Transcriber's Notes
Minor spelling inconsistencies have been silently corrected. Apart from
a few corrections listed at the end of the book and indicated by scrolling the mouse over, original spelling was
retained. Footnotes were sequentially numbered and placed at the end of
each chapter.
A HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM IN THE RENAISSANCE
Columbia University
STUDIES IN LITERATURE
Columbia University
STUDIES IN LITERATURE
A HISTORY OF LITERARY CRITICISM IN THE RENAISSANCE: With Special Reference to the Influence of Italy in the Formation and Development of Modern Classicism. By Joel Elias Spingarn.
In Press:
ROMANCES OF ROGUERY: An Episode in the Development of the Modern Novel, Part I. The Picaresque Novel in Spain. By Frank Wadleigh Chandler.
SPANISH LITERATURE IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS.
By John Garrett Underhill.
***Other numbers of this series will be issued from
time to time, containing the results of literary research,
or criticism by the students or officers of
Columbia University, or others associated with them
in study, under the authorization of the Department of Literature, George Edward Woodberry and
Brander Matthews, Professors.
A HISTORY
OF
LITERARY CRITICISM
IN THE RENAISSANCE
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE INFLUENCE OF
ITALY IN THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT
OF MODERN CLASSICISM
BY
JOEL ELIAS SPINGARN
New York
PUBLISHED FOR THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS BY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1899
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1899,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
-v-
PREFACE
This essay undertakes to treat the history of
literary criticism in the Renaissance. The three
sections into which the essay is divided are devoted,
respectively, to Italian criticism from Dante
to Tasso, to French criticism from Du Bellay to
Boileau, and to English criticism from Ascham to
Milton; but the critical activity of the sixteenth
century has been the main theme, and the earlier
or later literature has received treatment only in
so far as it serves to explain the causes or consequences
of the critical development of this central
period. It was at this epoch that modern criticism
began, and that the ancient ideals of art seemed
once more to sway the minds of men; so that
the history of sixteenth-century criticism must of
necessity include a study of the beginnings of
critical activity in modern Europe and of the gradual
introduction of the Aristotelian canons into
modern literature.
This study has been made subservient, more particularly,
to two specific purposes. While the
critical activity of the period is important and
even interesting in itself, it has been here studied
primarily for the purpose of tracing the origin and-vi-
causes of the classic spirit in modern letters and of
discovering the sources of the rules and theories
embodied in the neo-classic literature of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. How did the
classic spirit arise? Whence did it come, and how
did it develop? What was the origin of the principles
and precepts of neo-classicism? These are
some of the questions I have attempted to answer
in this essay; and, in answering them, I have tried
to remember that this is a history, not of critical
literature, but of literary criticism. For this reason
I have given to individual books and authors less
prominence than some of them perhaps deserved,
and have confined myself almost exclusively to the
origin of principles, theories, and rules, and to the
general temper of classicism. For a similar reason
I have been obliged to say little or nothing of
the methods and results of applied, or concrete,
criticism.
This, then, has been the main design of the essay;
but furthermore, as is indicated in the title, I have
attempted to point out the part played by Italy in
the growth of this neo-classic spirit and in the formulation
of these neo-classic principles. The influence
of the Italian Renaissance in the development
of modern science, philosophy, art, and creative
literature has been for a long time the subject of
much study. It has been my more modest task to
trace the indebtedness of the modern world to Italy
in the domain of literary criticism; and I trust that
I have shown the Renaissance influence to be as
great in this as in the other realms of study. The-vii-
birth of modern criticism was due to the critical
activity of Italian humanism; and it is in sixteenth-century
Italy that we shall find, more or less
matured, the general spirit and even the specific
principles of French classicism. The second half
of the design, then, is the history of the Italian
influence in literary criticism; and with Milton, the
last of the humanists in England, the essay naturally
closes. But we shall find, I think, that the
influence of the Italian Renaissance in the domain
of literary criticism was not even then all decayed,
and that Lessing and Shelley, to mention no
others, were the legitimate inheritors of the Italian
tradition.
This essay was submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy,
Columbia University, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. The bibliography at the end of the
essay indicates sufficiently my obligations to preceding
writers. It has been prepared chiefly for
the purpose of facilitating reference to works cited
in the text and in the foot-notes, and should be
consulted for the full titles of books therein mentioned;
it makes no pretence of being a complete
bibliography of the subject. It will be seen that
the history of Italian criticism in the sixteenth
century has received scarcely any attention from
modern scholars. In regard to Aristotle's Poetics,
I have used the text, and in general followed the
interpretation, given in Professor S. H. Butcher's
Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, a noble
monument of scholarship vivified by literary feeling.-viii-
I desire also to express my obligations to
Professor Butcher for an abstract of Zabarella, to
Mr. P. O. Skinner of Harvard for an analysis
of Capriano, to my friend, Mr. F. W. Chandler,
for summaries of several early English rhetorical
treatises, and to Professor Cavalier Speranza for a
few corrections; also to my friends, Mr. J. G. Underhill,
Mr. Lewis Einstein, and Mr. H. A. Uterhart,
and to my brother, Mr. A. B. Spingarn, for
incidental assistance of some importance.
But, above all, I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness
to Professor George E. Woodberry. This
book is the fruit of his instruction; and in writing
it, also, I have had recourse to him for assistance
and criticism. Without the aid so kindly accorded
by him, the book could hardly have been written,
and certainly would never have assumed its present
form. But my obligations to him are not limited
to the subject or contents of the present essay.
Through a period of five years the inspiration
derived from his instruction and encouragement
has been so great as to preclude the possibility of
its expression in a preface. Quare habe tibi quidquid
hoc libelli.
New York,
March, 1899.
-ix-
CONTENTS
PART FIRST
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY
PAGE
- I. The Fundamental Problem of Renaissance Criticism3
- II. The General Theory of Poetry in the Italian Renaissance24
- III. The Theory of the Drama 60
- IV. The Theory of Epic Poetry107
- V. The Growth of the Classic Spirit in Italian Criticism125
-x-
- VI. Romantic Elements in Italian Criticism155
PART SECOND
LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE
- I. The Character and Development of French Criticism in the Sixteenth Century171
- II. The Theory of Poetry in the French
Renaissance190
- III. Classic and Romantic Elements in French
Criticism
during the Sixteenth Century214
- IV. The Formation of the Classic Ideal in The
Seventeenth Century232
-xi-
PART THIRD
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND
- I. The Evolution of English Criticism From
Ascham to Milton253
- II. The General Theory of Poetry in the Elizabethan Age261
- III. The Theory of Dramatic and Heroic Poetry282
- IV. Classical Elements in Elizabethan Criticism 296
Part First
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY
CHAPTER I
-3-
THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF RENAISSANCE
CRITICISM
The first problem of Renaissance criticism was
the justification of imaginative literature. The existence
and continuity of the æsthetic consciousness,
and perhaps, in a less degree, of the critical faculty,
throughout the Middle Ages, can hardly be denied;
yet distrust of literature was keenest among the very
class of men in whom the critical faculty might be
presupposed, and it was as the handmaid of philosophy,
and most of all as the vassal of theology, that
poetry was chiefly valued. In other words, the
criteria by which imaginative literature was judged
during the Middle Ages were not literary criteria.
Poetry was disregarded or contemned, or was valued
if at all for virtues that least belong to it. The
Renaissance was thus confronted with the necessity
of justifying its appreciation of the vast body of
literature which the Revival of Learning had recovered
for the modern world; and the function of
Renaissance criticism was to reëstablish the æsthetic
foundations of literature, to reaffirm the eternal-4-
lesson of Hellenic culture, and to restore once and
for all the element of beauty to its rightful place in
human life and in the world of art.
I. Mediæval Conceptions of Poetry
The mediæval distrust of literature was the result
of several coöperating causes. Popular literature
had fallen into decay, and in its contemporary form
was beneath serious consideration. Classical literature
was unfortunately pagan, and was moreover
but imperfectly known. The mediæval Church
from its earliest stages had regarded pagan culture
with suspicion, and had come to look upon the development
of popular literature as antagonistic to
its own supremacy. But beyond this, the distrust
of literature went deeper, and was grounded upon
certain theoretical and fundamental objections to all
the works of the imagination.
These theoretical objections were in nowise new
to the Middle Ages. They had been stated in antiquity
with much more directness and philosophical
efficacy than was possible in the mediæval period.
Plato had tried imaginative literature by the criteria
of reality and morality, both of which are
unæsthetic criteria, although fundamentally applicable
to poetry. In respect to reality, he had shown
that poetry is three removes from the truth, being
but the imitation, by the artist, of the imitation, in
life, of an idea in the mind of God. In respect to
morality, he had discovered in Homer, the greatest-5-
of poets, deviations from truth, blasphemy against
the gods, and obscenity of various sorts. Furthermore,
he had found that creative literature excites
the emotions more than does actual life, and stirs
up ignoble passions which were better restrained.
These ideas ran throughout the Middle Ages,
and indeed persisted even beyond the Renaissance.
Poetry was judged by these same criteria, but it
was natural that mediæval writers should substitute
more practical reasons for the metaphysical arguments
of Plato. According to the criterion of
reality, it was urged that poetry in its very essence
is untrue, that at bottom it is fiction, and therefore
false. Thus Tertullian said that "the Author of
truth hates all the false; He regards as adultery all
that is unreal.... He never will approve pretended
loves, and wraths, and groans, and tears;"[1]
and he affirmed that in place of these pagan works
there was in the Bible and the Fathers, a vast
body of Christian literature and that this is "not
fabulous, but true, not tricks of art, but plain realities."[2]
According to the criterion of morality, it
was urged that as few works of the imagination
were entirely free from obscenity and blasphemy,
such blemishes are inseparable from the poetic
art; and accordingly, Isidore of Seville says that
a Christian is forbidden to read the figments of the
poets, "quia per oblectamenta inanium fabularum
mentem excitant ad incentiva libidinum."[3]
The third, or psychological objection, made by
Plato, was similarly emphasized. Thus Tertullian
-6-pointed out that while God has enjoined us to deal
calmly and gently and quietly with the Holy Spirit,
literature, and especially dramatic literature, leads
to spiritual agitation.[4] This point seemed to the
mediæval mind fundamental, for in real beauty,
as Thomas Aquinas insisted, desire is quieted.[5]
Furthermore, it was shown that the only body of
literary work worthy of serious study dealt with
pagan divinities and with religious practices which
were in direct antagonism to Christianity. Other
objections, also, were incidentally alluded to by
mediæval writers. For example, it was said, the
supreme question in all matters of life is the question
of conduct, and it was not apparent in what
manner poetry conduces to action. Poetry has no
practical use; it rather enervates men than urges
them to the call of duty; and above all, there are
more profitable occupations in which the righteous
man may be engaged.
These objections to literature are not characteristically
mediæval. They have sprung up in every
period of the world's history, and especially recur
in all ages in which ascetic or theological conceptions
of life are dominant. They were stock questions
of the Greek schools, and there are extant treatises
by Maximus of Tyre and others on the problem
whether or not Plato was justified in expelling
Homer from his ideal commonwealth. The same
objections prevailed beyond the Renaissance; and
they were urged in Italy by Savonarola, in Germany
-7-by Cornelius Agrippa, in England by Gosson
and Prynne, and in France by Bossuet and other
ecclesiastics.
II. The Moral Justification of Poetry
The allegorical method of interpreting literature
was the result of the mediæval attempt to answer
the objections just stated. This method owed its
origin to the mode of interpreting the popular
mythology first employed by the Sophists and
more thoroughly by the later Stoics. Such heroes
as Hercules and Theseus, instead of being mere
brute conquerors of monsters and giants, were regarded
by the Stoic philosophers as symbols of the
early sages who had combated the vices and passions
of mankind, and they became in the course of
time types of pagan saints. The same mode of interpretation
was later applied to the stories of the
Old Testament by Philo Judæus, and was first
introduced into Occidental Europe by Hilary of
Poitiers and Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.[6] Abraham,
Adam, Eve, Jacob, became types of various
virtues, and the biblical stories were considered as
symbolical of the various moral struggles in the
soul of man. The first instance of the systematic
application of the method to the pagan myths
occurs in the Mythologicon of Fulgentius, who probably
flourished in the first half of the sixth century;
and in his Virgiliana Continentia, the Æneid is
-8-treated as an image of life, and the travels of
Æneas as the symbol of the progress of the
human soul, from nature, through wisdom, to final
happiness.
From this period, the allegorical method became
the recognized mode of interpreting literature,
whether sacred or profane. Petrarch, in his
letter, De quibusdam fictionibus Virgilij,[7] treats the
Æneid after the manner of Fulgentius; and even
at the very end of the Renaissance Tasso interpreted
his own romantic epics in the same way.
After the acceptance of the method, its application
was further complicated. Gregory the Great
ascribes three meanings to the Bible,—the literal,
the typical or allegorical, and the moral. Still
later, a fourth meaning was added; and Dante
distinctly claims all four, the literal, the allegorical,
the moral or philosophical, and the anagogical
or mystical, for his Divine Comedy.[8]
This method, while perhaps justifying poetry
from the standpoint of ethics and divinity, gives it
no place as an independent art; thus considered,
poetry becomes merely a popularized form of theology.
Both Petrarch and Boccaccio regarded allegory
as the warp and woof of poetry; but they
modified the mediæval point of view by arguing
conversely that theology itself is a form of poetry,—the
poetry of God. Both of them insist that the
Bible is essentially poetical, and that Christ himself
spoke largely in poetical images. This point
-9-was so emphasized by Renaissance critics that
Berni, in his Dialogo contra i Poeti (1537), condemns
the poets for speaking of God as Jupiter
and of the saints as Mercury, Hercules, Bacchus,
and for even having the audacity to call the
prophets and the writers of the Scriptures poets
and makers of verses.[9]
The fourteenth and fifteenth books of Boccaccio's
treatise, De Genealogia Deorum, have been called
"the first defence of poesy in honor of his own art
by a poet of the modern world;" but Boccaccio's
justification of imaginative literature is still primarily
based on the usual mediæval grounds. The
reality of poetry is dependent on its allegorical
foundations; its moral teachings are to be sought
in the hidden meanings discoverable beneath the
literal expression; pagan poetry is defended for
Christianity on the ground that the references to
Greek and Roman gods and rituals are to be regarded
only as symbolical truths. The poet's function,
for Boccaccio, as for Dante and Petrarch, was
to hide and obscure the actual truth behind a veil
of beautiful fictions—veritatem rerum pulchris velaminibus
adornare.[10]
The humanistic point of view, in regard to poetry,
was of a more practical and far-reaching nature
than that of the Middle Ages. The allegorical
interpretation did indeed continue throughout the
Renaissance, and Mantuan, for example, can only
-10-define a poem as a literary form which is bound by
the stricter laws of metre, and which has its fundamental
truths hidden under the literal expressions
of the fable. For still later writers, this mode of
regarding literature seemed to present the only
loophole of escape from the moral objections to
poetry. But in employing the old method, the
humanists carried it far beyond its original application.
Thus, Lionardo Bruni, in his De Studiis et
Literis (c. 1405), after dwelling on the allegorical
interpretation of the pagan myths, argues that
when one reads the story of Æneas and Dido, he
pays his tribute of admiration to the genius of the
poet, but the matter itself is known to be fiction,
and so leaves no moral impression.[11] By this Bruni
means that fiction as such, when known to be fiction,
can leave no moral impression, and secondly,
that poetry is to be judged by the success of the
artist, and not by the efficacy of the moralist.
Similarly, Battista Guarino, in his De Ordine Docendi
et Studendi (1459), says that we are not disturbed
by the impieties, cruelties, horrors, which we
find in poetry; we judge these things simply by
their congruity with the characters and incidents
described. In other words, "we criticise the artist,
not the moralist."[12] This is a distinct attempt at
the æsthetic appreciation of literature, but while
such ideas are not uncommon about this time, they
express isolated sentiments, rather than a doctrine
strictly coördinated with an æsthetic theory of
poetry.
-11-
The more strict defense of poetry was attempted
for the most part on the grounds set forth by
Horace in his Ars Poetica. At no period from the
Augustan Age to the Renaissance does the Ars
Poetica seem to have been entirely lost. It is
mentioned or quoted, for example, by Isidore of
Seville[13] in the sixth century, by John of Salisbury[14]
in the twelfth century, and by Dante[15] in the
fourteenth. Horace insists on the mingled instructiveness
and pleasurableness of poetry; and beyond
this, he points out the value of poetry as a civilizing
factor in history, regarding the early poets as
sages and prophets, and the inventors of arts and
sciences:—
"Orpheus, inspired by more than human power,
Did not, as poets feigned, tame savage beasts,
But men as lawless and as wild as they,
And first dissuaded them from rage and blood.
Thus when Amphion built the Theban wall,
They feigned the stones obeyed his magic lute;
Poets, the first instructors of mankind,
Brought all things to their proper native use;
Some they appropriated to the gods,
And some to public, some to private ends:
Promiscuous love by marriage was restrained,
Cities were built, and useful laws were made;
So ancient is the pedigree of verse,
And so divine the poet's function."[16]
This conception of the early poet's function was
an old one. It is to be found in Aristophanes;[17] it
-12-runs through Renaissance criticism; and even in
this very century, Shelley[18] speaks of poets as "the
authors of language, and of music, of the dance, and
architecture, and statuary, and painting," as "the
institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society,
and the inventors of the arts of life." To-day the
idealist takes refuge in the same faith: "The tree
of knowledge is of equal date with the tree of life;
nor were even the tamer of horses, the worker in
metals, or the sower, elder than those twin guardians
of the soul,—the poet and the priest. Conscience
and imagination were the pioneers who made earth
habitable for the human spirit."[19]
It was this ethical and civilizing function of
poetry which was first in the minds of the humanists.
Action being the test of all studies,[20] poetry
must stand or fall in proportion as it conduces to
righteous action. Thus, Lionardo Bruni[21] speaks of
poetry as "so valuable an aid to knowledge, and so
ennobling a source of pleasure"; and Æneas Sylvius
Piccolomini, in his treatise De Liberorum
Educatione (1450), declares that the crucial question
is not, Is poetry to be contemned? but, How
are the poets to be used? and he solves his own
question by asserting that we are to welcome all
that poets can render in praise of integrity and in
condemnation of vice, and that all else is to be left
unheeded.[22] Beyond this, the humanists urged in
-13-favor of poetry the fact of its antiquity and divine
origin, and the further fact that it had been praised
by great men of all professions, and its creators
patronized by kings and emperors from time immemorial.
