +allegorical interpretations of the myths of Briareus and of the Centaur +and suddenly adds: "Nevertheless in many the like incounters, I doe rather +think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the +Morall was first and thereupon the fable framed."[<a href="#foot416">416</a>] Bacon's final +conclusion seems to be that, although allegorical poetry does exist, +allegory is not essential to poetry and that the wholesale allegorizing of +the middle ages was far off the mark. In his suspicion that in most cases +the fable was first and the interpretation after, Bacon was in complete +agreement with Rabelais in the prologue of <i>Gargantua</i>.[<a href="#foot417">417</a>] At any rate +Bacon seems to have given the <i>coup de grace</i> to allegory in England.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of Pico della Mirandola it was resurrected from its +tomb by Henry Reynolds; but it was a much less moral allegory and a more +mystical. In his <i>Mythomystes</i> (licensed 1632) Reynolds admits, that the +ancients mingled moral instruction in their poetry, but reprehends this as +an abuse. Prose is the proper vehicle of moral doctrine and should have +been employed by Spenser. The true function of poetry, then, is to give +secret knowledge of the mysteries of nature to the initiated. Thus the +story of the rape of Proserpine signifies, when allegorically interpreted; +"the putrefaction and succeeding generation of the Seedes we commit to +Pluto, or the earth."[<a href="#foot418">418</a>] This is the most plausible example of mystical +interpretation to be found in the whole treatise.</p> + +<p>To the allegorist, the fable or plot in epic or dramatic poetry was only a +rind to cover attractively the kernel of truth. It was a means to an end, +not an end in itself. As the influence of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> spreading +through Italy, Germany, France, and England, gave the plot or fable more +importance, allegory lost its hold on the minds of the critics. When Ben +Jonson writes in his <i>Timber</i> "For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, +the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke or <i>Poeme</i>"[<a href="#foot419">419</a>] the change had +come. Jonson, like Sidney, was steeped in classical criticism as +interpreted and spread abroad by the sixteenth-century critics of the +continent. But while Sidney made a place for allegory in his scheme of +poetry, Jonson does not so much as mention it. His idea of the teaching +power of poetry, for to him poetry and painting both behold pleasure and +profit as their common object,[<a href="#foot420">420</a>] is rhetorical--depending on precept +and example--and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy +is "a dulcet and gentle <i>Philosophy</i>, which leades on and guides us by the +hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[<a href="#foot421">421</a>] +Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their +common purpose of securing persuasion; for he says:</p> + +<blockquote>"The <i>Poet</i> is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all +his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, +and above him in his strengths: Because in moving the minds of men, and +stirring of affections, in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves +her eminence, hee chiefly excells."[<a href="#foot422">422</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In his dedication to <i>Volpone</i> he says this power of persuasion which the +poet possesses to so eminent a degree is to be applied to the moral +well-being of men, "to inform men in the best reason of living."[<a href="#foot423">423</a>] +Himself a writer for the theatre, Jonson is naturally more concerned with +comedy and tragedy than he is with any narrative forms of poetry. And to +him the office of the comic poet is "to imitate justice and instruct to +life--or stirre up gentle affections."[<a href="#foot424">424</a>] In <i>Timber</i> he iterates the +same praise of poetry as being no less effective than philosophy in +instructing men to good life, and informing their manners, but as even +more effective in that it persuades men to good where philosophy threatens +and compels. In order to accomplish this beneficial effect on public +morals, the poet must have an exact knowledge of all virtues and vices +with ability to render the one loved and the other hated.[<a href="#foot425">425</a>] As a +natural result of this conception, so similar to Cicero's demand that the +orator must know all things and in line with Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i>, +Jonson concludes that the poet, like Quintilian's orator, must himself be +a good man; for how else will he be able "to informe <i>yong-men</i> to all +good disciplines, inflame <i>growne-men</i> to all great vertues, keepe <i>old +men</i> in their best and supreme state."[<a href="#foot426">426</a>]</p> + +<p>Aside from Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through +to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are +identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, +or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his +preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled <i>Achilles' Shield</i> +(1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in +the <i>Iliad</i>,[<a href="#foot427">427</a>] and enunciates the same idea in his <i>Prefaces</i> of +1610-16.[<a href="#foot428">428</a>] Peacham, in his <i>Compleat Gentleman</i> (1622), repeats the +usual commonplaces to the effect that poetry is a dulcet philosophy, for +the most part lifted from Puttenham.[<a href="#foot429">429</a>] In his <i>Argenis</i> (1621) Barclay +reminds his reader of the children who for so many centuries had shunned +the cup of physic until the bitter taste had been removed by sweet syrop. +Thus also, says he, is it with the moral value of poetry disguised with +sweet music. "Virtues and vices I will frame, and the rewards of them +shall suite to both"; for it is on the moral example of poetic justice +that Barclay depends. The models of virtue will be followed.[<a href="#foot430">430</a>]</p> + +<p>The Earl of Stirling, in <i>Anacrisis</i> (1634?) acknowledges the works of the +poets to be the chief springs of learning, "both for Profit and Pleasure, +showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they +are." Consequently he has a high opinion of the <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, +the <i>Arcadia</i> of Sir Philip Sidney, and other such poems, as "affording +many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes."[<a href="#foot431">431</a>] These types +the reader is expected to imitate in his own conduct, guided by the moral +precepts with which the poet must not neglect to decorate his work.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Within the period of this study two views were taken of the moral element +in poetry. With the exception of Sidney and Jonson, who knew the theories +of the Italian renaissance, the English critics believed with Horace that +poetry was at once pleasant and profitable, and agreed with Plutarch that +poetry, if rightly used, would be of benefit in the education of youth. +But there was little tendency to follow this to the conclusion of +asserting that because poetry has a moral effect on the reader, it is the +purpose of poetry as an art to exert this moral effect for the good of +society. Most of these critics believed that the moral effect which poetry +did exert came through allegory. In this respect, as has been shown, they +were carrying on the traditions of the middle ages.</p> + +<p>The opposing view derived ultimately from the classical rhetorics, and +entered England through the criticism of the Italian +scholars--particularly Minturno and Scaliger. Starting from the saying of +Horace that poets aim to please or profit, or please and profit together, +these critics borrowed from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to please, to move, and applied these three aims to the +poet. Accordingly, to them the poet has the same aim as the +orator--persuasion. He pleases not for the sake of giving pleasure, but +for the sake of winning his readers so that he may better attain his real +object of teaching morality and moving men to action in its practice. The +emphasis on the example as the means of attaining this end was further +derived from scholastic philosophy which, as has been shown, classed +logic, rhetoric, and poetic together as instruments for attaining truth +and improving the morality of the state. Furthermore, according to this +scholastic view, the three arts differed only as they utilized different +means to attain this end. Logic used the demonstrative syllogism and the +scientific induction, rhetoric used the enthymeme or rhetorical syllogism +and the example or popular induction, poetic used the example alone. +According to the renaissance developments of this last view, allegory was +emphasized less and less as the example was felt to be more appropriate. +Thus Sidney and Jonson, the outstanding classicists in English renaissance +criticism, exhibit to the highest degree the influence of the most +rhetorical of Italian renaissance critics. They alone in England assert +that the purpose of poetry is to move men to virtuous action.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Thus a study of rhetorical terminology in English renaissance theories of +poetry throws into sharp relief the fact that all criticism of the fine +art of literature in England in the 16th century and the first half of the +17th century was profoundly influenced by rhetoric. This influence was +two-fold. On the one hand the less scholarly critics perpetuated the +popular traditions of rhetoric which they inherited from the middle ages. +These traditions of allegory and the ornate style were, as has been shown, +in turn derived from post-classical rhetoric. On the other hand the more +scholarly critics applied to poetry the canons of classical rhetoric which +they derived in part from the classics themselves and in part from the +critics of the Italian renaissance.</p> + +<p>In one sense this has been a study of critical perversions. Although many +of the critics of the English renaissance are remarkable for their wisdom +and discerning judgments, their writings are far less valuable than those +of Longinus and Aristotle. But Aristotle and Longinus did not allow their +theories of poetry to be contaminated by rhetoric. The best modern critics +have studied and understood the classical treatises on poetic and have +consequently avoided the confusion between rhetoric and poetic into which +many renaissance critics fell. Others have not been so fortunate. For +these the object-lesson of renaissance failure should serve as a warning.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="index"></a>Index</h2> + + + +<p>Abelard<br /> +Aeschylus<br /> +Aesop<br /> +Agathon<br /> +Agricola, Rudolph<br /> +Alanus de Insulis<br /> +Alciati<br /> +Alcidamas<br /> +Albucius<br /> +Aldus<br /> +Alfarabi<br /> +Alstedius<br /> +Anaxagoras<br /> +Annaeus Florus<br /> +Appian<br /> +Apsinus<br /> +Apthonius<br /> +Apuleius<br /> +Aristenetus<br /> +Aristophanes<br /> +Aristotle<br /> +Aristides<br /> +Ascham<br /> +Athenagoras<br /> +Augustine<br /> +Averroes</p> + +<p>Bacon, Francis<br /> +Barclay, John<br /> +Barton, John<br /> +Basil the Great<br /> +Bede<br /> +Bokenham<br /> +Boccaccio<br /> +Bolton, Edmund<br /> +Bornecque, Henri<br /> +Boethius<br /> +Brunetto Latini<br /> +Butcher, S.H.<br /> +Buchanan, George<br /> +Budé<br /> +Butler, Charles</p> + +<p>Can Grande<br /> +Campano, G.<br /> +Campion, Thomas<br /> +Casaubon<br /> +Cassiodorus<br /> +Castelvetro<br /> +Castiglione<br /> +Cato<br /> +Caussinus, N.<br /> +Chapman, G.<br /> +Chaucer<br /> +Chemnicensis, Georgius<br /> +Cicero<br /> +Clement of Alexandria<br /> +Cox, Leonard<br /> +Croce, B.<br /> +Croll, Morris<br /> +Curio Fortunatus</p> + +<p>Daniel, Samuel<br /> +Daniello<br /> +Dante<br /> +Darwin, Charles<br /> +Demetrius<br /> +Demosthenes<br /> +de Worde, Wynkyn<br /> +Dio Chrysostom<br /> +Dionysius of Halicarnassus<br /> +Dolce<br /> +Drant, Thomas<br /> +Drummond of Hawthornden<br /> +DuBellay<br /> +Ducas<br /> +DuCygne, M.<br /> +Dunbar, William</p> + +<p>Earle, John<br /> +Eastman, Max<br /> +Empedocles<br /> +Emporio<br /> +Erasmus<br /> +Eratosthenes<br /> +Estienne, Henri<br /> +Etienne de Rouen<br /> +Euripides</p> + +<p>Farnaby, Thomas<br /> +Fenner, Dudley<br /> +Filelfo<br /> +Fraunce, Abraham</p> + +<p>Gascoigne<br /> +George of Trebizond (Trapezuntius)<br /> +Gorgias<br /> +Gosson, Stephen<br /> +Gower<br /> +Gregory Nazianzen<br /> +Guarino<br /> +Guevara</p> + +<p>Hall, Joseph<br /> +Harington, John<br /> +Harvey, Gabriel<br /> +Hawes, Stephen<br /> +Heinsius, D.<br /> +Henryson<br /> +Heliodorus<br /> +Herodotus<br /> +Hermagoras<br /> +Hermannus Allemanus<br /> +Hermogenes<br /> +Hilary of Poitiers<br /> +Holland, P.<br /> +Homer<br /> +Horace<br /> +Hermas<br /> +Hesiod<br /> +Heywood, John</p> + +<p>Isidore of Seville<br /> +Isocrates</p> + +<p>James I<br /> +James VI<br /> +Jerome<br /> +John of Garland<br /> +John of Salisbury<br /> +Jonson, Ben<br /> +Julian</p> + +<p>Kechermann</p> + +<p>Lactantius<br /> +Langhorne<br /> +Lipisius<br /> +Livy<br /> +Lodge<br /> +Lombardus, B.<br /> +Longinus<br /> +Loyola<br /> +Lucan<br /> +Lucian<br /> +Lucretius<br /> +Lydgate, John<br /> +Lyly, John<br /> +Lyndesay, David.<br /> +Lysias</p> + +<p>Maggi<br /> +Martial<br /> +Martianus Capella<br /> +Mazzoni<br /> +Melanchthon<br /> +Menander<br /> +Menenius Agrippa<br /> +Milton<br /> +Minturno</p> + +<p>Nash, T.<br /> +Newman, J.H.<br /> +Norden, Eduard<br /> +North, Sir Thomas</p> + +<p>Origen<br /> +Overbury, Thomas<br /> +Ovid</p> + +<p>Palmieri<br /> +Pazzi<br /> +Peacham, Henry<br /> +Petrarch<br /> +Piccolomini<br /> +Pico della Mirandola<br /> +Plato<br /> +Plautus<br /> +Pliny<br /> +Plutarch<br /> +Poggio<br /> +Pontanus, Jacob<br /> +Prickard, A. O.<br /> +Puttenham</p> + +<p>Quintilian</p> + +<p>Rabelais<br /> +Ramus, Peter<br /> +Reynolds, Henry<br /> +Robortelli<br /> +Ronsard<br /> +Rufinus</p> + +<p>Sappho<br /> +Savonarola<br /> +Scaliger, J.C.<br /> +Schelling, Felix<br /> +Segni<br /> +Seneca<br /> +Servatus Lupus<br /> +Shakespeare<br /> +Sherry, Richard<br /> +Sidney<br /> +Sidonius, Apollinaris<br /> +Simonides<br /> +Smith, John<br /> +Soarez<br /> +Socrates<br /> +Sopatrus<br /> +Sophocles<br /> +Sophron<br /> +Spenser<br /> +Spingarn, J.E.<br /> +Stanyhurst<br /> +Stesimbrotus of Thasos<br /> +Strabo<br /> +Strebaeus<br /> +Sturm, John</p> + +<p>Tacitus<br /> +Tasso, B.<br /> +Tatian<br /> +Terence<br /> +Tertullian<br /> +Theognis of Rhegium<br /> +Theon<br /> +Theophilus<br /> +Theophrastus<br /> +Themistocles<br /> +Thomas Aquinas<br /> +Thomasin von Zirclaria<br /> +Tifernas<br /> +Timocles</p> + +<p>Valla<br /> +Valladero, A.<br /> +Van Hook, L.<br /> +Varchi<br /> +Vettore<br /> +Vicars, Thomas<br /> +Victor, Julius<br /> +Victorino, Mario<br /> +Vida<br /> +Virgil<br /> +Vives, L.<br /> +Vossius (J.G. Voss)<br /> +Vossler, Karl</p> + +<p>Wackernagel, Jacob<br /> +Walton, John<br /> +Watson, Thomas<br /> +Webbe, William<br /> +Whetstone, George<br /> +William of Malmesbury<br /> +Wilson, Thomas</p> + +<p>Xenarchus<br /> +Xenophon</p> + + + + + +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> + + + +<p><a name="foot1"></a>1. <i>Modern Philology</i>, Vol. XVI, No. 8, Dec., 1918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot2"></a>2. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot3"></a>3. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot4"></a>4. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot5"></a>5. <i>Poetik, Rhetorik, und Stilistik</i> (Halle, 1886), pp. 14, 261.</p> + +<p><a name="foot6"></a>6. <i>Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics</i>, Ed. A.S. Cook +(Boston, 1891), pp. 10-11.</p> + +<p><a name="foot7"></a>7. <i>Estetica</i> (Milano, 1902), I, II, and appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot8"></a>8. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i> (New York, 1916), p. 66.</p> + +<p><a name="foot9"></a>9. Georges Renard, <i>La method scientifique de l'histoire littéraire</i>. +(Paris, 1900), p. 385.</p> + +<p><a name="foot10"></a>10. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot11"></a>11. I, 8; and IX, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot12"></a>12. Prickard thinks Aristotle misread in this passage. According to +Prickard, Aristotle means that poetry must be in meter, but that not all +meter is poetry. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, p. 60. Most critics do not share +Prickard's opinion.</p> + +<p><a name="foot13"></a>13. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot14"></a>14. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot15"></a>15. <i>Psychology</i>, ed. E. Wallace, III, 3, cf. also introd., p. 77, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot16"></a>16. <i>Poetics</i>, I.</p> + +<p><a name="foot17"></a>17. VII, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot18"></a>18. VII, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot19"></a>19. S.H. Butcher, <i>Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art</i>, p. 123. +Poetics, II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot20"></a>20. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot21"></a>21. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot22"></a>22. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 3-4; of. XV, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot23"></a>23. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot24"></a>24. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot25"></a>25. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 392.</p> + +<p><a name="foot26"></a>26. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot27"></a>27. VI, 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot28"></a>28. Longinus, <i>On the Sublime</i>, trans, by A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906) I +and XXXIII. The treatise has been variously ascribed to the first and +fourth centuries. A valuable edition of the text accompanied by +translation and critical apparatus, was published by W. Rhys Roberts, +Cambridge University Press.</p> + +<p><a name="foot29"></a>29. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot30"></a>30. <i>Ibid.</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot31"></a>31. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot32"></a>32. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV. This is almost exactly Aristotle's phrase in the +<i>Rhetoric</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot33"></a>33. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot34"></a>34. <i>Ibid</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot35"></a>35. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, VII, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot36"></a>36. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot37"></a>37. <i>Rhetoric</i> (J. E. C. Welldon's trans., London, 1886), I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot38"></a>38. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot39"></a>39. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot40"></a>40. Wilkin's ed. of Cic. <i>De oratore</i>, introd. p. 56.</p> + +<p><a name="foot41"></a>41. Cope, <i>Introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristotle</i> (London, 1867), p. +149.</p> + +<p><a name="foot42"></a>42. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2. Published in the <i>Opera Rhetorica</i> of Cicero, +edited by W. Friedrich for Teubner (Leipzig, 1893), Vol. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot43"></a>43. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot44"></a>44. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, II, xv, 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot45"></a>45. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, i, 9-11. The "vir bonus dicendi peritus" is from Cato.</p> + +<p><a name="foot46"></a>46. <i>Gorgias</i>, St. 453.</p> + +<p><a name="foot47"></a>47. <i>Loci cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot48"></a>48. I, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot49"></a>49. I, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot50"></a>50. <i>Op. cit.</i>, I, 64.</p> + +<p><a name="foot51"></a>51. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, II, xxi, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot52"></a>52. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot53"></a>53. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iv, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot54"></a>54. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, i, 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot55"></a>55. γραθική, Rhet. III, xii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot56"></a>56. <i>Orator</i>, 37-38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot57"></a>57. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot58"></a>58. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2; Cicero, <i>De inventione</i>, I, vii. <i>De oratore</i>, +I, 142; Quintilian, <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iii, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot59"></a>59. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, xiii-xix; Cicero, <i>Partit. orat.</i>, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot60"></a>60. See above, pp. 13-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot61"></a>61. Cicero, <i>De oratore</i>, I. 143; Quint., <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot62"></a>62. I, 4. Cicero, also, <i>De invent.</i>, I, xiv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot63"></a>63. <i>Opera omnia</i> (1622), p. 1028.</p> + +<p><a name="foot64"></a>64. <i>De nuptiis</i>, 544-560.</p> + +<p><a name="foot65"></a>65. <i>The Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot66"></a>66. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, i, I</p> + +<p><a name="foot67"></a>67. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, vi, I ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot68"></a>68. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot69"></a>69. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, xi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot70"></a>70. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i>, pp. 76-78. The best classical treatments of +style are to be found in Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III; Cic., <i>Orat.</i>; Quint., <i>De +inst. orat.</i>, VIII, x; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>; and +Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot71"></a>71. Sec. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot72"></a>72. <i>Commentarioum Rhetoricorum libri</i> IV, I, i, 3, in his <i>Opera</i>, III. +(Amsterdam, 1697).</p> + +<p><a name="foot73"></a>73. VI, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot74"></a>74. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot75"></a>75. The six elements are Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, +and Song. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 7 and 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot76"></a>76. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 339-343.</p> + +<p><a name="foot77"></a>77. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 16, and XIX, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot78"></a>78. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, X, i, 46-51.</p> + +<p><a name="foot79"></a>79. <i>De inventione</i>, I, xxiii, 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot80"></a>80. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i> (Leipzig, 1898), p. 884, note 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot81"></a>81. See above, p. 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot82"></a>82. <i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3; <i>Orator</i>, 69; <i>De oratore</i>, II, +28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot83"></a>83. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI, ii, 25-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot84"></a>84. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot85"></a>85. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III. xi; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De Lysia</i>, 7; +Quintilian, VIII, iii, 62.</p> + +<p><a name="foot86"></a>86. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot87"></a>87. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 883-884.</p> + +<p><a name="foot88"></a>88. La Rue Van Hook, "Alcidamas <i>versus</i> Isocrates," <i>Classical Weekly</i>, +XII (Jan. 20, 1919), p. 90. Professor Van Hook here presents the only +English translation of Alcidamas, <i>On the Sophists</i>. Isocrates made his +reply in his speech <i>On the Antidosis</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot89"></a>89. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot90"></a>90. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot91"></a>91. <i>Orator</i>, 66-68.</p> + +<p><a name="foot92"></a>92. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot93"></a>93. "Verba prope poetarum," <i>ibid.</i>, I, 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot94"></a>94. "Id primum in poetis cerni licet, quibus est proxima cognatio cum +oratoribus." <i>De orat.</i>, III, 27. cf. also I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot95"></a>95. Xenophon, <i>Banquet</i>, II, 11-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot96"></a>96. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i>, pp. 75-79.</p> + +<p><a name="foot97"></a>97. <i>De compositione verborum</i>, XXV-XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot98"></a>98. Sénèque le rheteur, <i>Controverses et suasoires</i>, ed. Henri Bornecque +(Paris). Introduction pp. 20 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot99"></a>99. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot100"></a>100. <i>Op. cit.</i> vol. II, p. 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot101"></a>101. <i>Dialogus</i>, 20.</p> + +<p><a name="foot102"></a>102. <i>Op. cit.</i>, Introd. p. 23.</p> + +<p><a name="foot103"></a>103. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>, XXIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot104"></a>104. Hardie, <i>Lectures</i>, VII, p. 281.</p> + +<p><a name="foot105"></a>105. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, Sec. 8. Trans, of Lucian by +H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler (Oxford, 4 vols., 1905).</p> + +<p><a name="foot106"></a>106. Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas +et historicos, in illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos +putemus. <i>De inst. orat</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot107"></a>107. Virgilius orator an poeta? quoted by Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische +Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i>. (Berlin, 1900) p. 42, note +2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot108"></a>108. <i>Etymologiae</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot109"></a>109. P. Abelson, <i>The Seven Liberal Arts</i> (New York, 1906), p. 60, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot110"></a>110. <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici de arte prosayca metrica et +rithmica</i>, ed. by G. Mari, <i>Romanische Forschungen</i> (1902), XIII, p. 883 +ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot111"></a>111. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot112"></a>112. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 897.</p> + +<p><a name="foot113"></a>113. Cf. G. L. Hendrickson, "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient +Characters of Style," <i>Am. Jour. of Phil.</i> (1905), xxvi, p. 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot114"></a>114. Cf. the <i>auctor ad Her.</i>, I, 4, who gives them as exordium, +narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio.</p> + +<p><a name="foot115"></a>115. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot116"></a>116. III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot117"></a>117. "Rhetoricâ, kleit unser rede mit varwe schône." Ed. by H. Rückert, +<i>Bibl. der Deutsch. Lit.</i>, Vol. 30, 1. 8924.</p> + +<p><a name="foot118"></a>118. Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (430-488) can be consulted in a +modern ed. by Paulus Mohr (Leipzig, 1895).</p> + +<p><a name="foot119"></a>119. Doctrina dell' ornato parlare." Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="foot120"></a>120. <i>Chron. Troy</i> (1412-20), Prol. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot121"></a>121. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Mark Van Doren for the transcript +which I am here publishing.</p> + +<p><a name="foot122"></a>122. <i>Mor. Fab.</i> Prol. 3. (c. 1580).</p> + +<p><a name="foot123"></a>123. <i>Poems</i>, LXV, 10 (1500-20).</p> + +<p><a name="foot124"></a>124. <i>Clerk's Prolog.</i> 32.</p> + +<p><a name="foot125"></a>125. <i>Life of our Lady</i> (1409-1411), (Caxton) lvii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot126"></a>126. Trans, of Boethius (1410), quoted by Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, xvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot127"></a>127. <i>Kingis Q.</i> (1423), CXCVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot128"></a>128. <i>Test. Papyngo</i> (1530), II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot129"></a>129. <i>Seyntys</i> (1447), Roxb. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="foot130"></a>130. <i>Serp. Devision</i>, c. iii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot131"></a>131. Reprinted from the ed. of 1555 for the Percy Society (London, 1845), +p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot132"></a>132. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot133"></a>133. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot134"></a>134. <i>See</i> p. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="foot135"></a>135. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot136"></a>136. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 46.</p> + +<p><a name="foot137"></a>137. "Proximum grammatice docet, quae emendate & aperte loquendi vim +tradit: Proximum <i>rhetorice, quae ornatum orationis cultum que & omnes +capiendarum aurium illecebras invenit</i>. Quod reliquum igitur est videbitur +sibi dialectice vendicare, probabliter dicere de qualibet re, quae +deducitur in orationem." <i>De inventione dialectica</i> (Paris, 1535), II, 2. +cf. also II, 3.</p> + +<p>Cf. "<i>Gram</i> loquitur; <i>Dia</i> vera docet; <i>Rhet</i> verba colorat." Nicolaus de +Orbellis (d. 1455), quoted by Sandys, p. 644.</p> + +<p><a name="foot138"></a>138. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot139"></a>139. <i>Rule of Reason</i> (1551), p. 5. Fraunce, <i>Lawiers Logike</i>, takes the +same view.</p> + +<p><a name="foot140"></a>140. <i>Dialecticae libri duo</i>, A. Talaei praelectionibus illustrati +(Paris, 1560), I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot141"></a>141. <i>Rule of Reason</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot142"></a>142. Wilkins introd. to Cic. <i>De orat.</i>, p. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot143"></a>143. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI., v, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot144"></a>144. Printed in London by John Day, without a date. The dedication is +dated Dec. 13, 1550. The title page says it was "written fyrst in +Latin--by Erasmus."</p> + +<p><a name="foot145"></a>145. Ascribed to Dudley Tenner by Foster Watson, <i>The English Grammar +Schools</i> (Cambridge, 1908), p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot146"></a>146. Chapter IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot147"></a>147. Thomas Heywood, <i>Apology for Actors</i> (London, 1612), in <i>Pub. Shak. +Soc.</i>, Vol. III, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot148"></a>148. Book I, ch. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot149"></a>149. "Rhetorica est ars ornate dicendi." <i>Rhetoricae libri duo quorum +prior de tropis & figuris, posterior de voce & gestu praecepit: in usum +scholarum postremo recogniti.</i> (London, 1629)</p> + +<p><a name="foot150"></a>150. <i>The Art of Rhetorick concisely and completely handled, exemplified +out of Holy Writ</i>, etc. (London, 1634)</p> + +<p><a name="foot151"></a>151. Dekker and Middleton, <i>The Roaring Girl</i>, III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot152"></a>152. Dekker, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot153"></a>153. Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot154"></a>154. χειραγωγια <i>Manductio ad Artem Rhetoricam ante paucos annos +in privatum scholarium usum concinnata</i> (London, 1621). "Rhetorica est ars +recte dicendi, etc."</p> + +<p><a name="foot155"></a>155. Norden, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 699-703.</p> + +<p><a name="foot156"></a>156. A.C. Clark, <i>Ciceronianism</i>, in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, ed. +Gordon (Oxford, 1912), p. 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot157"></a>157. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i>, p. 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot158"></a>158. Erasmus, <i>Dialogus, cui titulus ciceronianus, sive, de optimo +dicendi genere</i>, in <i>Opera omnia</i> (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703), I. It was +composed in 1528.</p> + +<p><a name="foot159"></a>159. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot160"></a>160. I, 4. Wilson follows the analysis on p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot161"></a>161. I, x, 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot162"></a>162. <i>An Apology for Actors</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot163"></a>163. This count is based on the Cicero MSS. listed by P. Deschamps, +<i>Essai bibliographique sur M. T. Ciceron</i> (Paris. 1863). Appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot164"></a>164. H. Rashdall, <i>Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages</i> (Oxford, +1895), I, 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot165"></a>165. J. E. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, p. 590.</p> + +<p><a name="foot166"></a>166. Sandys, p. 624 <i>seq.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot167"></a>167. Deschamps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 59-63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot168"></a>168. Arber reprint, p. 124.</p> + +<p><a name="foot169"></a>169. M. Schwab, <i>Bibliographie d'Aristote</i> (Paris, 1896).</p> + +<p><a name="foot170"></a>170. Rashdall, II, 457.</p> + +<p><a name="foot171"></a>171. Fierville, C. <i>M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber +primus</i> (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for +the first time the complete texts of these abridgments in an appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot172"></a>172. Arber, p. 95.</p> + +<p><a name="foot173"></a>173. The pseudo-Demetrius, author of the <i>De elecutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot174"></a>174. P. 316.</p> + +<p><a name="foot175"></a>175. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, pp. 541-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot176"></a>176. M. Schwab, <i>op. cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot177"></a>177. <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, +1900), p. 88.</p> + +<p><a name="foot178"></a>178. <i>Defense</i>, in Smith, I, 196-197.</p> + +<p><a name="foot179"></a>179. Vossius, <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 3-4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot180"></a>180. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot181"></a>181. <i>Poetica</i>, 23, 190.</p> + +<p><a name="foot182"></a>182. <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot183"></a>183. <i>Euphues</i>, edited by M. W. Croll and H. Clemens (New York), Introd. +iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot184"></a>184. Preface to Maggi's <i>Aristotle</i> (1550), p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot185"></a>185. Prolog. <i>ibid.</i>, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot186"></a>186. Spingarn, p. 312.</p> + +<p><a name="foot187"></a>187. Jacob Pontanus, S. J., <i>Poeticarum institutionum libri tres</i> +(Ingolstadi, 1594), p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot188"></a>188. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot189"></a>189. "Tres autem sunt virtutes narrationis, brevitas, perspicuitas, +probabilitas. Secundam & tertiam diligentissime consectabitur Epicus, +earumque rationem a Rhetoricae magistris percepiet," p. 72. These three +virtues of a "narratio" are based on the analysis of the <i>Rhetorica ad +Alexandrum</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot190"></a>190. Arist., <i>Rhet.</i>, III. 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot191"></a>191. <i>Op. cit</i>,, p. 26.</p> + +<p><a name="foot192"></a>192. Spingarn, p. 313.</p> + +<p><a name="foot193"></a>193. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 255.</p> + +<p><a name="foot194"></a>194. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 262.</p> + +<p><a name="foot195"></a>195. Arber, pp. 138-141.</p> + +<p><a name="foot196"></a>196. Spingarn, pp. 174, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot197"></a>197. Smith, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot198"></a>198. Smith, I, 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot199"></a>199. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot200"></a>200. I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot201"></a>201. II, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot202"></a>202. IV, 63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot203"></a>203. <i>Topics</i>, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot204"></a>204. VI, ii, 8 <i>seq.</i> Quintilian also uses the Greek terms.</p> + +<p><a name="foot205"></a>205. X, i, 46-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot206"></a>206. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 275-398.</p> + +<p><a name="foot207"></a>207. II, 154 seq.</p> + +<p><a name="foot208"></a>208. P. 187.</p> + +<p><a name="foot209"></a>209. G.S. Gordon, "Theophrastus" in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, p. +49-86.</p> + +<p><a name="foot210"></a>210. Smith, I, 128</p> + +<p><a name="foot211"></a>211. <i>Ibid.</i>, 130-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot212"></a>212. Cf. Spingarn, pp. 298-304, for a good account of reformed versifying +in England.</p> + +<p><a name="foot213"></a>213. Smith, I, 137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot214"></a>214. John Northbrooke anticipated Gosson by two years in his attack on +the stage, but did not include poets in his title.</p> + +<p><a name="foot215"></a>215. Spingam, pp. 256-258.</p> + +<p><a name="foot216"></a>216. Smith, I, 158.</p> + +<p><a name="foot217"></a>217. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot218"></a>218. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot219"></a>219. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 158-159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot220"></a>220. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot221"></a>221. I, 183.</p> + +<p><a name="foot222"></a>222. I, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot223"></a>223. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 2; Quint. VIII, iii. 62; Scaliger, iii, 25. Cf. +ante p. 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot224"></a>224. <i>De aug.</i> II, 13.</p> + +<p><a name="foot225"></a>225. See pp. 18, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot226"></a>226. I, 203.</p> + +<p><a name="foot227"></a>227. I, 202.</p> + +<p><a name="foot228"></a>228. Smith, I, 227-228.</p> + +<p><a name="foot229"></a>229. I, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot230"></a>230. I, 231.</p> + +<p><a name="foot231"></a>231. I, 247-248.</p> + +<p><a name="foot232"></a>232. I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot233"></a>233. I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot234"></a>234. I, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot235"></a>235. I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot236"></a>236. La Rue Van Hook, "Greek Rhetorical Terminology in Puttenham's <i>The +Arte of English Poesie." Trans. of the Am. Phil. Ass.</i> (1914) XLV, 111. +Puttenham was also familiar with the <i>ad Herennium</i> and with <i>Cicero</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot237"></a>237. (Philadelphia, 1891), p. 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot238"></a>238. III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot239"></a>239. III, xix, p. 206 Arber reprint; of. also p. 230, on the figure +<i>Merismus</i> or the Distributor, and the remainder of the chapter.</p> + +<p><a name="foot240"></a>240. Smith, II, 249, 282.</p> + +<p><a name="foot241"></a>241. <i>Ibid</i>, II, 274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot242"></a>242. Preface to Homer, in Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth +Century</i>, I, 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot243"></a>243. Spingarn, I, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot244"></a>244. <i>Literary Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, Introduction</i>, I, +xiii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot245"></a>245. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 128. Cf. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, VIII, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot246"></a>246. Spingarn, I, 211.</p> + +<p><a name="foot247"></a>247. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot248"></a>248. <i>Timber</i>, Sees. 132-133.</p> + +<p><a name="foot249"></a>249. Spingarn, I, 214.</p> + +<p><a name="foot250"></a>250. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 210, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot251"></a>251. Vossler, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot252"></a>252. Spingarn, I, 107.</p> + +<p><a name="foot253"></a>253. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 142.</p> + +<p><a name="foot254"></a>254. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 182.</p> + +<p><a name="foot255"></a>255. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 188, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot256"></a>256. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot257"></a>257. Pseudo-Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot258"></a>258. The <i>De sublimitate</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot259"></a>259. <i>De sublimitate</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot260"></a>260. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot261"></a>261. <i>Reason of Church Government</i> (1641), in Spingarn, I, 194.</p> + +<p><a name="foot262"></a>262. <i>Introd. to Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, lxx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot263"></a>263. Pp. 23-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot264"></a>264. VI, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot265"></a>265. Poetica est facultas videndi quodcunque accommodatum est ad +imitationem cuiusque actionis, affectionis, moris, suavi sermone, ad vitam +corrigendam & ad bene beateque vivendum comparata. <i>Praefatio</i> to +<i>Maggi's</i> ed. of the <i>Poetics</i> (1550), p. 9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot266"></a>266. Spingarn, p. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="foot267"></a>267. La poetica è una facoltà, la quale insegna in quai modi si debba +imitare qualunque azione, affetto e costume, con numero, sermone ed +armonia; mescolatamente a di per sè, per remuovere gli uomini dai vizi e +accendergli alle virtù, affine che conseguano la perfezione e beatitudine +loro. <i>Lezione della poetica</i> (1590) in <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1859), II, 687.</p> + +<p><a name="foot268"></a>268. Verses 1008-1010.</p> + +<p><a name="foot269"></a>269. Verse 1055.</p> + +<p><a name="foot270"></a>270. <i>The Women at the Feast of Bacchus</i>, quoted by Emile Egger, +<i>L'Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs</i> (Paris, 1886), p. 74.</p> + +<p><a name="foot271"></a>271. <i>Protagoras</i>, 325-326, Jowett's translation.</p> + +<p><a name="foot272"></a>272. <i>Republic</i>, 596-598.</p> + +<p><a name="foot273"></a>273. <i>Ibid.</i>, 605-606.</p> + +<p><a name="foot274"></a>274. <i>Ibid.</i>, 607</p> + +<p><a name="foot275"></a>275. <i>Laws</i>, 663.</p> + +<p><a name="foot276"></a>276. <i>Poetics</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot277"></a>277. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot278"></a>278. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot279"></a>279. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot280"></a>280. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII. Cf. also XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot281"></a>281. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot282"></a>282. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot283"></a>283. <i>Politics</i>, V, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot284"></a>284. <i>Poetics</i>, VI. (Butcher). Cf. Butcher's <i>Aristotle's Theory of Fine +Art</i>, Chapter VI, for a full discussion of katharsis.</p> + +<p><a name="foot285"></a>285. <i>Politics</i>, V, vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot286"></a>286. <i>Poetics</i>, XIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot287"></a>287. <i>Panegyric</i>, § 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot288"></a>288. <i>Symposium</i>, III, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot289"></a>289. <i>Geography</i>, I, ii, 3. Trans, by H. C. Hamilton (Bohn ed, London, +1854), 1, 24-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot290"></a>290. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, trans, by F.M. Padelford under the title +<i>Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry</i> (New York, 1902), I. Cf. also +Julian, <i>Epistle</i> 42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot291"></a>291. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot292"></a>292. <i>Ibid.</i> XIV. Cf. Harrington in Smith's <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, II, +197-198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot293"></a>293. <i>Ibid.</i> XII. Cf. Chemnicensis, <i>Canons</i>, LII, in Smith, I, 421.</p> + +<p><a name="foot294"></a>294. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV. Cf. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot295"></a>295. <i>Ibid.</i>, III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot296"></a>296. + + Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae + Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae + + * * * * * + + Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis; + Celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: + Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, + Lectorem delectando, periterque monendo. + Hic meret aera liber Sosiis; hic et mare transit, + Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. + </p> + +<p><i>Ad Pisonem</i>, 333-334, 342-346.</p> + +<p><a name="foot297"></a>297. <i>Epistles</i>, II, i, 11. 126 ff. Conington's trans.</p> + +<p><a name="foot298"></a>298. <i>Metamorphoses</i>, X, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot299"></a>299. <i>De rerum natura</i>, I, 936-950.