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.