There were then at the end of the Middle Ages,
and the beginning of the Renaissance, two opposing
tendencies in regard to the poetic art, one representing
the humanistic reverence for ancient culture,
and for poetry as one of the phases of that
culture, and the other representing not only the
mediæval tradition, but a purism allied to that of
early Christianity, and akin to the ascetic conceptions
of life found in almost every period. These
two tendencies are expressed specifically in their
noblest forms by the great humanist Poliziano, and
the great moral reformer Savonarola. In the Sylvæ,
written toward the close of the fifteenth century,
Poliziano dwells on the divine origin of poetry,
as Boccaccio had done in his Vita di Dante; and
then, after the manner of Horace, he describes its
ennobling influence on man, and its general influence
on the progress of civilization.[23] He then proceeds
to survey the progress of poetry from the
most ancient times, and in so doing may be said to
have written the first modern history of literature.
The second section of the Sylvæ discusses the
bucolic poets; the third contains that glorification
of Virgil which began during the Middle Ages,
and, continued by Vida and others, became in
-14-Scaliger literary deification; and the last section
is devoted to Homer, who is considered as the great
teacher of wisdom, and the wisest of the ancients.
Nowhere does Poliziano exhibit any appreciation
of the æsthetic value of poetry, but his enthusiasm
for the great poets, and indeed for all forms of
ancient culture, is unmistakable, and combined
with his immense erudition marks him as a representative
poet of humanism.[24]
On the other hand, the puristic conception of art
is elaborated at great length by Savonarola in an
apology for poetry contained in his tractate, De
Divisione ac Utilitate Omnium Scientarum,[25] written
about 1492. After classifying the sciences in true
scholastic fashion, and arranging them according
to their relative importance and their respective
utility for Christianity, he attacks all learning as
superfluous and dangerous, unless restricted to a
chosen few. Poetry, according to the scholastic
arrangement, is grouped with logic and grammar;
and this mediæval classification fixes Savonarola's
conception of the theory of poetic art. He expressly
says that he attacks the abuse of poetry and not
poetry itself, but there can be no doubt that, at
bottom, he was intolerant of creative literature.
Like Plato, like moral reformers of all ages, he
feared the free play of the imaginative faculty;
and in connecting poetry with logic he was tending
toward the elimination of the imagination in art.
The basis of his æsthetic system, such as it is,
-15-rests wholly on that of Thomas Aquinas;[26] but he
is in closer accord with Aristotle when he points out
that versification, a merely conventional accompaniment
of poetry, is not to be confounded with
the essence of poetry itself. This distinction is
urged to defend the Scriptures, which he regards
as the highest and holiest form of poetry. For
him poetry is coördinate with philosophy and with
thought; but in his intolerance of poetry in its
lower forms, he would follow Plato in banishing
poets from an ideal state. The imitation of the
ancient poets especially falls under his suspicion,
and in an age given up to their worship he denies
both their supremacy and their utility. In fine,
as a reformer, he represents for us the religious
reaction against the paganization of culture by the
humanists. But the forces against him were too
strong. Even the Christianization of culture effected
during the next century by the Council of
Trent was hardly more than temporary. Humanism,
which represents the revival of ancient pagan
culture, and rationalism, which represents the
growth of the modern spirit in science and art,
were currents too powerful to be impeded by any
reformer, however great, and, when combined in
classicism, were to reign supreme in literature
for centuries to come. But Savonarola and Poliziano
serve to indicate that modern literary criticism
had not yet begun. For until some rational
answer to the objections urged against poetry in
-16-antiquity and in the Middle Ages was forthcoming,
literary criticism in any true sense was fundamentally
impossible; and that answer came only
with the recovery of Aristotle's Poetics.
III. The Final Justification of Poetry
The influence of Aristotle's Poetics in classical
antiquity, so far as it is possible to judge, was
very slight; there is no apparent reference to the
Poetics in Horace, Cicero, or Quintilian,[27] and it
was entirely lost sight of during the Middle Ages.
Its modern transmission was due almost exclusively
to Orientals.[28] The first Oriental version of
Aristotle's treatise appears to have been that made
by Abu-Baschar, a Nestorian Christian, from the
Syriac into Arabic, about the year 935. Two
centuries later, the Moslem philosopher Averroës
made an abridged version of the Poetics, which
was translated into Latin in the thirteenth century,
by a certain German, named Hermann, and
again, by Mantinus of Tortosa in Spain, in the
fourteenth century. Hermann's version seems to
have circulated considerably in the Middle Ages,
but it had no traceable influence on critical literature
whatsoever. It is mentioned and censured
by Roger Bacon, but the Poetics in any form was
probably unknown to Dante, to Boccaccio, and
beyond a single obscure reference, to Petrarch.
There is no question that for a long time before
the beginning of the sixteenth century the Poetics
-17-had been entirely neglected. Not only do the
critical ideas of this period show no indication
of Aristotelian influence, but during the sixteenth
century itself there seems to have been a well-defined
impression that the Poetics had been recovered
only after centuries of oblivion. Thus,
Bernardo Segni, who translated the Poetics into
Italian in 1549, speaks of it as "abandoned and
neglected for a long time";[29] and Bernardo Tasso,
some ten years later, refers to it as "buried for
so long a time in the obscure shadows of ignorance."[30]
It was then as a new work of Aristotle that the
Latin translation by Giorgio Valla, published at
Venice in 1498, must have appeared to Valla's contemporaries.
Though hardly successful as a work
of scholarship, this translation, and the Greek text
of the Poetics published in the Aldine Rhetores
Græci in 1508, had considerable influence on dramatic
literature, but scarcely any immediate influence
on literary criticism. Somewhat later, in
1536, Alessandro de' Pazzi published a revised
Latin version, accompanied by the original; and
from this time, the influence of the Aristotelian
canons becomes manifest in critical literature. In
1548, Robortelli produced the first critical edition
of the Poetics, with a Latin translation and a
learned commentary, and in the very next year the
first Italian translation was given to the world
-18-by Bernardo Segni. From that day to this the editions
and translations of the Poetics have increased
beyond number, and there is hardly a single passage
in Aristotle's treatise which has not been discussed
by innumerable commentators and critics.
It was in Aristotle's Poetics that the Renaissance
was to find, if not a complete, at least a rational
justification of poetry, and an answer to every one
of the Platonic and mediæval objections to imaginative
literature. As to the assertion that poetry
diverges from actual reality, Aristotle[31] contended
that there is to be found in poetry a higher reality
than that of mere commonplace fact, that poetry
deals not with particulars, but with universals, and
that it aims at describing not what has been, but
what might have been or ought to be. In other
words, poetry has little regard for the actuality of
the specific event, but aims at the reality of an eternal
probability. It matters not whether Achilles
or Æneas did this thing, or that thing, which
Homer or Virgil ascribes to either, but if Achilles
or Æneas was such a man as the poet describes, he
must necessarily act as Homer or Virgil has made
him do. It is needless to say that Aristotle is here
simply distinguishing between ideal truth and
actual fact, and in asserting that it is the function
of poetry to imitate only ideal truth he laid the
foundations, not only of an answer to mediæval
objections, but also of modern æsthetic criticism.
Beyond this, poetry is justified on the grounds of
morality, for while not having a distinctly moral
-19-aim, it is essentially moral, because it is this ideal
representation of life, and an idealized version of
human life must necessarily present it in its moral
aspects. Aristotle distinctly combats the traditional
Greek conception of the didactic function of poetry;
but it is evident that he insists fundamentally that
literature must be moral, for he sternly rebukes
Euripides several times on grounds that are moral,
rather than purely æsthetic. In answer to the objection
that poetry, instead of calming, stirs and
excites our meanest passions, that it "waters and
cherishes those emotions which ought to wither
with drought, and constitutes them our rulers,
when they ought to be our subjects,"[32] Aristotle
taught those in the Renaissance who were able to
understand him, that poetry, and especially dramatic
poetry, does not indeed starve the emotions,
but excites them only to allay and to regulate them,
and in this æsthetic process purifies and ennobles
them.[33] In pointing out these things he has justified
the utility of poetry, regarding it as more serious and
philosophic than history, because it universalizes
mere fact, and imitates life in its noblest aspects.
These arguments were incorporated into Renaissance
criticism; they were emphasized, as we shall
see, over and over again, and they formed the basis
of the justification of poetry in modern critical
literature. At the same time, this purely æsthetic
conception of art did not prevail by itself in the
sixteenth century, even in those for whom Aristotle
meant most, and who best understood his meaning;
-20-the Horatian elements, also, as found in the early
humanists, were elaborated and discussed. In the
Poetica of Daniello (1536), these Horatian elements
form the basis for a defence of poetry[34] that has
many marked resemblances to various passages in
Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy. After referring
to the antiquity and nobility of poetry, and
affirming that no other art is nobler or more ancient,
Daniello shows that all things known to man, all
the secrets of God and nature, are described by the
poets in musical numbers and with exquisite ornament.
He furthermore asserts, in the manner of
Horace, that the poets were the inventors of the
arts of life; and in answer to the objection that it
was the philosophers who in reality did these things,
he shows that while instruction is more proper to
the philosopher than to the poet, poets teach too,
in many more ways, and far more pleasantly, than
any philosopher can. They hide their useful teachings
under various fictions and fabulous veils, as
the physician covers bitter medicine with a sweet
coating. The style of the philosopher is dry and
obscure, without any force or beauty by itself; and
the delightful instruction of poetry is far more
effective than the abstract and harsh teachings of
philosophy. Poetry, indeed, was the only form of
philosophy that primitive men had, and Plato, while
regarding himself as an enemy of poets, was really
a great poet himself, for he expresses all his ideas
in a wondrously harmonious rhythm, and with great
splendor of words and images. This defence of
-21-Daniello's is interesting, as anticipating the general
form of such apologies throughout the sixteenth
century.
Similarly, Minturno in his De Poeta (1559), elaborates
the Horatian suggestions for a defence of
poetry. He begins by pointing out the broad inclusiveness
of poetry, which may be said to comprehend
in itself every form of human learning, and
by showing that no form of learning can be found
before the first poets, and that no nation, however
barbarous, has ever been averse to poetry. The
Hebrews praised God in verse; the Greeks, Italians,
Germans, and British have all honored poetry;
the Persians have had their Magi and the Gauls
their bards. Verse, while not essential to poetry,
gives the latter much of its delightful effectiveness,
and if the gods ever speak, they certainly speak in
verse; indeed, in primitive times it was in verse
that all sciences, history, and philosophy were
written.[35]
To answer the traditional objections against imaginative
literature which had survived beyond the
Middle Ages seemed to the Renaissance a simpler
task, however, than to answer the more philosophical
objections urged in the Platonic dialogues. The
authority of Plato during the Renaissance made it
impossible to slight the arguments stated by him in
the Republic, and elsewhere. The writers of this
period were particularly anxious to refute, or at
least to explain away, the reasons for which Plato
had banished poets from his ideal commonwealth.
-22-Some critics, like Bernardo Tasso[36] and Daniello,[37]
asserted that Plato had not argued against poetry
itself, but only against the abuse of poetry. Thus,
according to Tasso, only impure and effeminate
poets were to be excluded from the ideal state, and
according to Daniello, only the more immoral tragic
poets, and especially the authors of obscene and
lampooning comedies. Other Renaissance writers,
like Minturno[38] and Fracastoro,[39] answered the Platonic
objections on more philosophical grounds.
Thus Fracastoro answers Plato's charge that, since
poetry is three removes from ideal truth, poets
are fundamentally ignorant of the realities they
attempt to imitate, by pointing out that the poet is
indeed ignorant of what he is speaking of, in so far
as he is a versifier and skilled in language, just as
the philosopher or historian is ignorant of natural
or historical facts in so far as he, too, is merely
skilled in language, but knows these facts in so far as
he is learned, and has thought out the problems of
nature and history. The poet, as well as the philosopher
and the historian, must possess knowledge,
if he is to teach anything; he, too, must learn the
things he is going to write about, and must solve
the problems of life and thought; he, too, must
have a philosophical and an historical training.
Plato's objection, indeed, applies to the philosopher,
to the orator, to the historian, quite as much as to
the poet. As to Plato's second charge, that imagination
naturally tends toward the worst things,
-23-and accordingly that poets write obscenely and
blasphemously, Fracastoro points out that this is
not the fault of the art, but of those who abuse it;
there are, indeed, immoral and enervating poets,
and they ought to be excluded, not only from
Plato's, but from every commonwealth. Thus various
Aristotelian and Horatian elements were
combined to form a definite body of Renaissance
criticism.
top
CHAPTER II
-24-
THE GENERAL THEORY OF POETRY IN THE ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE
In the first book of his Geography Strabo defines
poetry as "a kind of elementary philosophy, which
introduces us early to life, and gives us pleasurable
instruction in reference to character, emotion,
action." This passage sounds the keynote of the
Renaissance theory of poetry. Poetry is therein
stated to be a form of philosophy, and, moreover, a
philosophy whose subject is life, and its object is
said to be pleasurable instruction.
I. Poetry as a Form of Scholastic Philosophy
In the first place, poetry is a form of philosophy.
Savonarola had classed poetry with logic and
grammar, and had asserted that a knowledge of
logic is essential to the composing of poetry. The
division of the sciences and the relative importance
of each were a source of infinite scholastic discussion
during the Middle Ages. Aristotle had first
placed dialectic or logic, rhetoric, and poetics in
the same category of efficient philosophy. But
Averroës was probably the first to confuse the
function of poetics with that of logic, and to make-25-
the former a subdivision, or form, of the latter;
and this classification appears to have been accepted
by the scholastic philosophers of the Middle
Ages.
This conception of the position of poetry in the
body of human knowledge may be found, however,
throughout the Renaissance. Thus, Robortelli, in
his commentary on Aristotle's Poetics (1548), gives
the usual scholastic distinctions between the various
forms of the written or spoken word (oratio): the
demonstrative, which deals with the true; the dialectic,
which deals with the probable; the rhetorical,
with the persuasive; and the poetic, with the false
or fabulous.[40] By the term "false" or "fabulous" is
meant merely that the subject of poetry is not
actual fact, but that it deals with things as they
ought to be, rather than as they are. Varchi, in his
public lectures on poetry (1553), divides philosophy
into two forms, real and rational. Real philosophy
deals with things, and includes metaphysics, ethics,
physics, geometry, and the like; while rational
philosophy, which includes logic, dialectic, rhetoric,
history, poetry, and grammar, deals not with
things, but with words, and is not philosophy
proper, but the instrument of philosophy. Poetry
is therefore, strictly speaking, neither an art nor
a science, but an instrument or faculty; and it is
only an art in the sense that it has been reduced to
rules and precepts. It is, in fact, a form of logic,
and no man, according to Varchi, can be a poet
unless he is a logician; the better logician he is,
-26-the better poet he will be. Logic and poetry differ,
however, in their matter and their instruments;
for the subject of logic is truth, arrived at by means
of the demonstrative syllogism, while 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.
This classification survived in the Aristotelian
schools at Padua and elsewhere as late as Zabarella
and Campanella. Zabarella, a professor of logic
and later of philosophy at Padua from 1564 to
1589, explains at length Averroës's theory that
poetics is a form of logic, in a treatise on the
nature of logic, published in 1578.[41] He concludes
that the two faculties, logic and poetics, are not
instruments of philosophy in general, but only of a
part of it, for they refer rather to action than to
knowledge; that is, they come under Aristotle's
category of efficient philosophy. They are not the
instruments of useful art or of moral philosophy,
the end of which is to make one's self good; but of
civil philosophy, the end of which is to make others
good. If it be objected that they are τῶν ἐναντίων,
that is, of both good and evil, it may be answered
that their proper end is good. Thus, in the Symposium,
-27-the true poet is praised; while in the Republic
the poets who aim at pleasure and who corrupt their
audiences are censured; and Aristotle in his definition
of tragedy says that the end of tragedy is to
purge the passions and to correct the morals of men
(affectiones animi purgare et mores corrigere).
Even later than Zabarella, we find in the Poetica
of Campanella a division of the sciences very similar
to that of Savonarola and Varchi. Theology is
there placed at the head of all knowledge, in
accordance with the mediæval tradition, while
poetics, with dialectic, grammar, and rhetoric, is
placed among the logical sciences. Considering
poetica as a form of philosophy, another commentator
on Aristotle, Maggi (1550), takes great pains
to distinguish its various manifestations. Poetica
is the art of composing poetry, poesis, the poetry
composed according to this art, poeta, the composer
of poetry, and poema, a single specimen of poetry.[42]
This distinction is an elaboration of two passages in
Plutarch and Aphthonius.
II. Poetry as an Imitation of Life
In the second place, according to the passage
from Strabo cited at the beginning of this chapter,
poetry introduces us early to life, or, in other words,
its subject is human action, and it is what Aristotle
calls it, an imitation of human life. This raises
-28-two distinct problems. First, what is the meaning
of imitation? and what in life is the subject-matter
of this imitation?
The conception of imitation held by the critics of
the Renaissance was that expressed by Aristotle in
the ninth chapter of the Poetics. The passage is as
follows:—
"It is evident from what has been said that it is not the
function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what
may happen,—what is possible according to the law of
probability or necessity. The poet and the historian differ
not by writing in verse or in prose. The work of Herodotus
might be put into verse, and it would still be a species of
history, with metre no less than without it. The true difference
is that one relates what has happened, the other
what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical
and a higher thing than history; for poetry tends to express
the universal, history the particular. The universal
tells us how a person of given character will on occasion
speak or act, according to the law of probability or necessity;
and it is this universality at which poetry aims in giving
expressive names to the characters."
In this passage Aristotle has briefly formulated
a conception of ideal imitation which may be regarded
as universally valid, and which, repeated
over and over again, became the basis of Renaissance
criticism.
In the Poetica of Daniello (1536), occurs the
first allusion in modern literary criticism to the
Aristotelian notion of ideal imitation. According
to Daniello, the poet, unlike the historian, can mingle
fictions with facts, because he is not obliged,-29-
as is the historian, to describe things as they actually
are or have been, but rather as they ought to
be; and it is in this that the poet most differs from
the historian, and not in the writing of verses; for
even if Livy's works were versified, they would
still be histories as before.[43] This is of course
almost a paraphrase of the passage in Aristotle;
but that Daniello did not completely understand
the ideal element in Aristotle's conception is shown
by the further distinction which he draws between
the historian and the poet. For he adds
that the poet and the historian have much in common;
in both there are descriptions of places,
peoples, laws; both contain the representation of
vices and virtues; in both, amplification, variety,
and digressions are proper; and both teach, delight,
and profit at the same time. They differ, however,
in that the historian, in telling his story,
recounts it exactly as it happened, and adds nothing;
whereas the poet is permitted to add whatever
he desires, so long as the fictitious events have all
the appearance of truth.
Somewhat later, Robortelli treats the question
of æsthetic imitation from another point of view.
The poet deals with things as they ought to be, but
he can either appropriate actual fact, or he can invent
his material. If he does the former, he narrates
the truth not as it really happened, but as it
might or ought to happen; while if he invents his
material, he must do so in accordance with the law
of possibility, or necessity, or probability and verisimilitude.[44]
-30-Thus Xenophon, in describing Cyrus,
does not depict him as he actually was, but as the
best and noblest king can be and ought to be; and
Cicero, in describing the orator, follows the same
method. From this it is evident that the poet can
invent things transcending the order of nature;
but if he does so, he should describe what might or
ought to have been.