</p> + +<p><a name="foot300"></a>300. <i>Phaedrus</i>. See also <i>Republic</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot301"></a>301. <i>How to Study Poetry</i>, IV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot302"></a>302. Cf. Cicero, <i>De nat. deor.</i> i, 15-38 ff., and Hatch, <i>Hibbert +Lectures</i>, 1888, Ch. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot303"></a>303. A. Schlemm, <i>De fontibus Plutarchi commentationum De aud. poet.</i> +(Göttingen, 1893), pp. 32-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot304"></a>304. "Iam cum confluxerunt plures continuae tralationes, alia plane fit +oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν nomine +recte genere melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat." <i>Orator</i>, 94. +Cf. <i>Ad. Att.</i> ii, 20, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot305"></a>305. Quintilian, VIII, vi, 44. Isidore, <i>Etym.</i> I, xxxvii, 22.</p> + +<p><a name="foot306"></a>306. <i>De doctrina christiana</i> (397), III, 29, 40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot307"></a>307. <i>Confessions</i> (Watts's trans.), III. vi., Lionardo Bruni, <i>De +studiis et literis</i> (1405), uses the same argument to defend poetry.</p> + +<p><a name="foot308"></a>308. Terence, <i>Eun.</i> 585-589, shows a young man justifying his vices on +this ground.</p> + +<p><a name="foot309"></a>309. <i>Poetics</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot310"></a>310. <i>Literary Criticism</i>, p. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot311"></a>311. <i>Rhet.</i> II, xxi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot312"></a>312. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. (Weldon's translation).</p> + +<p><a name="foot313"></a>313. <i>De inst. orat.</i> V, xi, 6, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot314"></a>314. Edited from the edition of 1560 by G.H. Mair (Oxford, 1909), p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot315"></a>315. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot316"></a>316. "Docere debitum est, delectare honorarium, permovere necessarium." +<i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3. He gives the same threefold aims as "ut +probet, ut delectet, ut flectet," in the <i>Orator</i>, 69; and in the <i>De +oratore</i>, II, 121.</p> + +<p><a name="foot317"></a>317. <i>Vide</i> pp. 136-137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot318"></a>318. Cf. <i>ante</i>, I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot319"></a>319. <i>Controv.</i> II, 2 (10). Bornecque ed., I, 145-148.</p> + +<p><a name="foot320"></a>320. Quoted by Padelford, p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot321"></a>321. <i>Orat.</i> xi, p. 308.</p> + +<p><a name="foot322"></a>322. Padelford, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 39-43.</p> + +<p><a name="foot323"></a>323. Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen +Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, 1900), pp. 5, 18, 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot324"></a>324. Boethius, <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i>, Book I, prose 1. Boethius +lived 480-524. Cf. Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, introd. xiv ff. for references to +the surprising number of translations in most European languages +throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, +Notker, and Chaucer.</p> + +<p><a name="foot325"></a>325. <i>Ibid</i>, Book V, prose v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot326"></a>326. "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina +faciebant. Officium autem poetae in eo est ut ea, quae vere gesta sunt, in +alias species obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa +transducant." <i>Etym.</i> VIII, vii, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot327"></a>327. "Fabulas poetae quasdam delectandi causa finxerunt, quasdam ad +naturam rerum, nonnullas ad mores hominum interpretati sunt." <i>Etym.</i> I, +xl, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot328"></a>328. "Una verita ascosa sotto bella menzogna." II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot329"></a>329. <i>Epistle</i>, X, 11, 160-1. Quoted by Wicksteed, <i>Temple Classics</i>, pp. +66-67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot330"></a>330. "Vesta di figura o di colore rettorico." <i>La Vita Nuova</i>, XXV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot331"></a>331. See above, pp. 45-47.</p> + +<p><a name="foot332"></a>332. "Per nimpham fingitur caro, per iuvenem coruptorem mundus vel +dyabolus, per proprium amicum ratio." <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici +de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica</i>. Ed. by G. Mari, Romanische +Forschungen (1902) XIII, 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot333"></a>333. "Est furor Eacides ire sathanas," <i>Ibid</i>, p. 913.</p> + +<p><a name="foot334"></a>334. See above, pp. 51-55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot335"></a>335. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot336"></a>336. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot337"></a>337. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 54; see further above, p. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot338"></a>338. Cf. ante, pp. 97-99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot339"></a>339. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 47-59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot340"></a>340. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 58.</p> + +<p><a name="foot341"></a>341. I <i>anal.</i> 1a.</p> + +<p><a name="foot342"></a>342. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot343"></a>343. André Schimberg, <i>L'education morale dans les collèges de la +compagnie de Jésus en France</i> (Paris, 1913). p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot344"></a>344. <i>Opus de divisione, ordine, ac utilitate omnium scientiarum, in +poeticen apologeticum</i>. Autore fratre Hieronymo Savonarola (Venetiis, +1542), IV, pp. 36-55. Savonarola died in 1498.</p> + +<p><a name="foot345"></a>345. Cartier, "L'Esthetique de Savonarola," in Didron's <i>Annales +Archoelogiques</i> (1847). vii, 255 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot346"></a>346. "Rhetorica, Poeticaque contra: quod non adeo vere ac proprie Logicae +appellantur, neque, syllogismo fere, sed exemplo atque enthymemate, +rationibus quasi popularibus utuntur...." Poetic, furthermore, differs +from rhetoric, "neque usurpat enthymema fere, sed exemplum." Vincentius +Madius et Bartholomaeus Lombardus. In <i>Aristotelis Librum de poetica +communes explanationes</i> (Venetiis, 1550), pp. 8-9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot347"></a>347. "Onde come il loico usa per suo mezzo il più nobile strumento, ciò è +la dimostrazione o vero il sillogismo dimonstrativo; cosi usa il +dialettico il sillogismo topico; il sofista il sofistico, ciò è apparente +ed ingannevole: il retore l'entimema, e il poeta l'esempio, il quale è il +meno degno di tutti gli altri. É adunque il subbietto della poetica il +favellare finto e favoloso, ed il suo mezzo o strumento l'esempio." <i>Delia +Poetica in Generale, Lezione Una </i> I, 2. <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1850), II, 684. +In his paraphrase of this passage and in his comments, Spingarn (<i>Lit. +Crit.</i> pp. 25-26) misunderstands both his author and his rhetoric when he +says, "The subject of poetry is fiction, or invention, arrived at by means +of that form of the syllogism known as the example. Here the enthymeme or +example, which Aristotle has made the instrument of rhetoric, becomes the +instrument of poetry."</p> + +<p><a name="foot348"></a>348. <i>Rhet.</i> I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot349"></a>349. "Nimirum arbitrantur, quemadmodum Rhetorice ab Aristotele ipso +appellatur particula Dialecticae; idque propterea, quod doceat rationem, +qua enthymema applicetur ad materiam civilem: ita & Poeticen esse Logices +partem, quia aperit exempli usum in materia ficta ... at Rhetorice, & +Poetice, non solum docere student, sed etiam delectare; nec cognitionem +tantum spectant, sed & actionem. Quamquam vero hoc commune habet cum +Rhetorica, quod utraque sit famula Politicae." Gerardi Joannis Vossii, <i>De +artis poeticae, natura, ac constitutions liber</i>, cap VII, in <i>Opera</i> +(Amsterdam, 1697), III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot350"></a>350. "Inductio delectat, et est vulgo apta, propter similitudines et +exempla. Hanc argumentationem frequentant Rhetores et Poetae, praesertim +Ovidius; quia venuste ac perspicue explicat argumenta." I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot351"></a>351. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 103-104.</p> + +<p><a name="foot352"></a>352. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 119-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot353"></a>353. <i>Poetica</i> (Vinegia, 1536), p. 25. Spingarn, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot354"></a>354. "Sic dicere versibus, ut doccat, ut delectet, ut moveat." <i>De +poeta</i>, p. 102.</p> + +<p><a name="foot355"></a>355. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot356"></a>356. XII, i, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot357"></a>357. <i>De poeta</i>, p. 79. Vossius echoes the same idea from the same +rhetorical source.</p> + +<p><a name="foot358"></a>358. "Sed & docendi, & movendi, & delectandi." <i>Poetice</i> (1561), III, +xcvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot359"></a>359. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot360"></a>360. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i> p. 176.</p> + +<p><a name="foot361"></a>361. These two names were frequently connected in the renaissance.</p> + +<p><a name="foot362"></a>362. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 195.</p> + +<p><a name="foot363"></a>363. <i>Arber Reprint</i> (London, 1870), p. 151.</p> + +<p><a name="foot364"></a>364. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 142-143.</p> + +<p><a name="foot365"></a>365. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="foot366"></a>366. <i>Vide</i>, p. 132.</p> + +<p><a name="foot367"></a>367. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 77-78.</p> + +<p><a name="foot368"></a>368. Smith, <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot369"></a>369. Croll, Introd. to ed. of <i>Euphues</i> (New York, 1916), p. vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot370"></a>370. Smith, I, 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot371"></a>371. <i>School of Abuse</i> (Pub. of the Shak. Soc., 1841), Vol, 2, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot372"></a>372. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 20, 25, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot373"></a>373. Smith, I, 65.</p> + +<p><a name="foot374"></a>374. Smith, I, 73.</p> + +<p><a name="foot375"></a>375. Smith, I, 76.</p> + +<p><a name="foot376"></a>376. Smith, I, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot377"></a>377. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 86-87.</p> + +<p><a name="foot378"></a>378. <i>Lit. Crit. in the Ren.</i> 2d ed., pp. 269-274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot379"></a>379. Smith, I, 158-160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot380"></a>380. <i>Ibid.</i>, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot381"></a>381. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot382"></a>382. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 171.</p> + +<p><a name="foot383"></a>383. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot384"></a>384. Cf. above, p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot385"></a>385. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, V, xi, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot386"></a>386. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot387"></a>387. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 157.</p> + +<p><a name="foot388"></a>388. Smith, I, 169.</p> + +<p><a name="foot389"></a>389. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. + +<a name="foot390"></a>390. Smith, I, 173.</p> + +<p><a name="foot391"></a>391. Cf. St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, III, vi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot392"></a>392. Smith, I, 187. Cf. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i> I, i, and Quint. <i>De inst. orat.</i> +II, xvi, who defend rhetoric on the same ground. Sidney's "with a sword +thou maist kill thy Father, and with a sword thou maist defende thy Prince +and Country" is in Quintilian.</p> + +<p><a name="foot393"></a>393. See also p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot394"></a>394. Smith, II, 208.</p> + +<p><a name="foot395"></a>395. Smith, II, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot396"></a>396. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot397"></a>397. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, XIV. Plutarch believed that poetry gained +this end by enunciating moral and philosophical <i>sententiae</i>, not by +allegory, which Plutarch made sport of.</p> + +<p><a name="foot398"></a>398. See pp. 87-89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot399"></a>399. Smith, I, 250-252.</p> + +<p><a name="foot400"></a>400. Smith, I, 232.</p> + +<p><a name="foot401"></a>401. Smith, I, 238-239.</p> + +<p><a name="foot402"></a>402. Smith, I, 235-236.</p> + +<p><a name="foot403"></a>403. Smith, I, 248-249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot404"></a>404. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 89-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot405"></a>405. Smith, II, 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot406"></a>406. Smith, II, 115-116.</p> + +<p><a name="foot407"></a>407. Smith, II, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot408"></a>408. Smith, II, 32-40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot409"></a>409. Smith, II, 41-42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot410"></a>410. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot411"></a>411. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 135.</p> + +<p><a name="foot412"></a>412. Krapp, <i>Rise of Eng. Lit. Prose</i> (New York, 1915), pp. 408-409.</p> + +<p><a name="foot413"></a>413. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 91-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot414"></a>414. Spingarn, <i>Crit. Essays of the 17th Century</i>, I, 98, 99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot415"></a>415. Springarn, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot416"></a>416. Spingarn, I, 6-8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot417"></a>417. The author's prolog to the first book.</p> + +<p><a name="foot418"></a>418. Spingarn, I, 170.</p> + +<p><a name="foot419"></a>419. Spingarn, I, 50; for Jonson see also pp. 93-96.</p> + +<p><a name="foot420"></a>420. Spingarn, I, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot421"></a>421. <i>Ibid.</i>, 51-52.</p> + +<p><a name="foot422"></a>422. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55. Cf. Cicero, <i>ante</i> p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot423"></a>423. Ded. to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot424"></a>424. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot425"></a>425. Spingarn, I, 28-29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot426"></a>426. Ded to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot427"></a>427. Smith, II, 306.</p> + +<p><a name="foot428"></a>428. Spingarn, I, 67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot429"></a>429. Spingarn, I, 117-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot430"></a>430. A.H. Tieje, <i>Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction Prior to</i> +1740 (Minneapolis, 1916), p. 14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot431"></a>431. Spingarn, I, 186-187.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance +by Donald Lemen Clark + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + +***** This file should be named 10140-h.htm or 10140-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/4/10140/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance + A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism + +Author: Donald Lemen Clark + +Release Date: November 19, 2003 [EBook #10140] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance</h1> + +<h2>A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism</h2> + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">By</p> + +<h2 class="author">Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.<br /> +Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University</h2> + +<p align="center">1922</p> + + + + +<p align="center" style="margin: 2em">To my Father and Mother</p> + + + + +<h2>Preface</h2> + + + +<p>In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on +the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This +influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance +writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric. +But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical +thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the +present day.</p> + +<p>The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of +rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part +Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of +poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but +by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical +terminology I have already touched on in an article on <i>The Requirements +of a Poet[<a href="#foot1">1</a>]</i>, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal +of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical +rhetoric.</p> + +<p>No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can +escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose <i>Literary +Criticism in the Renaissance</i> has so carefully traced the debt of English +criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by +many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my +own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement +what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention +to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am +able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were +profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these +mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and +that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and +less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not +lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism.</p> + +<p>In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in +modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For +quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case +of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the +<i>Elizabethan Critical Essays</i> edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the +<i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn, +I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a +practice would add to the convenience of the reader.</p> + +<p>The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of +acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia +University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided +me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously +allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English +rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly +and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to +Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond +M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard +and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is +to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration, +enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book +possible.</p> + + + + +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + +<p><b>Part First: </b> <a href="#1">The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#1-1">Introductory</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-1-1">The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-2">Classical Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-2-1">Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-2">"Longinus"</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-3">Plutarch</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-2-4">Horace</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-3">Classical Rhetoric</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-3-1">Definitions</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-2">Subject Matter</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-3">Content of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-4">Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-3-5">Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-4">Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-4-1">The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-2">The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-3">The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-4-4">The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-5">The Middle Ages</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-5-1">The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-5-2">Rhetoric as Aureate Language</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-6">Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-6-1">The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-2">The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-3">The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-6-4">Channels of Rhetorical Theory</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-7">Renaissance Poetic</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-7-1">The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-7-2">Rhetorical Elements</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#1-8">Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#1-8-1">The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-2">The Influence of Horace</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-3">The Influence of Aristotle</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-4">Manuals for Poets</a></li> + <li><a href="#1-8-5">Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + + +<p><b>Part Second:</b> <a href="#2">The Purpose of Poetry</a></p> + + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#2-1">The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-1-1">General</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-2">Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-3">Moral Improvement through Allegory</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-1-4">The Influence of Rhetoric</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-2">Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-2-1">Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-2-2">Allegory in Mediaeval England</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-3">Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose + of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-3-1">The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-3-2">The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</a></li> + </ol> + </li> + + <li><a href="#2-4">English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</a> + <ol style="list-style-type: decimal"> + <li><a href="#2-4-1">Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-2">Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</a></li> + <li><a href="#2-4-3">The Displacement of Allegory by Example</a></li> + </ol> + </li> +</ol> + + +<p><a href="#index">Index of Names</a></p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="1"></a>Part One<br /> + +The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +Introductory</h3> + + + +<p>By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly +movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the +historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the +renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the +Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule +the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The +interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the +English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This +tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have +shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical +writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries +and original treatises of Italian scholars.</p> + +<p>The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely +discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is +known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English +renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics +to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval +development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will +be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its +development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in +the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to +show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English +renaissance.</p> + +<p>As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a +new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories +were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of +this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas +Wilson's <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's <i>Timber</i> in +1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical +theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence +first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of +Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English +criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories +of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology, +not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but +through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric. +The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical +theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an +inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages. +Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far +into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry +use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This +rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some +extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the +influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian +critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the +mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-1-1"></a>1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the <i>Rhetoric</i> and +the <i>Poetics</i>. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical +consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his +mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps, +but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical +basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the +classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly +what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace +the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in +the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in +the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry +contained many elements which historically derive from classical and +mediaeval rhetoric.</p> + +<p>Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical +critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in +addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in +separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of +history were composed in verse, they would still be something different +from poetry.[<a href="#foot2">2</a>] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings +are like those of the poets.[<a href="#foot3">3</a>] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric +against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like +that of the poets.[<a href="#foot4">4</a>] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some +fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a +difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of +ignoring.</p> + +<p>If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of +communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry +second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one +reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry +to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a +modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared +with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry.</p> + +<p>To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a +pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an +audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had +learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work +up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize +this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and +harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined +by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the +schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn.</p> + +<p>In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of +poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed +that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be +poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained. +Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and +Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching +of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did +rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch, +the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the +renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring +to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and +of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their +purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion, +therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in +Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The +object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between +nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is +to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the +other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because +also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better +understood.</p> + +<p>The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic +appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric +deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a +defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the +deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals +with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary +critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized +that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far +the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to +characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it +does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical +unity and movement.</p> + +<p>It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in +the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description +of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an +aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric +deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also +with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and +dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most +important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the +ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises +on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the +technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on +versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern +developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in +this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much +more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood +that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical +rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic.</p> + +<p>Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric +and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative +literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that +the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The +fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is +usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to +them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel, +who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete +and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect, +asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[<a href="#foot5">5</a>] He thus +advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the +Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has +in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence +of poetry is fiction.[<a href="#foot6">6</a>] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce +differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written +in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what +he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the +other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[<a href="#foot7">7</a>] Similar +to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and +intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and +practical.[<a href="#foot8">8</a>] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of +writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[<a href="#foot9">9</a>]</p> + +<p>In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation +between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the +traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical +study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between +rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Classical Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-1"></a>1. Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>A survey of what Aristotle includes in his <i>Poetics</i>, what he excludes, +and what he ignores, will be a helpful initial step in an investigation of +what he meant by poetic. Five kinds of poetry are mentioned by name in the +<i>Poetics</i>: epic, dramatic, dithyrambic, nomic, and satiric; and lyric is +included by implication as a form of epic, where the poet narrates in his +own person.[<a href="#foot10">10</a>]</p> + +<p>The choruses, also, are lyric. Otherwise Aristotle does not discuss lyric +poetry. Of the other five kinds, nomic, dithyrambic, and satiric poetry +are mentioned only as illustrative of something Aristotle wishes to say +about epic or drama. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> discusses only epic and, +especially, drama. Thus of the twenty-six books into which the <i>Poetics</i> +is conventionally divided, five are devoted to the general theory of +poetry, three to diction, two to epic, and sixteen to drama. Although +Aristotle includes dithyrambic, nomic, satiric, and lyric poetry in his +discussion, he practically ignores them.</p> + +<p>On the other hand he specifically excludes from poetry such scientific +works as those of Empedocles and historical writings as those of +Herodotus.[<a href="#foot11">11</a>] The rhetorical element in the speeches of the characters of +drama or epic, Aristotle calls Thought (διάνια). Although +Aristotle includes Thought as an element in drama, he does not discuss it +in the <i>Poetics</i>, but refers his reader to the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Metrics, which +occupies so large a place in modern treatises on the theory of poetry, +Aristotle likewise mentions several times, but does not discuss. A +metrical structure he accepts as the usual practice in poetical +composition, but he rejects verse as the distinguishing mark of poetic. +Thus he refuses to classify as poetry the scientific writings which +Empedocles had composed in meter as well as the histories of Herodotus, +even if he had written them in verse. On the other hand, the mimes of +Sophron and Xenarchus, although composed in prose, he considers within the +scope of poetic.[<a href="#foot12">12</a>]</p> + +<p>If to Aristotle, then, verse is not the characteristic quality of poetic, +the next step in an investigation must be to discover the criterion by +which he classifies some literature as poetry and other as not poetry. The +characteristic quality, according to Aristotle, which is possessed by the +Socratic dialogs, by the Homeric epics, and by the dramas of Aeschylus, +Sophocles, and Euripides, and which classifies them together as poetic, is +not verse but <i>mimesis</i>, imitation.[<a href="#foot13">13</a>] Exactly what Aristotle meant by +imitation has furnished subsequent critics with an excuse for writing many +volumes. The usual meaning of the word to the Greek, as to the modern, +seems to be little more than an aping or mimicking. Aristotle himself uses +imitate in this sense when he speaks of the delight children take in +imitation.[<a href="#foot14">14</a>] But in establishing imitation as the criterion of poetic, +Aristotle seems to have injected something of a private, or at least a +special scientific meaning into the word. As the characteristic quality of +poetic, imitation to Aristotle evidently did not mean a literal copy. +Plato had attacked poetry as unreal, a thrice-removed imitation of the +only true reality. To defend poetic against the strictures of his master +Aristotle reads more into the word than that.</p> + +<p>In discovering what Aristotle had in mind when he speaks of imitation, the +student must read from one treatise to another, for few writers of any +period are so addicted to the habit of cross-reference. In the +<i>Psychology</i> Aristotle states that all stimuli received by the senses at +the moment of perception are impressed upon the mind as in wax. The images +held by the image-forming faculty are thus the after effect of sensation. +These images remain and may be recalled by the image-forming faculty. From +this store-house of images, or after effects of sensation, the reasoning +faculty derives the materials for thought as well as those for artistic +expression.[<a href="#foot15">15</a>] Imagination evidently has much to do with Aristotle's +conception of the nature of poetic. Imitation, then, to him, meant a +conscious selection and plastic mastery of the sense impressions stored as +images by the image-forming faculty of the author, whose writings are +addressed to the imagination of the reader or auditor. Furthermore, +Butcher's interpretation of "imitation of nature" seems both sound and +suggestive. According to him the imitation of nature is the imitation of +nature's ways. In this sense the act of the poet may well be called +creation.</p> + +<p>As imitative arts Aristotle mentions poetry, dancing, music, and painting. +They differ, he says, in their medium, objects, and manner. Poetry, +dancing, and music he classifies together because they use the similar +media of rhythm, language, or harmony either singly or combined. Music, +for instance, uses both rhythm and harmony, dancing uses rhythm alone, and +poetry uses language alone. Aristotle by this does not, as might seem, +exclude rhythm and harmony from poetry. Indeed, he states explicitly that +most forms of poetry do use all of the media mentioned: rhythm, tune, and +meter. He is only insisting that imitation in unmetrical language is still +poetry; that meter is not the characteristic element of poetic.[<a href="#foot16">16</a>] It is +important to recognize that in classifying poetry with music and dancing, +Aristotle is insisting that the common element in these arts is movement. +Movement is characteristic of poetry, as color and form are characteristic +of painting and sculpture. Thus in discussing the plot of tragedy, which +he holds to be the highest and most characteristic form of poetry, +Aristotle urges the necessity of unity and magnitude, both of which he +defines in terms not of space relations, but of movement. For instance, to +possess unity a plot must have a beginning, a middle and an end.</p> + +<blockquote> A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal + necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An + end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other + thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. + A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows + it.[<a href="#foot17">17</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore, the magnitude which this dramatic movement should possess is +also discussed not in terms of bulk, but of length.</p> + +<blockquote> As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms, a certain + magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced in + one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a length + which can easily be embraced by the memory.[<a href="#foot18">18</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is noteworthy that to Aristotle the characteristic movement of poetic +depends on the dramatic unity and progression of a dramatic action, a +plot. In the <i>Rhetoric</i> he shows that the arrangement of the movement of a +speech is governed by entirely different considerations. The unity of +rhetoric is not dramatic, but logical. The order of the parts of a speech +is determined not by a plot, but by the needs of presentation to an +audience. For instance, a statement of the case is given first, and then +the proof is marshalled.</p> + +<p>The objects of poetic imitation, Aristotle says, are character, emotion, +and deed, i.e., men in action,[<a href="#foot19">19</a>] inanimate nature and the life of dumb +animals being subordinate to these. The manner of imitating, if poetic, +Aristotle says is either narrative or dramatic. Under the narrative manner +he includes lyric, where the speaker expresses himself in the first +person, and epic, where the speaker tells his story in the third person. +In the dramatic manner he says that the characters are made to live and +move before us.[<a href="#foot20">20</a>]</p> + +<p>Answering Plato's charge that poetic is not real, Aristotle erects the +distinction between the real and the actual, claiming a reality for poetic +which is not the actuality of science or of practical affairs. It is thus +that he distinguishes the poet from the historian: although the historian +also uses images, he is restricted to relating what has happened--that is, +to fact; while the poet relates what should happen--what is possible +according to the law of probability or necessity. Instead of rehearsing +facts, the dramatist or the epic poet creates truth. We expect him to be +"true to life," and that is what is implied in Aristotle's "imitation of +nature."[<a href="#foot21">21</a>] This truth to life controls, according to Aristotle, both +the characterization and the action. In the first place</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry tends to express the universal--how a person of a certain type + will on occasion speak or act according to the law of probability or + necessity.[<a href="#foot22">22</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls +the structure of a narrative or dramatic plot in that, "what follows +should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action,"[<a href="#foot23">23</a>] +even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to +improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational +premise in an action may seem probable provided that the conclusion is +logical and made to seem real.[<a href="#foot24">24</a>] For instance, the irrational elements +in the Odyssey "are presented to the imagination with such vividness and +coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like +truth."[<a href="#foot25">25</a>] Such a result occurs only when the characters and action are +made real. We believe that which we see, even though we know in our hearts +that it is not so.</p> + +<p>How important Aristotle feels it to be that the spectator or reader should +see before him the characters and situations of an epic or drama is +evinced by his suggestion to the poet on the process of composing. The +author, he says, should visualize the situations he is presenting, working +out the appropriate gestures, for he who feels emotion is best at +transmitting it to an audience.[<a href="#foot26">26</a>] It is only when the poet thus +completely realizes his characters and situations that the audience can be +induced to feel sympathetically the pity and fear which produces the +<i>katharsis</i>, so important a result of successful tragedy. If human beings +did not possess that tendency to feel within themselves the emotions of +the people on the stage, they would be unable to experience vicariously +the fear animating the tragic hero. Thus tragedy, which is the type of all +poetic, depends vitally, according to Aristotle, on imaginative +realization.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-2"></a>2. "Longinus"</h4> + + +<p>Aristotle's theory of poetry, which influenced so profoundly the criticism +of the renaissance, was not followed by other classical treatises of the +same scope. In fact, very little Greek or Roman literary criticism is +concerned with poetical theory as compared with the keen interest of many +critics in oratory. Perhaps the most significant and valuable critical +treatise after Aristotle is that golden pamphlet <i>On the Sublime</i> +erroneously ascribed to Longinus, which, anonymous and mutilated as it is, +still holds our attention by its sincerity, insight, and enthusiastic love +for great poetry.</p> + +<p>However important its contribution to classical theory of poetry, the +treatise is not specifically on poetic. In fact, it sets out as if to +treat rhetoric, and actually treats both; for it is mainly a treatise on +style, which as Aristotle says in the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot27">27</a>] is in essence the same +both in prose and verse. Nevertheless it does distinguish between rhetoric +and poetic and does contribute to the theory of poetry.[<a href="#foot28">28</a>]</p> + +<p>"<i>Sublimitas</i>," misleadingly translated "sublimity," the author defines +as elevation and greatness of style. It springs from the faculty of +grasping great conceptions and from passion, both gifts of nature. It is +assisted by art through the appropriate use of figures, noble diction, and +dignified and spirited composition of the words into sentences. It is the +insistence on passion, emotion, which makes the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> +stand out above other classical treatises on writing. Both poets and +orators attain the sublime, says the author, but passion is more +characteristic of the poets.[<a href="#foot29">29</a>]</p> + +<p>Passion moves the poet to intensity, which is attained by selection of +those sensory images which are significant. Thus the treatise praises the +ode by Sappho which it quotes, because the poet has taken the emotions +incident to the frenzy of love from the attendant symptoms, from +actuality, and first selected and then closely combined those which were +conspicuous and intense.[<a href="#foot30">30</a>] This intensity which is characteristic of the +poet he contrasts with the amplification of the orators, which strengthens +the fabric of an argument by insistence and is especially "appropriate in +perorations and digressions, and in all passages written for the style and +for display, in writings of historical and scientific nature." Yet +Demosthenes when moved by passion attains the sublimity of intensity and +strikes like lightning.