Here Robortelli answers a possible objection to
Aristotle's statement that poets deal only with
what is possible and verisimilar. Is it possible
and verisimilar that the gods should eat ambrosia
and drink nectar, as Homer describes, and that
such a being as Cerberus should have several
heads, as we find in Virgil, not to mention various
improbable things that occur in many other poets?
The answer to such an objection is that poets can
invent in two ways. They can invent either things
according to nature or things transcending nature.
In the former case, these things must be in keeping
with the laws of probability and necessity; but
in the latter case, the things are treated according
to a process described by Aristotle himself, and
called paralogism, which means, not necessarily
false reasoning, but the natural, if quite inconclusive,
logical inference that the things we know not
of are subject to the same laws as the things we
know. The poets accept the existence of the gods
from the common notion of men, and then treat all
that relates to these deities in accordance with this
system of paralogism. In tragedy and comedy-31-
men are described as acting in accordance with the
ordinary occurrences of nature; but in epic poetry
this is not entirely the case, and the marvellous is
therefore admitted. Accordingly, this marvellous
element has the widest scope in epic poetry; while
in comedy, which treats of things nearest to our
own time, it ought not to be admitted at all.
But there is another problem suggested by the
passage from the Poetics which has been cited.
Aristotle says that imitation, and not metre, is the
test of poetry; that even if a history were versified,
it would still remain history. The question
then arises whether a writer who imitates in prose,
that is, without verse, would be worthy of the title
of poet. Robortelli answers this question by pointing
out that metre does not constitute the nature,
force, or essence of poetry, which depends entirely
on the fact of imitation; but at the same time,
while one who imitates without verse is a poet, in
the best and truest poetry imitation and metre are
combined.[45]
In Fracastoro's Naugerius, sive de Poetica Dialogus
(1555), there is the completest explanation
of the ideal element in the Aristotelian conception
of imitation. The poet, according to Aristotle, differs
from other writers in that the latter consider
merely the particular, while the poet aims at the
universal. He is, in other words, attempting to
describe the simple and essential truth of things,
not by depicting the nude thing as it is, but the
idea of things clothed in all their beauties.[46] Here
-32-Fracastoro attempts to explain the Aristotelian conception
of the type with the aid of the Platonic
notion of beauty. There were, in fact, in the
Renaissance, three conceptions of beauty in general
vogue. First, the purely objective conception
that poetry is fixed or formal, that it consists in
approximating to a certain mechanical or geometrical
form, such as roundness, squareness, or straightness;
secondly, the Platonic conception, ethical
rather than æsthetic, connecting the beautiful with
the good, and regarding both as the manifestation
of divine power; and, thirdly, a more purely æsthetic
conception of beauty, connecting it either
with grace or conformity, or in a higher sense with
whatever is proper or fitting to an object. This
last idea, which at times approaches the modern
conception that beauty consists in the realization
of the objective character of any particular thing
and in the fulfilment of the law of its own being,
seems to have been derived from the Idea of the
Greek rhetorician Hermogenes, whose influence
during the sixteenth century was considerable,
even as early as the time of Filelfo. It was the
celebrated rhetorician Giulio Cammillo, however,
who appears to have popularized Hermogenes in
the sixteenth century, by translating the Idea into
Italian, and by expounding it in a discourse published
posthumously in 1544.
As will be seen, Fracastoro's conception of beauty
approximates both to the Platonic and to the more
purely æsthetic doctrines which we have mentioned;
and he expounds and elaborates this-33-
æsthetic notion in the following manner. Each
art has its own rules of proper expression. The
historian or the philosopher does not aim at all the
beauties or elegancies of expression, but only such
as are proper to history or philosophy. But to the
poet no grace, no embellishment, no ornament, is
ever alien; he does not consider the particular
beauty of any one field,—that is, the singular, or
particular, of Aristotle,—but all that pertains to
the simple idea of beauty and of beautiful speech.
Yet this universalized beauty is no extraneous
thing; it cannot be added to objects in which it
has no place, as a golden coat on a rustic; all the
essential beauty of each species is to be the especial
regard of the poet. For in imitating persons
and things, he neglects no beauty or elegance
which he can attribute to them; he strives only
after the most beautiful and most excellent, and
in this way affects the minds of men in the direction
of excellence and beauty.
This suggests a problem which is at the very
root of Aristotle's conception of ideal imitation;
and it is Fracastoro's high merit that he was one
of the first writers of the Renaissance to explain
away the objection, and to formulate in the most
perfect manner what Aristotle really meant. For,
even granting that the poet teaches more than
others, may it not be urged that it is not what pertains
to the thing itself, but the beauties which he
adds to them,—that it is ornament, extraneous to
the thing itself (extra rem), and not the thing
itself,—which seems to be the chief regard of the-34-
poet? But after all, what is extra rem? Are
beautiful columns, domes, peristyles extra rem,
because a thatched roof will protect us from rain
and frost; or is noble raiment extra rem, because
a rustic garment would suffice? The poet, so far
from adding anything extraneous to the things
he imitates, depicts them in their very essence;
and it is because he alone finds the true beauty in
things, because he attributes to them their true
nobility and perfection, that he is more useful than
any other writer. The poet does not, as some
think, deal with the false and the unreal.[47] He
assumes nothing openly alien to truth, though he
may permit himself to treat of old and obscure
legends which cannot be verified, or of things
which are regarded as true on account of their appearance,
their allegorical signification (such as the
ancient myths and fables), or their common acceptance
by men. So we may conclude that not every
one who uses verse is a poet, but only he who is
moved by the true beauty of things—by their
simple and essential beauties, not merely apparent
ones. This is Fracastoro's conclusion, and it contains
that mingling of Platonism and Aristotelianism
which may be found somewhat later in
Tasso and Sir Philip Sidney. It is the chief merit
of Fracastoro's dialogue, that even while emphasizing
this Platonic element, he clearly distinguishes
and defines the ideal element in æsthetic imitation.
About the same time, in the public lectures of
Varchi (1553), there was an attempt to formulate
-35-a more explicit definition of poetry on the basis of
Aristotle's definition[48] of tragedy. Poetry, according
to Varchi, is an imitation of certain actions,
passions, habits of mind, with song, diction, 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.[49] In the first place, poetry
is an imitation. Every poet imitates, and any one
who does not imitate cannot be called a poet.
Accordingly, Varchi follows Maggi in distinguishing
three classes of poets,—the poets par excellence,
who imitate in verse; the poets who imitate without
using verse, such as Lucian, Boccaccio in the
Decameron, and Sannazaro in the Arcadia; and the
poets, commonly but less properly so called, who
use verse, but who do not imitate. Verse, while
not an essential attribute of poetry, is generally
required; for men's innate love of harmony, according
to Aristotle, was one of the causes that gave
rise to poetic composition. Certain forms of poetry
however, such as tragedy, cannot be written
without verse; for "embellished language," that
is, verse, is included in the very definition of
tragedy as given by Aristotle.
The question whether poetry could be written
in prose was a source of much discussion in the
Renaissance; but the consensus of opinion was
overwhelmingly against the prose drama. Comedy
in prose was the usual Italian practice of this
period, and various scholars[50] even sanction the
-36-practice on theoretical grounds. But the controversy
was not brought to a head until the publication
of Agostino Michele's Discorso in cui si dimostra
come si possono scrivere le Commedie e le Tragedie
in Prosa in 1592; and eight years later, in 1600,
Paolo Beni published his Latin dissertation, Disputatio
in qua ostenditur præstare Comœdiam atque
Tragœdiam metrorum vinculis solvere.[51] The language
of Beni's treatise was strong—its very title
speaks of liberating the drama from the shackles
of verse; and for a heresy of this sort, couched as
it was in language that might even have been revolutionary
enough for the French romanticists of
1830, the sixteenth century was not yet fully prepared.
Faustino Summo, answering Beni in the
same year, asserts that not only is it improper for
tragedy and comedy to be written in prose, but
that no form of poetry whatever can properly be
composed without the accompaniment of verse.[52]
The result of the whole controversy was to fix the
metrical form of the drama throughout the period
of classicism. But it need not be said that the
same conclusion was not accepted by all for every
form of poetry. The remark of Cervantes in Don
Quixote, that epics can be written in prose as well as
in verse, is well known; and Julius Cæsar Scaliger[53]
speaks of Heliodorus's romance as a model epic.
Scaliger, however, regards verse as a fundamental
part of poetry. For him, poetry and history
have the forms of narration and ornament in
-37-common, but differ in that poetry adds fictions to
the things that are true, or imitates actual things
with fictitious ones,—majore sane apparatu, that
is, among other things, with verse. As a result of
this notion, Scaliger asserts that if the history of
Herodotus were versified, it would no longer be
history, but historical poetry. Under no circumstances,
theoretically, will he permit the separation
of poetry from mere versification. He accordingly
dismisses with contempt the usual argument of the
period that Lucan was an historian rather than a
poet. "Take an actual history," says Scaliger;
"how does Lucan differ, for example, from Livy?
He differs in using verse. Well, then he is a poet."
Poetry, then, is imitation in verse;[54] but in imitating
what ought to be rather than what is, the poet
creates another nature and other fortunes, as if he
were another God.[55]
It will be seen from these discussions that the
Renaissance always conceived of æsthetic imitation
in this ideal sense. There are scarcely any traces
of realism, in anything like its modern sense, in
the literary criticism of this period. Torquato
Tasso does indeed say that art becomes most perfect
as it approaches most closely to nature;[56] and
-38-Scaliger declares that the dramatic poet must beyond
all things aim at reproducing the actual conditions
of life.[57] But it is the appearance of reality, and
not the mere actuality itself, that the critics are
speaking of here. With the vast body of mediæval
literature before them, in which impossibilities follow
upon impossibilities, and the sense of reality is
continually obscured, the critical writers of the
Renaissance were forced to lay particular stress on
the element of probability, the element of close
approach to the seeming realities of life; but the
imitation of life is for them, nevertheless, an imitation
of things as they ought to be—in other words,
the imitation is ideal. Muzio says that nature is
adorned by art:—
"Suol far l' opere sue roze, e tra le mani
Lasciarle a l' arte, che le adorni e limi;"[58]
and he distinctly affirms that the poet cannot remain
content with exact portraiture, with the mere
actuality of life:—
"Lascia 'l vero a l' historia, e ne' tuoi versi
Sotto i nomi privati a l' universo
Mostra che fare e che non far si debbia."
In keeping with this idealized conception of art,
Muzio asserts that everything obscene or immoral
must be excluded from poetry; and this puristic
notion of art is everywhere emphasized in Renaissance
criticism. It was the verisimile, as has been
said, that the writers of this period especially insisted
upon. Poetry must have the appearance of
-39-truth, that is, it must be probable; for unless the
reader believes what he reads, his spirit cannot be
moved by the poem.[59] This anticipates Boileau's
famous line:—
"L'esprit n'est point ému de ce qu'il ne croit pas."[60]
But beyond and above the verisimile, the poet
must pay special regard to the ethical element
(il lodevole e l'onesto). A poet of the sixteenth
century, Palingenius, says that there are three
qualities required of every poem:—
"Atqui scire opus est, triplex genus esse bonorum,
Utile, delectans, majusque ambobus honestum."[61]
Poetry, then, is an ideal representation of life;
but should it be still further limited, and made an
imitation of only human life? In other words, are
the actions of men the only possible themes of
poetry, or may it deal, as in the Georgics and the
De Rerum Natura, with the various facts of external
nature and of science, which are only indirectly
connected with human life? May poetry treat of
the life of the world as well as of the life of men;
and if only of the latter, is it to be restricted to
the actions of men, or may it also depict their
passions, emotions, and character? In short, how
far may external nature on the one hand, and the
internal working of the human soul on the other
hand, be regarded as the subject-matter of poetry?
Aristotle says that poetry deals with the actions of
-40-men, but he uses the word "actions" in a larger
sense than many of the Renaissance critics appear
to have believed. His real meaning is thus explained
by a modern writer:—
"Everything that expresses the mental life, that reveals
a rational personality, will fall within this larger sense of
action.... The phrase is virtually an equivalent for ἤθη
(character), πάθη (emotion), πράξεις (action).... The
common original from which all the arts draw is human life,—its
mental processes, its spiritual movements, its outward
acts issuing from deeper sources; in a word, all that constitutes
the inward and essential activity of the soul. On
this principle landscape and animals are not ranked among
the objects of æsthetic imitation. The whole universe is not
conceived of as the raw material of art. Aristotle's theory
is in agreement with the practice of the Greek poets and
artists of the classical period, who introduce the external
world only so far as it forms a background of action, and
enters as an emotional element into man's life and heightens
the human interest."[62]
Aristotle distinctly says that "even if a treatise
on medicine or natural philosophy be brought out
in verse, the name of poet is by custom given to
the author; and yet Homer and Empedocles have
nothing in common except the material; the former,
therefore, is properly styled poet, the latter, physicist
rather than poet."[63]
The Aristotelian doctrine was variously conceived
during the Renaissance. Fracastoro, for example,
asserts that the imitation of human life alone is not
of itself a test of poetry, for such a test would
exclude Empedocles and Lucretius; it would make
-41-Virgil a poet in the Æneid, and not a poet in the
Georgics. All matters are proper material for the
poet, as Horace says, if they are treated poetically;
and although the imitation of men and women may
seem to be of higher importance for us who are
men and women, the imitation of human life is no
more the poet's end than the imitation of anything
else.[64] This portion of Fracastoro's argument may
be called apologetic, for the imitation of human
actions as a test of poetry would exclude most of
his own poems,[65] such as his famous De Morbo
Gallico (1529), written before the influence of
Aristotle was felt in anything but the mere external
forms of creative literature. For Fracastoro,
all things poetically treated become poetry, and
Aristotle himself[66] says that everything becomes
pleasant when correctly imitated. So that not the
mere composition of verse, but the Platonic rapture,
the delight in the true and essential beauty of
things, is for Fracastoro the test of poetic power.
Varchi, on the other hand, is more in accord with
Aristotle, in conceiving of "action," the subject-matter
of poetry, as including the passions and
habits of mind as well as the merely external
actions of mankind. By passions Varchi means
those mental perturbations which impel us to an
action at any particular time (πάθη); while by
manners, or habits of mind, he means those mental
qualities which distinguish one man or one class
of men from another (ἤθη). The exclusion of the
-42-emotional or introspective side of human life would
leave all lyric and, in fact, all subjective verse out
of the realms of poetry; and it was therefore essential,
in an age in which Petrarch was worshipped,
that the subjective side of poetry should receive
its justification.[67] There is also in Varchi a most interesting
comparison between the arts of poetry and
painting.[68] The basis of his distinction is Horace's
ut pictura poesis, doubtless founded on the parallel
of Simonides preserved for us by Plutarch; and
this distinction, which regarded painting as silent
poetry, and poetry as painting in language, may be
considered almost the keynote of Renaissance criticism,
continuing even up to the time of Lessing.
In Capriano's Della Vera Poetica (1555) poetry is
given a preëminent place among all the arts, because
it does not merely deal with actions or with the objects
of any single sense. For Capriano, poetry is
an ideal representation of life, and as such "vere
nutrice e amatrice del nostro bene."[69] All sensuous
or comprehensible objects are capable of being imitated
by various arts. The nobler of the imitative
arts are concerned with the objects of the nobler
senses, while the ignobler arts are concerned with
the objects of the senses of taste, touch, and smell.
Poetry is the finest of all the arts, because it comprehends
in itself all the faculties and powers of
the other arts, and can in fact imitate anything, as,
for example, the form of a lion, its color, its ferocity,
its roar, and the like. It is also the highest
form of art because it makes use of the most efficacious
-43-means of imitation, namely, words, and especially
since these receive the additional beauty and
power of rhythm. Accordingly, Capriano divides
poets into two classes: natural poets, who describe the
things of nature, and moral poets (such as epic and
tragic poets), who aim at presenting moral lessons
and indicating the uses of life; and of these two
classes the moral poets are to be rated above the
natural poets.
But if all things are the objects of poetic imitation,
the poet must know everything; he must have
studied nature as well as life; and, accordingly,
Lionardi, in his dialogues on poetic imitation (1554),
says that to be a good poet, one must be a good
historian, a good orator, and a good natural and
moral philosopher as well;[70] and Bernardo Tasso
asserts that a thorough acquaintance with the art
of poetry is only to be gained from the study of
Aristotle's Poetics, combined with a knowledge of
philosophy and the various arts and sciences, and
vast experience of the world.[71] The Renaissance, with
its humanistic tendencies, never quite succeeded
in discriminating between erudition and genius.
Scaliger says that nothing which proceeds from
solid learning can ever be out of place in poetry,
and Fracastoro (1555) and Tomitano (1545) both
affirm that the good poet and the good orator must
essentially be learned scholars and philosophers.
Scaliger therefore distinguishes three classes of
poets,—first, the theological poets, such as Orpheus
and Amphion; secondly, the philosophical
-44-poets, of two sorts, natural poets, such as Empedocles
and Lucretius, and moral poets, who again are
either political, as Solon and Tyrtæus, economic, as
Hesiod, or common, as Phocyllides; and, thirdly,
the ordinary poets who imitate human life.[72] The
last are divided according to the usual Renaissance
classification into dramatic, narrative, and common
or mixed. Scaliger's classification is employed by
Sir Philip Sidney;[73] and a very similar subdivision
is given by Minturno.[74]
The treatment of Castelvetro, in his commentary
on the Poetics (1570), is at times much more in accord
with the true Aristotelian conception than
most of the other Renaissance writers. While following
Aristotle in asserting that verse is not of the
essence of poetry, he shows that Aristotle himself
by no means intended to class as poetry works that
imitated in prose, for this was not the custom of
Hellenic art. Prose is not suited to imitative or
imaginative subjects, for we expect themes treated
in prose to be actual facts.[75] "Verse does not distinguish
poetry," says Castelvetro, "but clothes and
adorns it; and it is as improper for poetry to be
written in prose, or history in verse, as it is for
women to use the garments of men, and for men to
wear the garments of women."[76] The test of poetry
therefore is not the metre but the material. This
approximates to Aristotle's own view; since while
imitation is what distinguishes the poetic art, Aristotle,
-45-by limiting it to the imitation of human life,
was, after all, making the matter the test of poetry.
Castelvetro, however, arrives at this conclusion
on different grounds. Science he regards as not
suitable material for poetry, and accordingly such
writers as Lucretius and Fracastoro are not poets.
They are good artists, perhaps, or good philosophers,
but not poets; for the poet does not attempt to discover
the truth of nature, but to imitate the deeds
of men, and to bring delight to his audience by
means of this imitation. Moreover, poetry, as will
be seen later, is intended to give delight to the
populace, the untrained multitude, to whom the
sciences and the arts are dead letters;[77] if we concede
these to be fit themes for poetry, then poetry
is either not meant to delight, or not meant for the
ordinary people, but is intended for instruction and
for those only who are versed in sciences and arts.
Moreover, comparing poetry with history, Castelvetro
finds that they resemble each other in many
points, but are not identical. Poetry follows, as it
were, in the footsteps of history, but differs from it
in that history deals with what has happened, poetry
with what is probable; and things that have happened,
though probable, are never considered in
poetry as probable, but always as things that have
happened. History, accordingly, does not regard
verisimilitude or necessity, but only truth; poetry
must take care to establish the probability of its
subject in verisimilitude and necessity, since it
cannot regard truth. Castelvetro in common with
-46-most of the critics of the Renaissance seems to misconceive
the full meaning of ideal truth; for to the
Renaissance—nay, even to Shakespeare, if we are
to consider as his own various phrases which he has
put into the mouths of his dramatic characters—truth
was regarded as coincident with fact; and
nothing that was not actual fact, however subordinated
to the laws of probability and necessity,
was ever called truth.
It is in keeping with this conception of the relations
between history and poetry, that Castelvetro
should differ not only from Aristotle, but from most
of the critics of his own time, in asserting that the
order of the poetic narrative may be the same as
that of historical narrative. "In telling a story,"
he says, "we need not trouble ourselves whether it
has beginning, middle, and end, but only whether
it is fitted to its true purpose, that is, to delight its
auditors by the narration of certain circumstances
which could possibly happen but have not actually
happened."[78] Here the only vital distinction between
history and poetry is that the incidents recounted
in history have once happened, while those
recounted in poetry have never actually happened,
or the matter will not be regarded as poetry. Aristotle's
fundamental requirement of the unity of the
fable is regarded as unessential, and is simply observed
in order to show the poet's ingenuity. This
notion of poetic ingenuity is constant throughout
Castelvetro's commentary. Thus he explains Aristotle's
statement that poetry is more philosophic
-47-than history—more philosophic, according to Castelvetro,
in the sense of requiring more thought,
more speculation in its composition—by showing
that it is a more difficult and more ingenious labor
to invent things that could possibly happen, than
merely to repeat things that have actually happened.[79]
III. The Function of Poetry
According to Strabo, it will be remembered, the
object or function of poetry is pleasurable instruction
in reference to character, emotion, action.
This occasions the inquiry as to what is the function
of the poetic art, and, furthermore, what are
its relations to morality. The starting-point of all
discussions on this subject in the Renaissance was
the famous verse of Horace:—
"Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetæ."[80]
This line suggests that the function of poetry may
be to please, or to instruct, or both to please and
instruct; and every one of the writers of the Renaissance
takes one or other of these three positions.
Aristotle, as we know, regarded poetry as
an imitation of human life, for the purpose of giving
a certain refined pleasure to the reader or
hearer. "The end of the fine arts is to give pleasure
(πρὸς ἡδονήν), or rational enjoyment (πρὸς διαγωγήν)."[81] It has already been said that poetry,
in so far as it is an imitation of human life, and
-48-attempts to be true to human life in its ideal aspects,
must fundamentally be moral; but to give
moral or scientific instruction is in no way the end
or function of poetry. It will be seen that the
Renaissance was in closer accord with Horace than
with Aristotle, in requiring for the most part the
utile as well as the dulce in poetry.
For Daniello, one of the earliest critical writers
of the century, the function of the poet is to teach
and delight. As the aim of the orator is to persuade,
and the aim of the physician to cure, so the
aim of the poet is equally to teach and delight;
and unless he teaches and delights he cannot be
called a poet, even as one who does not persuade
cannot be called an orator, or one who does not
cure, a physician.[82] But beyond profitableness and
beauty, the poet must carry with him a certain
persuasion, which is one of the highest functions
of poetry, and which consists in moving and affecting
the reader or hearer with the very passions
depicted; but the poet must be moved first, before
he can move others.[83] Here Daniello is renewing
Horace's
"Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi,"—
a sentiment echoed by poets as different as Vauquelin,
Boileau, and Lamartine.
Fracastoro, however, attempts a deeper analysis
of the proper function of the poetic art. What
is the aim of the poet? Not merely to give delight,
for the fields, the stars, men and women,
-49-the objects of poetic imitation themselves do that;
and poetry, if it did no more, could not be said to
have any reason for existing. Nor is it merely to
teach and delight, as Horace says; for the descriptions
of countries, peoples, and armies, the scientific
digressions and the historical events, which constitute
the instructive side of poetry, are derived from
cosmographers, scientists, and historians, who teach
and delight as much as poets do. What, then, is
the function of the poet? It is, as has already
been pointed out, to describe the essential beauty
of things, to aim at the universal and ideal, and
to perform this function with every possible accompaniment
of beautiful speech, thus affecting
the minds of men in the direction of excellence
and beauty. Portions of Fracastoro's argument
have been alluded to before, and it will suffice
here to state his own summing up of the aim of
the poet, which is this, "Delectare et prodesse
imitando in unoquoque maxima et pulcherrima per
genus dicendi simpliciter pulchrum ex convenientibus."[84]
This is a mingling of the Horatian and
Platonic conceptions of poetic art.
By other critics a more practical function was
given to poetry. Giraldi Cintio asserts that it is
the poet's aim to condemn vice and to praise virtue,
and Maggi says that poets aim almost exclusively
at benefiting the mind. Poets who, on
the contrary, treat of obscene matters for the corruption
of youth, may be compared with infamous
physicians who give their patients deadly poison
-50-in the guise of wholesome medicine. Horace and
Aristotle, according to Maggi, are at one on this
point, for in the definition of tragedy Aristotle
ascribes to it a distinctly useful purpose, and whatever
delight is obtainable is to be regarded as a
result of this moral function; for Maggi and the
Renaissance critics in general would follow the
Elizabethan poet who speaks of "delight, the fruit
of virtue dearly loved." Muzio, in his versified Arte
Poetica (1555), regards the end of poetry as pleasure
and profit, and the pleasurable aim of poetry as
attained by variety, for the greatest poems contain
every phase of life and art.
It has been seen that Varchi classed poetry with
rational philosophy. The end of all arts and sciences
is to make human life perfect and happy;
but they differ in their modes of producing this
result. Philosophy attains its end by teaching;
rhetoric, by persuasion; history, by narration; poetry,
by imitation or representation. The aim of
the poet, therefore, is to make the human soul perfect
and happy, and it is his office to imitate, that
is, to invent and represent, things which render
men virtuous, and consequently happy. Poetry
attains this end more perfectly than any of the
other arts or sciences, because it does so, not by
means of precept, but by means of example. There
are various ways of making men virtuous,—by
teaching them what vice is and what virtue is,
which is the province of ethics; by actually chastising
vices and rewarding virtues, which is the
province of law; or by example, that is, by the-51-
representation of virtuous men receiving suitable
rewards for their virtue, and of vicious men receiving
suitable punishments, which is the province of
poetry. This last method is the most efficacious,
because it is accompanied by delight. For men
either can not or will not take the trouble to study
sciences and virtues—nay, do not even like to be
told what they should or should not do; but in hearing
or reading poetic examples, not only is there no
trouble, but there is the greatest delight, and no
one can help being moved by the representation of
characters who are rewarded or punished according
to an ideal justice.
For Varchi, then, as for Sir Philip Sidney later,
the high importance of poetry is to be found in the
fact that it teaches morality better than any other
art, and the reason is that its instrument is not
precept but example, which is the most delightful
and hence the most efficacious of all means. The
function of poetry is, therefore, a moral one, and it
consists in removing the vices of men and inciting
them to virtue. This twofold moral object of
poetry—the removal of vices, which is passive,
and the incitement to virtue, which is active—is
admirably attained, for example, by Dante in his
Divina Commedia; for in the Inferno evil men are
so fearfully punished that we resolve to flee from
every form of vice, and in the Paradiso virtuous
men are so gloriously rewarded that we resolve to
imitate every one of their perfections. This is the
expression of the extreme view of poetic justice;
and while it is in keeping with the common sentiment-52-
of the Renaissance, it is of course entirely
un-Aristotelian.
Scaliger's point of view is in accord with the
common Renaissance tradition. Poetry is imitation,
but imitation is not the end of poetry. Imitation
for its own sake—that is, art for art's sake—receives
no encouragement from Scaliger. The purpose
of poetry is to teach delightfully (docere cum
delectatione); and, therefore, not imitation, as Aristotle
says, but delightful instruction, is the test of
poetry.[85] Minturno (1559) adds a third element to
that of instruction and of delight.[86] The function
of poetry is not only to teach and delight, but also
to move, that is, beyond instruction and delight
the poet must impel certain passions in the reader
or hearer, and incite the mind to admiration of
what is described.[87] An ideal hero may be represented
in a poem, but the poem is futile unless it
excites the reader to admiration of the hero depicted.
Accordingly, it is the peculiar office of the
poet to move admiration for great men; for the
orator, the philosopher, and the historian need not
necessarily do so, but no one who does not incite
this admiration can really be called a poet.
This new element of admiration is the logical
consequence of the Renaissance position that philosophy
teaches by precept, but poetry by example,
and that in this consists its superior ethical efficacy.
In Seneca's phrase, "longum iter per præcepta,
-53-breve per exempla." If poetry, therefore, attains
its end by means of example, it follows that to
arrive at this end the poet must incite in the
reader an admiration of the example, or the ethical
aim of poetry will not be accomplished. Poetry
is more than a mere passive expression of truth
in the most pleasurable manner; it becomes like
oratory an active exhortation to virtue, by attempting
to create in the reader's mind a strong desire to
be like the heroes he is reading about. The poet
does not tell what vices are to be avoided and what
virtues are to be imitated, but sets before the
reader or hearer the most perfect types of the
various virtues and vices. It is, in Sidney's phrase
(a phrase apparently borrowed from Minturno),
"that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or
what else, with that delightful instruction, which
must be the right describing note to know a poet
by." Dryden, a century later, seems to be insisting
upon this same principle of admiration when he
says that it is the work of the poet "to affect the
soul, and excite the passions, and above all to move
admiration, which is the delight of serious plays."[88]
But Minturno goes even further than this. If
the poet is fundamentally a teacher of virtue, it
follows that he must be a virtuous man himself;
and in pointing this out, Minturno has given the
first complete expression in modern times of the
consecrated conception of the poet's office. As no
form of knowledge and no moral excellence is foreign
to the poet, so at bottom he is the truly wise
-54-and good man. The poet may, in fact, be defined
as a good man skilled in language and imitation;
not only ought he to be a good man, but no one will
be a good poet unless he is so.[89] This conception of
the moral nature of the poet may be traced henceforth
throughout modern times. It is to be found
in Ronsard[90] and other French and Italian writers;
it is especially noticeable in English literature, and
is insisted on by Ben Jonson,[91] Milton,[92] Shaftesbury,[93]
Coleridge,[94] and Shelley.[95] In this idea Plato's praise
of the philosopher, as well as Cicero's and Quintilian's
praise of the orator, was by the Renaissance
transferred to the poet;[96] but the conception itself
goes back to a passage in Strabo's Geography, a work
well known to sixteenth-century scholars. This
passage is as follows:—
"Can we possibly imagine that the genius, power, and
excellence of a real poet consist in aught else than the just
imitation of life in formed discourse and numbers? But
how should he be that just imitator of life, whilst he himself
knows not its measures, nor how to guide himself by judgment
and understanding? For we have not surely the same
notion of the poet's excellence as of the ordinary craftsman's,
the subject of whose art is senseless stone or timber,
-55-without life, dignity, or beauty; whilst the poet's art turning
principally on men and manners, he has his virtues and
excellence as poet naturally annexed to human excellence,
and to the worth and dignity of man, insomuch that it is
impossible he should be a great and worthy poet who is not
first a worthy and good man."[97]
Another writer of the sixteenth century, Bernardo
Tasso, tells us that in his poem of the Amadigi he
has aimed at delight rather than profitable instruction.[98]
"I have spent most of my efforts," he says,
"in attempting to please, as it seems to me that
this is more necessary, and also more difficult to
attain; for we find by experience that many poets
may instruct and benefit us very much, but certainly
give us very little delight." This agrees
with what one of the sanest of English critics, John
Dryden (1668), has said of verse, "I am satisfied
if it caused delight, for delight is the chief if not
the only end of poesie; instruction can be admitted
but in the second place, for poesie only instructs as
it delights."[99]
It is this same end which Castelvetro (1570)
ascribes to poetic art. For Castelvetro, as in a
lesser degree for Robortelli also, the end of poetry
is delight, and delight alone.[100] This, he asserts, is
the position of Aristotle, and if utility is to be conceded
to poetry at all, it is merely as an accident,
as in the tragic purgation of terror and compassion.[101]
-56-But he goes further than Aristotle would have been
willing to go; for poetry, according to Castelvetro,
is intended not merely to please, but to please the
populace, in fact everybody, even the vulgar mob.[102]
On this he insists throughout his commentary;
indeed, as will be seen later, it is on this conception
that his theory of the drama is primarily based.
But it may be confidently asserted that Aristotle
would have willingly echoed the conclusion of
Shakespeare, as expressed in Hamlet, that the censure
of one of the judicious must o'erweigh a whole
theatre of others. At the same time, Castelvetro's
conception is in keeping with a certain modern feeling
in regard to the meaning of poetic art. Thus
a recent writer regards literature as aiming "at
the pleasure of the greatest possible number of the
nation rather than instruction and practical effects,"
and as applying "to general rather than specialized
knowledge."[103] There is, then, in Castelvetro's argument
this modicum of truth, that poetry appeals to
no specialized knowledge, but that its function is,
as Coleridge says, to give a definite and immediate
pleasure.
Torquato Tasso, as might be expected, regards
poetry in a more highly ideal sense. His conception
of the function of poets and of the poetic art
may be explained as follows: The universe is beautiful
in itself, because beauty is a ray from the Divine
splendor; and hence art should seek to approach
as closely as possible to nature, and to catch and
-57-express this natural beauty of the world.[104] Real
beauty, however, is not so called because of any
usefulness it may possess, but is primarily beautiful
in itself; for the beautiful is what pleases every
one, just as the good is what every one desires.[105]
Beauty is therefore the flower of the good (quasi un
fiore del buono); it is the circumference of the
circle of which the good is the centre, and accordingly,
poetry, as an expression of this beauty, imitates
the outward show of life in its general
aspects. Poetry is therefore an imitation of human
actions, made for the guidance of life; and its end
is delight, ordinato al giovamento.[106] It must essentially
delight, either because delight is its aim, or
because delight is the necessary means of effecting
the ethical end of art.[107] Thus, for example, heroic
poetry consists of imitation and allegory, the function
of the former being to cause delight, and that
of the latter to give instruction and guidance in
life. But since difficult or obscure conceits rarely
delight, and since the poet does not appeal to the
learned only, but to the people, just as the orator
does, the poet's idea must be, if not popular in the
ordinary sense of the word, at least intelligible to
the people. Now the people will not study difficult
problems; but poetry, by appealing to them on the
side of pleasure, teaches them whether they will or
no; and this constitutes the true effectiveness of
poetry, for it is the most delightful, and hence the
most valuable, of teachers.[108]
-58-
Such, then, are the various conceptions of the
function of poetry, as held by the critics of the
Renaissance. On the whole, it may be said that at
bottom the conception was an ethical one, for, with
the exception of such a revolutionary spirit as
Castelvetro, by most theorists it was as an effective
guide to life that poetry was chiefly valued. Even
when delight was admitted as an end, it was simply
because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical
aim.
In concluding this chapter, it may be well to
say a few words, and only a few, upon the classification
of poetic forms. There were during the
Renaissance numerous attempts at distinguishing
these forms, but on the whole all of them are fundamentally
equivalent to that of Minturno, who
recognizes three genres,—the lyric or melic, the
dramatic or scenic, and the epic or narrative.
This classification is essentially that of the Greeks,
and it has lasted down to this very day. With
lyric poetry this essay is scarcely concerned, for
during the Renaissance there was no systematic
lyric theory. Those who discussed it at all gave
most of their attention to its formal structure, its
style, and especially the conceit it contained. The
model of all lyrical poetry was Petrarch, and it was
in accordance with the lyrical poet's agreement or
disagreement with the Petrarchan method that he
was regarded as a success or a failure. Muzio's
critical poem (1551) deals almost entirely with
lyrical verse, and there are discussions on this subject
in the works of Trissino, Equicola, Ruscelli,-59-
Scaliger, and Minturno. But the real question at
issue in all these discussions is merely that of
external form, and it is with the question of principles,
in so far as they regard literary criticism,
that this essay is primarily concerned. The theory
of dramatic and epic poetry, being fundamental,
will therefore receive almost exclusive attention.
top
CHAPTER III
-60-
THE THEORY OF THE DRAMA
Aristotle's definition of tragedy is the basis of
the Renaissance theory of tragedy. That definition
is as follows: "Tragedy is an imitation of an action
that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude;
in language embellished with each kind of
artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in
separate parts of the play; in the form of action,
not of narration; through pity and fear effecting the
proper katharsis or purgation of these emotions."[109]
To expand this definition, tragedy, in common
with all other forms of poetry, is the imitation of
an action; but the action of tragedy is distinguished
from that of comedy in being grave and serious.
The action is complete, in so far as it possesses perfect
unity; and in length it must be of the proper
magnitude. By embellished language, Aristotle
means language into which rhythm, harmony, and
song enter; and by the remark that the several
kinds are to be found in separate parts of the play,
he means that some parts of tragedy are rendered
through the medium of verse alone, while others
receive the aid of song. Moreover, tragedy is distinguished
-61-from epic poetry by being in the form
of action instead of that of narration. The last portion
of Aristotle's definition describes the peculiar
function of tragic performance.
I. The Subject of Tragedy
Tragedy is the imitation of a serious action, that
is, an action both grave and great, or, as the sixteenth
century translated the word, illustrious.
Now, what constitutes a serious action, and what
actions are not suited to the dignified character of
tragedy? Daniello (1536) distinguishes tragedy
from comedy in that the comic poets "deal with the
most familiar and domestic, not to say base and
vile operations; the tragic poets, with the deaths
of high kings and the ruins of great empires."[110]
Whichever of these matters the poet selects should
be treated without admixture of any other form; if
he resolves to treat of grave matters, mere loveliness
should be excluded; if of themes of loveliness,
he should exclude all grave themes. Here, at the
very beginning of dramatic discussion, the strict
separation of themes or genres is advocated in as
formal a manner as ever during the period of classicism;
and this was never deviated from, at least
in theory, by any of the writers of the sixteenth
century. Moreover, according to Daniello, the dignified
character of tragedy demands that all unseemly,
cruel, impossible, or ignoble incidents should
be excluded from the stage; while even comedy
-62-should not attempt to represent any lascivious act.[111]
This was merely a deduction from Senecan tragedy
and the general practice of the classics.