[<a href="#foot31">31</a>] Both in oratory and in poetry sublimity is +attained by image-making, as when "moved by enthusiasm and passion, you +seem to see the things of which you speak, and place them under the eyes +of your hearers."[<a href="#foot32">32</a>] It would be difficult to phrase better the +conditions of imaginative realization. But the author felt truly that +this realization was different in poetry from what it was in rhetoric. In +commenting on a quotation from the <i>Orestes</i>, of Euripides, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> There the poet saw the Furies with his own eyes, and what his + imagination presented he almost compelled his hearers to behold.</blockquote> + +<p>And after an imaginative passage from the lost <i>Phaethon</i>, of the same +author, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Would you not say that the soul of the writer treads the car with the + driver, and shares the peril, and wears wings as the horses do?</blockquote> + +<p>From this the rhetorical imagination differs in that it is at its best +when it has fact for its object.[<a href="#foot33">33</a>] Longinus would seem to say that the +realization of poetic is untrammeled by fact, while the imagination of the +orator is bound by the actual; it is always practical.</p> + +<p>Because the imaginative realization of poetry is characterized by passion, +intensity, and immediacy, the author of the treatise feels with Aristotle +that the dramatic is the most characteristically poetic. On this basis he +judges the <i>Odyssey</i> to be less great than the <i>Iliad</i>. It is narrative +instead of dramatic; fable prevails over action; passion has degenerated +into character-drawing. This grouping of drama, action, and passion as the +qualities of great poetry is significant. Bald narrative can never realize +character or situation as can the dramatic form, either in narrative or +for the stage, when the whole action takes place before the mind's eye +instead of being told.</p> + +<p>The treatise makes this point exceedingly clear by two quotations which +bear repeating.</p> + +<p>"The author of the <i>Arimaspeia</i> thinks these lines terrible:</p> + +<blockquote> "Here too, is mighty marvel for our thought:<br /> +'Mid seas men dwell, on water, far from land:<br /> +Wretches they are, for sorry toil is theirs;<br /> +Eyes on the stars, heart on the deep they fix;<br /> +Oft to the gods, I ween, their hands are raised;<br /> +Their inward parts in evil case upheaved.</blockquote> + +<p>"Anyone, I think, will see that there is more embroidery than terror in it +all. Now for Homer:</p> + +<blockquote> "As when a wave by the wild wind's blore<br /> +Down from the clouds upon a ship doth light,<br /> +And the whole hulk with scattering foam is white,<br /> +And through the sails all tattered and forlorn<br /> +Roars the fell blast: the seamen with affright<br /> +Shake, and from death a hand-breadth they are borne."[<a href="#foot34">34</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The first quoted passage is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk +about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the +situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and +hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and shake with the +frightened sailors.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-3"></a>3. Plutarch</h4> + + +<p>But judgments like those of the appreciative and discerning author of the +treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> are rare. Plutarch in his essay <i>On the Reading +of Poets</i>, is much more representative of late Greek criticism. This essay +is not a treatise on the theory of poetry, but a thoughtful discussion of +the place of poetry in the education of young men. Consequently the +greater part of the essay is devoted to the moral purpose of poetry, and +as such will be treated in the second section of this study. Two points, +however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical +imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting.</p> + +<p>The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To +Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. +"While poetry is based on imitations ... it does not resign the likeness +of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[<a href="#foot35">35</a>] As a +result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical +material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things +are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, +just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of +its loathsome subject, is praised for its art.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which +led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was +a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent +poetry."[<a href="#foot36">36</a>] The false analogy, "<i>ut pictura poesis</i>," establishing, as it +does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until +Lessing exposed it in his <i>Laocoon</i>. Aristotle at the beginning had made +clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which +could have a beginning, a middle, and an end.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-2-4"></a>4. Horace</h4> + + +<p>The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are +the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a <i>poetic</i>; +it is an <i>ars poetica</i>. <i>Ars</i>, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a +practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner +himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its +philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to +become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He +says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found +of assistance."</p> + +<p>In structure, also, the <i>ars poetica</i> is not a critical analysis, but a +text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental +considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to +compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so +that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; +he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter.</p> + +<p>The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to +line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing +of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the +most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are +between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in +that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his +emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace +says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin <i>ab ovo</i> but +plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says +much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be +animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be +made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for +instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden +anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of +the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns +his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and +the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode +presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having +taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they +offend.</p> + +<p>The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is +good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is +appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. +Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript +carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a +sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem +will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. +If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his +work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A +poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better +advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his +"<i>ut pictura poesis</i>" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts +as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely.</p> + +<p>Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here +treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the +early renaissance. Just what the influence of the <i>Ars poetica</i> was and +why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Classical Rhetoric</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-1"></a>1. Definitions</h4> + + +<p>The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is +reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical +orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric +can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. +The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. +In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical +theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his +whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there +were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for +their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the <i>Rhetoric ad +Alexandrum</i>, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated +in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek +text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's +rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through +the influence of his <i>Rhetoric</i> and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus +set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct +from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, +but briefer.</p> + + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">Definitions</p> + +<p>"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering +all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[<a href="#foot37">37</a>]</p> + +<p>He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he +believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring +him to as high a point of health as possible."[<a href="#foot38">38</a>] Neither medicine nor +rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always +something incalculable.</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that +the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available +means of persuasion,[<a href="#foot39">39</a>] his successors were more direct, if less +accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is +persuasion,[<a href="#foot40">40</a>] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the +artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[<a href="#foot41">41</a>] But the +anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. +Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by +defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of +the audience as far as possible."[<a href="#foot42">42</a>] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is +that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the +assent of his audience.[<a href="#foot43">43</a>] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes +a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as +the <i>ars bene dicendi</i>, or good public speech.[<a href="#foot44">44</a>] Here the <i>bene</i> implies +not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception +the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times +when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to +persuade would be dishonorable.[<a href="#foot45">45</a>] Quintilian's precepts, however, are +more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself +throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible +means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that +the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-2"></a>2. Subject Matter</h4> + + +<p>If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion +as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[<a href="#foot46">46</a>] +says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made +persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and +successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was +almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were +or were not so, or persuading a deliberative assembly that this or that +should or should not be done. Consequently Hermagoras defines the subject +matter of rhetoric as "public questions," Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as +"communal affairs," and the <i>Ad Herennium</i> as "whatever in customs or laws +is to the public benefit."[<a href="#foot47">47</a>] The same influence caused Cicero in his +youthful <i>De inventione</i> to classify rhetoric as part of political +science,[<a href="#foot48">48</a>] and in the <i>De oratore</i> to make Antonius restrict rhetoric to +public and communal affairs,[<a href="#foot49">49</a>] although in another section he returns to +Aristotle's "any subject" as the material of rhetoric[<a href="#foot50">50</a>] as does +Quintilian later.[<a href="#foot51">51</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Aristotle did state in his definition that any subject was the +material of rhetoric, in his classification of the varieties of speeches +he practically restricts rhetoric as did Hermagoras, Dionysius, and the +<i>Ad Herennium</i>; for here he finds but three kinds of oratory: the +deliberative, the forensic, and the occasional, ἐπιδεικτικός. +Forensic oratory he defines as that of the law court; deliberative, of the +senate or public assembly; and occasional, of eulogy and congratulation. +Perhaps the most illustrative modern examples of the third would be +Fourth-of-July addresses, funeral sermons, and appreciative articles or +lectures. Aristotle suggests that exaggeration is most appropriate to the +style of occasional oratory; for as the facts are taken for granted, it +remains only to invest them with grandeur and dignity.[<a href="#foot52">52</a>]</p> + +<p>Occasional oratory seems to have given no little concern to the classical +rhetoricians. Since it existed to adorn an occasion, it had to be +considered; but unlike the oratory of the forum or of the council chamber +it was not primarily practical. Quintilian comments on this; for it seems +to aim almost exclusively at gratifying its hearers,[<a href="#foot53">53</a>] in this respect +resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but +pleasure.[<a href="#foot54">54</a>] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those +of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective +"literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[<a href="#foot55">55</a>] +Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from +the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it +were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently he +declines to classify this form of oratory separately, reducing +Aristotle's three kinds of oratory to two. It is valuable, to his mind, as +the wet-nurse of the young orator, who enlarges his vocabulary and learns +composition from its practice.[<a href="#foot56">56</a>] Aristotle includes it in rhetoric; for +in its field of eulogy, panegyric, felicitation, and congratulation, it +too uses the available means of persuasion to prove some person or thing +praiseworthy or the reverse.[<a href="#foot57">57</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-3"></a>3. Content of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Classical rhetoricians commonly divided their subject into five parts. +This analysis of rhetoric into <i>inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria</i>, +and <i>pronuntiatio</i> is to all intents and purposes universal in classical +rhetoric and must be understood to give one a valid idea of its +content.[<a href="#foot58">58</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, so often lazily mistranslated as "invention," is +the art of exploring the material to discover all the arguments which may +be brought to bear in support of a proposition and in refutation of the +opposing arguments. It includes the study of arguments and fallacies; and +is that part of rhetoric which is closest neighbor to logic. The kinds of +argument treated in the classical rhetoric were two: the enthymeme, or +rhetorical syllogism; and the rhetorical induction or example. In the +practice of rhetoric <i>inventio</i> was thus the solidest and most important +element. It included all of what to-day we might call "working up the +case." <i>Dispositio</i> is the art of arranging the material gathered for +presentation to an audience. Aristotle insists that the essential parts of +a speech are but two: the statement and the proof. At most it may have +four: the <i>ex ordium</i>, or introduction; the <i>narratio</i>, or statement of +facts; the <i>confirmatio</i>, or proof proper, both direct and refutative; and +the <i>peroratio</i>, or conclusion.[<a href="#foot59">59</a>] This is the characteristic movement of +rhetoric, which, as is readily seen, is quite different from the plot +movement of poetic.[<a href="#foot60">60</a>] The parts are capable of further analysis. +Consequently most writers of the classical period subdivide the proof +proper into <i>probatio</i>, or affirmative proof, and <i>refutatio</i>, or +refutation.[<a href="#foot61">61</a>] And the <i>Ad Herennium</i> adds a <i>divisio</i>, which defines the +issues, between the statement of facts and the proof.[<a href="#foot62">62</a>] Cassiodorus +divides the speech into six parts[<a href="#foot63">63</a>] and so does Martianus Capella.[<a href="#foot64">64</a>] +Thomas Wilson (1553) offers seven.[<a href="#foot65">65</a>]</p> + +<p>The third part of rhetoric is <i>elocutio</i>, or style, the choice and +arrangement of words in a sentence. Quintilian's treatment of style is +typical. Words should be chosen which are in good use, clear, elegant, and +appropriate. The sentences should be grammatically correct, artistically +arranged, and adorned with such figures as antithesis, irony, and +metaphor.[<a href="#foot66">66</a>] Correctness is usually presupposed by the rhetoricians. To +the sound of sentences all classical treatises give an attention that +seems amazing if we forget that in Greece and Rome all literature was +spoken or read aloud. The sentence or period was considered more +rhythmically than logically, and subdivided in speech into rhythmical +parts called commas and cola. The end of the sentence was to be marked not +by a printer's sign, but by the falling cadence of the rhythm itself. +Furthermore, great care should be taken to avoid hiatus between words, as +when the first word ends and the word following begins with a vowel. But +the glory of style to the classical rhetorician lay in its use of figures. +Here rhetoric vindicated its practicality by a preoccupation with the +impractical; and here, as in analysis, rhetoric bore the seeds of its own +decay. Although Aristotle devoted relatively little space to the +rhetorical figures, later treatises emphasized them more and more until in +post-classical and in mediaeval rhetoric little else is discussed. The +figures of course had to be classified. First there were the <i>figurae +verborum</i>, or figures of language, which sought agreeable sounds alone or +in combination, such as antitheses, rhymes, and assonances. Then the +<i>figurae sententiarum</i>, or figures of thought, such as rhetorical +questions, hints, and exclamations.[<a href="#foot67">67</a>] Quintilian classifies as tropes +words or phrases converted from their proper signification to another. +Among these are metaphor, irony, and allegory. In our day we consider as +figures of speech only the classical tropes, and indeed Aristotle pays +little attention to the others. He says that in prose one should use only +literal names of things, and metaphors, or tropes[<a href="#foot68">68</a>]--which therefore are +not literal names but substituted names. For instance in this metaphor, +which Aristotle quotes from Homer, "The arrow flew,"[<a href="#foot69">69</a>] "flew" is not the +literal word to express the idea. Only birds fly, reminds the practical +person. Max Eastman has pertinently called attention to the fact that it +is only to rhetoric, which is a practical activity, that these figures are +indirect expressions, or substituted names. Apostrophe is not a turning +away in poetic, because in poetic there is no argument to turn away from. +Rather in poetic it is a turning toward the essential images of +realization, as metaphor in poetic is direct, not indirect, because in +poetic a word that suggests the salient parts or qualities of things will +always stand out over the general names of things.[<a href="#foot70">70</a>]</p> + +<p>The last two parts of rhetoric, <i>memoria</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>, are really +not permanent parts of rhetoric, but only of the rhetoric of spoken +address. <i>Memoria</i>, the art of memory, did not mean to the Greeks and +Romans the art of learning by heart a written speech, but rather the art +of keeping ready for use a fund of argumentative material, together with +the features of the case which the speaker might be pleading. The +discussion of it in the treatises is usually an exposition of the mnemonic +system of visual association, the discovery of which is ascribed to +Simonides. Cicero deliberately leaves a discussion of <i>memoria</i> out of his +<i>Orator</i>, because as he says, it is common to many arts;[<a href="#foot71">71</a>] and the Dutch +scholar Vossius in the renaissance denied that it was a part of +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot72">72</a>] <i>Pronuntiatio</i>, or delivery, has also been found hardly an +integral part of rhetoric. It is concerned with the use both of the voice +and of gesture. Quintilian, for instance, records the effectiveness of +clinging to the judge's knees, or of bringing into the court room the +weeping child of the accused.[<a href="#foot73">73</a>] Aristotle discusses only the use of the +voice.[<a href="#foot74">74</a>]</p> + +<p>Thus classical rhetoric was almost exclusively restricted to the +practical oratory of persuasion. In the republics of Greece and Rome a +mastery of rhetoric gave its possessor political power; for by persuasive +public speech a public man could gain a following by defending his clients +in the law courts, and influence the destinies of the state by his +deliberations in the legislative assembly. As long as these republican +institutions prevailed, the theory and practice of rhetoric continued to +be sound and practical.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-4"></a>4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Implicit in Aristotle and throughout classical literary criticism there is +a clear-cut distinction between poetic and rhetoric. Aside from the +metrical form of poetic, accepted by all but Aristotle as a distinguishing +characteristic, and the non-metrical form of rhetoric, the essentially +practical nature of rhetoric marked it off to the Greeks and Romans as +something quite different from poetic and infinitely more important in +education and public life. But however clear-cut this distinction may be +in principle, in practical application there is rarely to be found such +ideal isolation.</p> + +<p>Aristotle, for instance, carries rhetoric bodily over into poetic by +including Thought, διάνοιᾰ, as the third in importance of the +constituent elements of tragedy.[<a href="#foot75">75</a>] This Thought is the intellectual +element in conduct, and in drama is embodied not in action, but in +speech.[<a href="#foot76">76</a>] Aristotle says,</p> + +<blockquote> It is the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given + circumstances. In the case of oratory, this is the function of the + political art and of the art of rhetoric. Concerning thought, we may + assume what is said in the <i>Rhetoric</i>, to which inquiry the subject more + properly belongs. Under thought is included every effect which has to be + produced by speech, the subdivisions being--proof and refutation; the + excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger and the like; the + suggestion of importance or its opposite.[<a href="#foot77">77</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This is a transfer of the content of rhetoric to poetic, but poetic +remains an art of imitation. Imaginative realization of the life of man +would be incomplete if the characters in a narrative or in a drama did not +use the same rhetorical art as do the characters of actual life. The poets +justly carry over rhetoric when the scene demands it, and have often +proved themselves excellent rhetoricians. Quintilian praises the +peroration of Priam's speech begging Achilles for the body of Hector,[<a href="#foot78">78</a>] +and Cicero gives a rhetorical analysis of the speech of the old man in the +<i>Andria</i> of Terence, where the arrangement is especially appropriate to +the character of the speaker.[<a href="#foot79">79</a>] Norden, therefore, seems to go too far +in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.[<a href="#foot80">80</a>] +Dante remains an excellent poet when he puts into the mouth of Virgil that +persuasive speech to Cato in the first canto of the <i>Purgatorio</i>. Antony's +speech in <i>Julius Caesar</i> is the best known modern example of the +legitimate place of rhetoric in poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-3-5"></a>5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Just as rhetoric is justly carried over into poetic when in the +realization of a character or situation a speech must be made or conduct +rationalized, so poetic is constantly utilized by the orator. Public +speech would be less persuasive if the characteristic imaginative +qualities of poetic were excluded. The ideas and propositions of rhetoric +would most ineffectually reach an audience if they were not made vivid. +That rhetoric is not thus made synonymous with poetic is due to the fact +that in rhetoric the images exist to illuminate the concept, while in +poetic they are woven into the movement of the plot. Oratory, like poetry, +is emotional, as Longinus asserts.[<a href="#foot81">81</a>] Cicero phrases the aim of the +orator as "docere, delectare, et movere," to prove, to delight, to move +emotionally.[<a href="#foot82">82</a>] The vividness and emotion, as well as the charm, of +poetic are indispensable in attaining the ultimate aim of rhetoric-- +persuasion. The orator must be himself moved, according to Quintilian,[<a href="#foot83">83</a>] +just as the poet, according to Aristotle.[<a href="#foot84">84</a>] That essential quality, +indeed, of poetic, the realization of character and situation which +presents vividly a situation or event to the mind's eye of the reader or +hearer so that he seems to participate in the action and vicariously live +through it, was incorporated into rhetoric as ἐνέγεια, a figure +of speech. There petrified in an alien substance, this characteristic +quality of poetic was transmitted to another age which knew of it through +no other source.[<a href="#foot85">85</a>] Thus a successful orator narrated with descriptive +vividness the circumstances, for instance, of a cruel murder, and even +dramatized, speaking now in the person of one actor, now of another, the +situation which he was endeavoring to realize for his audience. He was +thus enabled better to carry his audience with him to his ultimate goal of +persuasion.</p> + +<p>But though rhetoric might for the moment thus borrow poetic, and though +poetic might borrow rhetoric, the two remained distinct in the large, each +conceived as having its own movement, its composition, distinct from that +of the other.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-1"></a>1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style</h4> + + +<p>The coincidence of rhetoric and poetic is in style. They differ typically +in movement or composition; they have a common ground in diction. And in +this common ground each influenced the other from the beginning of +recorded criticism. Aristotle says, for example, that the ornate style of +the sophists, such as Gorgias, has its origin in the poets,[<a href="#foot86">86</a>] while the +modern student, Norden, asserts that the poets learned from the +sophists.[<a href="#foot87">87</a>] The evidence at least points to a very marked similarity +between the styles of the sophists and of the poets in the fourth century +B.C. This is well illustrated by the literary controversy between +Isocrates and Alcidamas, both sophists and both students of the famous +Gorgias. Alcidamas reproaches Isocrates because his discourses, so +elaborately worked out with polished diction, are more akin to poetry than +to prose. Isocrates cheerfully admits the accusation, and prides himself +on the fact, affirming that his listeners take as much pleasure in his +discourses as in poems.[<a href="#foot88">88</a>]</p> + +<p>That there are characteristic differences in style between rhetoric and +poetic Aristotle justly shows when he asserts that while metaphor is +common to both, it is more essential to poetic. Consequently in the +<i>Rhetoric</i> he refers to the <i>Poetics</i> for a fuller discussion of +metaphor.[<a href="#foot89">89</a>] At the same time he says that metaphor deserves great +attention in prose because prose lacks other poetical adornment. +Furthermore, epithets and compound words are appropriate to verse but not +to prose. And though both verse and oratorical prose should be rhythmical, +a set rhythm, a meter, is appropriate only to verse.[<a href="#foot90">90</a>]</p> + +<p>A distinction between the style of poetic and of rhetoric similar to that +of Aristotle is maintained by Cicero, but the distinction was losing its +sharpness. In the <i>Orator</i> he considers the orator and the poet as similar +in style, but not identical. Formerly rhythm and meter were the +distinguishing marks of the poet, but the orators in his days, he says, +made increasing use of rhythm. Meter is a vice in an orator and should be +shunned. The poet has greater license in compounding and inventing words. +Both prose and verse, he adds, may be characterized by brilliant imagery +and headlong sweep.[<a href="#foot91">91</a>] The only essential difference between Cicero's +treatment of style and that of Aristotle is that whereas Aristotle had +shown imagery to be an integral part of poetic, Cicero felt it both in +poetic and in rhetoric to be superadded as a decoration. Whether or not +this difference was caused by lack of discrimination on the part of +Cicero, his position was at least in line with a tendency which in later +criticism received increasing development. Both the poet and the orator, +he says, use the same methods of ornament,[<a href="#foot92">92</a>] and the orator uses almost +the language of poetry.[<a href="#foot93">93</a>] And again, in a phrase which was taken up and +repeated for fifteen hundred years, the poets are nearest kin to the +orators.[<a href="#foot94">94</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-2"></a>2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>But the public interest in style was increasingly comparable to that in +athletic agility. As Socrates applauded the dancing girl who leaped +through the dagger-studded hoop,[<a href="#foot95">95</a>] the popular audience of imperial Rome +was delighted at a clever turn of speech, a surprising rhythm, or a +startling comparison. Literary study of style in occasional oratory must +have been extensive and extravagant at a very early date, to judge by the +rebukes of such practical speakers as Alcidamas. Moreover, such stylistic +artifice as was practiced and taught by Gorgias, Isocrates, and other +sophists crept into tragedy, says Norden, beginning with Agathon.[<a href="#foot96">96</a>] The +result was that with the poets style became as it had become with the +sophists, an end in itself. The epideictic orators became less orators and +more poets, and the poets cultivated less the characteristic vividness and +movement of poetic than those turns of style which began in oratory.</p> + +<p>Thus it was very natural that the discussions of artistic prose in the +treatises of the later rhetoricians should be copiously illustrated by +quotations from the poets, and that the poets should, in turn, be +influenced in the direction of further sophistical niceties by the +rhetorical treatises on style, such as those of Demetrius and Dionysius of +Halicarnassus, who devoted whole treatises to style alone. The obsession +of style is well exemplified by a comparison of Dionysius and Longinus in +their discussion of Sappho's literary art. Longinus praises her passion, +and her masterful selection of images which realize it for the reader, +while Dionysius, no less enthusiastic, points out that in the ode which he +quotes there is not a single case of hiatus. Dionysius is here much the +more characteristic of his age, as he is in his belief that there is very +little difference indeed between prose and verse. Longinus, while showing +the relations of rhetoric and poetic, keeps the two apart; Dionysius draws +them together. To Dionysius the best prose is that which resembles verse +although not entirely in meter, and the best poetry that which resembles +beautiful prose. By this he means that the poet should use enjambment +freely and should vary the length and form of his clauses, so that the +sense should not uniformly conclude with the metrical line.[<a href="#foot97">97</a>] In this +regard he would approve of Shakespeare's later blank verse much more than +of his earlier because it is freer and more like conversation. Thus, to +Dionysius, the diction of prose and the diction of poetry approach each +other as a limit.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-3"></a>3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation School</h4> + + +<p>Later antiquity carried the mingling further in the same direction. As +time went on, the over-refinement and literary sophistication of the +florid school of oratory became more and more powerful. The puritan +reaction of the Roman Atticists in the direction of the simplicity of +Lysias defeated itself in over emphasis and ended in establishing coldness +and aridity as literary ideals. Such a jejune style could never hold a +Roman audience, and Cicero in theory and in practice took as model not +only Demosthenes, but also Isocrates. As Roman liberty was lost under the +Caesars, style very naturally assumed greater and greater importance. +Bornecque has shown that the strife of the forum and the genuine debates +of the senate no longer kept tough the sinews of public speech, and the +orators sank back in lassitude on the remaining harmless but unreal +occasional oratory and on the fictitious declamations of the schools.[<a href="#foot98">98</a>] +In these declamation schools under the Empire the boys debated such +imaginary questions as this: A reward is offered to one who shall kill a +tyrant. A. enters the palace and kills the tyrant's son, whereupon the +father commits suicide. Is A. entitled to the reward? In the repertory of +Lucian occurs a show piece on each side of this proposition. For two +hundred years there had been no pirates in the Mediterranean; yet in the +declamation schools pirates abounded, and questions turned upon points of +law which never existed or could exist in actual society. The favorite +cases concerned the tyranny of fathers, the debauchery of sons, the +adultery of wives, and the rape of daughters. In the procedure of the +declamation schools the boys arose and delivered their speeches with +frequent applause from the other students and from their parents. The +master would criticise the speeches and, when the students had finished, +would himself deliver a speech which was supposed to outshine those of his +pupils and give promise of what he could teach them.[<a href="#foot99">99</a>]</p> + +<p>The utter unreality and hollowness of such rhetoric could show itself no +better than in contrast with the practical oratory of the law courts. +Albucius, a famous professor of the schools, once pleaded a case in court. +Intending to amplify his peroration by a figure he said, "Swear, but I +will prescribe the oath. Swear by the ashes of your father, which lie +unburied. Swear by the memory of your father!" The attorney for the other +side, a practical man, rose--"My client is going to swear," he said. "But +I made no proposal," shouted Albucius, "I only employed a figure." The +court sustained his opponent, whose client swore, and Albucius retired in +shame to the more comfortable shades of the declamation schools, where +figures were appreciated.[<a href="#foot100">100</a>] But in spite of the ridiculous performance +of the professors of the schools when they did come out into the sunlight, +in spite of the protests of Tacitus who complained justly that debased +popular taste demanded poetical adornment of the orator,[<a href="#foot101">101</a>] style +continued to be loved for its own sake, extravagant figures of speech were +applauded, and verbal cleverness and point were strained for. As Bornecque +has shown, the fact that the rhetoric of the declamation schools was so +unreal, so preoccupied with imaginary cases, and so given over to +attainment of stylistic brilliancy, in no small measure explains the loss +in late Latin literature of the sense of structure. "It is not +surprising," says Bornecque, "that during the first three centuries of the +Christian era the sense of composition seems to have disappeared from +Latin literature."[<a href="#foot102">102</a>] Thus Quintilian lamented that in his day the well +constructed periods of Cicero appealed less to the perverted popular taste +than the brilliant but disjointed epigrams of Seneca.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-4-4"></a>4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>As style gained this preponderence in rhetoric, it continued to increase +its hold on poetic. While the rhetoricians were exemplifying from the +poets their schemes and tropes, their well joined words, "smooth, soft as +a maiden's face,"[<a href="#foot103">103</a>] the poets on their part were assiduously practicing +all the rhetorical devices of style. Thus the literature of the silver-age +is rhetorical. The custom of public readings by the author encouraged +clever writing and a declamatory manner,[<a href="#foot104">104</a>] even had the poets not +received their education in the only popular institutions of higher +instruction--the declamation schools. The fustian which passed for poetry +and equally well for history is well illustrated by the contempt of the +hard-headed Lucian for those historians who were unable to distinguish +history from poetry. "What!" he exclaims, "bedizen history like her +sister? As well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up +with purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his +cheeks; faugh, what an object one would make of him with such +defilements!"[<a href="#foot105">105</a>] But meretricious ornament was popular, and poets, +historians, and orators alike scrambled to see who could most adorn his +speech. Quintilian's pleas for the purer taste of a former age fell on +deaf ears, and despite his warnings orators imitated the style of the +poets, and the poets imitated the style of the orators.[<a href="#foot106">106</a>] Gorgias may +or may not have learned his style from the ancient poets of Greece, but +the poets of the silver age learned from the tribe of Gorgias.</p> + +<p>Not only did poetry and oratory suffer from the same bad taste in +straining for brilliance of style, but in practice, as Bornecque has +shown, both poetry and oratory suffered for lack of structure. The poets +paid so much attention to style that they neglected plot construction and +the vivid realization of character and situation. The orators paid so much +attention to style that they lost the art of composing sentences, and of +arranging sound arguments in such a way as to persuade an audience. In +effect there was a tendency for the late Latin writers to ignore those +elements of structure and movement wherein poetry and oratory most differ, +and stress unduly the elements of style wherein they have the most in +common. Indeed, so completely did any fundamental distinction between +poetic and rhetoric become blurred that in the second century Annaeus +Florus was able to offer as a debatable question, "Is Virgil an orator or +a poet?"[<a href="#foot107">107</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-5"></a>Chapter V<br /> + +The Middle Ages</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-1"></a>1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>The seven liberal arts of mediaeval education carried the blending almost +to the absorption of poetic by rhetoric, and the debasement of rhetoric +itself to a consideration of style alone.</p> + +<p>As for poetic, it had no distinct place except in the analyses of the +grammaticus, who from classical times had prepared boys for the schools of +rhetoric partly by analyzing with them the style of admirable passages. +These passages were commonly taken from the poets, whose art was thus +considered mainly as an art of words and applied to the art of the orator. +Consequently, as a result of this tradition, poetic in the middle ages was +commonly grouped with grammar or with rhetoric, although Isidore includes +it in his section on theology.[<a href="#foot108">108</a>]</p> + +<p>The rhetorical treatises of the middle ages exhibit two phases. On the one +hand the earlier post-classical treatises composed by Martianus Capella, +Cassiodorus, and Isidore, all inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin, are +fairly close to the classical tradition of Quintilian. Their weakness +consists not in that they restricted rhetoric to style, but in that their +whole treatment of rhetorical theory was compact, arid, and schematic. The +second phase of mediaeval rhetoric is characteristic of a geographical +position more remote from the center of classical culture. Thus it is in +the rhetorical treatises of England and Germany in the middle ages that +rhetoric was to the greatest extent restricted to a consideration of +style. Illustrative of this tendency is the fact that the only surviving +rhetorical work by the Venerable Bede is a treatise on the rhetorical +figures.</p> + +<p>But although the conventional study of rhetoric in such condensed +treatment as that of the sections in Martianus, Isidore, or Cassiodorus, +was definitely intrenched in the educational system of the seven liberal +arts, it had no vitality. In the first place these treatises gave only the +dry husks of rhetoric, the conventional analyses, the stock definitions. +In the second place rhetoric was little applied. The political life of +western Europe centered in the camp, not in the forum. The classical +tradition of trial by a large jury, as the Areopagus or the Centumviri, +had given place to trial before the regal or manorial court. Thus rhetoric +dried up and lost whatever reality it had possessed in imperial Rome.</p> + +<p>But if the middle ages had no opportunity to apply rhetoric in its +function of persuasion in communal affairs, they did have real need of an +art of writing letters and of preparing lay or ecclesiastical documents, +such as contracts, wills, and records, and of preaching sermons. Thus in +the teaching of the schools, as well as in practice, the oration gave +place to the epistle and dictamen. "Dictare" was to write letters or +prepare documents. And the rhetorical treatise or "<i>ars rhetorica</i>" often +yielded to the "<i>ars prosandi</i>," or the "<i>ars dictandi</i>."[<a href="#foot109">109</a>]</p> + +<p>A characteristic treatise of this sort is the <i>Poetria</i> of the Englishman +John of Garland (c. 1270). In his introductory chapter John explains that +he has divided the subject into seven parts:</p> + +<blockquote> First is explained the theory of invention; then the manner of selecting + material; third, the arrangement and the manner of ornamentation; next, + the parts of a dictamen; fifth, the faults in all kinds of composition + (dictandi); sixth is arranged a treatise concerning rhetorical ornament + as necessary in meter as in prose, namely, the figures of speech and the + abbreviation and amplification of the material; seventh and last are + subjoined examples of courtly correspondence and scholastic dictamen, + pleasantly composed in verse and rhythms, and in diverse meters.[<a href="#foot110">110</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Under the head of invention John gives definitions, several examples of +good letters, a long list of proverbs under appropriate captions so that +the letter writer can quickly find the one to fit his context, and an +"elegiac, bucolic, ethic love poem" in fifty leonine verses, accompanied +by an inevitable allegorical interpretation.[<a href="#foot111">111</a>] Then he comes to +selection. Tully, he admits, puts arrangement after invention, "but," he +pleads, "in writing letters and documents poetically the art of selection +after that of invention is useful."[<a href="#foot112">112</a>] For he thinks of selection only +as the selection of words. A writer, he says, should select his words and +images according to the persons addressed. The court should be addressed +in the grand style; the city, in the middle style; and the country, in the +mean style.[<a href="#foot113">113</a>] One should arrange in three columns in a note-book the +words and comparisons appropriate to each style so that the material will +be handy when he wishes to write a letter. These principles John +illustrates with leonine verses and ecclesiastical epistles. Under +arrangement he says that all material must be so arranged as to have a +beginning, a middle, and an end. Then there are nine ways to begin a poem +and nine ways to begin a dictamen or epistle. Next he states that there +are six parts to an oration: "exordium, narracio, peticio, confirmacio, +confutacio, conclusio."[<a href="#foot114">114</a>] As an example of this division of the oration +into parts he quotes a long poem which persuades its reader to take up the +cross. Still under the general head of arrangement John explains the ten +ways of amplifying material. The tenth, "interpretacio," he illustrates by +telling a joke, and then amplifying it into a little comedy. "Comedy," he +says, "is a jocose poem beginning in sadness and ending in joy: a tragedy +is a poem composed in the grand style beginning in joy and ending in +grief."[<a href="#foot115">115</a>] Next follow the six metrical faults, the faults of +salutations in letters, a classification of the different kinds of poems, +and further talk on different styles in writing. His sixth chapter, on +ornament in meter and prose, presents what he has up to this left unsaid +about style. It includes a list of fifty-seven figures of speech (<i>colores +verborum</i>) and eighteen figures of thought (<i>colores sententiarum</i>). This +is logically followed by the ten attributes of man. The seventh and final +chapter gives a long narrative poem of the horrific variety as an example +of tragedy and several letters as examples of dictamen.</p> + +<p>Such a digest shows better than any generalization a complete confusion of +poetic and rhetoric. Poems were to be written according to the formulae of +orations; allegory throve. Infinite pains were to be expended on the +worthless niceties of conceited metrical structure and rhetorical figures. +Garland has neither real poetic nor real rhetoric.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-5-2"></a>2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language</h4> + + +<p>As to the late middle ages rhetoric had come to mean to all intents +nothing more than style, it is frequently personified in picturesque +mediaeval allegory, never as being engaged in any useful occupation, but +as adding beauty, color, or charm to life. In the <i>Anticlaudianus</i> of +Alanus de Insulis, Rhetoric is represented as painting and gilding the +pole of the Chariot of Prudence.