There is, in Daniello's theory of tragedy, no single
Aristotelian element, and it was not until about
a decade later that Aristotle's theory of tragedy
played any considerable part in the literary criticism
of the sixteenth century. In 1543, however,
the Poetics had already become a part of university
study, for Giraldi Cintio, in his Discorso sulle Comedie
e sulle Tragedie, written in that year, says that
it was a regular academic exercise to compare some
Greek tragedy, such as the Œdipus of Sophocles,
with a tragedy of Seneca on the same subject, using
the Poetics of Aristotle as a dramatic text-book.[112]
Giraldi distinguishes tragedy from comedy on somewhat
the same grounds as Daniello. "Tragedy and
comedy," he says, "agree in that they are both imitations
of an action, but they differ in that the
former imitates the illustrious and royal, the latter
the popular and civil. Hence Aristotle says that
comedy imitates the worse sort of actions, not that
they are vicious and criminal, but that, as regards
nobility, they are worse when compared with royal
actions." Giraldi's position is made clear by his
further statement that the actions of tragedy are
called illustrious, not because they are virtuous or
vicious, but merely because they are the actions
of people of the highest rank.[113]
This conception of the serious action of tragedy,
-63-which makes its dignity the result of the rank of
those who are its actors, and thus regards rank as
the real distinguishing mark between comedy and
tragedy, was not only common throughout the Renaissance,
but even throughout the whole period of
classicism, and had an extraordinary effect on the
modern drama, especially in France. Thus Dacier
(1692) says that it is not necessary that the action
be illustrious and important in itself: "On the contrary,
it may be very ordinary or common; but it
must be so by the quality of the persons who act....
The greatness of these eminent men renders
the action great, and their reputation makes it credible
and possible."[114]
Again, Robortelli (1548) maintains that tragedy
deals only with the greater sort of men (præstantiores),
because the fall of men of such rank into
misery and disgrace produces greater commiseration
(which is, as will be seen, one of the functions of
tragedy) than the fall of men of merely ordinary
rank. Another commentator on the Poetics, Maggi
(1550), gives a slightly different explanation of
Aristotle's meaning. Maggi asserts that Aristotle,[115]
in saying that comedy deals with the worse and
tragedy with the better sort of men, means to distinguish
between those whose rank is lower or
higher than that of ordinary men; comedy dealing
with slaves, tradesmen, maidservants, buffoons, and
other low people, tragedy with kings and heroes.[116]
This explanation is defended on grounds similar to
-64-those given by Robortelli, that is, the change from
felicity to infelicity is greater and more noticeable
in the greatest men.[117]
This conception of the rank of the characters as
the distinguishing mark between tragedy and comedy
is, it need not be said, entirely un-Aristotelian.
"Aristotle does undoubtedly hold," says Professor
Butcher, "that actors in tragedy ought to be illustrious
by birth and position. The narrow and trivial
life of obscure persons cannot give scope for a
great and significant action, one of tragic consequence.
But nowhere does he make outward rank
the distinguishing feature of tragic as opposed to
comic representation. Moral nobility is what he
demands; and this—on the French stage, or at
least with French critics—is transformed into an
inflated dignity, a courtly etiquette and decorum,
which seemed proper to high rank. The instance
is one of many in which literary critics have wholly
confounded the teaching of Aristotle."[118] This distinction,
then, though common up to the end of the
eighteenth century, is not to be found in Aristotle;
but the fact is, that a similar distinction can be
traced, throughout the Middle Ages, throughout
classical antiquity, back almost to the time of Aristotle
himself.
The grammarian, Diomedes, has preserved the
definition of tragedy formulated by Theophrastus,
Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic
school. According to this definition, tragedy is
-65-"a change in the fortune of a hero."[119] A Greek
definition of comedy preserved by Diomedes, and
ascribed to Theophrastus also,[120] speaks of comedy
as dealing with private and civil fortunes, without
the element of danger. This seems to have been
the accepted Roman notion of comedy. In the
treatise of Euanthius-Donatus, comedy is said to
deal with the common fortunes of men, to begin
turbulently, but to end tranquilly and happily;
tragedy, on the other hand, has only mighty personages,
and ends terribly; its subject is often historical,
while that of comedy is always invented by
the poet.[121] The third book of Diomedes's Ars Grammatica,
based on Suetonius's tractate De Poetis (written
in the second century A.D.), distinguishes tragedy
from comedy in that only heroes, great leaders, and
kings are introduced in tragedy, while in comedy
the characters are humble and private persons; in
the former, lamentations, exiles, bloodshed predominate,
in the latter, love affairs and seductions.[122]
Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, says very
much the same thing: "Comic poets treat of the
acts of private men, while tragic poets treat of
public matters and the histories of kings; tragic
themes are based on sorrowful affairs, comic themes
on joyful ones."[123] In another place he speaks of
tragedy as dealing with the ancient deeds and misdeeds
-66-of infamous kings, and of comedy as dealing
with the actions of private men, and with the defilement
of maidens and the love affairs of strumpets.[124]
In the Catholicon of Johannes Januensis de
Balbis (1286) tragedy and comedy are distinguished
on similar grounds: tragedy deals only with kings
and princes, comedy with private citizens; the style
of the former is elevated, that of the latter humble;
comedy begins sorrowfully and ends joyfully, tragedy
begins joyfully and ends miserably and terribly.[125]
For Dante, any poem written in an elevated and
sublime style, beginning happily and ending in misery
and terror, is a tragedy; his own great vision,
written as it is in the vernacular, and beginning in
hell and ending gloriously in paradise, he calls a
comedy.[126]
It appears, therefore, that during the post-classic
period and throughout the Middle Ages, comedy
and tragedy were distinguished on any or all of the
following grounds:—
i. The characters in tragedy are kings, princes,
or great leaders; those in comedy, humble persons
and private citizens.
ii. Tragedy deals with great and terrible actions;
comedy with familiar and domestic actions.
iii. Tragedy begins happily and ends terribly;
comedy begins rather turbulently and ends joyfully.
-67-
iv. The style and diction of tragedy are elevated
and sublime; while those of comedy are humble and
colloquial.
v. The subjects of tragedy are generally historical;
those of comedy are always invented by the
poet.
vi. Comedy deals largely with love and seduction;
tragedy with exile and bloodshed.
This, then, was the tradition that shaped the un-Aristotelian
conception of the distinctions between
comedy and tragedy, which persisted throughout
and even beyond the Renaissance. Giraldi Cintio
has followed most of these traditional distinctions,
but he is in closer accord with Aristotle[127] when he
asserts that the tragic as well as the comic plot
may be purely imaginary and invented by the
poet.[128] He explains the traditional conception that
the tragic fable should be historical, on the ground
that as tragedy deals with the deeds of kings and
illustrious men, it would not be probable that remarkable
actions of such great personages should
be left unrecorded in history, whereas the private
events treated in comedy could hardly be known
to all. Giraldi, however, asserts that it does not
matter whether the tragic poet invents his story or
not, so long as it follows the law of probability.
The poet should choose an action that is probable
and dignified, that does not need the intervention
of a god in the unravelling of the plot, that does not
occupy much more than the space of a day, and
that can be represented on the stage in three or
-68-four hours.[129] In respect to the dénouement of
tragedy, it may be happy or unhappy, but in
either case it must arouse pity and terror; and as
for the classic notion that no deaths should be represented
on the stage, Giraldi declares that those
which are not excessively painful may be represented,
for they are represented not for the sake of
commiseration but of justice. The argument here
centres about Aristotle's phrase ἐν τῷ φανερῷ θάνατοι,[130]
but the common practice of classicism was based on
Horace's express prohibition:—
"Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet."[131]
Giraldi gives it as a universal rule of the drama
that nothing should be represented on the stage
which could not with propriety be done in one's
own house.[132]
Scaliger's treatment of the dramatic forms is particularly
interesting because of its great influence
on the neo-classical drama. He defines tragedy as
an imitation of an illustrious event, ending unhappily,
written in a grave and weighty style, and
in verse.[133] Here he has discarded, or at least
disregarded, the Aristotelian definition of tragedy,
in favor of the traditional conception which had
come down through the Middle Ages. Real tragedy,
according to Scaliger, is entirely serious; and
although there are a few happy endings in ancient
tragedy, the unhappy ending is most proper to the
-69-spirit of tragedy itself. Mortes aut exilia—these
are the fit accompaniments of the tragic catastrophe.[134]
The action begins tranquilly, but ends
horribly; the characters are kings and princes, from
cities, castles, and camps; the language is grave,
polished, and entirely opposed to colloquial speech;
the aspect of things is troubled, with terrors, menaces,
exiles, and deaths on every hand. Taking as
his model Seneca, whom he rates above all the
Greeks in majesty,[135] he gives as the typical themes
of tragedy "the mandates of kings, slaughters, despairs,
executions, exiles, loss of parents, parricides,
incests, conflagrations, battles, loss of sight, tears,
shrieks, lamentations, burials, epitaphs, and funeral
songs."[136] Tragedy is further distinguished from
comedy on the ground that the latter derives its
argument and its chief characters from history, inventing
merely the minor characters; while comedy
invents its arguments and all its characters, and
gives them names of their own. Scaliger distinguishes
men, for the purposes of dramatic poetry,
according to character and rank;[137] but it would seem
that he regarded rank alone as the distinguishing
mark between tragedy and comedy. Thus tragedy
is made to differ from comedy in three things: in
the rank of the characters, in the quality of the
actions, and in their different endings; and as a
result of these differences, in style also.
The definition of tragedy given by Minturno, in
his treatise De Poeta (1559), is merely a paraphrase
-70-of Aristotle's. He conceives of tragedy as describing
casus heroum cuius sibi quisque fortunæ fuerit
faber, and it thus acts as a warning to men against
pride of rank, insolence, avarice, lust, and similar
passions.[138] It is grave and illustrious because its
characters are illustrious; and no variety of persons
or events should be introduced that are not in keeping
with the calamitous ending. The language throughout
must be grave and severe; and Minturno has
expressed his censure in such matters by the phrase,
poema amatorio mollique sermone effœminat,[139] a censure
which would doubtless apply to a large portion
of classic French tragedy.
In Castelvetro (1570) we find a far more complete
theory of the drama than had been attempted
by any of his predecessors. His work is by no
means a model of what a commentary on Aristotle's
Poetics should be. In the next century, Dacier,
whose subservience to Aristotle was even greater
than that of any of the Italians, accuses Castelvetro
of lacking every quality necessary to a good
interpreter of Aristotle. "He knew nothing," says
Dacier, "of the theatre, or of character, or of the
passions; he understood neither the reasons nor
the method of Aristotle; and he sought rather to
contradict Aristotle than to explain him."[140] The
fact is that Castelvetro, despite considerable veneration
for Aristotle's authority, often shows remarkable
-71-independence of thought; and so far from
resting content, in his commentary, with the mere
explanation of the details of the Poetics, he has
attempted to deduce from it a more or less complete
theory of poetic art. Accordingly, though
diverging from many of the details, and still more
from the spirit of the Poetics, he has, as it were,
built up a dramatic system of his own, founded
upon certain modifications and misconceptions of
the Aristotelian canons. The fundamental idea
of this system is quite modern; and it is especially
interesting because it indicates that by this time
the drama had become more than a mere academic
exercise, and was actually regarded as intended
primarily for representation on the stage. Castelvetro
examines the physical conditions of stage
representation, and on this bases the requirements
of dramatic literature. The fact that the drama
is intended for the stage, that it is to be acted, is at
the bottom of his theory of tragedy, and it was to
this notion, as will be seen later, that we are to
attribute the origin of the unities of time and place.
But Castelvetro's method brings with it its own
reductio ad absurdum. For after all, stage representation,
while essential to the production of
dramatic literature, can never circumscribe the
poetic power or establish its conditions. The conditions
of stage representation change, and must
change, with the varying conditions of dramatic
literature and the inventive faculty of poets, for
truly great art makes, or at least fixes, its own conditions.
Besides, it is with what is permanent and-72-
universal that the artist—the dramatic artist as
well as the rest—is concerned; and it is the
poetic, and not the dramaturgic, element that is
permanent and universal. "The power of tragedy,
we may be sure," says Aristotle, "is felt even apart
from representation and actors;"[141] and again: "The
plot [of a tragedy] ought to be so constructed that
even without the aid of the eye any one who is
told the incidents will thrill with horror and pity
at the turn of events."[142]
But what, according to Castelvetro, are the conditions
of stage representation? The theatre is a
public place, in which a play is presented before a
motley crowd,—la moltitudine rozza,—upon a circumscribed
platform or stage, within a limited
space of time. To this idea the whole of Castelvetro's
dramatic system is conformed. In the first
place, since the audience may be great in number,
the theatre must be large, and yet the audience
must be able to hear the play; accordingly, verse is
added, not merely as a delightful accompaniment,
but also in order that the actors may raise their
voices without inconvenience and without loss of
dignity.[143] In the second place, the audience is not
a select gathering of choice spirits, but a motley
crowd of people, drawn to the theatre for the purpose
of pleasure or recreation; accordingly, abstruse
themes, and in fact all technical discussions,
must be eschewed by the playwright, who is thus
limited, as we should say to-day, to the elemental
-73-passions and interests of man.[144] In the third place,
the actors are required to move about on a raised
and narrow platform; and this is the reason why
deaths or deeds of violence, and many other things
which cannot be acted on such a platform with
convenience and dignity, should not be represented
in the drama.[145] Furthermore, as will be seen later,
it is on this conception of the circumscribed platform
and the physical necessities of the audience
and the actors, that Castelvetro bases his theory of
the unities of time and place.
In distinguishing the different genres, Castelvetro
openly differs with Aristotle. In the Poetics, Aristotle
distinguishes men according as they are better
than we are, or worse, or the same as we are; and
from this difference the various species of poetry,
tragic, comic, and epic, are derived. Castelvetro
thinks this mode of distinction not only untrue, but
even inconsistent with what Aristotle says later of
tragedy. Goodness and badness are to be taken
account of, according to Castelvetro, not to distinguish
one form of poetry from another, but merely
in the special case of tragedy, in so far as a moderate
virtue, as Aristotle says, is best able to produce
terror and pity. Poetry, as indeed Aristotle himself
acknowledges, is not an imitation of character,
or of goodness and badness, but of men acting; and
the different kinds of poetry are distinguished, not
by the goodness and badness, or the character, of
the persons selected for imitation, but by their rank
or condition alone. The great and all-pervading
-74-difference between royal and private persons is
what distinguishes tragedy and epic poetry on the
one hand from comedy and similar forms of poetry
on the other. It is rank, then, and not intellect,
character, action,—for these vary in men according
to their condition,—that differentiates one poetic
form from another; and the distinguishing mark
of rank on the stage, and in literature generally, is
the bearing of the characters, royal persons acting
with propriety, and meaner persons with impropriety.[146]
Castelvetro has here escaped one pitfall,
only to fall into another; for while goodness and
badness cannot, from any æsthetic standpoint, be
made to distinguish the characters of tragedy from
those of comedy,—leaving out of consideration
here the question whether this was or was not the
actual opinion of Aristotle,—it is no less improper
to make mere outward rank or condition the distinguishing
feature. Whether it be regarded as an
interpretation of Aristotle or as a poetic theory by
itself, Castelvetro's contention is, in either case,
equally untenable.
II. The Function of Tragedy
No passage in Aristotle's Poetics has been subjected
to more discussion, and certainly no passage
has been more misunderstood, than that in
which, at the close of his definition of tragedy, he
states its peculiar function to be that of effecting
through pity and fear the proper purgation
-75-(κάθαρσις) of these emotions. The more probable
of the explanations of this passage are, as Twining
says,[147] reducible to two. The first of these gives to
Aristotle's katharsis an ethical meaning, attributing
the effect of the tragedy to its moral lesson and
example. This interpretation was a literary tradition
of centuries, and may be found in such
diverse writers as Corneille and Lessing, Racine
and Dryden, Dacier and Rapin. According to the
second interpretation, the purgation of the emotions
produced by tragedy is an emotional relief gained
by the excitement of these emotions. Plato had
insisted that the drama excites passions, such as
pity and fear, which debase men's spirits; Aristotle
in this passage answers that by the very
exaltation of these emotions they are given a pleasurable
outlet, and beyond this there is effected a
purification of the emotions so relieved. That is,
the emotions are clarified and purified by being
passed through the medium of art, and by being, as
Professor Butcher points out, ennobled by objects
worthy of an ideal emotion.[148] This explanation
gives no direct moral purpose or influence to the
katharsis, for tragedy acts on the feelings and not
on the will. While the ethical conception, of course,
predominates in Italian criticism, as it does throughout
Europe up to the very end of the eighteenth
century, a number of Renaissance critics, among
them Minturno and Speroni, even if they failed to
elaborate the further æsthetic meaning of Aristotle's
definition, at least perceived that Aristotle ascribed
-76-to tragedy an emotional and not an ethical purpose.
It is unnecessary to give a detailed statement of the
opinions of the various Italian critics on this point;
but it is essential that the interpretations of the
more important writers should be alluded to, since
otherwise the Renaissance conception of the function
of the drama could not be understood.
Giraldi Cintio points out that the aim of comedy
and of tragedy is identical, viz. to conduce to virtue;
but they reach this result in different ways;
for comedy attains its end by means of pleasure
and comic jests, while tragedy, whether it ends
happily or unhappily, purges the mind of vice
through the medium of misery and terror, and thus
attains its moral end.[149] Elsewhere,[150] he affirms that
the tragic poet condemns vicious actions, and by
combining them with the terrible and the miserable
makes us fear and hate them. In other words,
men who are bad are placed in such pitiable and
terrible positions that we fear to imitate their
vices; and it is not a purgation of pity and fear,
as Aristotle says, but an eradication of all vice and
vicious desire that is effected by the tragic katharsis.
Trissino, in the fifth section of his Poetica (1563),
cites Aristotle's definition of tragedy; but makes
no attempt to elucidate the doctrine of katharsis.
His conception of the function of the drama is
much the same as Giraldi's. It is the office of the
tragic poet, through the medium of imitation, to
praise and admire the good, while that of the comic
poet is to mock and vituperate the bad; for tragedy,
-77-as Aristotle says, deals with the better sort of
actions, and comedy with the worse.[151]
Robortelli (1548), however, ascribes a more æsthetic
function to tragedy. By the representation
of sad and atrocious deeds, tragedy produces terror
and commiseration in the spectator's mind. The
exercise of terror and commiseration purges the
mind of these very passions; for the spectator,
seeing things performed which are very similar to
the actual facts of life, becomes accustomed to
sorrow and pity, and these emotions are gradually
diminished.[152] Moreover, by seeing the sufferings of
others, men sorrow less at their own, recognizing
such things as common to human nature. Robortelli's
conception of the function of tragedy is,
therefore, not an ethical one; the effect of tragedy
is understood primarily as diminishing pity and
fear in our minds by accustoming us to the sight of
deeds that produce these emotions. A similar interpretation
of the katharsis is given by Vettori
(1560) and Castelvetro (1570).[153] The latter compares
the process of purgation with the emotions
which are excited by a pestilence. At first the infected
populace is crazed by excitement, but gradually
becomes accustomed to the sight of the
disease, and the emotions of the people are thus
tempered and allayed.
A somewhat different conception of katharsis is
that of Maggi. According to him, we are to understand
-78-by purgation the liberation through pity and
fear of passions similar to these, but not pity and
fear themselves; for Maggi cannot understand how
tragedy, which induces pity and fear in the hearer,
should at the same time remove these perturbations.[154]
Moreover, pity and fear are useful emotions,
while such passions as avarice, lust, anger, are
certainly not. In another place, Maggi, relying on
citations from Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of
Aphrodisias, explains the pleasure we receive from
tragedy, by pointing out that we feel sorrow by
reason of the human heart within us, which is
carried out of itself by the sight of misery; while
we feel pleasure because it is human and natural to
feel pity. Pleasure and pain are thus fundamentally
the same.[155] Varchi[156] is at one with Maggi in
interpreting the katharsis as a purgation, not of
pity and fear themselves, but of emotions similar
to them.
For Scaliger (1561) the aim of tragedy, like that
of all poetry, is a purely ethical one. It is not
enough to move the spectators to admiration and
dismay, as some critics say Æschylus does; it
is also the poet's function to teach, to move, and
to delight. The poet teaches character through
actions, in order that we should embrace and imitate
the good, and abstain from the bad. The joy
-79-of evil men is turned in tragedy to bitterness, and
the sorrow of good men to joy.[157] Scaliger is here
following the extreme view of poetic justice which
we have found expressed in so many of the Renaissance
writers. In the last century, Dr. Johnson,
in censuring Shakespeare for the tragic fate meted
out to Cordelia and other blameless characters,
showed himself an inheritor of this Renaissance
tradition, just as we shall see that Lessing was in
other matters. For Scaliger the moral aim of the
drama is attained both indirectly, by the representation
of wickedness ultimately punished and
virtue ultimately rewarded, and more directly by
the enunciation of moral precepts throughout the
play. With the Senecan model before him, such
precepts (sententiæ) became the very props of
tragedy,—sunt enim quasi columnæ aut pilæ quædam
universæ fabricæ illius,—and so they remained
in modern classical tragedy. Minturno points out
that these sententiæ are to be used most in tragedy
and least in epic poetry.[158]
Minturno also follows Scaliger in conceiving that
the purpose of tragedy is to teach, to delight, and
to move. It teaches by setting before us an example
of the life and manners of superior men, who
by reason of human error have fallen into extreme
unhappiness. It delights us by the beauty of its
verse, its diction, its song, and the like. Lastly, it
moves us to wonder, by terrifying us and exciting
our pity, thus purging our minds of such matters.
This process of purgation is likened by Minturno
-80-to the method of a physician: "As a physician
eradicates, by means of poisonous medicine, the perfervid
poison of disease which affects the body, so
tragedy purges the mind of its impetuous perturbations
by the force of these emotions beautifully expressed
in verse."[159]
According to this interpretation of the katharsis,
tragedy is a mode of homœopathic treatment, effecting
the cure of one emotion by means of a similar
one; and we find Milton, in the preface to Samson
Agonistes, explaining the katharsis in much the same
manner:—
"Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever
held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other
poems; therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising
pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and
such like passions; that is, to temper and reduce them to
just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or
seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is nature wanting
in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so in
physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used
against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt
humours."
This passage has been regarded by Twining, Bernays,
and other modern scholars as a remarkable
indication of Milton's scholarship and critical insight;[160]
but after all, it need hardly be said, he was
merely following the interpretation of the Italian
commentators on the Poetics. Their writings he
had studied and knew thoroughly, had imbibed all
the critical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and in
the very preface from which we have just quoted,
-81-filled as it is with ideas that may be traced back
to Italian sources, he acknowledges following "the
ancients and Italians," as of great "authority and
fame." Like Milton, Minturno conceived of tragedy
as having an ethical aim; but both Milton and Minturno
clearly perceived that by katharsis Aristotle
had reference not to a moral, but to an emotional,
effect.
One of the most interesting discussions on the
meaning of the katharsis is to be found in a letter
of Sperone Speroni[161] written in 1565. His explanation
of the passage itself is quite an impossible one, if
only on philological grounds; but his argument is
very interesting and very modern. He points out
that pity and fear may be conceived of as keeping
the spirit of men in bondage, and hence it is
proper that we should be purged of these emotions.
But he insists that Aristotle cannot refer to the
complete eradication of pity and fear—a conception
which is Stoic rather than Peripatetic, for Aristotle
does not require us to free ourselves from emotions,
but to regulate them, since in themselves they are
not bad.
III. The Characters of Tragedy
Aristotle's conception of the ideal tragic hero
is based on the assumption that the function of
tragedy is to produce the katharsis, or purgation,
of pity and fear,—"pity being felt for a person
who, if not wholly innocent, meets with suffering
-82-beyond his deserts; fear being awakened when the
sufferer is a man of like nature with ourselves."[162]
From this it follows that if tragedy represents the
fall of an entirely good man from prosperity to adversity,
neither pity nor fear is produced, and the
result merely shocks and repels us. If an entirely
bad man is represented as undergoing a change from
distress to prosperity, not only do we feel no pity
and no fear, but even the sense of justice is left
unsatisfied. If, on the contrary, such a man entirely
bad falls from prosperity into adversity and
distress, the moral sense is indeed satisfied, but
without the tragic emotions of pity and fear. The
ideal hero is therefore morally between the two
extremes, neither eminently good nor entirely bad,
though leaning to the side of goodness; and the
misfortune which falls upon him is the result of
some great flaw of character or fatal error of conduct.[163]
This conception of the tragic hero was the subject
of considerable discussion in the Renaissance; in
fact, the first instance in Italian criticism of the
application of Aristotelian ideas to the theory of
tragedy is perhaps to be found in the reference of
Daniello (1536) to the tragic hero's fate. Daniello,
however, understood Aristotle's meaning very incompletely,
for he points out that tragedy, in order
to imitate most perfectly the miserable and the terrible,
should not introduce just and virtuous men
fallen into vice and injustice through the adversity
of fortune, for this is more wicked than it is miserable
-83-and terrible, nor should evil men, on the contrary,
be introduced as changed by prosperity into
good and just men.[164] Here Daniello conceives of
tragedy as representing the change of a man from
vice to virtue, or from virtue to vice, through the
medium of prosperity or misfortune. This is a
curious misconception of Aristotle's meaning. Aristotle
refers, not to the ethical effect of tragedy, but to
the effect of the emotions of pity and terror upon
the mind of the spectator, although of course he
does not wish the catastrophe to shock the moral
sense or the sense of justice.
Giraldi Cintio, some years after Daniello, follows
Aristotle more closely in the conception of the
tragic hero; and he affirms, moreover, that tragedy
may end happily or unhappily so long as it inspires
pity and terror. Now, Aristotle has expressly
stated his disapprobation of the happy ending of
tragedy, for in speaking of tragedies with a double
thread and a double catastrophe, that is, tragedies
in which the good are ultimately rewarded and the
bad punished, he shows that such a conclusion is
decidedly against the general tragic effect.[165] Scaliger's
conception of the moral function of the
tragic poet as rewarding virtue and punishing vice
is therefore inconsistent with the Aristotelian conception;
for, as Scaliger insists that every tragedy
should end unhappily, it follows that only the good
must survive and only the bad suffer. Another
critic of this time, Capriano (1555), points out that
the fatal ending of tragedy is due to the inability
-84-of certain illustrious men to conduct themselves
with prudence; and this is more in keeping with
Aristotle's true meaning.[166]
It has been seen that Aristotle regarded a perfectly
good man as not fitted to be the ideal hero
of tragedy. Minturno, however, asserts that tragedy
is grave and illustrious because its characters are
illustrious, and that therefore he can see no reason,
despite Aristotle, why the lives of perfect men or
Christian saints should not be represented on the
stage, and why even the life of Christ would not
be a fit subject for tragedy.[167] This is, indeed, Corneille's
opinion, and in the examen of his Polyeucte
he cites Minturno in justification of his own case.
As regards the other characters of tragedy, Minturno
states a curious distinction between characters
fit for tragedy and those fit for comedy.[168] In
the first place, he points out that no young girls,
with the exception of female slaves, should appear
in comedy, for the reason that the women of the
people do not appear in public until marriage, and
would be sullied by the company of the low characters
of comedy, whereas the maidens of tragedy
are princesses, accustomed to meet and converse
with noblemen from girlhood. Secondly, married
women are always represented in comedy as faithful,
in tragedy as unfaithful to their husbands, for
the reason that comedy concludes with friendship
-85-and tranquillity, and unfaithful relations could never
end happily, while the love depicted in tragedy
serves to bring about the tragic ruin of great
houses. Thirdly, in comedy old men are often
represented as in love, but never in tragedy, for
an amorous old man is conducive to laughter,
which comedy aims at producing, but which would
be wholly out of keeping with the gravity required
in tragedy. These distinctions are of course deduced
from the practice of the Latin drama—the
tragedies of Seneca on the one hand, and the
comedies of Plautus and Terence on the other.
In a certain passage of Aristotle's Poetics there
is a formulation of the requirements of character-drawing
in the drama.[169] In this passage Aristotle
says that the characters must be good; that they
must be drawn with propriety, that is, in keeping
with the type to which they belong; that they
must be true to life, something quite distinct
either from goodness or propriety; and that the
characters must be self-consistent. This passage
gave rise to a curious conception of character in
the Renaissance and throughout the period of classicism.
According to this, the conception of decorum,
it was insisted that every old man should
have such and such characteristics, every young
man certain others, and so on for the soldier, the
merchant, the Florentine or Parisian, and the like.
This fixed and formal mode of regarding character
was connected with the distinction of rank as the
fundamental difference between the characters of
-86-tragedy and comedy, and it was really founded on
a passage in Horace's Ars Poetica,—
"Ætatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,"[170] and on the rhetorical descriptions of the various
characteristics of men in the second book of Aristotle's
Rhetoric.
The explanation of the Renaissance conception
of decorum may start from either of two
points of view. In the first place, it is to be
noted that Horace, and after him the critics of the
Renaissance, set about to transpose to the domain
of poetry the tentative distinctions of character
formulated by Aristotle, in the Rhetoric, simply
for the purposes of rhetorical exposition. These
distinctions, it must be repeated, were rhetorical
and not æsthetic, and they are therefore not
alluded to by Aristotle in the Poetics. The result
of the attempt to transpose them to the domain of
poetry led to a hardening and crystallization of
character in the classic drama. But the æsthetic
misconception implied by such an attempt is only
too obvious. In such a system poetry is held
accountable, not to the ideal truth of human life,
but to certain arbitrary, or at best merely empirical,
formulæ of rhetorical theory. The Renaissance
was in this merely doing for character what was
being done for all the other elements of art. Every
such element, when once discriminated and definitely
formulated, became fixed as a necessary and
inviolable substitute for the reality which had thus
been analyzed.
-87-
But we may look at the principle of decorum from
another point of view. A much deeper question—the
question of social distinctions—is here involved.
The observance of decorum necessitated
the maintenance of the social distinctions which
formed the basis of Renaissance life and of Renaissance
literature. It was this same tendency which
caused the tragedy of classicism to exclude all but
characters of the highest rank. Speaking of narrative
poetry, Muzio (1551), while allowing kings to
mingle with the masses, considers it absolutely improper
for one of the people, even for a moment, to
assume the sceptre.[171] Accordingly, men as distinguished
by the accidents of rank, profession, country,
and not as distinguished by that only which art
should take cognizance of, character, became the subjects
of the literature of classicism; and in so far
as this is true, that literature loses something of
the profundity and the universality of the highest
art.
This element of decorum is to be found in all the
critics of the Renaissance from the time of Vida[172]
and Daniello.[173] So essential became the observance
of decorum that Muzio and Capriano both considered
it the most serious charge to be made against
Homer, that he was not always observant of it.
Capriano, comparing Virgil with Homer, asserts
that the Latin poet surpasses the Greek in eloquence,
in dignity, in grandeur of style, but beyond
everything in decorum.[174] The seeming vulgarity
-88-of some of Homer's similes, and even of the
actions of some of his characters, appeared to the
Renaissance a most serious blemish; and it was
this that led Scaliger to rate Homer not only below
Virgil, but even below Musæus. In Minturno and
Scaliger we find every detail of character minutely
analyzed. The poet is told how young men and old
men should act, should talk, and should dress; and
no deviations from these fixed formulæ were allowed
under any circumstances. As a result of this, even
when the poet liberated himself from these conceptions,
and aimed at depicting character in its true
sense, we find character, but never the development
of character, portrayed in the neo-classic drama.
The character was fixed from the beginning of the
play to the end; and it is here that we may find
the origin of Ben Jonson's conception of "humours."
In one of Salviati's lectures, Del Trattato
della Poetica,[175] Salviati defines a humour as "a
peculiar quality of nature according to which every
one is inclined to some special thing more than to
any other." This would apply very distinctly to
the sense in which the Elizabethans used the word.
Thus Jonson himself, in the Induction of Every
Man out of his Humour, after expounding the medical
notion of a humour, says:—
"It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
-89-In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour."
The origin of the term "humour," in Jonson's sense,
has never been carefully studied. Jonson's editors
speak of it as peculiar to the English language, and
as first used in this sense about Jonson's period.
It is not our purpose to go further into this question;
but Salviati's definition is close enough to
Jonson's to indicate that the origin of this term, as
of all other critical terms and critical ideas throughout
sixteenth-century Europe, must be looked for in
the æsthetic literature of Italy.[176]
IV. The Dramatic Unities
In his definition of tragedy Aristotle says that
the play must be complete or perfect, that is, it
must have unity. By unity of plot he does not
mean merely the unity given by a single hero, for,
as he says, "infinitely various are the incidents in
one man's life which cannot be reduced to unity;
and so, too, there are many actions of one man out
of which we cannot make one action. Hence the
error, as it appears, of all poets who have composed
a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the kind.
They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the
story of Heracles ought also to be a unity."[177] This
is Aristotle's statement of the unity of action. But
-90-what is the origin of the two other unities,—the
unities of time and place? There is in the Poetics
but a single reference to the time-limit of the tragic
action and none whatsoever to the so-called unity
of place. Aristotle says that the action of tragedy
and that of epic poetry differ in length, "for
tragedy endeavors, so far as possible, to confine
itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but
slightly to exceed this limit; whereas the epic
action has no limits of time."[178] This passage is the
incidental statement of an historical fact; it is
merely a tentative deduction from the usual practice
of Greek tragedy, and Aristotle never conceived
of it as an inviolable law of the drama. Of
the three unities which play so prominent a part in
modern classical drama, the unity of action was the
main, and, in fact, the only unity which Aristotle
knew or insisted on. But from his incidental reference
to the general time-limits of Greek tragedy,
the Renaissance formulated the unity of time, and
deduced from it also the unity of place, to which
there is absolutely no reference either in Aristotle
or in any other ancient writer whatever. It is to the
Italians of the Renaissance, and not to the French
critics of the seventeenth century, that the world
owes the formulation of the three unities. The
attention of scholars was first called to this fact
about twenty years ago, by the brochure of a Swiss
scholar, H. Breitinger, on the unities of Aristotle
before Corneille's Cid; but the gradual development
and formulation of the three unities have
-91-never been systematically worked out. We shall
endeavor here to trace their history during the
sixteenth century, and to explain the processes by
which they developed.
The first reference in modern literature to the
doctrine of the unity of time is to be found in
Giraldi Cintio's Discorso sulle Comedie e sulle Tragedie.
He says that comedy and tragedy agree,
among other things, in the limitation of the action
to one day or but little more;[179] and he has thus for
the first time converted Aristotle's statement of an
historical fact into a dramatic law. Moreover, he
has changed Aristotle's phrase, that tragedy limits
itself "to a single revolution of the sun," into the
more definite expression of "a single day." He
points out that Euripides, in the Heraclidæ, on
account of the long distance between the places in
the action, had been unable to limit the action to
one day. Now, as Aristotle must have known
many of the best Greek dramas which are now lost,
it was probably in keeping with the practice of
such dramas that their actions were not strictly
confined within the limits of one day. Aristotle,
therefore, intentionally allowed the drama a
slightly longer space of time than a single day.
The unity of time, accordingly, becomes a part of
the theory of the drama between 1540 and 1545,
but it was not until almost exactly a century later
that it became an invariable rule of the dramatic
literature of France and of the world.
In Robortelli (1548) we find Aristotle's phrase,
-92-"a single revolution of the sun," restricted to the
artificial day of twelve hours; for as tragedy can
contain only one single and continuous action, and as
people are accustomed to sleep in the night, it follows
that the tragic action cannot be continued beyond
one artificial day. This holds good of comedy as
well as tragedy, for the length of the fable in each is
the same.[180] Segni (1549) differs from Robortelli,
however, in regarding a single revolution of the sun
as referring not to the artificial day of twelve hours,
but to the natural day of twenty-four hours, because
various matters treated in tragedy, and even in
comedy, are such as are more likely to happen
in the night (adulteries, murders, and the like);
and if it be said that night is naturally the time for
repose, Segni answers that unjust people act contrary
to the laws of nature.[181] It was about this
time, then, that there commenced the historic controversy
as to what Aristotle meant by limiting
tragedy to one day; and three-quarters of a century
later, in 1623, Beni could cite thirteen different
opinions of scholars on this question.
Trissino, in his Poetica (1563), paraphrases as
follows the passage in Aristotle which refers to
the unity of time: "They also differ in length,
for tragedy terminates in one day, that is, one
period of the sun, or but little more, while there is
no time determined for epic poetry, as indeed was
the custom with tragedy and comedy at their beginning,
-93-and is even to-day among ignorant poets."[182]
Here for the first time, as a French critic remarks,
the observance of the unity of time is made a distinction
between the learned and the ignorant
poet.[183] It is evident that Trissino conceives of the
unity of time as an artistic principle which has
helped to save dramatic poetry from the formlessness
and chaotic condition of the mediæval drama.
So that the unity of time became not only a dramatic
law, but one the observation of which distinguished
the dramatic artist from the mere ignorant
compiler of popular plays.
There is in none of the writers we have mentioned
so far any reference to the unity of place,
for the simple reason that there is no allusion to
such a requirement for the drama in Aristotle's
Poetics. Maggi's discussion of the unity of time,
in his commentary on the Poetics (1550), is of
particular interest as preparing the way for the
third unity. Maggi attempts to explain logically
the reason for the unity of time.[184] Why should
tragedy be limited as to time, and not epic poetry?