[<a href="#foot116">116</a>] In the rhymed compendium of +universal knowledge which its author, Thomasin von Zirclaria, justly calls +<i>Der Wälsche Gast</i>, for learning was indeed a foreign guest in thirteenth +century Germany, rhetoric appears in a similar rôle. "Rhetoric," says +Thomasin, "clothes our speech with beautiful colors,"[<a href="#foot117">117</a>] and he gives as +his authority, "Tulljus, Quintiljan, Sidônjus," although Apollinaris +Sidonius seems to be the only one of the trio he had ever read.[<a href="#foot118">118</a>] This +theory lived to a vigorous old age. Palmieri, in his <i>Della Vita Civile</i> +(1435), defines rhetoric as "the theory of speaking ornamentally."[<a href="#foot119">119</a>] +And Lydgate traces all the beauty of rhetoric to Calliope, "that with thyn +hony swete sugrest tongis of rethoricyens."[<a href="#foot120">120</a>]</p> + +<p>The most complete example, however, of the mediaeval restriction of +rhetoric to style, and of the absorption of poetic by rhetoric is afforded +by Lydgate in his <i>Court of Sapyence.</i> The passages which refer to +rhetoric are given in full because they can otherwise be consulted only +in the Caxton edition of 1481 or in the black letter copy printed by +Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.[<a href="#foot121">121</a>]</p> + +<i>Introductory verses.</i> + +<blockquote> O Clyo lady moost facundyous<br /> +O ravysshynge delyte of eloquence<br /> +O gylted goddes gaye and gloryous<br /> +Enspyred with the percynge influence<br /> +Of delycate hevenly complacence<br /> +Within my mouth let dystyll of thy shoures<br /> +And forge my tonge to gladde myn auditoures.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Myn ignoraunce whome clouded hath eclyppes<br /> +With thy pure bemes illumynyne all aboute<br /> +Thy blessyd brethe let refleyre in my lyppes<br /> +And with the dewe of heven thou them degoute<br /> +So that my mouth may blowe an encense oute<br /> +The redolent dulcour aromatyke<br /> +Of thy deputed lusty rhetoryke.</blockquote> + + +<p align="center"><i>The section of rhetoric.</i></p> + +<blockquote> Dame Rethoryke moder of eloquence<br /> +Moost elegaunt moost pure and gloryous<br /> +With lust delyte, blysse, honour and reverence<br /> +Within her parlour fresshe and precyous<br /> +Was set a quene, whose speche delycyous<br /> +Her audytours gan to all Joye converte<br /> +Eche worde of her myght ravysshe every herte.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>And many clerke had lust her for to here<br /> +Her speche to them was parfyte sustenance<br /> +Eche worde of her depured was so clere<br /> +And illumyned with so parfyte pleasaunce<br /> +That heven it was to here her beauperlaunce<br /> +Her termes gay as facunde soverayne<br /> +Catephaton in no poynt myght dystane.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>She taught them the crafte of endytynge<br /> +Whiche vyces ben that sholde avoyded be<br /> +Whiche ben the coulours gay of that connynge<br /> +Theyr dyfference and eke theyr properte<br /> +Eche thynge endyte how it sholde poynted be<br /> +Dystynctyon she gan clare and dyscusse<br /> +Whiche is Coma Colym perydus.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>Who so thynketh my wrytynge dull and blont<br /> +And wolde conceyve the colours purperate<br /> +Of Rethoryke, go he to tria sunt<br /> +And to Galfryde the poete laureate<br /> +To Janneus a clerke of grete estate<br /> +Within the fyrst parte of his gramer boke<br /> +Of this mater there groundely may he loke.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In Tullius also moost eloquent<br /> +The chosen spouse unto this lady free<br /> +His gylted craft and gloyre in content<br /> +Gay thynges I made eke, yf than lust to see<br /> +Go loke the Code also the dygestes thre<br /> +The bookes of lawe and of physyke good<br /> +Of ornate speche there spryngeth up the flood.</blockquote> + +<blockquote>In prose and metre of all kynde ywys<br /> +This lady blyssed had lust for to playe<br /> +With her was blesens Richarde pophys<br /> +Farrose pystyls clere lusty fresshe and gay<br /> +With maters vere poetes in good array<br /> +Ovyde, Omer, Vyrgyll, Lucan, Orace<br /> +Alane, Bernarde, Prudentius and Stace.</blockquote> + +<p>Throughout this passage rhetoric is never mentioned in any other context +than one of pleasure to the ear of the auditor. Of the three aims of +rhetoric which Cicero had phrased as <i>docere, delectare, et movere</i>, only +the <i>delectare</i> remains in the rhetoric of Lydgate. From his initial +invocation to Clio, in which he prays that his style be illuminated with +the aromatic sweetness of her rhetoric, to the passage in which he refers +to his own writings for examples of ornate speech Lydgate never refers to +the logic or the structure of persuasive public speech. Rhetoric, in +Lydgate, is not used in its classical sense, but as being synonymous with +ornate language--style. Here and here only does Lydgate discuss any part +of rhetoric in its classical implications. When, in his poem, he discusses +the craft of writing as including "coulours gay," he refers to the figures +of classical rhetoric--Cicero's "<i>colores verborum</i>." And when he refers +to the "coma, colum, perydus," he is harking back to the classical +divisions of the rhythmical members of a sentence: the "comma, colon, et +periodus." In the classical treatises on rhetoric this division of +"elocutio" or style into two parts: (1) figures of speech and language, +and (2) rhythmical movement of the sentence, is universal. Lydgate's +rhetoric is thus a development of only one element of classical +rhetoric--style.</p> + +<p>But Lydgate's rhetoric was not only restricted to style; it was expanded +to include the style of the poets as well as that of the prose writers, as +the last stanza shows. If Lydgate thought poetry to include anything more +than this style, he does not say so.</p> + +<p>Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. +Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term +rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A +rhetor was one who was a master of style.[<a href="#foot122">122</a>] Henryson, for instance, +calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[<a href="#foot123">123</a>] Chaucer admired Petrarch +for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[<a href="#foot124">124</a>] and +was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of +brytagne,"[<a href="#foot125">125</a>] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by +John Walton.[<a href="#foot126">126</a>] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the +steps of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot127">127</a>] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and +asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot128">128</a>] Bokenham calls +Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[<a href="#foot129">129</a>] and as late as +1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our +language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[<a href="#foot130">130</a>] The entire period was +thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited +at its best in the works of the poets.</p> + +<p>The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in +his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he +calls <i>The Pastime of Pleasure</i> (1506). He begins, of course, with an +apology for</p> + +<blockquote> Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes<br /> +Without rethorycke or coloure crafty;<br /> +Nothinge I am experte in poetry<br /> +As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[<a href="#foot131">131</a>]</blockquote> + +And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims: + +<blockquote> O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge<br /> +Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[<a href="#foot132">132</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two +greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their +rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber +gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned +and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of +incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers +of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his +literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what +rhetoric is,</p> + +<blockquote> Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason<br /> +Man for to governe wel and prudently;<br /> +His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[<a href="#foot133">133</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the +beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour +to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of +the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. +Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells.</p> + +<p>Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical +rhetoric.[<a href="#foot134">134</a>] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the +classical <i>inventio</i>. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," +discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, +who is familiar with the <i>inventio</i> of classical rhetoric, concerned as it +is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection +with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted +not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and +explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a +defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term <i>inventio</i> is +thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from +rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a +speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians +because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to +competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word +rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even +have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. +At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical <i>dispositio</i> only in +name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + +<p>Pronunciation (<i>pronuntiatio</i>), or delivery, of course applies to either +poets or orators. But whereas classical writers applied it to the orator's +use of voice and gesture, Hawes applies it only to the poet's reading +aloud. He recommends that when a poet reads his verses, he should make his +voice dolorous in bewailing a woeful tragedy, and his countenance glad in +joyful matter. It is important, however, that the reading poet be not +boisterous or unmannered. Let him be moderate, gentle, and seemly. The +final section, that on memory, comes closer to its classical sense than +does any other. Here the mnemonic system of "places," supposedly invented +by Simonides, is explained obscurely. Even more obscure is its +applicability to Hawes's subject.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that the chapter on Elocution (<i>elocutio</i>), +or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. +Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to +rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain +<i>inventio</i>; 12, <i>dispositio</i>; 40, <i>elocutio</i>; 8, <i>pronuntiatio</i>; and 8, <i>memoria</i>. "Elocusyon," says Hawes, "exorneth the mater."</p> + +<blockquote> The golden rethoryke is good refeccion<br /> +And to the reader ryght consolation.[<a href="#foot135">135</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Rhetoric and style, to Hawes and his contemporaries, mean the same thing. +Both have to do, in Hawes's own language, with choosing aromatic words, +dulcet speech, sweetness, delight; they are redolent of incense; they +gleam like carbuncles in the darkness; they are painted in hard gold. But +beyond these picturesque generalizations there is little trace in Hawes of +any discussion of style such as one would find in a classical treatise. A +few figures of speech are mentioned, but not dwelt upon. Hawes +consistently confines himself to poetry. Tully, the only orator mentioned, +shares a line with Virgil. The main concern is with the devices used by +the poets to cloak truth under the veil of allegory. Rhetoric is an +adjunct of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> my mayster Lydgate veryfyde<br /> +The depured rethoryke in Englysh language;<br /> +To make our tongue so clerely puryfyed<br /> +That the vyle termes should nothing arage<br /> +As like a pye to chatter in a cage,<br /> +But for to speke with rethoryke formally.[<a href="#foot136">136</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In a word, the whole traditional division of rhetoric is transferred to +poetry, and at the same time both rhetoric and poetic are limited to the +single part which they have in common--diction. The style cultivated by +this focus is ornamental and elaborate. If Lydgate or Hawes had believed +that rhetoric included more than aureate language, surely the scope of +their treatises would have afforded them opportunity to correct this +impression. Each of them is endeavoring to present a compendium of +universal knowledge according to the conventional analysis of the seven +liberal arts. Illustrative details might be omitted, but not important +sections of the subject matter.</p> + +<p>The meanings of words change, and with such changes we have no quarrel. It +is important, however, that we should know what the English middle ages +meant by rhetoric if we are to appreciate how powerful was the tradition +of the middle ages and in what direction it influenced the literary +criticism of the English renaissance. To resume, the middle ages thought +of poetry as being composed of two elements: a profitable subject matter +(<i>doctrina</i>), and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). The profitable subject matter was +theoretically supplied by the allegory. This will be discussed in the +second part of this study, as historically being a phase of critical +discussions of the purpose of poetry. The English middle ages, as has been +shown, considered style synonymous with rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-6"></a>Chapter VI<br /> + +Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-1"></a>1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried Over into Logic</h4> + + +<p>But among serious people the painted and perfumed Dame Rethoryke of +Lydgate and Hawes was in disrepute. She had turned over her business in +life to the kings and devoted too much attention to ornament. Such a +serious person was Rudolph Agricola, who, in his treatise on logic, +accepted the mediaeval tradition that rhetoric was concerned only with +smoothness and ornament of speech and all that went toward captivating the +ears, and straightway picked up all the serious purpose and thoughtful +content of classical rhetoric which mediaeval rhetoric had abandoned, to +hand them over to logic. Consequently, in a work which he significantly +entitles <i>De inventione dialectica</i>, he defines logic as the art of +speaking in a probable manner concerning any topic which can be treated in +a speech.[<a href="#foot137">137</a>] According to Agricola's scheme, rhetoric retains +"<i>elocutio</i>," style; and logic carries over "<i>inventio</i>," as his title +shows, and "<i>dispositio</i>." His whole-hearted disgust with the stylistic +extremes of rhetoric he shows by denying to oratory any aim of pleasing +and moving. Of Cicero's threefold purpose, to teach, to please, and to +move, he retains only teaching as pertinent to effective public speech. +"Docere," to teach, he uses in the classical sense which includes proof as +well as instruction. Thus he says it has two parts: exposition and +argument.[<a href="#foot138">138</a>] The parts of a speech he reduces to the minimum proposed by +Aristotle: the statement and the proof. Thus although Agricola admits that +rhetoric is most beautiful, he will have none of her.</p> + +<p>Following this lead, Thomas Wilson, the English rhetorician and statesman, +defines logic and rhetoric as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Logic is occupied about all matters, and doeth plainlie and nakedly set + forth with apt wordes the sum of things, by way of argumentation. + Rhetorike useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth forthe those matters + with freshe colours and goodly ornaments, and that at large.[<a href="#foot139">139</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Agricola and Wilson logic has supplanted rhetoric in finding +all possible means of persuasion in any subject. Following Peter +Ramus,[<a href="#foot140">140</a>] Wilson finds that logic has two parts: <i>judicium</i>, "Framyng of +thinges aptlie together, and knittyng words for the purpose accordynglie," +and <i>inventio</i>, "Findyng out matter, and searchyng stuffe agreable to the +cause."[<a href="#foot141">141</a>] Hermagoras and others had in antiquity considered <i>judicium</i>, +or judgment, as a part of rhetoric,[<a href="#foot142">142</a>] although Quintilian thought it +less a part of rhetoric than necessary to all parts.[<a href="#foot143">143</a>] <i>Inventio</i>, of +course, has always been the most important part of rhetoric. This same +carrying over of the content of classical rhetoric into logic is further +illustrated by Abraham Fraunce, who divides his <i>Lawiers Logic</i> (1588) +into two parts: invention and disposition.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-2"></a>2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>But while the survival of the mediaeval notion that rhetoric was concerned +mainly with style thus gave over in the English Renaissance <i>inventio</i> and +<i>dispositio</i> to logic, there naturally remained nothing of classical +rhetoric but <i>elocutio</i> and <i>pronuntiatio</i>. A brief survey of the English +rhetorics of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will show +that this was the case. Richard Sherry devotes an entire book to style in +his "Treatise of Schemes and Tropes" (1550).[<a href="#foot144">144</a>] He begins by defining +"eloquucion, the third part of Rhetoric," as the dressing up of thought. +Rhetoric to him had not in theory become style, but style is the only part +which he finds interesting enough to treat. His schemes and tropes are of +course the rhetorical figures; but let him explain them in his own artless +way. "A scheme is the fashion of a word, sayyng or sentence, otherwyse +wrytten or spoken then after the vulgar and comon usage. A trope is a +movynge and changynge of a worde or sentence, from thyr owne significacion +into another which may agree with it by a similitude." Henry Peacham's +<i>Garden of Eloquence, Conteyning the Figures of Grammer and Rhetoric</i> +(1577) likewise deals only with the rhetorical figures.</p> + +<p>In the anonymous, <i>The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike</i> (1584),[<a href="#foot145">145</a>] +rhetoric is denned as "an arte of speaking finelie. It hath two parts, +garnishing of speach, called Eloqution, and garnishing of the manner of +utterance, called Pronunciation."[<a href="#foot146">146</a>] Thus by definition rhetoric +includes only style and delivery. Under garnishing of speech the author +treats only the rhetorical figures. This restriction of style to figures +is characteristic. The rhythm of prose upon which classical treatises on +style lavished such enthusiastic pains is practically ignored in those +English treatises. The <i>comma, colon</i>, and <i>periodus</i> which to classical +authors signified rhythmical units in the sentence movement had already +come to mean to most people only marks of punctuation.[<a href="#foot147">147</a>] Garnishing of +utterance Fenner does not discuss at all.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Arcadian Rhetorike</i> (1588), Abraham Fraunce treats both. +"Rhetorike," he says, "is an Art of Speaking. It hath two parts, Eloqution +and Pronuntiation. Eloqution is the first part of Rhetorike, concerning +the ordering and trimming of speech. It hath two parts, Congruity and +Braverie." Congruity (as pertaining more to grammar) he does not discuss. +"Braverie of speach consisteth of tropes or turnings, and in figures or +fashionings."[<a href="#foot148">148</a>] The remainder of the first book deals with meter and +verse forms, baldly of prose rhythm, epizeuxis, conceited verses, and +various rhetorical figures. The second book deals with the voice and +gestures. This rhetoric of Fraunce's, then, complements his <i>Lawiers +Logike</i> of the same year, the latter dealing with the finding out and +arrangement of arguments in a speech, and the former with style and +delivery. Rhetoric is thus concerned only with stylistic artifice in verse +as well as in prose.</p> + +<p>The same tradition is upheld by Charles Butler, who in his Latin school +rhetoric (1600) defines rhetoric as the art of ornate speech and divides +it into <i>elocutio</i>, a discussion of the tropes and figures, and +<i>pronuntiatio</i>, the use of voice and gesture.[<a href="#foot149">149</a>] And John Barton is +worse. In his <i>Art of Rhetorick</i> (1634) he says:</p> + +<blockquote> Rhetorick is the skill of using daintie words, and comely deliverie, + whereby to work upon men's affections. It hath two parts, adornation and + action. Adornation consisteth in the sweetness of the phrase, and is + seen in tropes and figures.</blockquote> + +<p>He continues:</p> + +<blockquote> There are foure kinds of tropes, substitution, comprehension, + comparation, simulation. The affection of a trope is the quality whereby + it requires a second resolution. These affections are five: abuse, + duplication, continuation, superlocution, sublocution. A figure is an + affecting kind of speech without consideration had of any borrowed + sense. A figure is two-fold: relative and independent,</blockquote> + +<p>and he names over in his jargon the six figures which are of each +kind.[<a href="#foot150">150</a>] If this be rhetoric, perhaps there was justification for John +Smith's <i>The Mysterie of Rhetorique Unvailed</i> (1657), which continued the +fallacious tradition by dividing rhetoric into elocution and +pronunciation.</p> + +<p>This perversion of rhetoric which considered it as concerned only with +style, or aureate language, was not restricted to the school books. The +popular use of rhetoric as synonymous with "fine honeyed speech,"[<a href="#foot151">151</a>] is +seen in a passage from <i>Old Fortunatus</i>, where it carries the modern +connotation of a meretricious substitute for genuine feeling, as where +Agripyne says,</p> + +<blockquote> "Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his + affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home spun + stuff; there's no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric."[<a href="#foot152">152</a>]</blockquote> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-3"></a>3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>A half century before Smith unveiled the mysteries of rhetoric, Bacon had +in his <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) pointed out the fallacies of the +renaissance obsession with style. He briefly traces the causes of the +renaissance study of language and adds:</p> + +<blockquote> "This grew speedily to an excesse; for men began to hunt more after + wordes than matter, and more after the choisenesse of the Phrase and the + round and cleane composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of + the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their workes with + tropes and figures, then after the weight of matter, worth of subject, + soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgement."[<a href="#foot153">153</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sooner or later the school books had to reform. The Latin school rhetoric +of Thomas Vicars (1621), after one has perused the treatise of his +predecessors and contemporaries, is so conservative as to appear +startling. It has all the air of a novelty. Yet all he does is to return +to the classical tradition by defining rhetoric as the art of correct or +effective speech having five parts: <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, +<i>memoria</i>, and <i>pronuntiatio</i>[<a href="#foot154">154</a>]. And Thomas Farnaby, whose <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> appeared in six editions between 1633 and 1654, gives a fairly +proportioned treatment of <i>inventio</i>, <i>dispositio</i>, <i>elocutio</i>, and +<i>actio</i>. <i>Memoria</i> he omits, following here, as elsewhere, the sound +leadership of Vossius.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-6-4"></a>4. Channels of Classical Theory</h4> + + +<p>This perversion of rhetorical theory in the middle ages and early +renaissance had resulted not from mere wrong-headedness on the part of the +rhetoricians, but from the limited knowledge of classical tradition during +the middle ages. Especially was this true in those parts of western +Europe, such as England, which were remote from the Mediterranean +countries which better preserved the heritage of Greece and Rome. +Moreover, the most important classical treatises on the theory of +poetry--by Aristotle and Longinus--were almost unknown throughout the +middle ages, and the rhetorical writings of Cicero and Quintilian were +known only in fragments.</p> + +<p>Servatus Lupus (805-862), Abbot of Ferrieres and a learned man, was +unusual in his scholarship; for he knew not only the rhetoric <i>Ad +Herennium</i> which was believed to be Cicero's but also the <i>De oratore</i> and +fragments of Quintilian.[<a href="#foot155">155</a>] The current rhetorical treatises of the +middle ages were Cicero's <i>De inventione</i>, and the <i>Ad Herennium.</i> The <i>De +oratore</i> was used but slightly, and the <i>Brutus</i> and the <i>Orator</i> not at +all.[<a href="#foot156">156</a>] What little classical rhetoric there is in Stephen Hawes was +derived from the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.</p> + +<p>The survival and popularity of the <i>Ad Herennium</i> during this period is +one of the most interesting phenomena of rhetorical history. Of the +classical treatises on rhetoric which survive to-day it undoubtedly +arouses the least interest and can contribute the least to modern +education or criticism. Yet it is the most characteristic Latin rhetoric +we possess. It is a text-book of rhetoric which was used in the Roman +schools. In fact, Cicero's <i>De inventione</i> is so much like it that some +suspect that Cicero's notes which he took in school got into circulation +and forced the publication of his professor's lectures. Aristotle's +philosophy of rhetoric, Cicero's charming dialog on his profession, +Quintilian's treatise on the teaching of rhetoric--none of these is a +text-book. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> is. It is clear and orderly in its +organization. It defines all the technical terms which it uses, and +illustrates its principles. As one might expect, it delights in +over-analysis, in categories and sub-categories, the four kinds of causes, +the three virtues of the <i>narratio</i>. In the hands of a skilled teacher of +composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly +would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical +or literary treatises. Thus in Guarino's school at Ferrara (1429-1460) the +<i>Ad Herennium</i> was regarded as the quintessence of pure Ciceronian +doctrine of oratory, and was made the starting point and standing +authority in teaching rhetoric. In more advanced classes it was +supplemented by the <i>De oratore, Orator</i>, and what was known of +Quintilian.[<a href="#foot157">157</a>] The <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus testifies that by the next +century the scholarship of the renaissance had discovered that the <i>Ad +Herennium</i> was not from the pen of Cicero, and that the <i>De inventione</i> +was considered apologetically by its famous author, who wrote his <i>De +oratore</i> to supersede the more youthful treatise.[<a href="#foot158">158</a>] But six years after +the publication of the <i>Ciceronianus</i> of Erasmus, the edition of Cicero's +<i>Opera</i> published in Basel in 1534 still incorporates the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +and Thomas Wilson in England owes most of his first book and part of the +second of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> to its anonymous author, whom he +believed to be Cicero. For instance in his section on <i>Devision</i> as a part +of a speech, Wilson says, "Tullie would not have a devision to be made, +of, or above three partes at the moste, nor lesse then three neither, if +neede so required."[<a href="#foot159">159</a>]</p> + +<p>"Tullie" says no such thing. Indeed, Cicero never considers <i>divisio</i> as +one of the parts of a speech. But the <i>Ad Herennium</i> does make <i>divisio</i> a +part of a speech,[<a href="#foot160">160</a>] and does require not over three parts.[<a href="#foot161">161</a>] As late +as 1612, Thomas Heywood quotes the authority of "Tully, in his booke <i>Ad +Caium Herennium</i>."[<a href="#foot162">162</a>]</p> + +<p>The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is +well illustrated by a count of the manuscripts preserved. In the libraries +of Europe today there exist seventy-nine manuscripts of the <i>De +inventione</i>, eighty-three of the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, forty of the <i>De +oratore</i>, fourteen of the <i>Brutus</i>, and twenty of the <i>Orator.</i>[<a href="#foot163">163</a>] Thus +in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the <i>De +inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>.[<a href="#foot164">164</a>] The <i>De inventione</i> is the source +for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric +known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters +of it into Italian.[<a href="#foot165">165</a>] Although mutilated codices of the <i>De oratore</i> +and the <i>Orator</i> were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, +complete manuscripts of these most important works were not known previous +to 1422.[<a href="#foot166">166</a>] The <i>Ad Herennium</i> and the <i>De inventione</i> were first +printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers +(1476) was the <i>Ad Herennium</i> under the usual mediaeval title of the +<i>Rhetorica nova</i>. The first edition of the <i>De oratore</i> was printed in the +monastery of Subaco about 1466. The <i>Brutus</i> first appeared in Rome (1469) +in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[<a href="#foot167">167</a>] +Before its first printing the <i>Orator</i> was used as a reference book for +advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara.</p> + +<p>Castiglione's indebtedness to the <i>De oratore</i> is well known, but few +notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's +dedicatory paragraphs of the <i>Orator.</i></p> + +<p>But in England the first reference to the <i>Orator</i> appears in Ascham's +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[<a href="#foot168">168</a>] +Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the +pseudo-Ciceronian <i>Ad Herennium</i> and from the youthful <i>De inventione</i>, +not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them. +Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred +years after it had been displaced in Italy.</p> + +<p>The <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a +Latin translation by Hermanus Allemanus (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's +commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores +Graeci</i> (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of +Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin +version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[<a href="#foot169">169</a>] This was +frequently reissued in the <i>Opera</i> of Aristotle together with the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in +the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the <i>Poetics</i> in Pazzi's +translation. As the true <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, known to the renaissance +as the <i>Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten</i>, was so frequently published with +the spurious <i>Rhetorica</i>, references to Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i> in the +sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell +whether the <i>Rhetoric</i> required to be read by Oxford students in the +fifteenth century[<a href="#foot170">170</a>] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, +however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were +available, that the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle had so slight an influence on +English rhetorical theory.</p> + +<p>The <i>De institutione oratoria</i> of Quintilian was too long to be preserved +intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well +known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, +and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by +Cassiodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth +century until Poggio discovered the complete manuscript at St. Gall in +1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis +of an incomplete manuscript Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth +century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous +enthusiast made a selection of the <i>Flores Quintilianei</i>.[<a href="#foot171">171</a>] Thus, while +the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the +Ciceronian tradition rested on the <i>De inventione</i> and the <i>Ad Herennium</i>, +the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the +treatises of Cassiodorus and Isidore, passed current throughout the middle +ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world +of scholars welcomed a familiar friend.</p> + +<p>Other classical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly. +The <i>De compositione verborum</i> of Dionysius of Halicarnassus received its +first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by +Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend +of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, +when the <i>Scholemaster</i> was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, +but shows no great familiarity with the text.[<a href="#foot172">172</a>]</p> + +<p>The <i>De sublimitate</i> of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England. +Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, +once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at +Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of +its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his <i>Index +Rhetoricus</i> (1633). The advance of classical scholarship in England is +indeed no better illustrated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited +sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, +Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an +imposing list of sources.</p> + +<blockquote> "Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, + Demetrius Phal,[<a href="#foot173">173</a>] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus <i>De + sublimitate</i>, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martianus + Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, + Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, + Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A. + Valladero."</blockquote> + +<p>Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover +to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in +Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as +to others, both classical and mediaeval.</p> + +<p>With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions +of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of +the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in +mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the +lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such +classical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In +the second place, the recovery of classical criticism in the Italian +renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of classical +theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, +did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in classical +antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that classical theories of +poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost +as slow head against English mediaeval tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-7"></a>Chapter VII<br /> + +Renaissance Poetic</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-1"></a>1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition</h4> + + +<p>In concluding his authoritative study, <i>A History of Literary Criticism in +the Renaissance</i>, Spingarn asserts that before the sixteenth century, +"Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical +treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those +upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the <i>Institutions +Oratoriae</i> of Quintilian, and the <i>De Legendis Gentilium Libris</i> of Basil +the Great."[<a href="#foot174">174</a>] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great +change was brought about by the publication of the classical critical +writings, especially the <i>Poetics</i> of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval +criteria of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i> were superseded by many new ones.</p> + +<p>The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a +separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone +into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be +summarized as follows:</p> + +<p>The recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> brought about a complete change in +poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing +and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a +hundred years later.</p> + +<p><i>The Poetics</i> had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin +abridgment by Hermannus Allemanus. This was derived from a Hebrew +translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac +translation of the Greek.[<a href="#foot175">175</a>] Although the <i>Poetics</i> was not included in +the Aldine <i>Aristotle</i> (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was +printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the <i>Rhetoric</i> for the first time at +Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text +was first published in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> (1508)[<a href="#foot176">176</a>] badly +edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the +Basel edition of Aristotle's <i>Opera</i> (1538) with Filelfo's version of the +<i>Rhetorica ad Alexandrum</i>, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of +Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the <i>Rhetoric</i>. Robortelli +edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by +Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by +Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the <i>De Poeta</i> (1559) of Minturno and +the <i>Poetics</i> (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories +were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the <i>Scholemaster</i> (1570), +and never elucidated before Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i> (c. 1583, pub. +1595).</p> + +<p>But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of +the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, renaissance +theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has +summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as passing through +three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and +philology.[<a href="#foot177">177</a>] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in +the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance +the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has +pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the classical +theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those +who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his +poem on great poems of classical antiquity, some critics suggested, he +could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle +for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The +rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are +stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to +the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary +models.</p> + +<p>Although with good taste as well as classical erudition Ascham preferred +Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view +was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with +style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, +but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to +the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but +also on account of his moral maxims or <i>sententiae</i>. In England the two +greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this +high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, +<i>Gorbuduc</i>, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are +stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully +taught.[<a href="#foot178">178</a>] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those +elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity +and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence."</p> + +<p>The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable +subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely +evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the +essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as +in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The +commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that +of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical +treatises.</p> + +<p>Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were +an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[<a href="#foot179">179</a>] +Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a +poet; Livy a historian.[<a href="#foot180">180</a>] Castelvetro probably came nearest to +Aristotle in asserting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in +prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is +prose.[<a href="#foot181">181</a>] Vossius anticipates Prickard's explanation of Aristotle by +defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To +him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a +historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[<a href="#foot182">182</a>] These are only a few +examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly +studied.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-7-2"></a>2. Rhetorical Elements</h4> + + +<p>This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse +was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction +between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle +ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable +subject matter <i>(doctrina)</i> and style (<i>eloquentia</i>). If the definition +goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator +lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use +of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be +written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic +difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the +middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of +style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in +Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll +has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the +case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[<a href="#foot183">183</a>]</p> + +<p>In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is +frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars +whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the +vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the <i>Poetics</i> +practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized +in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's +over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, +low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) +of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[<a href="#foot184">184</a>] Maggi[<a href="#foot185">185</a>] and +Tifernas[<a href="#foot186">186</a>] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest +neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by +meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same +material,[<a href="#foot187">187</a>] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to +discriminate in their choice of words.[<a href="#foot188">188</a>]</p> + +<p>As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but +Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the +<i>narratio</i> of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of +facts. Confusing the <i>narratio</i> of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says:</p> + +<blockquote> There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and + perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second + and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot189">189</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is +supposed by classical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of +his speech.[<a href="#foot190">190</a>] Furthermore, says Pontanus, one can write very good +poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[<a href="#foot191">191</a>] No wonder Luis Vives +complained in his <i>De Causis Corruptarum Artium</i>,</p> + +<blockquote> The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two + that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call + rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language. + The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put + eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[<a href="#foot192">192</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive +studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical +elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The +Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the +overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of +the sounder critical theories of classical antiquity. Their service to +subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the +whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few +cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the +mediaeval tradition of classical rhetoric.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="1-8"></a>Chapter VIII<br /> + +Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-1"></a>1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism</h4> + + +<p>Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry +formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth +century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which +Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance +theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval +tradition and from the classical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual +displacements of these elements by the sounder classical tradition which +reached England from Italy.</p> + +<p>"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given +up to rhetorical study."[<a href="#foot193">193</a>] In his period he includes Cox and Wilson, +the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he +characterizes as one of classification and metrical studies, he says, "A +long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a +rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[<a href="#foot194">194</a>] These +two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered +together.