According to him, this difference is to be explained
by the fact that the drama is represented on the
stage before our eyes, and if we should see the actions
of a whole month performed in about the
time it takes to perform the play, that is, two or
three hours, the performance would be absolutely
incredible. For example, says Maggi, if in a tragedy
we should send a messenger to Egypt, and he
would return in an hour, would not the spectator
-94-regard this as ridiculous? In the epic, on the contrary,
we do not see the actions performed, and so
do not feel the need of limiting them to any particular
time. Now, it is to be noted here that this
limitation of time is based on the idea of representation.
The duration of the action of the drama
itself must fairly coincide with the duration of its
representation on the stage. This is the principle
which led to the acceptance of the unity of place,
and upon which it is based. Limit the time of the
action to the time of representation, and it follows
that the place of the action must be limited to the
place of representation. Such a limitation is of
course a piece of realism wholly out of keeping
with the true dramatic illusion; but it was almost
exclusively in the drama that classicism tended
toward a minuter realism than could be justified by
the Aristotelian canons. In Maggi the beginnings
of the unity of place are evident, inasmuch as he
finds that the requirements of the representation
do not permit a messenger or any character in the
drama to be sent very far from the place where the
action is being performed. The closer action and
representation coincide, the clearer becomes the necessity
of a limitation in place as well as in time;
and it was on this principle that Scaliger and
Castelvetro, somewhat later, formulated the three
unities.
There is, indeed, in Scaliger (1561) no direct
statement of the unity of time; but the reference
to it is nevertheless unmistakable. First of all,
Scaliger requires that the events be so arranged-95-
and disposed that they approach nearest to actual
truth (ut quam proxime accedant ad veritatem).[185]
This is equivalent to saying that the duration of
the action, its place, its mode of procedure, must
correspond more or less exactly with the representation
itself. The dramatic poet must aim, beyond
all things, at reproducing the actual conditions of
life. The verisimile, the vraisemblable, in the etymological
sense of these words, must be the final
criterion of dramatic composition. It is not sufficient
that the spectator should be satisfied with
the action as typical of similar actions in life. An
absolutely perfect illusion must prevail; the spectator
must be moved by the actions of the play
exactly as if they were those of real life.
This notion of the verisimile, and of its effect of
perfect illusion on the spectator's mind, prevailed
throughout the period of classicism, and was vigorously
defended by no less a critic than Voltaire
himself. Accordingly, as Maggi first pointed out,
if the playwright, in the few hours it takes to
represent the whole play, requires one of his characters
to perform an action that cannot be done in
less than a month, this impression of actual truth
and perfect illusion will not be left on the spectator's
mind. "Therefore," says Scaliger, "those
battles and assaults which take place about Thebes
in the space of two hours do not please me; no sensible
poet should make any one move from Delphi
to Thebes, or from Thebes to Athens, in a moment's
-96-time. Agamemnon is buried by Æschylus
after being killed, and Lichas is hurled into the
sea by Hercules; but this cannot be represented
without violence to truth. Accordingly, the poet
should choose the briefest possible argument, and
should enliven it by means of episodes and details....
Since the whole play is represented on the
stage in six or eight hours, it is not in accordance
with the exact appearance of truth (haud verisimile
est) that within that brief space of time a tempest
should arise and a shipwreck occur, out of sight of
land."
The observance of the unity of time could not
be demanded in clearer or more forcible terms
than this. But it is a mistake to construe this
passage into a statement of the unity of place.[186]
When Scaliger says that the poet should not move
any one of the characters from Delphi to Thebes,
or from Thebes to Athens, in a moment's time, he
is referring to the exigencies, not of place, but of
time. In this, as in many other things, he is merely
following Maggi, who, as we have seen, says that
it is ridiculous for a dramatist to have a messenger
go to Egypt with a message and return in an hour.
The characters, according to Scaliger, should not
move from Delphi to Thebes in a moment, not
because the action need necessarily occur in one
single place, but because the characters cannot
with any appearance of truth go a great distance
in a short space of time. This is an approach to
the unity of place, and had Scaliger followed his
-97-contention to its logical conclusion, he must certainly
have formulated the three unities. But by
requiring the action to be disposed with the greatest
possible approach to the actual truth, or, in
other words, by insisting that the action must coincide
with the representation, Scaliger helped
more than any of his predecessors to the final recognition
of the unity of place.
In Minturno[187] and in Vettori[188] we find a tendency
to restrict the duration of the epic as well as the
tragic action. It has been seen that Aristotle distinctly
says that while the action of tragedy generally
endeavors to confine itself within a period of
about one day, that of epic poetry has no determined
time. Minturno, however, alludes to the unity of
time in the following words: "Whoever examines
well the works of the most esteemed ancient writers,
will find that the action represented on the stage is
terminated in one day, or does not pass beyond the
space of two days; while the epic has a longer
period of time, except that its action cannot exceed
one year in duration."[189] This limitation Minturno
deduces from the practice of Homer and Virgil.[190]
The action of the Iliad begins in the tenth year of
the Trojan war, and lasts one year; the action of
the Æneid begins in the seventh year after the departure
of Æneas from Troy, and also lasts one
year.
Castelvetro, however, was the first theorist to
formulate the unity of place, and thus to give the
-98-three unities their final form. We have seen that
Castelvetro's theory of the drama was based entirely
upon the notion of stage representation. All the
essentials of dramatic literature are thus fixed by
the exigencies of the stage. The stage is a circumscribed
space, and the play must be performed upon
it within a period of time limited by the physical
necessities of the spectators. It is from these two
facts that Castelvetro deduces the unities of time
and place. While asserting that Aristotle held it
as cosa fermissima e verissima that the tragic action
cannot exceed the length of an artificial day of
twelve hours, he does not think that Aristotle himself
understood the real reason of this limitation.[191]
In the seventh chapter of the Poetics Aristotle says
that the length of the plot is limited by the possibility
of its being carried in the memory of the
spectator conveniently at one time. But this, it is
urged, would restrict the epic as well as the tragic
fable to one day. The difference between epic and
dramatic poetry in this respect is to be found in the
essential difference between the conditions of narrative
and scenic poetry.[192] Narrative poetry can in
a short time narrate things that happen in many
days or months or even years; but scenic poetry,
which spends as many hours in representing things
as it actually takes to do them in life, does quite
otherwise. In epic poetry words can present to
our intellect things distant in space and time; but
in dramatic poetry the whole action occurs before
our eyes, and is accordingly limited to what we can
-99-actually see with our own senses, that is, to that
brief duration of time and to that small amount of
space in which the actors are occupied in acting, and
not any other time or place. But as the restricted
place is the stage, so the restricted time is that in
which the spectators can at their ease remain sitting
through a continuous performance; and this time,
on account of the physical necessities of the spectators,
such as eating, drinking, and sleeping, cannot
well go beyond the duration of one revolution of the
sun. So that not only is the unity of time an
essential dramatic requirement, but it is in fact impossible
for the dramatist to do otherwise even
should he desire to do so—a conclusion which is
of course the reductio ad absurdum of the whole
argument.
In another place Castelvetro more briefly formulates
the law of the unities in the definitive form
in which it was to remain throughout the period
of classicism: "La mutatione tragica non può
tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un
luogo."[193] The unities of time and place are for
Castelvetro so very important that the unity of
action, which is for Aristotle the only essential of
the drama, is entirely subordinated to them. In
fact, Castelvetro specifically says that the unity of
action is not essential to the drama, but is merely
made expedient by the requirements of time and
place. "In comedy and tragedy," he says, "there
is usually one action, not because the fable is unfitted
to contain more than one action, but because
-100-the restricted space in which the action is represented,
and the limited time, twelve hours at the
very most, do not permit of a multitude of actions."[194]
In a similar manner Castelvetro applies
the law of the unities to epic poetry. Although
the epic action can be accomplished in many places
and at diverse times, yet as it is more commendable
and pleasurable to have a single action, so it is
better for the action to confine itself to a short time
and to but few places. In other words, the more
the epic attempts to restrict itself to the unities of
place and time, the better, according to Castelvetro,
it will be.[195] Moreover, Castelvetro was not merely
the first one to formulate the unities in their definitive
form, but he was also the first to insist upon
them as inviolable laws of the drama; and he
refers to them over and over again in the pages of
his commentary on the Poetics.[196]
This then is the origin of the unities. Our discussion
must have made it clear how little they
deserve the traditional title of Aristotelian unities,
or as a recent critic with equal inaccuracy calls
them, the Scaligerian unities (unités scaligériennes).[197]
Nor were they, as we have seen, first formulated in
France, though this was the opinion of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Thus Dryden
says that "the unity of place, however it might be
-101-practised by the ancients, was never one of their
rules: we neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or
any who have written of it, till in our age the
French poets first made it a precept of the stage."[198]
It may be said, therefore, that just as the unity of
action is par excellence the Aristotelian unity, so the
unities of time and place are beyond a doubt the
Italian unities. They enter the critical literature
of Europe from the time of Castelvetro, and may
almost be said to be the last contributions of Italy
to literary criticism. Two years after their formulation
by Castelvetro they were introduced into
France, and a dozen years after this formulation,
into England. It was not until 1636, however,
that they became fixed in modern dramatic literature,
as a result of the Cid controversy. This is
approximately a hundred years after the first mention
of the unity of time in Italian criticism.
V. Comedy
The treatment of comedy in the literary criticism
of this period is entirely confined to a discussion
and elaboration of the little that Aristotle says on
the subject of comedy in the Poetics. Aristotle, it
will be remembered, had distinguished tragedy from
comedy in that the former deals with the nobler,
the latter with the baser, sort of actions. Comedy
is an imitation of characters of a lower type than
those of tragedy,—characters of a lower type
indeed, but not in the full sense of the word bad.
-102-"The ludicrous is merely a subdivision of the
ugly. It may be defined as a defect or ugliness
which is not painful or destructive. Thus, for
example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but
does not cause pain."[199] From these few hints the
Italian theorists constructed a body of comic doctrine.
There is, however, in the critical literature
of this period no attempt to explain the theory of
the indigenous Italian comedy, the commedia dell'
arte. The classical comedies of Plautus and Terence
were the models, and Aristotle's Poetics the guide,
of all the discussions on comedy during the Renaissance.
The distinction between the characters of
comedy and tragedy has already been explained in
sufficient detail. All that remains to be done in
treating of comedy is to indicate as briefly as
possible such definitions of it as were formulated
by the Renaissance, and the special function which
the Renaissance understood comedy to possess.
According to Trissino (1563), the comic poet deals
only with base things, and for the single purpose
of chastising them. As tragedy attains its moral
end through the medium of pity and fear, comedy
does so by means of the chastisement and vituperation
of things that are base and evil.[200] The comic
poet, however, is not to deal with all sorts of vices,
but only such as give rise to ridicule, that is, the
jocose actions of humble and unknown persons.
Laughter proceeds from a certain delight or pleasure
arising from the sight of objects of ugliness.
-103-We do not laugh at a beautiful woman, a gorgeous
jewel, or beautiful music; but a distortion or deformity,
such as a silly speech, an ugly face, or a
clumsy movement, makes us laugh. We do not
laugh at the benefits of others; the finder of a
purse, for example, arouses not laughter but envy.
But we do laugh at some one who has fallen into
the mud, because, as Lucretius says, it is sweet to
find in others some evil not to be found in ourselves.
Yet great evils, so far from causing us to laugh,
arouse pity and fear, because we are apprehensive
lest such things should happen to us. Hence we
may conclude that a slight evil which is neither sad
nor destructive, and which we perceive in others but
do not believe to be in ourselves, is the primary
cause of the ludicrous.[201] In Maggi's treatise, De
Ridiculis, appended to his commentary on the
Poetics, the Aristotelian conception of the ridiculous
is accepted, with the addition of the element of
admiratio. Maggi insists on the idea of suddenness
or novelty; for we do not laugh at painless ugliness
if it be very familiar or long continued.[202]
According to Robortelli (1548), comedy, like all
other forms of poetry, imitates the manners and
actions of men, and aims at producing laughter and
-104-light-heartedness. But what produces laughter?
The evil and obscene merely disgust good men; the
sad and miserable cause pity and fear. The basis
of laughter is therefore to be found in what is only
slightly mean or ugly (subturpiculum). The object
of comedy, according to the consensus of Renaissance
opinion, is therefore to produce laughter for
the purpose of rendering the minor vices ridiculous.
Muzio (1551) indeed complains, as both Sidney and
Ben Jonson do later, that the comic writers of his
day were more intent on producing laughter than
on depicting character or manners:—
"Intenta al riso
Più ch' a i costumi."
But Minturno points out that comedy is not to be
contemned because it excites laughter; for by comic
hilarity the spectators are kept from becoming
buffoons themselves, and by the ridiculous light in
which amours are placed, are made to avoid such
things in future. Comedy is the best corrective
of men's morals; it is indeed what Cicero calls it,
imitatio vitæ, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis.
This phrase, ascribed by Donatus to Cicero,
runs through all the dramatic discussions of the
Renaissance,[203] and finds its echo in a famous passage
in Hamlet. Cervantes cites the phrase in Don
Quixote;[204] and Il Lasca, in the prologue to L'Arzigoglio,
berates the comic writers of his day after
this fashion: "They take no account of the absurdities,
the contradictions, the inequalities, and
-105-the discrepancies of their pieces; for they do not
seem to know that comedy should be truth's image,
the ensample of manners, and the mirror of life."
This is exactly what Shakespeare is contending
for when he makes Hamlet caution the players not
to "o'erstep the modesty of nature; for anything
so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was and is, to
hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show
virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and
the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure."[205]
The high importance which Scaliger (1561) gives
to comedy, and in fact to satiric and didactic poetry
in general, is one of many indications of the incipient
formation of neo-classical ideals during the
Renaissance. He regards as absurd the statement
which he conceives Horace to have made, that
comedy is not really poetry; on the contrary, it is
the true form of poetry, and the first and highest
of all, for its matter is entirely invented by the
poet.[206] He defines comedy as a dramatic poem
filled with intrigue (negotiosum), written in popular
style, and ending happily.[207] The characters in comedy
are chiefly old men, slaves, courtesans, all in
humble station or from small villages. The action
begins rather turbulently, but ends happily, and the
-106-style is neither high nor low. The typical themes
of comedy are "sports, banquets, nuptials, drunken
carousals, the crafty wiles of slaves, and the deception
of old men."[208]
The theory of comedy in sixteenth-century Italy
was entirely classical, and the practice of the time
agrees with its theory. There are indeed to be
heard occasional notes of dissatisfaction and revolt,
especially in the prologues of popular plays. Il
Lasca, in the prologue to the Strega, defiantly protests
against the inviolable authority of Aristotle
and Horace, and in the prologue to his Gelosia reserves
the right to copy the manner of his own time,
and not those of Plautus and Terence. Cecchi,
Aretino, Gelli, and other comic writers give expression
to similar sentiments.[209] But on the whole
these protests availed nothing. The authors of
comedy, and more especially the literary critics,
were guided by classical practice and classical theory.
Dramatic forms like the improvised commedia
dell' arte had marked influence on the practice of
European comedy in general, especially in France,
but left no traces of their influence on the literary
criticism of the Italian Renaissance.
top
CHAPTER IV
-107-
THE THEORY OF EPIC POETRY
Epic poetry was held in the highest esteem during
the Renaissance and indeed throughout the
period of classicism. It was regarded by Vida as
the highest form of poetry,[210] and a century later,
despite the success of tragedy in France, Rapin
still held the same opinion.[211] The reverence for
the epic throughout the Renaissance may be
ascribed in part to the mediæval veneration of
Virgil as a poet, and his popular apotheosis as
prophet and magician, and also in part to the
decay into which dramatic literature had fallen
during the Middle Ages in the hands of the wandering
players, the histriones and the vagantes.
Aristotle[212] indeed had regarded tragedy as the highest
form of poetry; and as a result, the traditional
reverence for Virgil and Homer, and the Renaissance
subservience to Aristotle, were distinctly at
variance. Trissino (1561) paraphrases Aristotle's
argument in favor of tragedy, but points out, notwithstanding
this, that the whole world is unanimous
in considering Virgil and Homer greater than
any tragic poet before or after them.[213] Placed in
-108-this quandary, he concludes by leaving the reader
to judge for himself whether epic or tragedy be the
nobler form.
I. The Theory of the Epic Poem
Vida's Ars Poetica, written before 1520, although
no edition prior to that of 1527 is extant, is the
earliest example in modern times of that class
of critical poems to which belong Horace's Ars
Poetica, Boileau's Art Poétique, and Pope's Essay
on Criticism. Vida's poem is entirely based on that
of Horace; but he substitutes epic for Horace's
dramatic studies, and employs the Æneid as the
model of an epic poem. The incompleteness of the
treatment accorded to epic poetry in Aristotle's
Poetics led the Renaissance to deduce the laws of
heroic poetry and of poetic artifice in general from
the practice of Virgil; and it is to this point of
view that the critical works on the Æneid by Regolo
(1563), Maranta (1564), and Toscanella (1566) owe
their origin. The obvious and even accidental
qualities of Virgil's poem are enunciated by Vida
as fundamental laws of epic poetry. The precepts
thus given are purely rhetorical and pedagogic in
character, and deal almost exclusively with questions
of poetic invention, disposition, polish, and
style. Beyond this Vida does not attempt to go.
There is in his poem no definition of the epic, no
theory of its function, no analysis of the essentials
of narrative structure. In fact, no theory of poetry
in any real sense is to be found in Vida's treatise.-109-
Daniello (1536) deals only very cursorily with
epic poetry, but his definition of it strikes the keynote
of the Renaissance conception. Heroic poetry
is for him an imitation of the illustrious deeds of
emperors and other men magnanimous and valorous
in arms,[214]—a conception that goes back to Horace's
"Res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella."[215] Trissino (1563) first introduced the Aristotelian
theory of the epic into modern literary criticism;
and the sixth section of his Poetica is given up
almost exclusively to the treatment of heroic poetry.
The epic agrees with tragedy in dealing with illustrious
men and illustrious actions. Like tragedy it
must have a single action, but it differs from tragedy
in not having the time of the action limited
or determined. While unity of action is essential
to the epic, and is indeed what distinguishes it from
narrative poems that are not really epics, the Renaissance
conceived of vastness of design and largeness
of detail as necessary to the grandiose character
of the epic poem.[216] Thus Muzio says:—
"Il poema sovrano è una pittura
De l'universo, e però in sè comprende
Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."
Trissino regards versi sciolti as the proper metre
for an heroic poem, since the stanzaic form impedes
the continuity of the narrative. In this point he
finds fault with Boccaccio, Boiardo, and Ariosto,
whose romantic poems, moreover, he does not regard
as epics, because they do not obey Aristotle's inviolable
-110-law of the single action. He also finds fault
with the romantic poets for describing the improbable,
since Aristotle expressly prefers an impossible
probability to an improbable possibility.