</p> + +<p>Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the +art of poetry. The rhetorics of Cox (1524) and Wilson (1553) were +rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of +a direct contact with classical rhetoric. Because Cox founded his treatise +on the sound scholarship of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of +his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely +under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on +rhetoric in England.</p> + +<p>Another scholar in classical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose +<i>Scholemaster</i> (1570) contains the first reference in England to +Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>. But except as a teacher of language and of +literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he +classifies literature into <i>genres</i> of poetry, history, philosophy, and +oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and +Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a +field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the +result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of +individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power +than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's <i>Absolon</i> and +Buchanan's <i>Iephthe</i> he considers the best tragedies of his age because +only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and +Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, +and in imitation of good models.[<a href="#foot195">195</a>] Watson he especially praises for his +refusal to publish <i>Absolon</i> because in several places an anapest was +substituted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of classical +rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness.</p> + +<p>The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the classical +treatises, but from the middle ages. His <i>Certayne Notes of Instruction</i> +(1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the +English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of +grammar, following the classical tradition; but in France prosody had +regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As +Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in +the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired +Gascoigne.[<a href="#foot196">196</a>]</p> + +<p>Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, +borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas +Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, +Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie +of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies +is illustrated by his own example.</p> + +<p>If I should undertake to wryte in prayse of a gentlewoman, I would neither +praise her christal eye, nor her cherrie lippe, etc. For these things are +<i>trita et obvia</i>. But I would either find some supernaturall cause whereby +my penne might walke in the superlative degree, or els I would undertake +to answer for any imperfection that shee hath, and thereupon rayse the +prayse of hir commendacion.[<a href="#foot197">197</a>]</p> + +<p>By far the greater part of Gascoigne's treatise is devoted to metrics and +to style. One can use, he says, the same figures or tropes in verse as are +used in prose. It is noteworthy that in this treatise on making verses +Gascoigne restricts himself to externals of form and style. When he does +discuss the subject-matter of poetry, instead of emphasizing the +seriousness of content, he talks about his mistress' "cristal eye."</p> + +<p>What has been said about Gascoigne applies almost equally well to the +<i>Schort Treatise</i> (1584) of James VI which was modeled on it. Like +Gascoigne's <i>Notes</i>, it is rhetorical and concerned with only the +externals of poetry. The treatise is almost entirely a metrical study, +although the author does call attention to three special ornaments of +verse, which are comparisons, epithets, and proverbs. The other figures of +rhetoric which are so appropriate to poetry James says may be studied in +Du Bellay. In both these writers, poetry is treated in the categories of +the middle ages. Poetry to them is composed of subject-matter and style. +The characteristic structure and movement of poetry is not considered at +all.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-2"></a>2. The Influence of Horace</h4> + + +<p>Thus far there had been no fundamental criticism of poetic in England, no +attempt to arrive at the basis of critical theory. Horace had been known +long before, but not until Drant's translation of the <i>Ars Poetica</i> into +English in 1567 is its influence seen to be definite and extensive in +England. One of the earliest published evidences of this influence is +George Whetstone's <i>Dedication to Promos and Cassandra</i> (1578). The +passage is short, but contains two very important points in the creed of +classicism. Whetstone inveighs against the English dramatist who "in three +howers ronnes throwe the worlde, marryes, gets children, makes Children +men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder Monsters, and bringeth Gods from +Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel."[<a href="#foot198">198</a>] This is the earliest record in +England of an insistence on unity of time and place. Then he urges the +claims of decorum in comedy. The poet should not make clowns the +companions of kings, nor put wise counsels into the mouth of fools. "For, +to worke a comedie kindly, grave olde men should instruct, yonge men +should showe the imperfections of youth, Strumpets should be lascivious, +Boyes unhappy, and Clownes should speake disorderlye."[<a href="#foot199">199</a>]</p> + +<p>It is interesting that this conception of the characters in a drama should +ultimately trace back through many perversions to Aristotle's rhetorical +theory. There are three kinds of proof, says Aristotle in the <i>Rhetoric</i>: +the character of the speaker, the production of a certain disposition in +the audience, and the argument of the speech itself. The last kind of +proof is derived from logic; the first two, from psychology.[<a href="#foot200">200</a>] +Consequently, Aristotle devotes almost a third of his <i>Rhetoric</i>, the +second book, to an elaborate exposition of the passions (πάθη) of men, so that the orator may know how to +excite or allay them according as the necessities of his case demand, and +a full explanation of the character (ᤦθος) +of men, that the speaker may know how to impress upon his audience his own +trustworthiness, and adapt his arguments to the character of the +particular audience which he is addressing. Varieties of character in an +audience depend upon its passions, its virtues and vices, its age or +youth, and its position in life.[<a href="#foot201">201</a>] Aristotle's generalizations on the +character of young people and old, of the wealthy, noble and powerful, +display penetrating acumen. That flesh and blood character realizations in +drama or story could be attained by this method Aristotle never intended. +He is talking of public address. But the study of characterization as part +of the education of an orator became fixed in the curriculum of rhetoric +schools. The boys were supposed to study certain types of persons and then +write character sketches to show their sharpness of observation. +Theophrastus, Aristotle's favorite student and successor as head of the +school in Athens, wrote his <i>Characters</i> to show how it was done, and did +it with such ability as to elevate the school exercise to a literary +form. These "characters" were epitomized in the Latin rhetorics and the +school exercises continued. The rhetoric <i>Ad Herennium</i> calls them +<i>notatio</i>,[<a href="#foot202">202</a>] Cicero, <i>descriptio</i>,[<a href="#foot203">203</a>] and Quintilian, <i>mores</i>.[<a href="#foot204">204</a>]</p> + +<p>Quintilian furthermore makes interesting comments on the use of the +character sketches by the poets. Character (ᤦθος) in +oratory, he says, is similar to comedy, as the passions (πάθος) +are to tragedy.[<a href="#foot205">205</a>] Professor Butcher calls attention to the early +influence of the character sketches on the middle comedy. Here the +"humours," to anticipate Ben Jonson, give names not only to the characters +of the play, but to the plays themselves.[<a href="#foot206">206</a>] As adopted by the drama, +the orator's view that people of a certain age and rank are likely to +behave in certain fashions was perverted to the dramatical law of +<i>decorum</i>, that people of certain age or rank must on the stage act +up to this generalization of what was characteristic. This law of decorum +was formulated by Horace in his <i>Ars Poetica</i>,[<a href="#foot207">207</a>] whence it was +derived by the renaissance. Thomas Wilson, in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, +gives a Theophrastian character sketch as an illustration of the figure +<i>descriptio</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> As in speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch + peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of + his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire + of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a + Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this thirtie Winter. He spent + once a groate at good ale, being forced through companie, and taken + short at his words, whereupon he hath taken such conceipt since that + time, that it hath almost cost him his life."[<a href="#foot208">208</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In 1592 Casaubon edited Theophrastus in Latin. Thereafter the character +sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of +remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[<a href="#foot209">209</a>] In the theory of the drama +the rhetorical method of characterization, fixed as the law of decorum, +flourished throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In England +from Whetstone on it was made much of. Thus a rhetorical tradition of +classical pedagogy, derived ultimately from Aristotle, and a poetical +tradition of later classical drama, derived from Horace, coincide in the +English renaissance.</p> + +<p>In <i>The Epistle Dedicatory to the Shepheards Calender</i> (1579), for +instance, E.K. praises Spenser for "his dewe observing of decorum everye +where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speach."[<a href="#foot210">210</a>] The +archaisms are defended in the first place, indeed, because they are +appropriate to rustic speakers, but in the second because Cicero says that +ancient words make the style seem grave and reverend. Further praise E.K. +grants the author because he avoids loose sentence structure and affects +the oratorical period. "Now, for the knitting of sentences, whych they +call the ioynts and members thereof, and for all the compasse of the +speach, it is round without roughness."[<a href="#foot211">211</a>] The "ioynts and members" are +the <i>cola</i> and <i>commas</i> of the oratorical prose rhythm. Stanyhurst in the +<i>Dedication</i> to his translation of Virgil (1582), like E. K., is concerned +with style rather than matter, and of course primarily with the revival +of classical meters, a subject already so thoroughly investigated that it +need not be gone into here.[<a href="#foot212">212</a>] Stanyhurst's praise of Virgil is largely +concerned with formal and rhetorical excellences.</p> + +<blockquote> Our <i>Virgil</i> dooth laboure, in telling as yt were a <i>Cantorburye tale</i>, + too ferret owt the secretes of <i>Nature</i>, with woordes so fitlye coucht, + wyth verses so smoothlye slyckte, with sentences so featlye ordered, + with orations so neatlie burnisht, with similitudes so aptly applyed, + with eeche <i>decorum</i> so duely observed, as in truth hee hath in right + purchased too hym self thee name of a surpassing poet, thee fame of an + od oratoure, and thee admiration of a profound philosopher.[<a href="#foot213">213</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus in accord with the mediseval tradition he analyzes poetry into +profitable subject matter and style.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-3"></a>3. The Influence of Aristotle</h4> + + +<p>In 1579 the Puritan attack on poetry and the stage began with Gosson's +<i>School of Abuse.</i>[<a href="#foot214">214</a>] and was answered by Lodge's <i>Defence of Poetry</i> in +the same year. The attack and defense both rested on moral, not aesthetic, +sanctions and will be discussed in a later section. It is only in Sidney's +<i>Defense</i> (c. 1583) and that of his follower Harington that theories of +the nature of poetry are included. And with Sidney the Aristotelianism of +the Italian renaissance makes its first appearance in English +criticism.[<a href="#foot215">215</a>]</p> + +<p>"Poesie," writes Sidney, "therefore is an arte of imitation, for so +Aristotle termeth it in his word <i>Mimesis</i>, that is to say, a +representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speake metaphorically, +a speaking picture."[<a href="#foot216">216</a>] Thus not only Aristotle's imitation enters +English criticism, but Plutarch's speaking picture as well, with all the +power of its false analogy. That Sidney himself was not, however, carried +away by the analogy is apparent from other passages. Aristotle, +classifying poetic with music and dancing as a time art with its essence +in movement, had insisted that a poem must have a beginning, a middle, and +an end--qualities which do not exist in space. So in the most quoted +passage from Sidney's <i>Defense</i>, it is a "tale forsooth," which draws old +men from the chimney corner, and children from play,[<a href="#foot217">217</a>] and "the +narration" which furnishes the groundplot of poesie.[<a href="#foot218">218</a>] Thus he +introduces into English criticism, as an important element of poetry, the +essentially sound idea that the characteristic structure of poetry lies in +its narrative and dramatic movement. Poetry cannot lie because it never +pretends to fact. He establishes this assertion on Aristotle's "universal +not the particular" as the basis of poetic. Sidney had followed Scaliger +in classifying poets into three kinds: the theological, the philosophical, +and the right poets. The third class, the real poets, he says, "borrow +nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be: but range, onely rayned with +learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and +should be."[<a href="#foot219">219</a>]</p> + +<p>In considering the vehicle of poetic Sidney parts company with Scaliger +and agrees with Castelvetro that verse is but an ornament and not the +characteristic mark of poetry. The <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, and the +<i>Theagines and Cariclea</i> of Heliodorus are poems, although written in +prose, because they feign notable images of virtues and vices, "although +indeed the Senate of Poets hath chosen verse as their fittest +rayment."[<a href="#foot220">220</a>] Proceeding thence, he defends verse as being a far greater +aid to memory than prose, borrowing his terminology of "rooms," "places," +and "seates," from the mnemonic system of Simonides usually incorporated +in the section on memory in the classical rhetorics.[<a href="#foot221">221</a>] Furthermore, +Sidney is the first in England to insist on the vividness of realization +which comes from the poet's being himself moved. Discussing lyric poetry, +Sidney says:</p> + +<blockquote> But truely many of such writings as come under the banner of + unresistable love, if I were a Mistres, would never perswade mee they + were in love; so coldely they apply fiery speeches, as men that had + rather red Lovers writings, and so caught up certaine swelling + phrases,... then that in truth they feele those passions, which easily + (as I think) may be bewrayed by that same forcibleness or <i>Energia</i> (as + the Greeks call it), of the writer.[<a href="#foot222">222</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Sidney's <i>Energia</i> came to him from the rhetorics of Aristotle and +Quintilian via the <i>Poetice</i> of Scaliger.[<a href="#foot223">223</a>] <i>Energia</i>, the vivifying +quality of poetry, had at the earliest age been adopted by rhetoric to +lend power to persuasion. Carefully preserved among the figures of +rhetoric, it had survived the middle ages, and appears in Wilson's <i>Arte +of Rhetoric</i> as "an evident declaration of a thing, as though we saw it +even now done."</p> + +<p>Sidney makes <i>energia</i> an essential quality of poetic; but even with him +it seems to have a rhetorical cast. It is especially to be used, says +Sidney, by a lover to persuade his mistress, urging her to yield while yet +her beauty endures. This <i>genre</i> of versified oration to one's mistress +was unusually popular in Elizabethan England. It may even be one reason +for Bacon's classification of lyric poetry as part of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot224">224</a>] +Although <i>energia</i> does belong to both poetic and rhetoric, as +pseudo-Longinus implies,[<a href="#foot225">225</a>] there seems to be here a definitely +rhetorical conception of poetic style. Sidney, however, keeps the +classical distinction between rhetoric and poetic, although he was +conscious of their contact in diction. "Both," he says with Aristotle, +"have an affinity in this wordish consideration."[<a href="#foot226">226</a>] While many +renaissance critics interpreted this affinity as permitting rhetorical +elaboration in poetry as well as in prose, Sidney with innate good taste +pleaded for more restraint. The diction of the writers of lyrics is even +worse, he says, than their content.</p> + +<blockquote> So is that honny-flowing Matron Eloquence apparalled, or rather + disguised, in a Curtizan-like painted affectation: one time with so + farre fette words, they seem monsters, but must seem strangers to any + poore English man, another tyme with coursing of a Letter as if they + were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary; another tyme, with + figures and flowers extreamelie winter-starved.[<a href="#foot227">227</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Prose writers, he adds, are as badly infected as "versers," even scholars +and preachers. That he himself was infected appears in the examples of +interminable "tropes" and "schemes" quoted by Fraunce in his <i>Arcadian +Rhetoric</i> (1588) from Sidney's own <i>Arcadia</i>. But the concession of his +own style to the habit of his age did not involve any fundamental +confusion of rhetoric with poetic.</p> + +<p>Thus Sidney's <i>Defense of Poesie</i>, by domesticating in England the +Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing +mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that +Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and +from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to +expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought +which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney +instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years +established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases +toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism +profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is +interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the +mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show +classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable +residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-4"></a>4. Manuals for Poets</h4> + + +<p>Before William Webbe wrote his <i>Discourse of English Poetry</i> (1586) there +had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive +study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely +glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James +attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were +primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the +Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as +a main object. In his <i>Discourse</i> Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose +in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on +English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to +discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be +aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much +attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, +poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall <i>Eloquution</i>, +as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one +descent."[<a href="#foot228">228</a>] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by +eloquence, he cites Lyly's <i>Euphues</i>.</p> + +<blockquote> Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave + composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make + tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, + in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine + sence.[<a href="#foot229">229</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to +be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. +Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in +style. He adds:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning + and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure + of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an + apt composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the + hearers eares even whether soever it lysteth, that <i>Plato</i> affirmeth + therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to + persuade.[<a href="#foot230">230</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and +rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have +poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of +diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the +diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse +and oratory in prose.</p> + +<blockquote> Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in + measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion + of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt + and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly + called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[<a href="#foot231">231</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come +seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best +known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the +<i>Discourse</i> is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into +matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval +<i>doctrina</i>, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are +derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the +figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical +meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His +treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with +an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his +treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of +poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from +the <i>Ars Poetica</i>, and the <i>Epistles</i>.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589), +generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the +some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to +write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, +Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to +write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise +an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, +Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes +most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and +satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the +Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of +poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his +inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles +Aristotle and Horace.[<a href="#foot232">232</a>] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the +importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in +war, engineering and politics.[<a href="#foot234">234</a>] That the art of poetry is eminently +teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill +appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by +reason and gathered by experience.[<a href="#foot233">233</a>] It is verse, according to +Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This +makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more +eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and +set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it +sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so +beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best +persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[<a href="#foot235">235</a>] +Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more +beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better +able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and +history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, +and so on. The second book, <i>Of Proportion</i>, 70 pages, is a treatise on +metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English +versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures +such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is +devoted to classical meters. In his third book, <i>Of Ornament</i>, 165 pages, +Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of +speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, +Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[<a href="#foot236">236</a>]. Professor +Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his <i>Poetic and Verse +Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth</i>, because, he says, it does not fall +within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as +applicable to prose as to verse[<a href="#foot237">237</a>]. That Puttenham did include it, +however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading +public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the +ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be +seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly +embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and +bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham.</p> + +<blockquote> This ornament is given to it by figures and figurative speaches, which + be the flowers, as it were, and colours that a Poet setteth upon his + language of arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle or + passements of gold upon the stuffe of a Princely garment[<a href="#foot238">238</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>The figures Puttenham divides according to his own scheme. First come the +figures <i>auricular</i> peculiar to the poets, then the figures <i>sensable</i> +common to the poets and the rhetoricians, and finally the figures +<i>sententious</i> appropriate to the orators alone. After he has explained the +first two varieties, however, and enters on the third, Puttenham says:</p> + +<blockquote> Now if our presupposall be true, that the Poet is of all other the most + auncient Orator, as he that by good and pleasant perswasions first + reduced the wilde and beastly people into publicke societies and + civilitie of life, insinuating unto them, under fictions with sweete and + coloured speeches, many wholesome lessons and doctrines, then no doubt + there is nothing so fitte for him, as to be furnished with all the + figures that be <i>Rhetoricall</i>, and such as do most beautifie language + with eloquence and sententiousness. So as if we should intreate our + maker to play also the Orator, and whether it be to pleade, or to + praise, or to advise, that in all three cases he may utter and also + perswade both copiously and vehemently[<a href="#foot239">239</a>]. </blockquote> + +<p>Puttenham was writing in the same age and with the same tradition which +defined Rhetoric as the art of ornament in speech. The only difference +between oratory and poetry lay in that the latter was composed in verse.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="1-8-5"></a>5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism</h4> + + +<p>From Puttenham to Bacon no serious contributions were made to the general +theory of poetry. Critical attention was absorbed by controversies of +Campion and Daniel over native and classical versification, and the +flyting of Harvey and Nash. Harvey was a classical scholar and rhetorician +who knew that poetry and oratory were different things, and believed verse +to be the mark of the first and prose of the latter[<a href="#foot240">240</a>]. He preferred the +periodic style of Isocrates and Ascham to the tricksy pages of +Euphues[<a href="#foot241">241</a>]. Chapman, likewise, considered verse the mark of poetry, and +prose of rhetoric[<a href="#foot242">242</a>].</p> + +<p>In the <i>Advancement of Learning</i> (1605) Bacon clears up some of the +misconceptions of the English renaissance by judicious borrowing from the +Italian. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> Poesie is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part + restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly + referre to the Imagination, which, beeing not tyed to the Lawes of + Matter, may at pleasure joyne that which Nature hath severed, & sever + that which Nature hath joyned, and so make all unlawful Matches & + divorses of things: It is taken in two senses in respect of Wordes or + Matter. In the first sense it is but a <i>Character</i> of stile, and + belongeth to Arts of speeche. In the later, it is, as hath beene saide, + one of the principall Portions of learning, and is nothing else but + <i>Fained History</i>, which may be stiled as well in Prose as in Verse.[<a href="#foot243">243</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Bacon's focus of attention on the substance of poetry is in keeping with +his attack on mere sophistication of style in rhetoric. Poetry as style +does not interest him. Like Castelvetro and Sidney, he considers the +vehicle of verse not essential to poetry, which, as a product of the +imagination, he considers to be occupied with fiction. To Bacon, perhaps, +the imagination seems to be too much the organ of make-believe, imaging +things which never were on land or under the sea. Nevertheless his claim +for the imagination is fortunate in ruling out those theories of art which +set up slavish fidelity to fact, under the name of imitation, as the +essence of poetry. Bacon was not concerned with formulating a complete +theory of poetry, but his pithy <i>obiter dicta</i> were influential in further +establishing the sounder criticism of the Italian classicists.</p> + +<p>As Spingarn points out, Ben Jonson was first led to classicism in poetical +theory by the example of Sidney.[<a href="#foot244">244</a>] But during the intervening years +the scholars of Holland had supplanted those of Italy; and whereas Sidney +derived his Aristotelianism from Scaliger and Minturno, Jonson derived his +even more from Pontanus, Heinsius, and Lipsius and from the Latin +rhetoricians, Cicero and Quintilian.</p> + +<blockquote> A Poet (says Jonson) is a Maker, or a fainer: His Art, an Art of + imitation or faining, expressing the life of man in fit measure, + numbers, and harmony.... Hence hee is called a <i>Poet</i>, not he which + writeth in measure only, but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and + writes things like the truth. For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, + the form and Soule of any Poeticall worke or Poeme.[<a href="#foot245">245</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>So convinced was Jonson that the essence of poetry does not lie in verse +but in fiction that Drummond reports, "he thought not Bartas a Poet, but a +Verser, because he wrote not fiction."[<a href="#foot246">246</a>] Jonson was misled by the false +analogy of poetry and painting.</p> + +<blockquote> <i>Poetry</i> and <i>Picture</i> are Arts of a like nature, and both are busie + about imitation. It was excellently said of <i>Plutarch, Poetry</i> was a + speaking Picture, and <i>Picture</i> a mute <i>Poesie</i>. For they both invent, + fame, and devise many things.[<a href="#foot247">247</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This structural and static conception of poetry is well exemplified by his +comparisons. Whereas Aristotle classified poetry with music and dance, +Jonson compares the epic or dramatic plot to a house. The epic is like a +palace and so requires more space than a drama. The influence of Jonson +was beneficial, however, in that he did emphasize in poetry the element of +structure which the middle ages had largely neglected.[<a href="#foot248">248</a>] In his ideals +of style Jonson is rhetorical. In the twelve sections of <i>Timber</i> which he +devotes to rhetoric he incorporates a sound treatise on prose style, +urging restraint and perspicuity as especial virtues. In his nine sections +on poetry he says nothing about style, except to quote Oicero to the +effect that "the <i>Poet</i> is the nearest Borderer upon the Orator, and +expresseth all his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers." It would +seem that the section on style in oratory was meant to serve for poetry as +well. Jonson's own methods of comparison, as related to Drummond, would +bear this out: "That he wrote all his (verses) first in prose."[<a href="#foot249">249</a>] From +the same authority one may learn that "He recommended to my reading +Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he +lived with me," and "That Quintilian's 6, 7, 8, bookes were not only to be +read, but altogether digested,"[<a href="#foot250">250</a>] Though Jonson makes no more +distinction than Petrarch, between Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian as +authorities on poetical style,[<a href="#foot251">251</a>] his rhetorical cast does not imply the +style advocated by Webbe and Puttenham. This was the exuberant style of +mediaeval rhetoric, whereas by temperament and scholarly training Jonson +threw his influence in favor of the classical rhetorical style of the best +period.</p> + +<p>The influence of Bacon in favor of the sound rhetoric of Cicero and +Quintilian, seconded by that of Jonson, finally did away with the +mediaeval ideal of rhetoric as being one with aureate language and +embroidered style. The stylistic exuberance of the Elizabethans gave place +to a more restrained and polished phrase in the reign of Charles. Bolton, +for instance, in his <i>Hypercritica</i> (c. 1618) warns the historians against +the style of the <i>Arcadia</i>. "Solidity and Fluency," he says, "better +becomes the historian, then Singularity of Oratorical or Poetical +Notions."[<a href="#foot252">252</a>] Henry Reynolds, in his <i>Mythomystes</i> (c. 1633), although he +goes wool-gathering with mystical interpretations of poetry, yet evinces +the same reaction against the ornate style in terming the flowers of +rhetoric and versification as mere accidents of poetry.[<a href="#foot253">253</a>] In his +<i>Anacrisis</i> (1634) the Earl of Stirling likewise urges that "language is +but the Apparel of Poesy."[<a href="#foot254">254</a>] The "but" marks the difference between the +ideals of two ages. Fiction remains for him the essence of poetry, for +fiction in prose is poetry. But he will not go the whole way with Jonson +and deny the name of poet to one whose material is not fictitious.[<a href="#foot255">255</a>]</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, for English criticism, Milton wrote very little on the +theory of poetry. His casual remarks, however, show such enlightened +scholarship and keen insight that what little he did write makes up in +importance what it lacks in bulk. In the Treatise <i>Of Education</i> (1644) he +refers to the sublime art of poetry "which in <i>Aristotle's poetics</i>, in +<i>Horace</i>, and the <i>Italian</i> commentaries of <i>Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni</i>, +and others, teaches what the laws are of a true <i>Epic</i> poem, what of a +<i>Dramatic</i>, what of a <i>Lyric</i>, what decorum is, which is the grand master +peece to observe."[<a href="#foot256">256</a>] His rhetoric, also, he knew at first hand from the +best classical sources. He gives as his authorities Plato, Aristotle, +Phalereus,[<a href="#foot257">257</a>] Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.[<a href="#foot258">258</a>] This is the first time +that an English critic mentions the treatise <i>On the Sublime</i> in +connection with poetry. It can thus hardly be a coincidence that Milton, +while citing the only surviving literary critic of classical antiquity who +gave proper emphasis to the importance of passion in poetry,[<a href="#foot259">259</a>] should +himself be the first English critical writer to urge for passion the same +importance. This he does in his famous differentiation of rhetoric and +poetic. In the educational scheme, he says, after mathematics should be +studied logic and rhetoric "To which Poetry would be made subsequent or +indeed rather precedent, as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, +sensuous, and passionate."[<a href="#foot260">260</a>] Milton has sometimes been thought to be +here defining poetry, but he is only distinguishing it from rhetoric. A +definition of poetry he never attempted. Meter he deemed essential to +poetry,[<a href="#foot261">261</a>] but rime he disliked. Thus, as far as he goes, Milton +represents the best in English renaissance criticism. He knew at first +hand the best classical treatises on poetic and on rhetoric; and he +recognized the distinctions which the ancients had made between them.</p> + +<p>With the English literary criticism in the second half of the Seventeenth +Century, when the influence of French classicism was in the ascendant, +this study is not concerned. In the period which has just been surveyed +three points are noteworthy: the character of the English critics, the +slowness with which the classical theories penetrated English thought, and +the modifications which they underwent in the process. Gregory Smith calls +attention to the influence of Sidney and Daniel in establishing "the claim +of English criticism as an instrument of power outside the craft of +rhetoricians and scholars."[<a href="#foot262">262</a>] Of the English critical writers Ascham +is the foremost of the scholarly type; Harvey is the only other example. +Thomas Wilson, although he wrote a rhetoric, wrote a better one in many +ways because he was not a professional rhetorician, but a man of affairs. +Gascoigne, Lodge, Spenser, were poets who incidentally wrote on the +technic of their art or in defence of its value. Sidney, the poet, +courtier, and soldier, wrote not from the musty alcoves of libraries. +Webbe, it is true, was a pedant, but certainly not a scholar. Puttenham +was a bad poet, a well-read man, and a courtier. Jonson's scholarship was +thorough, but sweetened and ventilated by his activities as poet and +dramatist. Bacon was a scholar, but even more a philosopher and a +statesman. Milton, our most scholarly poet, during most of his life could +not keep his mind and pen from church and national politics. Indeed, +during the entire English renaissance there was no professional critic. +Literary criticism was not a field to be tilled, but a wood to be explored +by busy men who could find time for the exploit.</p> + +<p>This amateur character of English critics accounts in a measure for the +slowness with which classical and Italian renaissance critical theories +filtered into England; for a statesman or a soldier is less likely to be +up-to-date on theories of poetry than is a professional critic whose +business it is to know what is written on his specialty. Another powerful +influence in the same direction was the characteristic English +conservatism which preferred the traditional paths of thought to Italian +innovations.</p> + +<p>This same common-sense conservatism accounts also for the modifications of +Italian renaissance critical theories before they were incorporated into +the fund of English criticism. Classical meters, slavish imitation of the +ancients, close adherence to the rules of unity and decorum never made +much headway in the English renaissance. Such contaminations of poetic by +rhetoric as are clearest seem to arise not from the new Italian influence, +but from the mediaeval tradition.</p> + +<p>To sum up, classical critics had recognized two categories of literature: +a fine art, poetic; and a practical art, rhetoric. Poetic they thought +characterized by narrative or dramatic structure or movement, and by +vividness of realization, and by passion. Rhetoric was characterized by a +logical structure determined by the necessity of persuading an audience. +Although most classical critics accepted prose as characteristic of +rhetoric, and verse of poetry, Aristotle pointed out that the distinction +was far more fundamental. As these two kinds of literature had a common +ground in diction, there was a tendency from very early times for them to +merge. In the artistic degeneracy of late Latin literature both rhetoric +and poetic paid less attention to structure and other elements which +distinguished them, and more attention to style, which they had in common. +Moreover, under the influence of sophistical rhetoric, preoccupied with +style, poetic and rhetoric practiced the same rhetorical artifices. As a +result Virgil might be either an orator or a poet. This was the rhetoric +which the middle ages inherited. To them rhetoric was synonymous with +stylistic beauty. Poetry was a compound of <i>doctrina</i> and <i>eloquentia</i>, in +other words of theology and style, in verse. In England this mediaeval +tradition persisted into the seventeenth century, as the school rhetorics +and the treatises on poetry show. The English renaissance poetic never +freed itself from this influence of mediaeval rhetoric until the middle of +the seventeenth century. With the recovery of classical literature and +literary criticism, the new theories were interpreted in the light of the +old ideas.</p> + +<p>On its creative side the renaissance sought to produce in the vernacular a +literature comparable to that of Greece or Rome. Thus literary criticism +was prescriptive, and the typical treatises were text-books. Rhetoric, +which had long been taught, very naturally furnished the methods, the +teachers, and in many cases the subject matter for this instruction in +poetry. As has been shown in the preceding section of this study, the +renaissance theory of poetry was rhetorical in its obsession with style, +especially the figures of speech, in its abiding faith in the efficacy of +rules; and in its belief that the poet, no less than the orator, is +occupied with persuasion. This latter rhetorical view that the poet's +office is to persuade will be studied more fully in the following section +on "The Purpose of Poetry." The traditional view is that by persuading the +reader to adhere to the good and shun the evil the poet achieves the +proper end of poetry--moral improvement.</p> + + + + + +<h2><a name="2"></a>Part Two<br /> + +The Purpose of Poetry</h2> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-1"></a>Chapter I<br /> + +The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-1"></a>1. General</h4> + + +<p>To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to +say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section +of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of +the second assertion for the first.</p> + +<p>As has been shown,[<a href="#foot263">263</a>] the classical critics were in substantial +agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of +discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of +classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the +reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to +moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not +formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's +definition of tragedy from the <i>Poetics</i>[<a href="#foot264">264</a>] with his definition of +rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as</p> + +<blockquote> a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of + actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of + correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy + lives.[<a href="#foot265">265</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, +was formulated by Varchi.[<a href="#foot266">266</a>]</p> + +<blockquote> Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain + actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony, + together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and + inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true + happiness and beatitude.[<a href="#foot267">267</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an +educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation +of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the +tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical +rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; +and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance +those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the +classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-2"></a>2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example</h4> + + +<p>The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the +reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in <i>The +Frogs</i> of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting +and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the +points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his +ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be +better citizens and worthier men."[<a href="#foot268">268</a>] Aeschylus then goes on to show +that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the +military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he +accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on +the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts +to be immoral in its effect. "For boys a school teacher is provided; but +we, the poets, are teachers of men."[<a href="#foot269">269</a>]</p> + +<p>This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, +teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by +Timocles. "Our spirit," says one of the characters in the drama, +"forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of +others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one +time."[<a href="#foot270">270</a>]</p> + +<p>The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the +<i>Protagoras</i>, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an +exposition of the conventional Greek opinion.</p> + +<blockquote> When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what + is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into + his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at + school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and + praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to + learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become + like them.[<a href="#foot271">271</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>It is in the <i>Republic</i>, of course, that Plato enunciates his capital +objections to poetry. The first objection is that poetry as an imitative +art is three removes from truth. The divine powers, for instance, create +the idea of a table--the only true table. A carpenter makes a particular +table which is not the real, but only an appearance. A graphic artist +making a picture of this appearance is only an imitator of appearances. +"And the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore thrice removed from the +king and from the truth."[<a href="#foot272">272</a>] The second objection which Plato raises +against poetry is that poetry is addressed to the passional element in +man. The man of noble spirit and philosophy will not lament his +misfortunes, especially in public, while the lower orders of intellect are +likely to express all their feelings with greater freedom, and thus +furnish the poet with easier subjects for imitation. Consequently poetry +has the power of harming the good, for a good man will be in raptures at +the excellences of the poet who stirs his feelings most by representing a +hero in an emotional condition. As a result, when he himself suffers +sorrow or is moved by his own passions, it becomes more difficult for him +to repress his feelings.[<a href="#foot273">273</a>] Plato thus examines the popular contention +that the study of poetry educates the moral character of a man, and still +maintaining that it should be a moral force for good, demonstrates to his +own satisfaction that it fails to have the supposed beneficial effect +because it is three removes from truth, and because it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism in conduct. Plato's moral standard of poetry is +even better illustrated, perhaps, by the kind of poetry which he does not +ban from his ideal commonwealth. "We must remain firm in our conviction," +he says, "that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only +poetry which ought to be admitted into our state." As his utmost +concession to poetry, he will admit her if her defenders can prove "not +only that she is pleasant, but also useful to states and to human +life."[<a href="#foot274">274</a>] According to a later view, to be sure, Plato has been thought +to justify pleasure of a most refined and exalted variety as an end of +art. "The view which identifies the pleasant and the just and the good and +the noble has an excellent moral and religious tendency."[<a href="#foot275">275</a>] In view, +however, of other pronouncements, such an endeavor to father upon him the +hedonistic theory of the purpose of art seems strained and ineffective.</p> + +<p>It was to justify poetry against the attacks of Plato that Aristotle +advanced a hedonistic view of poetry and propounded his theory of +katharsis. Nowhere in the <i>Poetics</i> does Aristotle explicitly state that +the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Indirect evidence, however, is +plentiful. For instance, Aristotle justifies poetry as an imitative art +because children learn by imitation and the pleasure in imitation is +universal.[<a href="#foot276">276</a>] Furthermore, plot in tragedy is more important than +character; for in painting, a confused mass of colors gives less pleasure +than a chalk drawing of a portrait.[<a href="#foot277">277</a>] Beauty in any art depends in a +measure on magnitude; therefore a play must not be too short.[<a href="#foot278">278</a>] Most of +the tragic poets of Greece derived their plots from a limited number of +well known stories. But Aristotle justifies Agathon for departing from +this custom and making both his plot and characters fictitious, for the +plays of Agathon give none the less pleasure.[<a href="#foot279">279</a>] But not all pleasure, +he says, is appropriate to tragedy. In comedy we are pleased to see +enemies walk off the stage as friends, but in tragedy the "pleasure which +the poet should afford is that which comes from pity and fear through +imitation."[<a href="#foot280">280</a>] Marvels, too, and wonders in poetry he justifies because +"the wonderful is pleasing; as may be inferred from the fact that everyone +tells a story with additions of his own, knowing that his hearers like it. +It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies +skilfully."[<a href="#foot281">281</a>] And at the very end of the <i>Poetics</i>, where he is +endeavoring to prove that tragedy is a higher art than epic, he does so by +showing that drama has all the epic elements, and in addition music and +spectacle, which produce the most vivid of pleasures. Moreover the drama +is more compact; "for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one +which is diluted."[<a href="#foot282">282</a>] Thus, in the <i>Poetics</i>, Aristotle takes a +non-moral attitude toward literature, although in the <i>Politics</i>[<a href="#foot283">283</a>] he +grants that poetry and music are eminently serviceable in conveying moral +instruction to young people. His mature attitude is well illustrated in +contrast with that of Aristophanes. Aristophanes criticises Euripides +severely as a perverter of Athenian morality. Aristotle mentions Euripides +about twenty times in the <i>Poetics</i>, and frequently criticises him +adversely, not, however, for his evil moral influence, but because he uses +his choruses badly, and is faulty in character-drawing.</p> + +<p>In answer to Plato's second objection to poetry, that it encourages +unrestrained emotionalism, Aristotle propounded his theory of katharsis. +"Tragedy," he says, "is an imitation of an action ... through pity and +fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions."[<a href="#foot284">284</a>] That +Aristotle had in mind an analogy with medicine is better understood from a +passage in the <i>Politics</i> which describes the beneficial effect of music +on patients suffering from religious ecstasy. The stimulating music +furnishes the patient with an outlet for the expression of his religious +fervor. Afterwards, says Aristotle, the patients "fall back into their +normal state, as if they had undergone a medical or purgative +treatment."[<a href="#foot285">285</a>] Thus the theory of katharsis seems to have the same basis +as the modern psychological theory which encourages the expression of +emotions in their milder form lest, if inhibited, they gather added power +and finally burst disastrously through all restraints. Consequently, +although hedonist theorists have been anxious to establish katharsis on a +purely aesthetic foundation, it seems that the theory has inescapable +moral implications. To be sure, Aristotle in the same section of the +<i>Politics</i> says that the emotional result of katharsis is "harmless joy," +and in the <i>Poetics</i> he says that pity and fear produce the appropriate +pleasure of tragedy. Nevertheless Aristotle is answering Plato's +objections to unrestrained emotionalism, and by his theory of katharsis +endeavors to show not only that the emotional excitation of tragedy is +harmless to the spectator, but that it is actually good for him.</p> + +<p>But if the spectator is to derive these emotional excitations from +tragedy, his aesthetic experience cannot be passive. Aristotle recommends +as the ideal tragic hero a man not preeminently good nor unusually +depraved, but a man between these extremes; "for pity is aroused by +unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like +ourselves."[<a href="#foot286">286</a>] Evidently, then, through his imagination the spectator +must in a lively fashion participate in the action of the drama. Not only +is he present at the action, even when he reads the drama, but he +identifies himself with the hero and vicariously experiences his emotions.</p> + +<p>But neither the hedonism of Aristotle, nor his defense of poetry on moral +grounds through his theory of katharsis, is usual in Greek criticism. +Isocrates and Xenophon adhere to the usual opinion. Isocrates believes +that Homer was prized by the earlier Greeks because his poems instilled a +hatred of the barbarians, and kindled in the hearts of the readers a +desire to emulate the heroes who fought against Troy.[<a href="#foot287">287</a>] One might think +that the hatred of the barbarians was not the highest degree of morality, +but perhaps for the political integrity of Greece it was. That Homer +especially was supposed to have a moral influence is illustrated also by +Xenophon. Niceratus, in the <i>Symposium</i>, is telling the diners of what +knowledge he is most proud. "My father," he says, "in his pains to make me +a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems."[<a href="#foot288">288</a>]</p> + +<p>Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek +thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief.</p> + +<blockquote> Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the + amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition + to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, + guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our + tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise + man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens + of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for + the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[<a href="#foot289">289</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's +essay <i>On the Study of Poetry</i> that it is difficult to quote from him +without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught +poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely +as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[<a href="#foot290">290</a>] in his +reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are +pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch +believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards +because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be +taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously +avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make +poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking +and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[<a href="#foot291">291</a>] The profit of poetry he +believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very +highly such <i>sententiae</i> as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and +"know thyself."[<a href="#foot292">292</a>] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so +heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them +in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For +instance:</p> + +<blockquote> Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied + who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his + advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not + envy.[<a href="#foot293">293</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of +example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction +and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and +presenting fictitious narratives."[<a href="#foot294">294</a>] For instance, according to +Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her +ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that +such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that +frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the +only man who does such a thing in the <i>Iliad</i> is that lascivious and +adulterous fellow Paris.[<a href="#foot295">295</a>] It is interesting that this essay of +Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of +the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance +and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603.</p> + +<p>The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry +as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman +was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman +criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes +been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, +for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but +about the purpose of the poet.</p> + +<blockquote> Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are + at once pleasant and profitable.</blockquote> + +<p>His reason for favoring the third view is important.</p> + +<blockquote> Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect + austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval + of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This + book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and + prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[<a href="#foot296">296</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his +poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an +educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive +manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to +emulate.</p> + +<blockquote> His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean<br /> +The boyish ear from words and tales unclean;<br /> +As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind,<br /> +And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind;<br /> +He tells of worthy precedents, displays<br /> +The example of the past to after days,<br /> +Consoles affliction, and disease allays.[<a href="#foot297">297</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Moreover the consensus of conventional opinion in the Roman world was that +the study of the poets did succeed in moulding the moral character of the +youth. Apuleius, writing of a certain virtuous young man, the hero of one +of the episodes of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, makes the following incidental +remark: "The master of the house had a young son well instructed in good +literature, and consequently remarkable for his piety and modesty."[<a href="#foot298">298</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Lucretius may not have been assured of the moral value, he was +so convinced of the seductive powers of poetry that he deliberately +utilized them to make palatable the forbidding thoughts of his essay <i>On +the Nature of Things</i>. The long passage is worth quoting entire because +his comparison is borrowed so frequently by renaissance critics to +illustrate the poetic doctrine of pleasurable profit. Lucretius says:</p> + +<blockquote> But as physicians, when they attempt to give bitter wormwood to + children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the sweet and yellow + liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet unsuspicious, may + find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink the bitter juice of + the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be injured, but rather, being + recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this + argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it + has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was + desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in + sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the honey + of the Muses.[<a href="#foot299">299</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From this survey of classical opinion we may conclude that the public +looked for two things in poetry: pleasure and profit. Eratosthenes took an +extreme view in seeking pleasure alone. Both Aristotle and Horace +emphasized the pleasure to be derived from poetry, although neither denied +that poetry is beneficial. Horace takes almost a cynical view in +suggesting that, as some readers seek pleasure in poetry and others +improvement, a poet will be more popular and make more money for the +book-sellers if he mingles both elements. The extreme view of the moral +value of poetry was taken by the educators of youth. This view is well +exemplified in the quotations from Aristophanes, Xenophon, Strabo, and +especially Plutarch. But even Plutarch, who goes so far as to suggest +emending the poets to make their effect more moral, does not suggest that +the purpose of poetry is to afford moral instruction. He distinguishes; +some poetry is distinctly immoral and should be enjoyed only for its art. +Other poetry is moral in its effect, and consequently should be utilized +extensively by the school-master in educating young men. For such purposes +no poetry was thought to be better than Homer, whose epics furnish so many +examples of heroic conduct.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-3"></a>3. Moral Improvement through Allegory</h4> + + +<p>When the Roman arms conquered a new city, the story runs, the commander of +the forces took over in the name of the Emperor the gods; but before the +gates of Jerusalem this ceremony proved ineffective. The fathers of the +Christian church, Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian, believing +that all the truth was contained in Christianity, utterly condemned the +philosophy and religion of the Greeks and consequently the poetry which, +according to Greek popular belief, was the inspired vehicle for its +presentation. Furthermore, the gods of the Greeks were immoral and +furnished their worshippers with bad examples of conduct. Long before +Tertullian the moral philosophers of antiquity had already attacked the +poetry of Greece and Rome on the ground of immorality. Plato in his day +called the war between philosophy and poetry "age-long." The ancient +Greeks had considered Homer and Hesiod as the inspired recorders of the +facts of religion. They had looked to the poets for moral dogma and +example. Of necessity the philosophers condemned the poets for the +immorality of their thievish, lying, and adulterous pantheon.</p> + +<p>When the Christian fathers were confronted with the Syriac gospel of the +youth of Jesus, they called a council to declare it apochryphal. Lest +some devout reader should take literally the love poetry of the Canticles, +the fathers allegorized it as the love of Christ for his Church. +Unfortunately for Greek religion the philosophers did not determine which +episodes in the histories of the gods were valid as doctrine and which +were fictitious. They did, however, anticipate the fathers in their +allegorical interpretations. Socrates in the <i>Phaedrus</i> laughs at +allegory;[<a href="#foot300">300</a>] and Plutarch believes that the poets intended to teach a +moral idea by example instead of expressing a hidden meaning by allegory. +For him allegory involved distortion and perversion. "For some men +<i>distort</i> these stories and <i>pervert</i> them into allegories or what the men +of old times called hidden meanings ὑπόνοιαι."[<a href="#foot301">301</a>] But +allegory none the less flourished. Theognis of Rhegium, Anaxagoras, and +Stesimbrotus of Thasos, were assiduous and startling in their +interpretations.[<a href="#foot302">302</a>] The Greek allegorical interpretations were of two +kinds: one an explanation of the secrets of nature, the other the teaching +of morality.[<a href="#foot303">303</a>] Although the practice was very old, the word "allegory" +is not recorded before Cicero, who says:</p> + +<blockquote> When the imagery of the metaphor is sustained for a long time, the + nature of the style assuredly becomes changed. Consequently the Greeks + call this sort of thing allegory.... But he is nearer the truth who + calls all of these metaphors.[<a href="#foot304">304</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>From Cicero on, allegory has a long history as a rhetorical figure--a +trope.[<a href="#foot305">305</a>] St. Augustine recommends that students of the scriptures study +the rhetorical figures so that they may be able to interpret the tropes in +the Bible, such as allegory.[<a href="#foot306">306</a>]</p> + +<p>The result will always be the same whenever the poets are considered +theologians and moral teachers. They will be condemned or allegorized. +Fortunate are the poets when they are not believed. "How much better," +exclaims St. Augustine, "are these fables of the poets" than the false +religious notions of the Manichees. "But Medea flying, although I chanted +sometimes, yet I maintained not the truth of; and though I heard it sung, +I believed it not: but these phantasies I thoroughly believed."[<a href="#foot307">307</a>] For +it is only when one believes devoutly that Zeus procured access to Danae +in a shower of gold, that his action gives a divine sanction to such +traffic in beauty on the agora or in the forum.[<a href="#foot308">308</a>] It is only when the +poets make no pretense of recounting facts that they can escape the +clutches of the philosophers. It was to save the poets from such attacks +that Aristotle asserts that poetry deals with the universal, not with the +particular.[<a href="#foot309">309</a>] Or, as Spingarn explains his meaning, "Poetry has little +regard for the actuality of specific event, but aims at the reality of an +eternal probability."[<a href="#foot310">310</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-1-4"></a>4. The Influence of Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>Thus the general consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry has +inescapable moral effects on those who listen or read. The moralists, +especially the Stoics, when confronted with traditional poetry whose +literal significance was immoral, leaned toward allegorical +interpretations which brought out a kernel of truth. The greater number, +however, of Greeks and Romans in the classical period believed that poetry +exerted the most potent influence for good when it enunciated crisp moral +maxims and afforded examples of heroic conduct which young people could be +induced to follow.</p> + +<p>In all these respects the classical view of poetic has much in common with +classical rhetoric. Allegory has been shown to have had a long history as +an extended metaphor--a rhetorical figure. Maxims are considered fully by +Aristotle as aids to persuasion in rhetoric.[<a href="#foot311">311</a>] The exemplum is +obviously a stock means of rhetoric.</p> + +<p>"Examples," says Aristotle, "are of two kinds, one consisting in the +allegation of historical facts, and the other in the invention of facts +for oneself. Invention comprises illustration on the one hand and ... +fables on the other." Then he tells how Aesop defended a demagogue by the +fable of the fox caught in the cleft of a rock. The fox was infested with +dog-ticks which sucked his blood. A benevolent hedge-hog offered to remove +the ticks, but the fox declined the kind offer on the ground that his +ticks were already full of blood and had ceased to annoy him much, whereas +if they were removed, a new colony of ticks would establish themselves and +thus entirely drain him of blood. "Yes, and in your case, men of Samos," +said Aesop, "my client will not do much further mischief--he has already +made his fortune--but, if you put him to death, there will come others who +are poor and who will consume all the revenues of the state by their +embezzlements."[<a href="#foot312">312</a>] "Fables," continues the shrewd master of those who +know, "have this advantage that, while historical parallels are hard to +find, it is comparatively easy to find fables." Quintilian, like +Aristotle, believes in the persuasive efficacy of examples. But Quintilian +has less faith in the probative value of fictitious examples than he has +in those drawn from authentic history. He thinks that fables are most +effective with a rustic and ingenuous audience, which "captivated by their +pleasure in the story, give assent to that which pleases them."[<a href="#foot313">313</a>] Thus +Menenius Agrippa reconciled the people to the senators by telling them the +fable of the revolt of the members against the belly. And Thomas Wilson, +in his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i>, repeats the story, in his section on +examples, and ascribes to Themistocles the fox story which Aristotle tells +of Aesop.[<a href="#foot314">314</a>]</p> + +<p>But Aristotle, Quintilian, and Wilson are talking about rhetoric. Very +justly they believe that if one wants to persuade an audience to a course +of action, he must interest his audience sufficiently to hold their +attention. As Wilson sagely remarks, "For except men finde delite, they +will not long abide: delite them and winne them."[<a href="#foot315">315</a>] Cicero expressed in +memorable phrase the relationship between proof and pleasure as +instruments to persuasion and added a third element. He classified the +aims of an orator as "to teach, to please, to move" (<i>docere, delectare, +movere</i>). The teaching is the appeal to the intellect of the hearer by +means of proof. The pleasure is afforded by a euphonious style, and by +fables and stories. The audience is moved to action by the appeal to their +feelings.[<a href="#foot316">316</a>]</p> + +<p>Not until the renaissance did writers on the theory of poetry carry over +Cicero's threefold aim of the orator and make it apply to the poet.[<a href="#foot317">317</a>] +But already in post-classical times rhetoric had, as Seneca the father +clearly shows, vitiated the Latin poetry of the Silver Age. Under the +Empire the declamation schools in Rome had a profound influence on +literature.[<a href="#foot318">318</a>] It could not be otherwise in a society where the school +of rhetoric was the only temple of higher education, for which the +grammaticus, or elementary professor of literature, was constrained to +prepare his students. Rhetoric was the organon of Roman education, and +declamation was the aim of rhetoric. It was such an educational system +which prepared Ovid and Lucan for their careers as poets and men of +letters. Seneca the father records the brilliant declamations of Ovid as a +schoolboy, quoting at some length his plea for a wife who threw herself +over a cliff on hearing of the death of her husband, and calling attention +to several passages in Ovid's poems where the poet has borrowed the clever +sayings of his professors in the school of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot319">319</a>] Ovid makes his +characters prove that they are moved by passion instead of being +passionate in word and deed. He vitiates his emotions with his wit. This +is characteristic of almost all the poets who attended the declamation +schools. They talk about situations and characters instead of realizing +them. They write as if they were speaking to an audience. One can almost +see the gestures, the wait for applause after the enunciation of a noble +platitude. Not only historically, but also in the worst modern sense this +is rhetoric. It is not unreasonable to conclude that such a preoccupation +with rhetoric, such a sustained search for all possible means of +persuasion, should have strengthened rather than weakened the utilitarian +theory of poetry. The school-master endeavored to mould the characters of +his students by examples from heroic poetry; the teacher of rhetoric, in +turn, taught them that to persuade an audience they must prove, please, +and move, and that ficticious examples were about as persuasive as +historical parallels and much easier to find. When the student left school +he continued to seek means of persuasion in canvassing votes, pleading in +the courts, or deliberating in the senate. If he became a poet, he did not +forget the lessons of his youth; or if he became a teacher of literature +or a professor of rhetoric, he perpetuated the tradition.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-2"></a>Chapter II<br /> + +Mediaeval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>With the breaking up of the Empire the stream of classical culture was +restricted to a narrow channel--the Church. Opposed as it was to pagan +morals and theology, the church could honestly retain classical literature +only if it were allegorized. This explains the allegorical nature of +mediaeval poetry and of poetical theory.</p> + +<p>From the beginning the learning of the Church was of pagan origin. St. +Augustine was a professor of rhetoric and the author of a treatise on +aesthetics before he wrote the <i>City of God</i>, and his <i>Confessions</i>. In +fact, he never quite got over being a professor of rhetoric. Clement of +Alexandria was a product of the same rhetoric schools and an excellent +teacher of his subject before he recognized the divine origin of +Christianity. St. Basil was a college friend of Gregory Nazianzen and of +Julian, later emperor and apostate, when the three studied rhetoric at +Athens. Indeed, the most cunningly cruel decree which Julian later +promulgated against the Christians forbade them the use of the ancient +pagan literature of Greece and Rome. This decree Basil bitterly resented. +"I forgo all the rest," he says, "riches, birth, honor, authority, and all +the goods here below of which the charm vanishes like a dream; but I cling +to oratory nor do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, +which I have undertaken to master it."[<a href="#foot320">320</a>]</p> + +<p>But within the Church the lovers of Greek literature did not have it all +their own way. Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus, and Tertullian savagely +attacked profane poetry, and in defending it Basil, Athenagoras, Clement, +and Origen were forced not unwillingly to rely more and more on the +traditional moralistic theory of poetry which was so familiar to them. St. +Chrysostom records that in the fourth century Homer was still taught as a +guide to morals.[<a href="#foot321">321</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-1"></a>1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages</h4> + + +<p>Allegorical interpretation was the main weapon of the apologists for +poetry. The basis, indeed, of the Gnostic heresies of the second and third +centuries was an allegorical interpretation of the Greek poets and +philosophers and of the Scriptures. This soon degenerated into an +extravagant system of speculative mysticism. Clement of Alexandria and +Origen rejected the extravagances, but sought to retain the mysticism of +the Gnostics. They reconciled Greek literature and the Scriptures by +allegorizing both, much as today Darwin and Genesis are reconciled by +allegorizing Genesis.[<a href="#foot322">322</a>] Thus in the declining years of the Roman Empire +the rhetoricians had become ecclesiastics, and the Church had adopted +pagan literature with allegorical interpretation.</p> + +<p>This tradition dominated the middle ages; Lady Theology reigned over the +kingdom of the seven liberal arts, and to make Homer and Virgil +theological it was necessary that they be interpreted allegorically. As +Vossler has shown, theology and philosophy furnished, during the middle +ages, the subject matter of poetry; they were the <i>utile</i> of Horace. The +<i>dulce</i> became for them too exclusively the pleasing garment of style and +story.[<a href="#foot323">323</a>]</p> + +<p>Throughout the middle ages, however, many continued to look askance at +poetry, and were skeptical as to its value. To Boethius, weeping in +prison, came Philosophy to console him. She found him surrounded by the +friends of his youth, the Muses, who now were inspiring him to write +dreary verses of complaint. But these poetical Muses Philosophy sent +packing. "Who has allowed," said she, "these common strumpets of the +theatre to come near this sick man? Not only do they fail to assuage his +sorrows, but they feed and nourish them with sweet venom. They are not +fruitful nor profitable. They destroy the fruits of reason, for they hold +the hearts of men."[<a href="#foot324">324</a>] Here Philosophy is voicing the objections of +Plato. The arts are attacked because they are not successfully +utilitarian, and because they appeal to the emotions instead of to the +reason. In a later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the objection. He +postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, +imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, +intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God +instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he +shares with the lower animals.[<a href="#foot325">325</a>]</p> + +<p>But such objections as those of Boethius were usually explained away by +allegory. When Isidore of Seville (†633 or 636), for instance, was +compiling his book of universal knowledge, the <i>Etymologiae</i>, he +incorporated his section on the poets in the chapter entitled <i>Concerning +the Church and the Sects</i>. So between a section devoted to the +<i>Philosophers of the Gentiles</i> and a section entitled <i>Concerning Sibyls</i> +he wrote concerning the poets as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> Sometimes, however, the poets were called theologians, because they used + to compose songs concerning the gods. In doing this, however, it is the + office of the poets to render what has actually been done in a different + guise with a certain beauty of covert figures.[<a href="#foot326">326</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poet, to Isidore, was the inspired bard who sings of the gods and the +eternal verities, not directly, but under the veil of a beautiful +allegory. Among these allegorical or indirect means of expression used by +the poet to veil truth are fables.</p> + +<blockquote> The poets invent fables sometimes to give pleasure; sometimes they are + interpreted to explain the nature of things, sometimes to throw light on + the manners of men.[<a href="#foot327">327</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>His illustrations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For +instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of +man and horse, the swiftness of human life.</p> + +<p>It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the +middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the <i>Convivio</i> (c. +1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper +method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded +in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the +allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these +tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[<a href="#foot328">328</a>] The reason +this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the +fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to +say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three +disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may +understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The +fourth sense is the analogical. Here the text may be literally true, but +contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but +the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear +from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which +he discusses the interpretations of his <i>Commedia</i>. "Although these mystic +senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called +allegorical."[<a href="#foot329">329</a>] That the "beauteous fiction," the <i>bella menzogna</i>, of +allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a passage in the <i>Vita +Nuova</i>. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, +speaking and laughing on the assumption that as a poet he is licensed to +use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a +true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to +clothe the nakedness of truth.[<a href="#foot330">330</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-2-2"></a>2. Allegory in Mediaeval England</h4> + + +<p>England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the +thirteenth century. In his <i>Poetria</i>, John of Garland[<a href="#foot331">331</a>] explains +allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes. +"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; +under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the +friend, reason."[<a href="#foot332">332</a>] In another illustrative poem, this time introduced +to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts +between the "<i>confirmacio</i>," and the "<i>confutacio</i>," an "<i>expositio +mistica</i>" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The +fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[<a href="#foot333">333</a>]</p> + +<p>As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i> is as mediaeval as +the <i>Romance of the Rose</i>.[<a href="#foot334">334</a>] In this allegory of the education and love +adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke +to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven +liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much space. In the chapter on +<i>inventio</i>, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her +traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all +possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their +purpose, and their fame.</p> + +<p>The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire +period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of +allegory.</p> + +<blockquote> To make of nought reason sentencious + Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous. + For often under a fayre fayned fable + A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[<a href="#foot335">335</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old +poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their +invention, pronounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets +against sloth.</p> + +<blockquote> The special treasure<br /> +Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo!</blockquote> + +<p>Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues.</p> + +<blockquote> Your hole desyre was set<br /> +Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,...<br /> +To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.</blockquote> + +<p>Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great +conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such illustrious +models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a +condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents +them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude +people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the +poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, +she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the +people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they +would praise and appreciate the moral poets.</p> + +<p>The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, +as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the +middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to +theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on <i>inventio</i>, is conducting a +defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth +under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it +is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men.</p> + +<p>The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, +to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets +did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds.</p> + +<blockquote> And under colour of this beste, pryvely<br /> +The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[<a href="#foot336">336</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For +instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his +shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy. +Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus +in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the +hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, +to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the +redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, +Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable +into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical +adornment of figures and so forth.</p> + +<p>The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he +says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts +with love of virtue. Lydgate's <i>Falls of Princes</i> is an especially great +poem,</p> + +<blockquote> A good ensample for us to dispyse<br /> +This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[<a href="#foot337">337</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning +pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making +ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he +insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts.</p> + +<p>This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is +to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of +allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, +where, as has been shown, the recovery of classical culture made slow +progress.[<a href="#foot338">338</a>]</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-3"></a>Chapter III<br /> + +Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of +Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the +Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[<a href="#foot339">339</a>] that the characteristic +opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line,</p> + +<blockquote> Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae.</blockquote> + +<p>The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to +combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the +notable exceptions of Bernardo Tasso and Castelvetro, who claimed no +further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general +conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was +simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[<a href="#foot340">340</a>]" This +chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where +they help the reader to understand better the situation in English +criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done +two influences which affected the renaissance view not a +little--scholastic philosophy and the classical rhetorics.</p> + +<p>To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are +directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part +of it.[<a href="#foot341">341</a>] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic +in logic, whereas Aristotle had classified the three arts as coördinate +within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by +the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[<a href="#foot342">342</a>] The appearance of +this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a +gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, +in favor of the classical view which considered example as the best +vehicle for moral improvement.</p> + +<p>In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly +delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of +classical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often +become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming +discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of +classical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on +example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a +pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most +advanced class, the Dido episode was deleted from the <i>Æneid</i>.[<a href="#foot343">343</a>]</p> + +<p>Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as +parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric +by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the +poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting +representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, +the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to +virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of +logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of +sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating +a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port? +The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures +overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, +parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, +the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of +theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition. +Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their +material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the +poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor +only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, +praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He +incites to lust and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral +actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be +condemned.[<a href="#foot344">344</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-1"></a>1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic</h4> + + +<p>The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola +derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[<a href="#foot345">345</a>] persisted for four centuries, +rejuvenated by contact with the richer classical scholarship of the +renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition +of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and +poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in +this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and +example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses +example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[<a href="#foot346">346</a>]</p> + +<p>Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the <i>Lezione</i> (1553) +of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says:</p> + +<blockquote> Just as the logician uses for his means the noblest of all instruments, + that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the + dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, + that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and + the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject + of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or + instrument is the example.[<a href="#foot347">347</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This has its ultimate source in the <i>Rhetoric</i> of Aristotle, who made the +following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at +demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at +persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a +rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise +unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on +opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, +usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[<a href="#foot348">348</a>]</p> + +<p>The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the +treatise <i>On the Nature of the Art of Poetry</i> (1647) of the Dutch scholar +Vossius, who writes:</p> + +<blockquote> As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that + especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be + utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be + thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in + fictitious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove + something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but + action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that + both are the servants of the state.[<a href="#foot349">349</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to +promote desirable action.</p> + +<p>How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well illustrated by +the <i>Ars Rhetorica</i> of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in +1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is +discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, +or induction.</p> + +<blockquote> Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience + because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently + used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains + attractively and clearly.[<a href="#foot350">350</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to +make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them +were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make +other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of +proof.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-3-2"></a>2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics</h4> + + +<p>A more explicit influence on the renaissance belief that the function of +poetry is to improve social morality is readily seen in the definitions of +poetry which have already been quoted from Lombardus and Varchi, who +formulated their definitions of poetry by combining Aristotle's definition +of tragedy with his definition of rhetoric.[<a href="#foot351">351</a>] Another explicit +borrowing from classical rhetoric was of Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to delight, to persuade (<i>docere, delectare, +permovere</i>).[<a href="#foot352">352</a>] Several important Italian critics carried this +terminology over into their theories of poetry along with the purpose +which has always animated rhetoric--persuasion.</p> + +<p>Making Horace a point of departure, Daniello, in 1536, says that the +function of the poet is to teach and delight, but more than that--to +persuade. He must move his readers to share the emotions of his +characters, to shun vice, and embrace virtue.[<a href="#foot353">353</a>] This extreme rhetorical +parallel was further insisted on by Minturno (1559), who defined the duty +of a poet as so to speak in verse as to teach, to delight, and to +move.[<a href="#foot354">354</a>] And as Aristotle had affirmed in his <i>Rhetoric</i> that the +character of the speaker was one of the three essential elements in +persuasion,[<a href="#foot355">355</a>] Minturno is constrained to make the moral character of +the poet an indispensable quality of his poetry. Thus he borrows Cato's +definition of the orator as a "good man skilled in public speech" (vir +bonus dicendi peritus) from Quintilian,[<a href="#foot356">356</a>] and defines the poet as "a +good man skilled in speech and imitation" (poeta vir bonus dicendi et +imitandi peritus).[<a href="#foot357">357</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Minturno, Scaliger insisted that poetry must teach, move, and +delight.[<a href="#foot358">358</a>] It is thus the result in action which Minturno and Scaliger +emphasize. The poet must work on the feelings of his reader so that he +shall embrace and imitate the good, and spurn the evil. Philosophy, +oratory, and poetry have thus one end--and only one--persuasion.[<a href="#foot359">359</a>] +Without the "movere," the incentive to action, of course poetry could not +serve its purpose of moral improvement on which the renaissance so sternly +insisted. A reader might enjoy a story, play, or poem which presented +impeccable examples of virtue rewarded and vice punished, or which +abounded in noble platitudes gilded with wit, and still smile and be a +villain. It was thus inevitable that an acceptance of the moral purpose of +poetry should sooner or later drive any logical minded critic of poetry +completely into the camp of rhetoric. There the poet would find a +complete panoply of arms forged for the arousing of the feelings in an +audience, and for stirring the springs of action. He could make his +readers hate sin by the same means Demosthenes made his hearers hate +Philip, and love any virtue by appropriating the methods of Cicero <i>Pro +Archia</i>. According to this belief, the difference between poetic and +rhetoric was minimized. In theory a poem or a speech might indifferently +be composed either in prose or in verse. Both endeavored to teach, to +please, and to move. Both looked toward persuasion as an object. The +speech used the enthymeme and the example as proofs, while the poem used +the example to a greater, and the enthymeme to a lesser degree. Both in +theory and in practice the example was regarded as being a pleasanter +argument than the precept, as well as being more effective. This was the +age of Ciceronianism. The school-masters of Europe had recently +rediscovered imitation as the royal road to learning, and in their system +of language teaching emphasized imitation of classical authors more than +following the precepts of the grammarians or of the rhetoricians. The +epigram of Seneca, "longum iter per praecepta, breve per exempla," was the +popular catchword of the age. The example was popular.</p> + +<p>Thus by the end of the sixteenth century, the Italian critics had +formulated a logical and self-consistent theory of the purpose of poetry. +Inheritors of the allegorical theory of the middle ages, which they in +part discarded, and discoverers of classical rhetoric which they carried +over bodily into their theories of poetry, they passed on to France, +Germany, and England their rhetorical theories. The purpose of poetry, as +well as of rhetoric, was to them persuasion--to teach, to please, to move. +The instrument of poetry was the rhetorical example.</p> + + + + +<h3><a name="2-4"></a>Chapter IV<br /> + +English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry</h3> + + + +<p>In England the Italian interpretations of the literary criticism of Greece +and Rome made slow headway against the established traditions of the +middle ages. In particular the vogue of allegory did not yield to the idea +of the moral example transferred from rhetoric to poetic.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-1"></a>1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric</h4> + + +<p>When Thomas Wilson published the first edition of his <i>Arte of Rhetorique</i> +in 1553, the corpus of Greek criticism in the Aldine <i>Rhetores Graeci</i> had +been in print forty-five years, and the commentaries of Dolce, Daniello, +Robortelli, and Maggi were available. But Wilson wrote a very good +rhetoric with no books before him but Quintilian, Cicero and the rhetoric +<i>Ad Herennium</i>, which he thought to be Cicero's, Erasmus, Plutarch <i>De +audiendis poetis</i>, and St. Basil. His treatment of poetry is quite +naturally, then, that of a rhetorician who had been reared in the +mediaeval tradition of allegory.</p> + +<p>Allegory in the sense of Quintilian as a trope, an extended metaphor, +Wilson mentions only once. His instance will bear quotation:</p> + +<blockquote> It is evil putting strong Wine into weake vesselles, that is to say, it + is evil trusting some women with weightie matters. The English Proverbes + gathered by John Heywood, helpe well in this behalfe, the which commonly + are nothing els but Allegories, and darke devised sentences.[<a href="#foot360">360</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Allegory in its more general mediaeval sense of the kernel of moral truth +within the brilliant husk of the poet's fables he discusses at greater +length elsewhere with full exemplification.</p> + +<blockquote> For by them we may talke at large and win men by persuasion, if we + declare beforehand that these tales were not fained of such wisemen + without cause.</blockquote> + +<p>This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by +orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. +That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure.</p> + +<blockquote> For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the + same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment + of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of + Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... + As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[<a href="#foot361">361</a>] In the <i>Iliades</i> + are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the <i>Odissea</i> + is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and + wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they + durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde + men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the + wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might + understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[<a href="#foot362">362</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the +moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story +of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. +The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the +best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not +meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid +covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George +in like manner allegorically.</p> + +<p>But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned +with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example +as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and +enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, +and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on +the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate +pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his +comment on the use of stories in argument.</p> + +<p>Nor does Roger Ascham in his <i>Scholemaster</i>, written between 1563-1568 and +published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of +poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a +school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in +their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, +not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[<a href="#foot363">363</a>] That he is not blind to the +fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be +its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. +The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master +must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[<a href="#foot364">364</a>] And the same +fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his +famous condemnation of the <i>Morte Darthur</i> "the whole pleasure of which +booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold +bawdrye,"[<a href="#foot365">365</a>] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems +and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, +Loyola and Vives.[<a href="#foot366">366</a>] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory +as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a +classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If +he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example +pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance +guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the +theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the +function of poetry is to teach by example.</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-2"></a>2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic</h4> + + +<p>Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and +school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's +treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his <i>Certayne Notes of +Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme</i>.[<a href="#foot367">367</a>] The title is not +misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its +philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a +passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of +his mistress.</p> + +<blockquote> If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange + discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by + the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes <i>per + Allegoriam</i>.[<a href="#foot368">368</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation +schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his +mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him +the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the <i>Epistles</i> of +Ovid and the <i>Love Letters</i> of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified +speech-making. Wilson recommended the <i>Proverbs</i> of Heywood as furnishing +"allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his +<i>Euphues</i> Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries +generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables +which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the +<i>Similia</i> and <i>Adagia</i>, of Erasmus, and from the <i>Emblems</i> of +Alciati.[<a href="#foot369">369</a>]</p> + +<p>So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized +device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George +Whetstone's <i>Dedication</i> to his <i>Promos and Cassandra</i>. For Whetstone +asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte +as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the +conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[<a href="#foot370">370</a>] +That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme +application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of +the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of +the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's +<i>Dedication</i> was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his +attack against poetry and poets in his <i>School of Abuse</i>, which was +answered by Lodge and Sidney in their <i>Apologies</i>. In this controversy, in +which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his +<i>Touchstone for Time</i> (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and +the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the +attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose +of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the +Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this +moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and +the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble +function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did +not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole.</p> + +<p>Gosson writes:</p> + +<blockquote> The right use of auncient poetrie was to have the notable exploytes of + worthy captaines, the holesome councels of good fathers and vertuous + lives of predecessors set down in numbers, and sung to the instrument at + solemne feastes, that the sound of the one might draw the hearers from + kissing the cup too often, and the sense of the other put them in minde + of things past, and chaulke out the way to do the like.[<a href="#foot371">371</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>The benefit, according to Gosson, which poetry should produce is that of +good moral example. Moral doctrine, he believes accessible in the +churches, and against the poets he urges that the evil social environment +of the theatre offsets the benefit to be derived even from good plays. +What profits the moral lesson of such a play if after witnessing the +performance a man walk away with a woman whose acquaintance he has just +made in the theatre.[<a href="#foot372">372</a>] He may drink wine, he may play cards, he may +even enter a brothel.</p> + +<p>In his <i>Defence of Poetry</i> (1579), Lodge retreats to the caverns of the +middle ages to equip himself with arms. Under the influence of Campano, +who died in 1477, he advances allegory as the explanation which makes the +apparently light and trifling poets moral teachers of the utmost +seriousness. Addressing Gosson he exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote> Did you never reade that under the persons of beastes many abuses were + dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye that whatsoever ether Virgil + did write of his gnatt or Ovid of his fley was all covertly to declare + abuse?... You remember not that under the person of Aeneas in Virgil the + practice of a dilligent captaine is described; you know not that the + creation is signified in the Image of Prometheus; the fall of pryde in + the person of Narcissus.[<a href="#foot373">373</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>And he quotes Lactantius as comparing poetry with the Scriptures. If +either are taken literally, they will seem false. We should judge by the +poet's hidden meaning.[<a href="#foot374">374</a>] The purpose of the poets, to Lodge, was "In +the way of pleasure to draw men to wisdome." When he defends comedy, Lodge +drifts away from allegory. Terence and Plautus he praises for furnishing +examples of virtue and vice upon the boards, thus to amend the manners of +his auditors. He believed that poetry did amend manners, and correct +abuses--if properly used. But he is very quick to admit the very abuses +which Gosson attacked.</p> + +<blockquote> I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry: I will admit the expullcion + of such enormities, poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in + it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it.[<a href="#foot375">375</a>] I + must confess with Aristotle that men are greatly delighted with + imitation, and that it were good to bring those things on stage that + were altogether tending to vertue; all this I admit and hartely wysh, + but you say unlesse the thinge be taken away the vice will continue. Nay + I say if the style were changed the practise would profit.[<a href="#foot376">376</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Thus he defends poetry bcause it teaches morality by example and by +allegory.</p> + +<p>With that higher intelligence and learning which have already been +contrasted with the unthinking acceptance of his times[<a href="#foot377">377</a>] Sir Philip +Sidney wrote his <i>Apologie for Poetrie</i>. In this dignified and vigorous +pamphlet, written about 1583, and published in 1595, Sidney presents the +best and most consistent argument for the moral purpose of poetry that +appeared in England. That the main line of his argument and his best +material is drawn from Minturno and Scaliger, as Spingarn has +demonstrated,[<a href="#foot378">378</a>] in no way invalidates his claim to distinction. The +purpose of poetry is to Sidney, in the first place, to teach and +delight,[<a href="#foot379">379</a>] "that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, +with that delightfull teaching which must be the right describing note to +know a poet by."[<a href="#foot380">380</a>] But as the end of all earthly learning is virtuous +action, in Sidney's mind, he agrees with Minturno and Scaliger in +borrowing from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the orator: to teach, +to delight, to move. Sidney says that the poets "imitate both to <i>delight</i> +and <i>teach</i>, and delight to <i>move</i> men to take the goodnes in hande ... +and <i>teach</i>, to make them know that goodnes whereunto they are +mooved."[<a href="#foot381">381</a>] It is incredible that he did not know this terminology as +rhetoric. Poetry, he believes, fails if it does not persuade its reader to +abandon evil and adopt good.</p> + +<blockquote> And that <i>mooving</i> is of a higher degree than <i>teaching</i>, it may by this + appeare, that it is well nigh the cause of teaching. For who will be + taught, if he bee not mooved with desire to be taught? and what so much + good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of morall doctrine) + as that it mooveth one to do that which it dooth teach?[<a href="#foot382">382</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The effectiveness of poetry, then, in accomplishing this moral end lies in +its pleasantness. The poet, says Sidney, in that most famous passage which +is too frequently quoted incompletely,</p> + +<blockquote> commeth to you with words sent in delightful proportion, either + accompanied with, or prepared for, the well inchaunting skill of + Musicke; and with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which + holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And + <i>pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from + wickedness to vertue</i>: even as the childe is often brought to take most + wholsom things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant + tast.[<a href="#foot383">383</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>According to Sidney, then, it is the very purpose of poetry to win men to +virtue by pleasant instruction. The argument of poetry in accomplishing +this end is primarily the example. Sidney compares very elaborately +philosophy, history, and poetry in an endeavor to show that poetry is the +most effective instrument for forwarding virtue. In the first place poetry +is better adapted than philosophy to win men to virtue because it +persuades both by precepts and by examples, while philosophy persuades by +precepts alone. His sanction for this high opinion of the persuasive power +of example is the rhetorical commonplace of the renaissance that the way +is long by precept and short by example.[<a href="#foot384">384</a>] To enforce this point he +tells the story of how Menenius Agrippa won over the people of Rome to +support the Senate by telling them the story of the revolt of the members +against the belly. Quintilian[<a href="#foot385">385</a>] and Wilson[<a href="#foot386">386</a>] had already told this +story to prove the effectiveness of the example as a rhetorical argument, +a device of the public speaker.</p> + +<p>The main advantage which poetry possesses over history, Sidney goes on, is +that while the historian must stick to his facts, which too frequently are +unedifying, the poet can and does create a world better than nature, and +presents to his reader ideal figures of human conduct such as Pylades, +Cyrus, and Æneas.[<a href="#foot387">387</a>] This is Sidney's application of Aristotle's +assertion that history is particular and poetic universal; history records +things as they are and poetic as they are, worse than they are, or better. +Lest his readers might fear that the arguments of the poet might lose some +of their persuasive force from their being fictitious, Sidney hastens to +add: "For that a fayned example hath as much force to teach as a true +example (for as for to moove, it is cleere, sith the fayned may be tuned +to the highest key of passion);"[<a href="#foot388">388</a>] and here he is drawing from +Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric.</i>[<a href="#foot389">389</a>] Through admiration of the noble persons of +poetry, the reader is won to a desire for emulation. "Who readeth <i>Æneas</i> +carrying olde <i>Anchises</i> on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune +to perfourme so excellent an acte?"[<a href="#foot390">390</a>]</p> + +<p>Although Sidney believes the principal moral value of poetry to reside in +its power to teach and move by the use of examples, he devotes at least +half a page to the beneficent effect of parables and allegories. The +parables which he uses, however, are all Christian, and the allegories are +all the <i>Fables</i> of Æsop. From the allegorical interpretation of poetry +current in the middle ages and to a scarcely less degree among his English +contemporaries Sidney remains conspicuously aloof.</p> + +<p>In answering the specific charges against poetry, that it is a waste of +time, the mother of lies, the nurse of abuse, and rejected by Plato, +Sidney asserts that a thing which moves men to virtue so effectively as +poetry cannot be a waste of time; that since poetry pretends not to +literal truth, it cannot lie,[<a href="#foot391">391</a>] that poetry does not abuse man's wit, +but man's wit abuses poetry, for "shall the abuse of a thing make the +right use odious?"[<a href="#foot393">393</a>] and that Plato objected not to poetry but to its +abuse.</p> + +<p>Sir John Harington[<a href="#foot392">392</a>] who published his <i>Brief Apologie of Poetrie</i> in +1591, four years before the publication of Sidney's <i>Apologie</i>, based much +of his treatise on Sidney. Unfortunately, he did not digest fully the +arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand +knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. +In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line +of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit +punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in +verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant +and the profitable."[<a href="#foot394">394</a>] The objection that poets lie Harington meets as +Sidney does, "But poets never affirming any for true, but presenting them +to us as fables and imitations, cannot lye though they would."[<a href="#foot395">395</a>] At +this point Harington parts company with his master and goes back to the +middle ages.</p> + +<blockquote> The ancient Poets have indeed wrapped as it were in their writings + divers and sundry meanings, which they call the senses or mysteries + thereof. First of all for the litteral sence (as it were the utmost + barke or ryne) they set downe in manner of an historie the acts and + notable exploits of some persons worthie memorie: then in the same + fiction, as a second rine and somewhat more fine, as it were nearer to + the pith and marrow, they place the Morall sence profitable for the + active life of man, approving vertuous actions and condemning the + contrarie. Many times also under the selfesame words they comprehend + some true understanding of naturall Philosophie, or sometimes of + politike government, and now and then of divinitie: and these same + sences that comprehend so excellent knowledge we call the + Allegorie.[<a href="#foot396">396</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>Nothing could be more specifically mediaeval. He then proceeds to explain +the historical, moral, and three allegorical senses of the story of +Perseus and the Gorgon--the highest allegory being theological. Further, +to defend the allegorical senses of poetry, which conceals a pith of +profit under a pleasant rind, Harington explains fully how Demosthenes, +Bishop Fisher, and the Prophet Nathan enforced their arguments by +allegorical stories. To Harington, then, poetry is useful as an +introduction to Philosophy. Paraphrasing Plutarch <i>On the Reading of +Poets</i>, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> So young men do like best that Philosophy that is not Philosophie, or + that is not delivered as Philosophie, and such are the pleasant writings + of learned Poets, that are the popular Philosophers and the popular + divines.[<a href="#foot397">397</a>]</blockquote> + +<p><i>A Discourse of English Poetrie</i> (1586) by the laborious but uninspired +tutor, William Webbe,[<a href="#foot398">398</a>] is not a defense; but interspersed among his +remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, +ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of +poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and +comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's +conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements +to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[<a href="#foot399">399</a>] In appraising the +methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his +contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation +of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the +instruction of manners and precepts of good life[<a href="#foot400">400</a>]. And he finds much +profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they +abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the +moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people +who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the +beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he +seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the +effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The +<i>Metamorphoses</i> of Ovid, for instance,</p> + +<blockquote> though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall + inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth + of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and + sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good + counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly + read.[<a href="#foot401">401</a>] </blockquote> + +<p>Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of +the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or +cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in +delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his +emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to +the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he +believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as +its motivating purpose[<a href="#foot402">402</a>]. And again, after descanting on the +exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable +things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of +poetry as containing "all such <i>Epigrammes</i>, <i>Elegies</i>, and delectable +ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight +thereof.[<a href="#foot403">403</a>]</p> + +<p>Like Webbe, the author of <i>The Arte of English Poesie</i> (1589) ascribed to +Puttenham,[<a href="#foot404">404</a>] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, +however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. +Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may +be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what +may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is +worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham,</p> + +<blockquote> is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in + phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, + the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & + reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of + sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & + sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate + myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and + cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for + recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest + or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, + dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill + example.[<a href="#foot405">405</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, +emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been +objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification +nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the +commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the +convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[<a href="#foot406">406</a>] But Puttenham does +not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be +released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, +dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil +examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest."</p> + +<p>Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the +mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of +lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and +courtiers,[<a href="#foot407">407</a>] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire +was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend +the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the +mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a +vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the +amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters +under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[<a href="#foot408">408</a>] Here Puttenham +pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in +satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to +allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be +wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is +most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde +of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more +universally satisfie then example."[<a href="#foot409">409</a>] It is on this account that +historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For +the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should +be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for +pleasure.</p> + +<blockquote> Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether + fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no + less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but + often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his + pleasure.[<a href="#foot410">410</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all +history was a moral example[<a href="#foot411">411</a>] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic +fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two +as almost interchangeable.[<a href="#foot412">412</a>]</p> + +<p>Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both +the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, +Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, +but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[<a href="#foot413">413</a>] +accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the +<i>Hypercritica</i> (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a +kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation +from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[<a href="#foot414">414</a>]</p> + + + +<h4><a name="2-4-3"></a>3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example</h4> + + +<p>A most interesting view of the purpose of poetry was evolved in the brain +of Francis Bacon--that baffling complexity of mediaeval tradition and +penetrating original thought. To him the use of feigned history, as he +defines poetry, "hath beene to give some shadowe of satisfaction to the +minde of man in those points wherein the Nature of things doth deny +it."[<a href="#foot415">415</a>] That is, poetry represents the world as greater, more just, and +more pleasant than it really is. "So as it appeareth that <i>Poesie</i> +serveth and conferreth to Magnanimitie, Moralitie, and to delectation." +Here Bacon seems to imply that the essential pleasure of poetry is in +affording vicarious experience through imaginative realization. Poetry +does this by "submitting the shewes of things to the desires of the +minde." It truly makes a world nearer to our heart's desire. But while +Bacon derives the moral benefit of poetry from examples of conduct and +outcomes of events more nearly just than those of actual life, when he +analyses poetry into its kinds, he makes a place for allegory. In this +division he provides for narrative, drama, and allegory. But with +penetration he sees what few renaissance critics had noted before--that +allegory is of two varieties. The first variety is essentially the same as +a rhetorical example; it is an extended metaphor used as an argument to +enforce a point and thus persuade an audience. The fables of Aesop are +such allegories or examples; and they are useful because they make their +point more interestingly than other arguments and more clearly. The other +sort of allegory, says Bacon, instead of illuminating the idea, obscures +it. "That is, when the Secrets and Misteries of Religion, Pollicy, or +Philosophy, are involved in Fables or Parables." He then gives political +allegorical interpretations of the myths of Briareus and of the Centaur +and suddenly adds: "Nevertheless in many the like incounters, I doe rather +think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the +Morall was first and thereupon the fable framed."[<a href="#foot416">416</a>] Bacon's final +conclusion seems to be that, although allegorical poetry does exist, +allegory is not essential to poetry and that the wholesale allegorizing of +the middle ages was far off the mark. In his suspicion that in most cases +the fable was first and the interpretation after, Bacon was in complete +agreement with Rabelais in the prologue of <i>Gargantua</i>.[<a href="#foot417">417</a>] At any rate +Bacon seems to have given the <i>coup de grace</i> to allegory in England.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of Pico della Mirandola it was resurrected from its +tomb by Henry Reynolds; but it was a much less moral allegory and a more +mystical. In his <i>Mythomystes</i> (licensed 1632) Reynolds admits, that the +ancients mingled moral instruction in their poetry, but reprehends this as +an abuse. Prose is the proper vehicle of moral doctrine and should have +been employed by Spenser. The true function of poetry, then, is to give +secret knowledge of the mysteries of nature to the initiated. Thus the +story of the rape of Proserpine signifies, when allegorically interpreted; +"the putrefaction and succeeding generation of the Seedes we commit to +Pluto, or the earth."[<a href="#foot418">418</a>] This is the most plausible example of mystical +interpretation to be found in the whole treatise.</p> + +<p>To the allegorist, the fable or plot in epic or dramatic poetry was only a +rind to cover attractively the kernel of truth. It was a means to an end, +not an end in itself. As the influence of Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i> spreading +through Italy, Germany, France, and England, gave the plot or fable more +importance, allegory lost its hold on the minds of the critics. When Ben +Jonson writes in his <i>Timber</i> "For the Fable and Fiction is, as it were, +the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke or <i>Poeme</i>"[<a href="#foot419">419</a>] the change had +come. Jonson, like Sidney, was steeped in classical criticism as +interpreted and spread abroad by the sixteenth-century critics of the +continent. But while Sidney made a place for allegory in his scheme of +poetry, Jonson does not so much as mention it. His idea of the teaching +power of poetry, for to him poetry and painting both behold pleasure and +profit as their common object,[<a href="#foot420">420</a>] is rhetorical--depending on precept +and example--and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy +is "a dulcet and gentle <i>Philosophy</i>, which leades on and guides us by the +hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[<a href="#foot421">421</a>] +Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their +common purpose of securing persuasion; for he says:</p> + +<blockquote>"The <i>Poet</i> is the neerest Borderer upon the Orator, and expresseth all +his vertues, though he be tyed more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, +and above him in his strengths: Because in moving the minds of men, and +stirring of affections, in which Oratory shewes, and especially approves +her eminence, hee chiefly excells."[<a href="#foot422">422</a>]</blockquote> + +<p>In his dedication to <i>Volpone</i> he says this power of persuasion which the +poet possesses to so eminent a degree is to be applied to the moral +well-being of men, "to inform men in the best reason of living."[<a href="#foot423">423</a>] +Himself a writer for the theatre, Jonson is naturally more concerned with +comedy and tragedy than he is with any narrative forms of poetry. And to +him the office of the comic poet is "to imitate justice and instruct to +life--or stirre up gentle affections."[<a href="#foot424">424</a>] In <i>Timber</i> he iterates the +same praise of poetry as being no less effective than philosophy in +instructing men to good life, and informing their manners, but as even +more effective in that it persuades men to good where philosophy threatens +and compels. In order to accomplish this beneficial effect on public +morals, the poet must have an exact knowledge of all virtues and vices +with ability to render the one loved and the other hated.[<a href="#foot425">425</a>] As a +natural result of this conception, so similar to Cicero's demand that the +orator must know all things and in line with Aristotle's <i>Rhetoric</i>, +Jonson concludes that the poet, like Quintilian's orator, must himself be +a good man; for how else will he be able "to informe <i>yong-men</i> to all +good disciplines, inflame <i>growne-men</i> to all great vertues, keepe <i>old +men</i> in their best and supreme state."[<a href="#foot426">426</a>]</p> + +<p>Aside from Sidney and Jonson no English critic, however, thought through +to the logical conclusion that in moral purpose rhetoric and poetic are +identical. The others continued to echo Horace, or lean toward allegory, +or see profit in poetry from its moral example. For instance in his +preface to his second instalment of Homer entitled <i>Achilles' Shield</i> +(1598) Chapman dwells at length on the moral value and wisdom contained in +the <i>Iliad</i>,[<a href="#foot427">427</a>] and enunciates the same idea in his <i>Prefaces</i> of +1610-16.[<a href="#foot428">428</a>] Peacham, in his <i>Compleat Gentleman</i> (1622), repeats the +usual commonplaces to the effect that poetry is a dulcet philosophy, for +the most part lifted from Puttenham.[<a href="#foot429">429</a>] In his <i>Argenis</i> (1621) Barclay +reminds his reader of the children who for so many centuries had shunned +the cup of physic until the bitter taste had been removed by sweet syrop. +Thus also, says he, is it with the moral value of poetry disguised with +sweet music. "Virtues and vices I will frame, and the rewards of them +shall suite to both"; for it is on the moral example of poetic justice +that Barclay depends. The models of virtue will be followed.[<a href="#foot430">430</a>]</p> + +<p>The Earl of Stirling, in <i>Anacrisis</i> (1634?) acknowledges the works of the +poets to be the chief springs of learning, "both for Profit and Pleasure, +showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they +are." Consequently he has a high opinion of the <i>Cyropaedia</i> of Xenophon, +the <i>Arcadia</i> of Sir Philip Sidney, and other such poems, as "affording +many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes."[<a href="#foot431">431</a>] These types +the reader is expected to imitate in his own conduct, guided by the moral +precepts with which the poet must not neglect to decorate his work.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Within the period of this study two views were taken of the moral element +in poetry. With the exception of Sidney and Jonson, who knew the theories +of the Italian renaissance, the English critics believed with Horace that +poetry was at once pleasant and profitable, and agreed with Plutarch that +poetry, if rightly used, would be of benefit in the education of youth. +But there was little tendency to follow this to the conclusion of +asserting that because poetry has a moral effect on the reader, it is the +purpose of poetry as an art to exert this moral effect for the good of +society. Most of these critics believed that the moral effect which poetry +did exert came through allegory. In this respect, as has been shown, they +were carrying on the traditions of the middle ages.</p> + +<p>The opposing view derived ultimately from the classical rhetorics, and +entered England through the criticism of the Italian +scholars--particularly Minturno and Scaliger. Starting from the saying of +Horace that poets aim to please or profit, or please and profit together, +these critics borrowed from rhetoric Cicero's three-fold aim of the +orator: to teach, to please, to move, and applied these three aims to the +poet. Accordingly, to them the poet has the same aim as the +orator--persuasion. He pleases not for the sake of giving pleasure, but +for the sake of winning his readers so that he may better attain his real +object of teaching morality and moving men to action in its practice. The +emphasis on the example as the means of attaining this end was further +derived from scholastic philosophy which, as has been shown, classed +logic, rhetoric, and poetic together as instruments for attaining truth +and improving the morality of the state. Furthermore, according to this +scholastic view, the three arts differed only as they utilized different +means to attain this end. Logic used the demonstrative syllogism and the +scientific induction, rhetoric used the enthymeme or rhetorical syllogism +and the example or popular induction, poetic used the example alone. +According to the renaissance developments of this last view, allegory was +emphasized less and less as the example was felt to be more appropriate. +Thus Sidney and Jonson, the outstanding classicists in English renaissance +criticism, exhibit to the highest degree the influence of the most +rhetorical of Italian renaissance critics. They alone in England assert +that the purpose of poetry is to move men to virtuous action.</p> + +<hr width="75%" size="1" /> + +<p>Thus a study of rhetorical terminology in English renaissance theories of +poetry throws into sharp relief the fact that all criticism of the fine +art of literature in England in the 16th century and the first half of the +17th century was profoundly influenced by rhetoric. This influence was +two-fold. On the one hand the less scholarly critics perpetuated the +popular traditions of rhetoric which they inherited from the middle ages. +These traditions of allegory and the ornate style were, as has been shown, +in turn derived from post-classical rhetoric. On the other hand the more +scholarly critics applied to poetry the canons of classical rhetoric which +they derived in part from the classics themselves and in part from the +critics of the Italian renaissance.</p> + +<p>In one sense this has been a study of critical perversions. Although many +of the critics of the English renaissance are remarkable for their wisdom +and discerning judgments, their writings are far less valuable than those +of Longinus and Aristotle. But Aristotle and Longinus did not allow their +theories of poetry to be contaminated by rhetoric. The best modern critics +have studied and understood the classical treatises on poetic and have +consequently avoided the confusion between rhetoric and poetic into which +many renaissance critics fell. Others have not been so fortunate. For +these the object-lesson of renaissance failure should serve as a warning.</p> + + + + +<h2><a name="index"></a>Index</h2> + + + +<p>Abelard<br /> +Aeschylus<br /> +Aesop<br /> +Agathon<br /> +Agricola, Rudolph<br /> +Alanus de Insulis<br /> +Alciati<br /> +Alcidamas<br /> +Albucius<br /> +Aldus<br /> +Alfarabi<br /> +Alstedius<br /> +Anaxagoras<br /> +Annaeus Florus<br /> +Appian<br /> +Apsinus<br /> +Apthonius<br /> +Apuleius<br /> +Aristenetus<br /> +Aristophanes<br /> +Aristotle<br /> +Aristides<br /> +Ascham<br /> +Athenagoras<br /> +Augustine<br /> +Averroes</p> + +<p>Bacon, Francis<br /> +Barclay, John<br /> +Barton, John<br /> +Basil the Great<br /> +Bede<br /> +Bokenham<br /> +Boccaccio<br /> +Bolton, Edmund<br /> +Bornecque, Henri<br /> +Boethius<br /> +Brunetto Latini<br /> +Butcher, S.H.<br /> +Buchanan, George<br /> +Budé<br /> +Butler, Charles</p> + +<p>Can Grande<br /> +Campano, G.<br /> +Campion, Thomas<br /> +Casaubon<br /> +Cassiodorus<br /> +Castelvetro<br /> +Castiglione<br /> +Cato<br /> +Caussinus, N.<br /> +Chapman, G.<br /> +Chaucer<br /> +Chemnicensis, Georgius<br /> +Cicero<br /> +Clement of Alexandria<br /> +Cox, Leonard<br /> +Croce, B.<br /> +Croll, Morris<br /> +Curio Fortunatus</p> + +<p>Daniel, Samuel<br /> +Daniello<br /> +Dante<br /> +Darwin, Charles<br /> +Demetrius<br /> +Demosthenes<br /> +de Worde, Wynkyn<br /> +Dio Chrysostom<br /> +Dionysius of Halicarnassus<br /> +Dolce<br /> +Drant, Thomas<br /> +Drummond of Hawthornden<br /> +DuBellay<br /> +Ducas<br /> +DuCygne, M.<br /> +Dunbar, William</p> + +<p>Earle, John<br /> +Eastman, Max<br /> +Empedocles<br /> +Emporio<br /> +Erasmus<br /> +Eratosthenes<br /> +Estienne, Henri<br /> +Etienne de Rouen<br /> +Euripides</p> + +<p>Farnaby, Thomas<br /> +Fenner, Dudley<br /> +Filelfo<br /> +Fraunce, Abraham</p> + +<p>Gascoigne<br /> +George of Trebizond (Trapezuntius)<br /> +Gorgias<br /> +Gosson, Stephen<br /> +Gower<br /> +Gregory Nazianzen<br /> +Guarino<br /> +Guevara</p> + +<p>Hall, Joseph<br /> +Harington, John<br /> +Harvey, Gabriel<br /> +Hawes, Stephen<br /> +Heinsius, D.<br /> +Henryson<br /> +Heliodorus<br /> +Herodotus<br /> +Hermagoras<br /> +Hermannus Allemanus<br /> +Hermogenes<br /> +Hilary of Poitiers<br /> +Holland, P.<br /> +Homer<br /> +Horace<br /> +Hermas<br /> +Hesiod<br /> +Heywood, John</p> + +<p>Isidore of Seville<br /> +Isocrates</p> + +<p>James I<br /> +James VI<br /> +Jerome<br /> +John of Garland<br /> +John of Salisbury<br /> +Jonson, Ben<br /> +Julian</p> + +<p>Kechermann</p> + +<p>Lactantius<br /> +Langhorne<br /> +Lipisius<br /> +Livy<br /> +Lodge<br /> +Lombardus, B.<br /> +Longinus<br /> +Loyola<br /> +Lucan<br /> +Lucian<br /> +Lucretius<br /> +Lydgate, John<br /> +Lyly, John<br /> +Lyndesay, David.<br /> +Lysias</p> + +<p>Maggi<br /> +Martial<br /> +Martianus Capella<br /> +Mazzoni<br /> +Melanchthon<br /> +Menander<br /> +Menenius Agrippa<br /> +Milton<br /> +Minturno</p> + +<p>Nash, T.<br /> +Newman, J.H.<br /> +Norden, Eduard<br /> +North, Sir Thomas</p> + +<p>Origen<br /> +Overbury, Thomas<br /> +Ovid</p> + +<p>Palmieri<br /> +Pazzi<br /> +Peacham, Henry<br /> +Petrarch<br /> +Piccolomini<br /> +Pico della Mirandola<br /> +Plato<br /> +Plautus<br /> +Pliny<br /> +Plutarch<br /> +Poggio<br /> +Pontanus, Jacob<br /> +Prickard, A. O.<br /> +Puttenham</p> + +<p>Quintilian</p> + +<p>Rabelais<br /> +Ramus, Peter<br /> +Reynolds, Henry<br /> +Robortelli<br /> +Ronsard<br /> +Rufinus</p> + +<p>Sappho<br /> +Savonarola<br /> +Scaliger, J.C.<br /> +Schelling, Felix<br /> +Segni<br /> +Seneca<br /> +Servatus Lupus<br /> +Shakespeare<br /> +Sherry, Richard<br /> +Sidney<br /> +Sidonius, Apollinaris<br /> +Simonides<br /> +Smith, John<br /> +Soarez<br /> +Socrates<br /> +Sopatrus<br /> +Sophocles<br /> +Sophron<br /> +Spenser<br /> +Spingarn, J.E.<br /> +Stanyhurst<br /> +Stesimbrotus of Thasos<br /> +Strabo<br /> +Strebaeus<br /> +Sturm, John</p> + +<p>Tacitus<br /> +Tasso, B.<br /> +Tatian<br /> +Terence<br /> +Tertullian<br /> +Theognis of Rhegium<br /> +Theon<br /> +Theophilus<br /> +Theophrastus<br /> +Themistocles<br /> +Thomas Aquinas<br /> +Thomasin von Zirclaria<br /> +Tifernas<br /> +Timocles</p> + +<p>Valla<br /> +Valladero, A.<br /> +Van Hook, L.<br /> +Varchi<br /> +Vettore<br /> +Vicars, Thomas<br /> +Victor, Julius<br /> +Victorino, Mario<br /> +Vida<br /> +Virgil<br /> +Vives, L.<br /> +Vossius (J.G. Voss)<br /> +Vossler, Karl</p> + +<p>Wackernagel, Jacob<br /> +Walton, John<br /> +Watson, Thomas<br /> +Webbe, William<br /> +Whetstone, George<br /> +William of Malmesbury<br /> +Wilson, Thomas</p> + +<p>Xenarchus<br /> +Xenophon</p> + + + + + +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> + + + +<p><a name="foot1"></a>1. <i>Modern Philology</i>, Vol. XVI, No. 8, Dec., 1918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot2"></a>2. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot3"></a>3. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, 8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot4"></a>4. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot5"></a>5. <i>Poetik, Rhetorik, und Stilistik</i> (Halle, 1886), pp. 14, 261.</p> + +<p><a name="foot6"></a>6. <i>Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics</i>, Ed. A.S. Cook +(Boston, 1891), pp. 10-11.</p> + +<p><a name="foot7"></a>7. <i>Estetica</i> (Milano, 1902), I, II, and appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot8"></a>8. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i> (New York, 1916), p. 66.</p> + +<p><a name="foot9"></a>9. Georges Renard, <i>La method scientifique de l'histoire littéraire</i>. +(Paris, 1900), p. 385.</p> + +<p><a name="foot10"></a>10. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot11"></a>11. I, 8; and IX, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot12"></a>12. Prickard thinks Aristotle misread in this passage. According to +Prickard, Aristotle means that poetry must be in meter, but that not all +meter is poetry. Aristotle's <i>Poetics</i>, p. 60. Most critics do not share +Prickard's opinion.</p> + +<p><a name="foot13"></a>13. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot14"></a>14. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot15"></a>15. <i>Psychology</i>, ed. E. Wallace, III, 3, cf. also introd., p. 77, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot16"></a>16. <i>Poetics</i>, I.</p> + +<p><a name="foot17"></a>17. VII, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot18"></a>18. VII, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot19"></a>19. S.H. Butcher, <i>Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art</i>, p. 123. +Poetics, II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot20"></a>20. III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot21"></a>21. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot22"></a>22. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 3-4; of. XV, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot23"></a>23. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot24"></a>24. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot25"></a>25. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i> p. 392.</p> + +<p><a name="foot26"></a>26. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot27"></a>27. VI, 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot28"></a>28. Longinus, <i>On the Sublime</i>, trans, by A. O. Prickard (Oxford, 1906) I +and XXXIII. The treatise has been variously ascribed to the first and +fourth centuries. A valuable edition of the text accompanied by +translation and critical apparatus, was published by W. Rhys Roberts, +Cambridge University Press.</p> + +<p><a name="foot29"></a>29. <i>Ibid.</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot30"></a>30. <i>Ibid.</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot31"></a>31. <i>Ibid.</i>, XII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot32"></a>32. <i>Ibid.</i>, XV. This is almost exactly Aristotle's phrase in the +<i>Rhetoric</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot33"></a>33. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot34"></a>34. <i>Ibid</i>, X.</p> + +<p><a name="foot35"></a>35. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, VII, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot36"></a>36. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot37"></a>37. <i>Rhetoric</i> (J. E. C. Welldon's trans., London, 1886), I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot38"></a>38. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot39"></a>39. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot40"></a>40. Wilkin's ed. of Cic. <i>De oratore</i>, introd. p. 56.</p> + +<p><a name="foot41"></a>41. Cope, <i>Introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristotle</i> (London, 1867), p. +149.</p> + +<p><a name="foot42"></a>42. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2. Published in the <i>Opera Rhetorica</i> of Cicero, +edited by W. Friedrich for Teubner (Leipzig, 1893), Vol. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot43"></a>43. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot44"></a>44. <i>De institutione oratoria</i>, II, xv, 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot45"></a>45. <i>Ibid.</i>, XI, i, 9-11. The "vir bonus dicendi peritus" is from Cato.</p> + +<p><a name="foot46"></a>46. <i>Gorgias</i>, St. 453.</p> + +<p><a name="foot47"></a>47. <i>Loci cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot48"></a>48. I, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot49"></a>49. I, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot50"></a>50. <i>Op. cit.</i>, I, 64.</p> + +<p><a name="foot51"></a>51. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, II, xxi, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot52"></a>52. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot53"></a>53. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iv, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot54"></a>54. <i>Ibid.</i>, X, i, 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot55"></a>55. γραθική, Rhet. III, xii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot56"></a>56. <i>Orator</i>, 37-38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot57"></a>57. <i>Rhet.</i>, I, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot58"></a>58. <i>Ad Herennium</i>, I, 2; Cicero, <i>De inventione</i>, I, vii. <i>De oratore</i>, +I, 142; Quintilian, <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, iii, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot59"></a>59. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, xiii-xix; Cicero, <i>Partit. orat.</i>, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot60"></a>60. See above, pp. 13-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot61"></a>61. Cicero, <i>De oratore</i>, I. 143; Quint., <i>De inst. orat.</i>, III, ix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot62"></a>62. I, 4. Cicero, also, <i>De invent.</i>, I, xiv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot63"></a>63. <i>Opera omnia</i> (1622), p. 1028.</p> + +<p><a name="foot64"></a>64. <i>De nuptiis</i>, 544-560.</p> + +<p><a name="foot65"></a>65. <i>The Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot66"></a>66. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, i, I</p> + +<p><a name="foot67"></a>67. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VIII, vi, I ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot68"></a>68. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot69"></a>69. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, xi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot70"></a>70. <i>Enjoyment of Poetry</i>, pp. 76-78. The best classical treatments of +style are to be found in Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III; Cic., <i>Orat.</i>; Quint., <i>De +inst. orat.</i>, VIII, x; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>; and +Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot71"></a>71. Sec. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot72"></a>72. <i>Commentarioum Rhetoricorum libri</i> IV, I, i, 3, in his <i>Opera</i>, III. +(Amsterdam, 1697).</p> + +<p><a name="foot73"></a>73. VI, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot74"></a>74. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot75"></a>75. The six elements are Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, +and Song. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 7 and 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot76"></a>76. Butcher, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 339-343.</p> + +<p><a name="foot77"></a>77. <i>Poetics</i>, VI, 16, and XIX, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot78"></a>78. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, X, i, 46-51.</p> + +<p><a name="foot79"></a>79. <i>De inventione</i>, I, xxiii, 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot80"></a>80. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i> (Leipzig, 1898), p. 884, note 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot81"></a>81. See above, p. 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot82"></a>82. <i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3; <i>Orator</i>, 69; <i>De oratore</i>, II, +28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot83"></a>83. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI, ii, 25-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot84"></a>84. <i>Poetics</i>, XVII, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot85"></a>85. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III. xi; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De Lysia</i>, 7; +Quintilian, VIII, iii, 62.</p> + +<p><a name="foot86"></a>86. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot87"></a>87. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 883-884.</p> + +<p><a name="foot88"></a>88. La Rue Van Hook, "Alcidamas <i>versus</i> Isocrates," <i>Classical Weekly</i>, +XII (Jan. 20, 1919), p. 90. Professor Van Hook here presents the only +English translation of Alcidamas, <i>On the Sophists</i>. Isocrates made his +reply in his speech <i>On the Antidosis</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot89"></a>89. <i>Rhetoric</i>, III, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot90"></a>90. <i>Ibid.</i>, III, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot91"></a>91. <i>Orator</i>, 66-68.</p> + +<p><a name="foot92"></a>92. <i>De oratore</i>, I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot93"></a>93. "Verba prope poetarum," <i>ibid.</i>, I, 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot94"></a>94. "Id primum in poetis cerni licet, quibus est proxima cognatio cum +oratoribus." <i>De orat.</i>, III, 27. cf. also I, 70.</p> + +<p><a name="foot95"></a>95. Xenophon, <i>Banquet</i>, II, 11-14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot96"></a>96. <i>Die antike kunstprosa</i>, pp. 75-79.</p> + +<p><a name="foot97"></a>97. <i>De compositione verborum</i>, XXV-XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot98"></a>98. Sénèque le rheteur, <i>Controverses et suasoires</i>, ed. Henri Bornecque +(Paris). Introduction pp. 20 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot99"></a>99. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot100"></a>100. <i>Op. cit.</i> vol. II, p. 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot101"></a>101. <i>Dialogus</i>, 20.</p> + +<p><a name="foot102"></a>102. <i>Op. cit.</i>, Introd. p. 23.</p> + +<p><a name="foot103"></a>103. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, <i>De comp. verb.</i>, XXIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot104"></a>104. Hardie, <i>Lectures</i>, VII, p. 281.</p> + +<p><a name="foot105"></a>105. <i>Quomodo historia conscribenda sit</i>, Sec. 8. Trans, of Lucian by +H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler (Oxford, 4 vols., 1905).</p> + +<p><a name="foot106"></a>106. Id quoque vitandum, in quo magna pars errat, ne in oratione poetas +et historicos, in illis operibus oratores aut declamatores imitandos +putemus. <i>De inst. orat</i>, X, ii, 21.</p> + +<p><a name="foot107"></a>107. Virgilius orator an poeta? quoted by Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische +Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i>. (Berlin, 1900) p. 42, note +2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot108"></a>108. <i>Etymologiae</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot109"></a>109. P. Abelson, <i>The Seven Liberal Arts</i> (New York, 1906), p. 60, ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot110"></a>110. <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici de arte prosayca metrica et +rithmica</i>, ed. by G. Mari, <i>Romanische Forschungen</i> (1902), XIII, p. 883 +ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot111"></a>111. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot112"></a>112. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 897.</p> + +<p><a name="foot113"></a>113. Cf. G. L. Hendrickson, "The Origin and Meaning of the Ancient +Characters of Style," <i>Am. Jour. of Phil.</i> (1905), xxvi, p. 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot114"></a>114. Cf. the <i>auctor ad Her.</i>, I, 4, who gives them as exordium, +narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio.</p> + +<p><a name="foot115"></a>115. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 918.</p> + +<p><a name="foot116"></a>116. III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot117"></a>117. "Rhetoricâ, kleit unser rede mit varwe schône." Ed. by H. Rückert, +<i>Bibl. der Deutsch. Lit.</i>, Vol. 30, 1. 8924.</p> + +<p><a name="foot118"></a>118. Caius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (430-488) can be consulted in a +modern ed. by Paulus Mohr (Leipzig, 1895).</p> + +<p><a name="foot119"></a>119. Doctrina dell' ornato parlare." Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 75.</p> + +<p><a name="foot120"></a>120. <i>Chron. Troy</i> (1412-20), Prol. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot121"></a>121. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Mark Van Doren for the transcript +which I am here publishing.</p> + +<p><a name="foot122"></a>122. <i>Mor. Fab.</i> Prol. 3. (c. 1580).</p> + +<p><a name="foot123"></a>123. <i>Poems</i>, LXV, 10 (1500-20).</p> + +<p><a name="foot124"></a>124. <i>Clerk's Prolog.</i> 32.</p> + +<p><a name="foot125"></a>125. <i>Life of our Lady</i> (1409-1411), (Caxton) lvii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot126"></a>126. Trans, of Boethius (1410), quoted by Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, xvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot127"></a>127. <i>Kingis Q.</i> (1423), CXCVII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot128"></a>128. <i>Test. Papyngo</i> (1530), II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot129"></a>129. <i>Seyntys</i> (1447), Roxb. 41.</p> + +<p><a name="foot130"></a>130. <i>Serp. Devision</i>, c. iii b.</p> + +<p><a name="foot131"></a>131. Reprinted from the ed. of 1555 for the Percy Society (London, 1845), +p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot132"></a>132. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot133"></a>133. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 28.</p> + +<p><a name="foot134"></a>134. <i>See</i> p. 27.</p> + +<p><a name="foot135"></a>135. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot136"></a>136. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 46.</p> + +<p><a name="foot137"></a>137. "Proximum grammatice docet, quae emendate & aperte loquendi vim +tradit: Proximum <i>rhetorice, quae ornatum orationis cultum que & omnes +capiendarum aurium illecebras invenit</i>. Quod reliquum igitur est videbitur +sibi dialectice vendicare, probabliter dicere de qualibet re, quae +deducitur in orationem." <i>De inventione dialectica</i> (Paris, 1535), II, 2. +cf. also II, 3.</p> + +<p>Cf. "<i>Gram</i> loquitur; <i>Dia</i> vera docet; <i>Rhet</i> verba colorat." Nicolaus de +Orbellis (d. 1455), quoted by Sandys, p. 644.</p> + +<p><a name="foot138"></a>138. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot139"></a>139. <i>Rule of Reason</i> (1551), p. 5. Fraunce, <i>Lawiers Logike</i>, takes the +same view.</p> + +<p><a name="foot140"></a>140. <i>Dialecticae libri duo</i>, A. Talaei praelectionibus illustrati +(Paris, 1560), I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot141"></a>141. <i>Rule of Reason</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot142"></a>142. Wilkins introd. to Cic. <i>De orat.</i>, p. 57.</p> + +<p><a name="foot143"></a>143. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, VI., v, 1-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot144"></a>144. Printed in London by John Day, without a date. The dedication is +dated Dec. 13, 1550. The title page says it was "written fyrst in +Latin--by Erasmus."</p> + +<p><a name="foot145"></a>145. Ascribed to Dudley Tenner by Foster Watson, <i>The English Grammar +Schools</i> (Cambridge, 1908), p. 89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot146"></a>146. Chapter IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot147"></a>147. Thomas Heywood, <i>Apology for Actors</i> (London, 1612), in <i>Pub. Shak. +Soc.</i>, Vol. III, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot148"></a>148. Book I, ch. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot149"></a>149. "Rhetorica est ars ornate dicendi." <i>Rhetoricae libri duo quorum +prior de tropis & figuris, posterior de voce & gestu praecepit: in usum +scholarum postremo recogniti.</i> (London, 1629)</p> + +<p><a name="foot150"></a>150. <i>The Art of Rhetorick concisely and completely handled, exemplified +out of Holy Writ</i>, etc. (London, 1634)</p> + +<p><a name="foot151"></a>151. Dekker and Middleton, <i>The Roaring Girl</i>, III, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot152"></a>152. Dekker, III, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot153"></a>153. Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot154"></a>154. χειραγωγια <i>Manductio ad Artem Rhetoricam ante paucos annos +in privatum scholarium usum concinnata</i> (London, 1621). "Rhetorica est ars +recte dicendi, etc."</p> + +<p><a name="foot155"></a>155. Norden, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 699-703.</p> + +<p><a name="foot156"></a>156. A.C. Clark, <i>Ciceronianism</i>, in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, ed. +Gordon (Oxford, 1912), p. 128.</p> + +<p><a name="foot157"></a>157. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i>, p. 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot158"></a>158. Erasmus, <i>Dialogus, cui titulus ciceronianus, sive, de optimo +dicendi genere</i>, in <i>Opera omnia</i> (Lugduni Batavorum, 1703), I. It was +composed in 1528.</p> + +<p><a name="foot159"></a>159. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot160"></a>160. I, 4. Wilson follows the analysis on p. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot161"></a>161. I, x, 17.</p> + +<p><a name="foot162"></a>162. <i>An Apology for Actors</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot163"></a>163. This count is based on the Cicero MSS. listed by P. Deschamps, +<i>Essai bibliographique sur M. T. Ciceron</i> (Paris. 1863). Appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot164"></a>164. H. Rashdall, <i>Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages</i> (Oxford, +1895), I, 249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot165"></a>165. J. E. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, p. 590.</p> + +<p><a name="foot166"></a>166. Sandys, p. 624 <i>seq.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot167"></a>167. Deschamps, <i>op. cit.</i>, pp. 59-63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot168"></a>168. Arber reprint, p. 124.</p> + +<p><a name="foot169"></a>169. M. Schwab, <i>Bibliographie d'Aristote</i> (Paris, 1896).</p> + +<p><a name="foot170"></a>170. Rashdall, II, 457.</p> + +<p><a name="foot171"></a>171. Fierville, C. <i>M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber +primus</i> (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for +the first time the complete texts of these abridgments in an appendix.</p> + +<p><a name="foot172"></a>172. Arber, p. 95.</p> + +<p><a name="foot173"></a>173. The pseudo-Demetrius, author of the <i>De elecutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot174"></a>174. P. 316.</p> + +<p><a name="foot175"></a>175. Sandys, <i>History of Classical Scholarship</i>, pp. 541-2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot176"></a>176. M. Schwab, <i>op. cit.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot177"></a>177. <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, +1900), p. 88.</p> + +<p><a name="foot178"></a>178. <i>Defense</i>, in Smith, I, 196-197.</p> + +<p><a name="foot179"></a>179. Vossius, <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 3-4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot180"></a>180. <i>Poetics</i>, I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot181"></a>181. <i>Poetica</i>, 23, 190.</p> + +<p><a name="foot182"></a>182. <i>De artis poeticae natura</i>, II, 4.</p> + +<p><a name="foot183"></a>183. <i>Euphues</i>, edited by M. W. Croll and H. Clemens (New York), Introd. +iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot184"></a>184. Preface to Maggi's <i>Aristotle</i> (1550), p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot185"></a>185. Prolog. <i>ibid.</i>, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot186"></a>186. Spingarn, p. 312.</p> + +<p><a name="foot187"></a>187. Jacob Pontanus, S. J., <i>Poeticarum institutionum libri tres</i> +(Ingolstadi, 1594), p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot188"></a>188. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot189"></a>189. "Tres autem sunt virtutes narrationis, brevitas, perspicuitas, +probabilitas. Secundam & tertiam diligentissime consectabitur Epicus, +earumque rationem a Rhetoricae magistris percepiet," p. 72. These three +virtues of a "narratio" are based on the analysis of the <i>Rhetorica ad +Alexandrum</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot190"></a>190. Arist., <i>Rhet.</i>, III. 16.</p> + +<p><a name="foot191"></a>191. <i>Op. cit</i>,, p. 26.</p> + +<p><a name="foot192"></a>192. Spingarn, p. 313.</p> + +<p><a name="foot193"></a>193. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 255.</p> + +<p><a name="foot194"></a>194. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 262.</p> + +<p><a name="foot195"></a>195. Arber, pp. 138-141.</p> + +<p><a name="foot196"></a>196. Spingarn, pp. 174, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot197"></a>197. Smith, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot198"></a>198. Smith, I, 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot199"></a>199. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot200"></a>200. I, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot201"></a>201. II, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot202"></a>202. IV, 63.</p> + +<p><a name="foot203"></a>203. <i>Topics</i>, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot204"></a>204. VI, ii, 8 <i>seq.</i> Quintilian also uses the Greek terms.</p> + +<p><a name="foot205"></a>205. X, i, 46-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot206"></a>206. <i>Op. cit.</i>, pp. 275-398.</p> + +<p><a name="foot207"></a>207. II, 154 seq.</p> + +<p><a name="foot208"></a>208. P. 187.</p> + +<p><a name="foot209"></a>209. G.S. Gordon, "Theophrastus" in <i>Eng. Lit. and the Classics</i>, p. +49-86.</p> + +<p><a name="foot210"></a>210. Smith, I, 128</p> + +<p><a name="foot211"></a>211. <i>Ibid.</i>, 130-131.</p> + +<p><a name="foot212"></a>212. Cf. Spingarn, pp. 298-304, for a good account of reformed versifying +in England.</p> + +<p><a name="foot213"></a>213. Smith, I, 137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot214"></a>214. John Northbrooke anticipated Gosson by two years in his attack on +the stage, but did not include poets in his title.</p> + +<p><a name="foot215"></a>215. Spingam, pp. 256-258.</p> + +<p><a name="foot216"></a>216. Smith, I, 158.</p> + +<p><a name="foot217"></a>217. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot218"></a>218. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot219"></a>219. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 158-159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot220"></a>220. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot221"></a>221. I, 183.</p> + +<p><a name="foot222"></a>222. I, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot223"></a>223. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i>, III, 2; Quint. VIII, iii. 62; Scaliger, iii, 25. Cf. +ante p. 33.</p> + +<p><a name="foot224"></a>224. <i>De aug.</i> II, 13.</p> + +<p><a name="foot225"></a>225. See pp. 18, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot226"></a>226. I, 203.</p> + +<p><a name="foot227"></a>227. I, 202.</p> + +<p><a name="foot228"></a>228. Smith, I, 227-228.</p> + +<p><a name="foot229"></a>229. I, 256.</p> + +<p><a name="foot230"></a>230. I, 231.</p> + +<p><a name="foot231"></a>231. I, 247-248.</p> + +<p><a name="foot232"></a>232. I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot233"></a>233. I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot234"></a>234. I, viii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot235"></a>235. I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot236"></a>236. La Rue Van Hook, "Greek Rhetorical Terminology in Puttenham's <i>The +Arte of English Poesie." Trans. of the Am. Phil. Ass.</i> (1914) XLV, 111. +Puttenham was also familiar with the <i>ad Herennium</i> and with <i>Cicero</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot237"></a>237. (Philadelphia, 1891), p. 59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot238"></a>238. III, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot239"></a>239. III, xix, p. 206 Arber reprint; of. also p. 230, on the figure +<i>Merismus</i> or the Distributor, and the remainder of the chapter.</p> + +<p><a name="foot240"></a>240. Smith, II, 249, 282.</p> + +<p><a name="foot241"></a>241. <i>Ibid</i>, II, 274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot242"></a>242. Preface to Homer, in Spingarn, <i>Critical Essays of the Seventeenth +Century</i>, I, 81.</p> + +<p><a name="foot243"></a>243. Spingarn, I, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot244"></a>244. <i>Literary Criticism in the Seventeenth Century, Introduction</i>, I, +xiii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot245"></a>245. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 128. Cf. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, VIII, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot246"></a>246. Spingarn, I, 211.</p> + +<p><a name="foot247"></a>247. <i>Timber</i>, Sec. 109.</p> + +<p><a name="foot248"></a>248. <i>Timber</i>, Sees. 132-133.</p> + +<p><a name="foot249"></a>249. Spingarn, I, 214.</p> + +<p><a name="foot250"></a>250. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 210, 213.</p> + +<p><a name="foot251"></a>251. Vossler, <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot252"></a>252. Spingarn, I, 107.</p> + +<p><a name="foot253"></a>253. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 142.</p> + +<p><a name="foot254"></a>254. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 182.</p> + +<p><a name="foot255"></a>255. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 188, 185.</p> + +<p><a name="foot256"></a>256. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot257"></a>257. Pseudo-Demetrius, <i>De elocutione</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot258"></a>258. The <i>De sublimitate</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="foot259"></a>259. <i>De sublimitate</i>, VIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot260"></a>260. Spingarn, I, 206.</p> + +<p><a name="foot261"></a>261. <i>Reason of Church Government</i> (1641), in Spingarn, I, 194.</p> + +<p><a name="foot262"></a>262. <i>Introd. to Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, lxx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot263"></a>263. Pp. 23-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot264"></a>264. VI, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot265"></a>265. Poetica est facultas videndi quodcunque accommodatum est ad +imitationem cuiusque actionis, affectionis, moris, suavi sermone, ad vitam +corrigendam & ad bene beateque vivendum comparata. <i>Praefatio</i> to +<i>Maggi's</i> ed. of the <i>Poetics</i> (1550), p. 9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot266"></a>266. Spingarn, p. 35.</p> + +<p><a name="foot267"></a>267. La poetica è una facoltà, la quale insegna in quai modi si debba +imitare qualunque azione, affetto e costume, con numero, sermone ed +armonia; mescolatamente a di per sè, per remuovere gli uomini dai vizi e +accendergli alle virtù, affine che conseguano la perfezione e beatitudine +loro. <i>Lezione della poetica</i> (1590) in <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1859), II, 687.</p> + +<p><a name="foot268"></a>268. Verses 1008-1010.</p> + +<p><a name="foot269"></a>269. Verse 1055.</p> + +<p><a name="foot270"></a>270. <i>The Women at the Feast of Bacchus</i>, quoted by Emile Egger, +<i>L'Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs</i> (Paris, 1886), p. 74.</p> + +<p><a name="foot271"></a>271. <i>Protagoras</i>, 325-326, Jowett's translation.</p> + +<p><a name="foot272"></a>272. <i>Republic</i>, 596-598.</p> + +<p><a name="foot273"></a>273. <i>Ibid.</i>, 605-606.</p> + +<p><a name="foot274"></a>274. <i>Ibid.</i>, 607</p> + +<p><a name="foot275"></a>275. <i>Laws</i>, 663.</p> + +<p><a name="foot276"></a>276. <i>Poetics</i>, IV, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot277"></a>277. <i>Ibid.</i>, VI, 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot278"></a>278. <i>Ibid.</i>, VII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot279"></a>279. <i>Ibid.</i>, IX, 7.</p> + +<p><a name="foot280"></a>280. <i>Ibid.</i>, XIII. Cf. also XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot281"></a>281. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXIV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot282"></a>282. <i>Ibid.</i>, XXVI.</p> + +<p><a name="foot283"></a>283. <i>Politics</i>, V, v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot284"></a>284. <i>Poetics</i>, VI. (Butcher). Cf. Butcher's <i>Aristotle's Theory of Fine +Art</i>, Chapter VI, for a full discussion of katharsis.</p> + +<p><a name="foot285"></a>285. <i>Politics</i>, V, vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot286"></a>286. <i>Poetics</i>, XIII.</p> + +<p><a name="foot287"></a>287. <i>Panegyric</i>, § 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot288"></a>288. <i>Symposium</i>, III, 5.</p> + +<p><a name="foot289"></a>289. <i>Geography</i>, I, ii, 3. Trans, by H. C. Hamilton (Bohn ed, London, +1854), 1, 24-25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot290"></a>290. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, trans, by F.M. Padelford under the title +<i>Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry</i> (New York, 1902), I. Cf. also +Julian, <i>Epistle</i> 42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot291"></a>291. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot292"></a>292. <i>Ibid.</i> XIV. Cf. Harrington in Smith's <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, II, +197-198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot293"></a>293. <i>Ibid.</i> XII. Cf. Chemnicensis, <i>Canons</i>, LII, in Smith, I, 421.</p> + +<p><a name="foot294"></a>294. <i>Ibid.</i>, IV. Cf. Aristotle, <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx.</p> + +<p><a name="foot295"></a>295. <i>Ibid.</i>, III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot296"></a>296. + + Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae + Aut simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitae + + * * * * * + + Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis; + Celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: + Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, + Lectorem delectando, periterque monendo. + Hic meret aera liber Sosiis; hic et mare transit, + Et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum. + </p> + +<p><i>Ad Pisonem</i>, 333-334, 342-346.</p> + +<p><a name="foot297"></a>297. <i>Epistles</i>, II, i, 11. 126 ff. Conington's trans.</p> + +<p><a name="foot298"></a>298. <i>Metamorphoses</i>, X, 2.</p> + +<p><a name="foot299"></a>299. <i>De rerum natura</i>, I, 936-950.</p> + +<p><a name="foot300"></a>300. <i>Phaedrus</i>. See also <i>Republic</i>, II.</p> + +<p><a name="foot301"></a>301. <i>How to Study Poetry</i>, IV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot302"></a>302. Cf. Cicero, <i>De nat. deor.</i> i, 15-38 ff., and Hatch, <i>Hibbert +Lectures</i>, 1888, Ch. III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot303"></a>303. A. Schlemm, <i>De fontibus Plutarchi commentationum De aud. poet.</i> +(Göttingen, 1893), pp. 32-36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot304"></a>304. "Iam cum confluxerunt plures continuae tralationes, alia plane fit +oratio; itaque genus hoc Graeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν nomine +recte genere melius ille qui ista omnia tralationes vocat." <i>Orator</i>, 94. +Cf. <i>Ad. Att.</i> ii, 20, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot305"></a>305. Quintilian, VIII, vi, 44. Isidore, <i>Etym.</i> I, xxxvii, 22.</p> + +<p><a name="foot306"></a>306. <i>De doctrina christiana</i> (397), III, 29, 40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot307"></a>307. <i>Confessions</i> (Watts's trans.), III. vi., Lionardo Bruni, <i>De +studiis et literis</i> (1405), uses the same argument to defend poetry.</p> + +<p><a name="foot308"></a>308. Terence, <i>Eun.</i> 585-589, shows a young man justifying his vices on +this ground.</p> + +<p><a name="foot309"></a>309. <i>Poetics</i>, IX.</p> + +<p><a name="foot310"></a>310. <i>Literary Criticism</i>, p. 18.</p> + +<p><a name="foot311"></a>311. <i>Rhet.</i> II, xxi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot312"></a>312. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. (Weldon's translation).</p> + +<p><a name="foot313"></a>313. <i>De inst. orat.</i> V, xi, 6, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot314"></a>314. Edited from the edition of 1560 by G.H. Mair (Oxford, 1909), p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot315"></a>315. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot316"></a>316. "Docere debitum est, delectare honorarium, permovere necessarium." +<i>De optimo genere oratorum</i>, I, 3. He gives the same threefold aims as "ut +probet, ut delectet, ut flectet," in the <i>Orator</i>, 69; and in the <i>De +oratore</i>, II, 121.</p> + +<p><a name="foot317"></a>317. <i>Vide</i> pp. 136-137.</p> + +<p><a name="foot318"></a>318. Cf. <i>ante</i>, I, iv.</p> + +<p><a name="foot319"></a>319. <i>Controv.</i> II, 2 (10). Bornecque ed., I, 145-148.</p> + +<p><a name="foot320"></a>320. Quoted by Padelford, p. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="foot321"></a>321. <i>Orat.</i> xi, p. 308.</p> + +<p><a name="foot322"></a>322. Padelford, <i>op. cit.</i> pp. 39-43.</p> + +<p><a name="foot323"></a>323. Karl Vossler, <i>Poetische Theorien in der italienischen +Frührenaissance</i> (Berlin, 1900), pp. 5, 18, 45.</p> + +<p><a name="foot324"></a>324. Boethius, <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i>, Book I, prose 1. Boethius +lived 480-524. Cf. Skeat, <i>Chaucer</i>, II, introd. xiv ff. for references to +the surprising number of translations in most European languages +throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous are, perhaps, those of Ælfred, +Notker, and Chaucer.</p> + +<p><a name="foot325"></a>325. <i>Ibid</i>, Book V, prose v.</p> + +<p><a name="foot326"></a>326. "Quidam autem poetae Theologici dicti sunt, quoniam de diis carmina +faciebant. Officium autem poetae in eo est ut ea, quae vere gesta sunt, in +alias species obliquis figurationibus cum decore aliquo conversa +transducant." <i>Etym.</i> VIII, vii, 9-10.</p> + +<p><a name="foot327"></a>327. "Fabulas poetae quasdam delectandi causa finxerunt, quasdam ad +naturam rerum, nonnullas ad mores hominum interpretati sunt." <i>Etym.</i> I, +xl, 3.</p> + +<p><a name="foot328"></a>328. "Una verita ascosa sotto bella menzogna." II, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot329"></a>329. <i>Epistle</i>, X, 11, 160-1. Quoted by Wicksteed, <i>Temple Classics</i>, pp. +66-67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot330"></a>330. "Vesta di figura o di colore rettorico." <i>La Vita Nuova</i>, XXV.</p> + +<p><a name="foot331"></a>331. See above, pp. 45-47.</p> + +<p><a name="foot332"></a>332. "Per nimpham fingitur caro, per iuvenem coruptorem mundus vel +dyabolus, per proprium amicum ratio." <i>Poetria magistri Johannis anglici +de arte prosayca metrica et rithmica</i>. Ed. by G. Mari, Romanische +Forschungen (1902) XIII, 894.</p> + +<p><a name="foot333"></a>333. "Est furor Eacides ire sathanas," <i>Ibid</i>, p. 913.</p> + +<p><a name="foot334"></a>334. See above, pp. 51-55.</p> + +<p><a name="foot335"></a>335. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, p. 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot336"></a>336. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot337"></a>337. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 54; see further above, p. 54.</p> + +<p><a name="foot338"></a>338. Cf. ante, pp. 97-99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot339"></a>339. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 47-59.</p> + +<p><a name="foot340"></a>340. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 58.</p> + +<p><a name="foot341"></a>341. I <i>anal.</i> 1a.</p> + +<p><a name="foot342"></a>342. <i>Lit. Crit.</i>, p. 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot343"></a>343. André Schimberg, <i>L'education morale dans les collèges de la +compagnie de Jésus en France</i> (Paris, 1913). p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot344"></a>344. <i>Opus de divisione, ordine, ac utilitate omnium scientiarum, in +poeticen apologeticum</i>. Autore fratre Hieronymo Savonarola (Venetiis, +1542), IV, pp. 36-55. Savonarola died in 1498.</p> + +<p><a name="foot345"></a>345. Cartier, "L'Esthetique de Savonarola," in Didron's <i>Annales +Archoelogiques</i> (1847). vii, 255 ff.</p> + +<p><a name="foot346"></a>346. "Rhetorica, Poeticaque contra: quod non adeo vere ac proprie Logicae +appellantur, neque, syllogismo fere, sed exemplo atque enthymemate, +rationibus quasi popularibus utuntur...." Poetic, furthermore, differs +from rhetoric, "neque usurpat enthymema fere, sed exemplum." Vincentius +Madius et Bartholomaeus Lombardus. In <i>Aristotelis Librum de poetica +communes explanationes</i> (Venetiis, 1550), pp. 8-9.</p> + +<p><a name="foot347"></a>347. "Onde come il loico usa per suo mezzo il più nobile strumento, ciò è +la dimostrazione o vero il sillogismo dimonstrativo; cosi usa il +dialettico il sillogismo topico; il sofista il sofistico, ciò è apparente +ed ingannevole: il retore l'entimema, e il poeta l'esempio, il quale è il +meno degno di tutti gli altri. É adunque il subbietto della poetica il +favellare finto e favoloso, ed il suo mezzo o strumento l'esempio." <i>Delia +Poetica in Generale, Lezione Una </i> I, 2. <i>Opere</i> (Trieste, 1850), II, 684. +In his paraphrase of this passage and in his comments, Spingarn (<i>Lit. +Crit.</i> pp. 25-26) misunderstands both his author and his rhetoric when he +says, "The subject of poetry is fiction, or invention, arrived at by means +of that form of the syllogism known as the example. Here the enthymeme or +example, which Aristotle has made the instrument of rhetoric, becomes the +instrument of poetry."</p> + +<p><a name="foot348"></a>348. <i>Rhet.</i> I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot349"></a>349. "Nimirum arbitrantur, quemadmodum Rhetorice ab Aristotele ipso +appellatur particula Dialecticae; idque propterea, quod doceat rationem, +qua enthymema applicetur ad materiam civilem: ita & Poeticen esse Logices +partem, quia aperit exempli usum in materia ficta ... at Rhetorice, & +Poetice, non solum docere student, sed etiam delectare; nec cognitionem +tantum spectant, sed & actionem. Quamquam vero hoc commune habet cum +Rhetorica, quod utraque sit famula Politicae." Gerardi Joannis Vossii, <i>De +artis poeticae, natura, ac constitutions liber</i>, cap VII, in <i>Opera</i> +(Amsterdam, 1697), III.</p> + +<p><a name="foot350"></a>350. "Inductio delectat, et est vulgo apta, propter similitudines et +exempla. Hanc argumentationem frequentant Rhetores et Poetae, praesertim +Ovidius; quia venuste ac perspicue explicat argumenta." I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot351"></a>351. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 103-104.</p> + +<p><a name="foot352"></a>352. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 119-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot353"></a>353. <i>Poetica</i> (Vinegia, 1536), p. 25. Spingarn, p. 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot354"></a>354. "Sic dicere versibus, ut doccat, ut delectet, ut moveat." <i>De +poeta</i>, p. 102.</p> + +<p><a name="foot355"></a>355. <i>Rhetoric</i>, I, ii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot356"></a>356. XII, i, 1.</p> + +<p><a name="foot357"></a>357. <i>De poeta</i>, p. 79. Vossius echoes the same idea from the same +rhetorical source.</p> + +<p><a name="foot358"></a>358. "Sed & docendi, & movendi, & delectandi." <i>Poetice</i> (1561), III, +xcvii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot359"></a>359. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, i.</p> + +<p><a name="foot360"></a>360. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i> p. 176.</p> + +<p><a name="foot361"></a>361. These two names were frequently connected in the renaissance.</p> + +<p><a name="foot362"></a>362. <i>Ibid</i>, p. 195.</p> + +<p><a name="foot363"></a>363. <i>Arber Reprint</i> (London, 1870), p. 151.</p> + +<p><a name="foot364"></a>364. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 142-143.</p> + +<p><a name="foot365"></a>365. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 80.</p> + +<p><a name="foot366"></a>366. <i>Vide</i>, p. 132.</p> + +<p><a name="foot367"></a>367. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 77-78.</p> + +<p><a name="foot368"></a>368. Smith, <i>Eliz. Crit. Essays</i>, I, 48.</p> + +<p><a name="foot369"></a>369. Croll, Introd. to ed. of <i>Euphues</i> (New York, 1916), p. vii.</p> + +<p><a name="foot370"></a>370. Smith, I, 60.</p> + +<p><a name="foot371"></a>371. <i>School of Abuse</i> (Pub. of the Shak. Soc., 1841), Vol, 2, p. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot372"></a>372. <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 20, 25, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot373"></a>373. Smith, I, 65.</p> + +<p><a name="foot374"></a>374. Smith, I, 73.</p> + +<p><a name="foot375"></a>375. Smith, I, 76.</p> + +<p><a name="foot376"></a>376. Smith, I, 83.</p> + +<p><a name="foot377"></a>377. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 86-87.</p> + +<p><a name="foot378"></a>378. <i>Lit. Crit. in the Ren.</i> 2d ed., pp. 269-274.</p> + +<p><a name="foot379"></a>379. Smith, I, 158-160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot380"></a>380. <i>Ibid.</i>, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot381"></a>381. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 159.</p> + +<p><a name="foot382"></a>382. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 171.</p> + +<p><a name="foot383"></a>383. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 172.</p> + +<p><a name="foot384"></a>384. Cf. above, p. 138.</p> + +<p><a name="foot385"></a>385. <i>De inst. orat.</i>, V, xi, 19.</p> + +<p><a name="foot386"></a>386. <i>Arte of Rhet.</i>, p. 198.</p> + +<p><a name="foot387"></a>387. <i>Ibid.</i>, I, 157.</p> + +<p><a name="foot388"></a>388. Smith, I, 169.</p> + +<p><a name="foot389"></a>389. <i>Rhetoric</i>, II, xx. + +<a name="foot390"></a>390. Smith, I, 173.</p> + +<p><a name="foot391"></a>391. Cf. St. Augustine, <i>Confessions</i>, III, vi.</p> + +<p><a name="foot392"></a>392. Smith, I, 187. Cf. Arist. <i>Rhet.</i> I, i, and Quint. <i>De inst. orat.</i> +II, xvi, who defend rhetoric on the same ground. Sidney's "with a sword +thou maist kill thy Father, and with a sword thou maist defende thy Prince +and Country" is in Quintilian.</p> + +<p><a name="foot393"></a>393. See also p. 38.</p> + +<p><a name="foot394"></a>394. Smith, II, 208.</p> + +<p><a name="foot395"></a>395. Smith, II, 201.</p> + +<p><a name="foot396"></a>396. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot397"></a>397. <i>De audiendis poetis</i>, XIV. Plutarch believed that poetry gained +this end by enunciating moral and philosophical <i>sententiae</i>, not by +allegory, which Plutarch made sport of.</p> + +<p><a name="foot398"></a>398. See pp. 87-89.</p> + +<p><a name="foot399"></a>399. Smith, I, 250-252.</p> + +<p><a name="foot400"></a>400. Smith, I, 232.</p> + +<p><a name="foot401"></a>401. Smith, I, 238-239.</p> + +<p><a name="foot402"></a>402. Smith, I, 235-236.</p> + +<p><a name="foot403"></a>403. Smith, I, 248-249.</p> + +<p><a name="foot404"></a>404. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 89-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot405"></a>405. Smith, II, 25.</p> + +<p><a name="foot406"></a>406. Smith, II, 115-116.</p> + +<p><a name="foot407"></a>407. Smith, II, 160.</p> + +<p><a name="foot408"></a>408. Smith, II, 32-40.</p> + +<p><a name="foot409"></a>409. Smith, II, 41-42.</p> + +<p><a name="foot410"></a>410. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot411"></a>411. Woodward, <i>Educ. in the Ren.</i> p. 135.</p> + +<p><a name="foot412"></a>412. Krapp, <i>Rise of Eng. Lit. Prose</i> (New York, 1915), pp. 408-409.</p> + +<p><a name="foot413"></a>413. <i>Vide</i>, pp. 91-92.</p> + +<p><a name="foot414"></a>414. Spingarn, <i>Crit. Essays of the 17th Century</i>, I, 98, 99.</p> + +<p><a name="foot415"></a>415. Springarn, I, 6.</p> + +<p><a name="foot416"></a>416. Spingarn, I, 6-8.</p> + +<p><a name="foot417"></a>417. The author's prolog to the first book.</p> + +<p><a name="foot418"></a>418. Spingarn, I, 170.</p> + +<p><a name="foot419"></a>419. Spingarn, I, 50; for Jonson see also pp. 93-96.</p> + +<p><a name="foot420"></a>420. Spingarn, I, 29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot421"></a>421. <i>Ibid.</i>, 51-52.</p> + +<p><a name="foot422"></a>422. <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 55. Cf. Cicero, <i>ante</i> p. 37.</p> + +<p><a name="foot423"></a>423. Ded. to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I. 15.</p> + +<p><a name="foot424"></a>424. <i>Ibid.</i></p> + +<p><a name="foot425"></a>425. Spingarn, I, 28-29.</p> + +<p><a name="foot426"></a>426. Ded to <i>Volpone</i>, Spingarn, I, 12.</p> + +<p><a name="foot427"></a>427. Smith, II, 306.</p> + +<p><a name="foot428"></a>428. Spingarn, I, 67.</p> + +<p><a name="foot429"></a>429. Spingarn, I, 117-120.</p> + +<p><a name="foot430"></a>430. A.H. Tieje, <i>Theory of Characterization in Prose Fiction Prior to</i> +1740 (Minneapolis, 1916), p. 14.</p> + +<p><a name="foot431"></a>431. Spingarn, I, 186-187.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance +by Donald Lemen Clark + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RHETORIC AND POETRY *** + +***** This file should be named 10140-h.htm or 10140-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/1/4/10140/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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