Minturno's definition of epic poetry is merely a
modification or paraphrase of Aristotle's definition
of tragedy. Epic poetry is an imitation of a grave
and noble deed, perfect, complete, and of proper
magnitude, with embellished language, but without
music or dancing; at times simply narrating and
at other times introducing persons in words and
actions; in order that, through pity and fear of the
things imitated, such passions may be purged from
the mind with both pleasure and profit.[217] Here
Minturno, like Giraldi Cintio, ascribes to epic
poetry the same purgation of pity and fear effected
by tragedy. Epic poetry he rates above tragedy,
since the epic poet, more than any other, arouses
that admiration of great heroes which it is the peculiar
function of the poet to excite, and therefore
attains the end of poetry more completely than any
other poet. This, however, is true only in the highest
form of narrative poetry; for Minturno distinguishes
three classes of narrative poets, the lowest,
or bucolici, the mediocre, or epici, who have nothing
beyond verse, and the highest, or heroici, who imitate
the life of a single hero in noble verse.[218] Minturno
insists fundamentally on the unity of the
epic action; and directly against Aristotle's statement,
as we have seen, he restricts the duration of
the action to one year. The license and prolixity
-111-of the romanzi led the defenders of the classical
epic to this extreme of rigid circumspection. According
to Scaliger, the epic, which is the norm by
which all other poems may be judged and the chief
of all poems, describes heroum genus, vita, gesta.[219]
This is the Horatian conception of the epic, and
there is in Scaliger little or no trace of the Aristotelian
doctrine. He also follows Horace closely in
forbidding the narrative poet to begin his poem
from the very beginning of his story (ab ovo), and
in various other details.
Castelvetro (1570) differs from Aristotle in regard
to the unity of the epic fable, on the ground that
poetry is merely imaginative history, and can
therefore do anything that history can do. Poetry
follows the footsteps of history, differing merely in
that history narrates what has happened, while
poetry narrates what has never happened but yet
may possibly happen; and therefore, since history
recounts the whole life of a single hero, without
regard to its unity, there is no reason why poetry
should not do likewise. The epic may in fact deal
with many actions of one person, one action of a
whole race, or many actions of many people; it
need not necessarily deal with one action of one
person, as Aristotle enjoins, but if it does so it is
simply to show the ingenuity and excellence of the
poet.[220]
-112-
II. Epic and Romance
This discussion of epic unity leads to one of the
most important critical questions of the sixteenth
century,—the question of the unity of romance.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Boiardo's Orlando
Innamorato were written before the Aristotelian
canons had become a part of the critical literature
of Italy. When it became clear that these poems
diverged from the fundamental requirements of the
epic as expounded in the Poetics, Trissino set out
to compose an heroic poem which would be in perfect
accord with the precepts of Aristotle. His
Italia Liberata, which was completed by 1548, was
the result of twenty years of study, and it is the
first modern epic in the strict Aristotelian sense.
With Aristotle as his guide, and Homer as his
model, he had studiously and mechanically constructed
an epic of a single action; and in the
dedication of his poem to the Emperor Charles V.
he charges all poems which violate this primary
law of the single action with being merely bastard
forms. The romanzi, and among them the Orlando
Furioso, in seemingly disregarding this fundamental
requirement, came under Trissino's censure;
and this started a controversy which was not to end
until the commencement of the next century, and
in a certain sense may be said to remain undecided
even to this day.
The first to take up the cudgels in defence of the
writers of the romanzi was Giraldi Cintio, who in
his youth had known Ariosto personally, and who-113-
wrote his Discorso intorno al comporre dei Romanzi,
in April, 1549. The grounds of his defence are
twofold. In the first place, Giraldi maintains that
the romance is a poetic form of which Aristotle did
not know, and to which his rules therefore do not
apply; and in the second place, Tuscan literature,
differing as it does from the literature of Greece in
language, in spirit, and in religious feeling, need
not and indeed ought not to follow the rules of
Greek literature, but rather the laws of its own
development and its own traditions. With Ariosto
and Boiardo as models, Giraldi sets out to formulate
the laws of the romanzi. The romanzi aim at
imitating illustrious actions in verse, with the purpose
of teaching good morals and honest living, since
this ought to be the aim of every poet, as Giraldi
conceives Aristotle himself to have said.[221] All
heroic poetry is an imitation of illustrious actions,
but Giraldi, like Castelvetro twenty years later,
recognizes several distinct forms of heroic poetry,
according as to whether it imitates one action of
one man, many actions of many men, or many
actions of one man. The first of these is the epic
poem, the rules of which are given in Aristotle's
Poetics. The second is the romantic poem, after
the manner of Boiardo and Ariosto. The third is
the biographical poem, after the manner of the
Theseid and similar works dealing with the whole
life of a single hero.
These forms are therefore to be regarded as three
distinct and legitimate species of heroic poetry, the
-114-first of them being an epic poem in the strict Aristotelian
sense, and the two others coming under the
general head of romanzi. Of the two forms of
romanzi, the biographical deals preferably with an
historical subject, whereas the noblest writers of
the more purely romantic form, dealing with many
actions of many men, have invented their subject-matter.
Horace says that an heroic poem should
not commence at the very beginning of the hero's
life; but it is difficult to understand, says Giraldi,
why the whole life of a distinguished man, which
gives us so great and refined a pleasure in the works
of Plutarch and other biographers, should not please
us all the more when described in beautiful verse
by a good poet.[222] Accordingly, the poet who is
composing an epic in the strict sense should, in
handling the events of his narrative, plunge immediately
in medias res. The poet dealing with
many actions of many men should begin with the
most important event, and the one upon which all
the others may be said to hinge; whereas the poet
describing the life of a single hero should begin at
the very beginning, if the hero spent a really heroic
youth, as Hercules for example did. The poem
dealing with the life of a hero is thus a separate
genre, and one for which Aristotle does not attempt
to lay down any laws. Giraldi even goes so far as
to say that Aristotle[223] censured those who write the
life of Theseus or Hercules in a single poem, not
because they dealt with many actions of one man,
but because they treated such a poem in exactly
-115-the same manner as those who dealt with a single
action of a single hero,—an assertion which is of
course utterly absurd. Giraldi then proceeds to
deal in detail with the disposition and composition
of the romanzi, which he rates above the classical
epics in the efficacy of ethical teaching. It is the
office of the poet to praise virtuous actions and to
condemn vicious actions; and in this the writers of
the romanzi are far superior to the writers of the
ancient heroic poems.[224]
Giraldi's discourse on the romanzi gave rise to a
curious dispute with his own pupil, Giambattista
Pigna, who published a similar work, entitled I
Romanzi, in the same year (1554). Pigna asserted
that he had suggested to Giraldi the main argument
of the discourse, and that Giraldi had adopted it as
his own. Without entering into the details of this
controversy, it would seem that the priority of
Giraldi cannot fairly be contested.[225] At all events,
there is a very great resemblance between the works
of Giraldi and Pigna. Pigna's treatise, however,
is more detailed than Giraldi's. In the first book,
Pigna deals with the general subject of the romanzi;
in the second he gives a life of Ariosto, and discusses
the Furioso, point by point; in the third he
demonstrates the good taste and critical acumen of
Ariosto by comparing the first version of the Furioso
with the completed and perfected copy.[226] Both
-116-Pigna and Giraldi consider the romanzi to constitute
a new genre, unknown to the ancients, and
therefore not subject to Aristotle's rules. Giraldi's
sympathies were in favor of the biographical form
of the romanzi, and his poem, the Ercole (1557),
recounts the whole life of a single hero. Pigna,
who keeps closer to the tradition of Ariosto, regards
the biographical form as not proper to poetry,
because too much like history.
These arguments, presented by Giraldi and Pigna,
were answered by Speroni, Minturno, and others.
Speroni pointed out that while it is not necessary
for the romantic poets to follow the rules prescribed
by the ancients, they cannot disobey the fundamental
laws of poetry. "The romanzi," says
Speroni, "are epics, which are poems, or they are
histories in verse, and not poems."[227] That is, how
does a poem differ from a well-written historical
narrative, if the former be without organic unity?[228]
As to the whole discussion, it may be said here,
without attempting to pass judgment on Ariosto, or
any other writer of romanzi, that unity of some
sort every true poem must necessarily have; and,
flawless as the Orlando Furioso is in its details, the
unity of the poem certainly has not the obviousness
of perfect, and especially classical, art. A work of
art without organic unity may be compared with
an unsymmetrical circle; and, while the Furioso is
not to be judged by any arbitrary or mechanical
rules of unity, yet if it has not that internal unity
which transcends all mere external form, it may be
-117-considered, as a work of art, hardly less than a
failure; and the farther it is removed from perfect
unity, the more imperfect is the art. "Poetry
adapts itself to its times, but cannot depart from its
own fundamental laws."[229]
Minturno's answer to the defenders of the romanzi
is more detailed and explicit than Speroni's, and it
is of considerable importance because of its influence
on Torquato Tasso's conception of epic poetry.
Minturno does not deny—and in this his point of
view is identical with Tasso's—that it is possible
to employ the matter of the romanzi in the composition
of a perfect poem. The actions they describe
are great and illustrious, their knights and ladies
are noble and illustrious, too, and they contain in a
most excellent manner that element of the marvellous
which is so important an element in the epic
action. It is the structure of the romanzi with
which Minturno finds fault. They lack the first
essential of every form of poetry,—unity. In
fact, they are little more than versified history or
legend; and, while expressing admiration for the
genius of Ariosto, Minturno cannot but regret that
he so far yielded to the popular taste of his time as
to employ the method of the romanzi. He approves
of the suggestion of Bembo, who had tried to persuade
Ariosto to write an epic instead of a romantic
poem,[230] just as later, and for similar reasons, Gabriel
Harvey attempted to dissuade Spenser from continuing
-118-the Faerie Queene. Minturno denies that
the Tuscan tongue is not well adapted to the composition
of heroic poetry; on the contrary, there is
no form of poetry to which it is not admirably
fitted. He denies that the romantic poem can be
distinguished from the epic on the ground that the
actions of knights-errant require a different and
broader form of narrative than do those of the
classical heroes. The celestial and infernal gods
and demi-gods of the ancients correspond with the
angels, saints, anchorites, and the one God of Christianity;
the ancient sibyls, oracles, enchantresses,
and divine messengers correspond with the modern
necromancers, fates, magicians, and celestial angels.
To the claim of the romantic poets that their poems
approximate closer to that magnitude which Aristotle
enjoins as necessary for all poetry, Minturno
answers that magnitude is of no avail without proportion;
there is no beauty in the giant whose limbs
and frame are distorted. Finally, the romanzi are
said to be a new form of poetry unknown to Aristotle
and Horace, and hence not amenable to their
laws. But time, says Minturno, cannot change
the truth; in every age a poem must have unity,
proportion, magnitude. Everything in nature is
governed by some specific law which directs its
operation; and as it is in nature so it is in art, for
art tries to imitate nature, and the nearer it approaches
nature in her essential laws, the better it
does its work. In other words, as has already been
pointed out, poetry adapts itself to its times, but
cannot depart from its own laws.-119-
Bernardo Tasso, the father of Torquato, had originally
been one of the defenders of the classical
epic; but he seems to have been converted to the
opposite view by Giraldi Cintio, and in his poem of
the Amadigi he follows romantic models. His son
Torquato, in his Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica, originally
written one or two years after the appearance
of Minturno's Arte Poetica, although not published
until 1587, was the first to attempt a reconciliation
of the epic and romantic forms; and he may be
said to have effected a solution of the problem by
the formulation of the theory of a narrative poem
which would have the romantic subject-matter, with
its delightful variety, and the epic form, with its
essential unity. The question at issue, as we have
seen, is that of unity; that is, does the heroic poem
need unity? Tasso denies that there is any difference
between the epic poem and the romantic
poem as poems. The reason why the latter is more
pleasing, is to be found in the fact of the greater
delightfulness of the themes treated.[231] Variety in
itself is not pleasing, for a variety of disagreeable
things would not please at all. Hence the perfect
and at the same time most pleasing form of heroic
poem would deal with the chivalrous themes of the
romanzi, but would possess that unity of structure
which, according to the precepts of Aristotle and
the practice of Homer and Virgil, is essential to
every epic. There are two sorts of unity possible
in art as in nature,—the simple unity of a chemical
element, and the complex unity of an organism
-120-like an animal or plant,—and of these the latter
is the sort of unity that the heroic poet should aim
at.[232] Capriano (1555) had referred to this same distinction,
when he pointed out that poetry ought not
to be the imitation of a single act, such as a single
act of weeping in the elegy, or a single act of pastoral
life in the eclogue, for such a sporadic imitation
is to be compared to a picture of a single hand
without the rest of the body; on the contrary,
poetry ought to be the representation of a number
of attendant or dependent acts, leading from a
given beginning to a suitable end.[233]
Having settled the general fact that the attractive
themes of the romanzi should be employed in a
perfect heroic poem, we may inquire what particular
themes are most fitted to the epic, and what must
be the essential qualities of the epic material.[234] In
the first place, the subject of the heroic poem must
be historical, for it is not probable that illustrious
actions such as are dealt with in the epic should be
unknown to history. The authority of history gains
for the poet that semblance of truth necessary to
deceive the reader and make him believe that what
the poet writes is true. Secondly, the heroic poem,
according to Tasso, must deal with the history, not
of a false religion, but of the true one, Christianity.
The religion of the pagans is absolutely unfit for
epic material; for if the pagan deities are not introduced,
the poem will lack the element of the
marvellous, and if they are introduced it will lack
-121-the element of probability. Both the marvellous
and the verisimile must exist together in a perfect
epic, and difficult as the task may seem, they must
be reconciled. Another reason why paganism is
unfit for the epic is to be found in the fact that the
perfect knight must have piety as well as other
virtues. In the third place, the poem must not
deal with themes connected with the articles of
Christian faith, for such themes would be unalterable,
and would allow no scope to the free play of
the poet's inventive fancy. Fourthly, the material
must be neither too ancient nor too modern, for the
latter is too well known to admit of fanciful changes
with probability, and the former not only lacks
interest but requires the introduction of strange
and alien manners and customs. The times of
Charlemagne and Arthur are accordingly best fitted
for heroic treatment. Finally, the events themselves
must possess nobility and grandeur. Hence
an epic should be a story derived from some event
in the history of Christian peoples, intrinsically
noble and illustrious, but not of so sacred a character
as to be fixed and immutable, and neither
contemporary nor very remote. By the selection
of such material the poem gains the authority of
history, the truth of religion, the license of fiction,
the proper atmosphere in point of time, and the
grandeur of the events themselves.[235]
Aristotle says that both epic and tragedy deal
with illustrious actions. Tasso points out that if
the actions of tragedy and of epic poetry were both
-122-illustrious in the same way, they would both produce
the same results; but tragic actions move
horror and compassion, while epic actions as a rule
do not and need not arouse these emotions. The
tragic action consists in the unexpected change of
fortune, and in the grandeur of the events carrying
with them horror and pity; but the epic action is
founded upon undertakings of lofty martial virtue,
upon deeds of courtesy, piety, generosity, none of
which is proper to tragedy. Hence the characters
in epic poetry and in tragedy, though both of the
same regal and supreme rank, differ in that the
tragic hero is neither perfectly good nor entirely
bad, as Aristotle says, while the epic hero must
have the very height of virtue, such as Æneas, the
type of piety, Amadis, the type of loyalty, Achilles,
of martial virtue, and Ulysses, of prudence.
Having formulated these theories of heroic poetry
in his youth, Tasso set out to carry them into practice,
and his famous Gerusalemme Liberata was the
result. This poem, almost immediately after its
publication, started a violent controversy, which
raged for many years, and which may be regarded
as the legitimate outcome of the earlier dispute in
connection with the romanzi.[236] The Gerusalemme
was in fact the centre of critical activity during the
latter part of the century. Shortly after its publication,
Camillo Pellegrino published a dialogue, entitled
-123-Il Caraffa (1583), in which the Gerusalemme is
compared with the Orlando Furioso, much to the
advantage of the former. Pellegrino finds fault
with Ariosto on account of the lack of unity of his
poem, the immoral manners imitated, and various
imperfections of style and language; and in all of
these things, unity, morality, and style, he finds
Tasso's poem perfect. This was naturally the
signal for a heated and long-continued controversy.
The Accademia della Crusca had been founded at
Florence, in 1582, and it seems that the members of
the new society felt hurt at some sarcastic remarks
regarding Florence in one of Tasso's dialogues.
Accordingly, the head of the academy, Lionardo
Salviati, in a dialogue entitled L' Infarinato, wrote
an ardent defence of Ariosto; and an acrid and
undignified dispute between Tasso and Salviati
was begun.[237] Tasso answered the Accademia della
Crusca in his Apologia; and at the beginning of the
next century, Paolo Beni, the commentator on Aristotle's
Poetics, published his Comparazione di
Omero, Virgilio, e Torquato, in which Tasso is rated
above Homer, Virgil, and Ariosto, not only in
dignity, in beauty of style, and in unity of fable,
but in every other quality that may be said to constitute
perfection in poetry. Before dismissing
this whole matter, it should be pointed out that the
defenders of Aristotle had absolutely abandoned
the position of Giraldi and Pigna, that the romanzi
-124-constitute a genre by themselves, and are therefore
not subject to Aristotle's law of unity. The question
as Giraldi had stated it was this: Does every
poem need to have unity? The question as discussed
in the Tasso controversy had changed to
this form: What is unity? It was taken for
granted by both sides in the controversy that every
poem must have organic unity; and the authority
of Aristotle, in epic as in dramatic poetry, was
henceforth supreme. It was to the authority of
Aristotle that Tasso's opponents appealed; and
Salviati, merely for the purpose of undermining
Tasso's pretensions, wrote an extended commentary
on the Poetics, which still lies in Ms. at Florence,
and which has been made use of in the present
essay.[238]
top
CHAPTER V
-125-
THE GROWTH OF THE CLASSIC SPIRIT IN ITALIAN CRITICISM
The growth of classicism in Renaissance criticism
was due to three causes,—humanism, or the
imitation of the classics, Aristotelianism, or the
influence of Aristotle's Poetics, and rationalism, or
the authority of the reason, the result of the growth
of the modern spirit in the arts and sciences. These
three causes are at the bottom of Italian classicism,
as well as of French classicism during the seventeenth
century.
I. Humanism
The progress of humanism may be distinguished
by an arbitrary but more or less practical division
into four periods. The first period was characterized
by the discovery and accumulation of classical
literature, and the second period was given up to
the arrangement and translation of the works thus
discovered. The third period is marked by the
formation of academies, in which the classics were
studied and humanized, and which as a result produced
a special cult of learning. The fourth and
last period is marked by the decline of pure erudition,-126-
and the beginning of æsthetic and stylistic
scholarship.[239] The practical result of the revival of
learning and the progress of humanism was thus the
study and imitation of the classics. To this imitation
of classical literature all that humanism gave to
the modern world may be ultimately traced. The
problem before us, then, is this: What was the
result of this imitation of the classics, in so far as it
regards the literary criticism of the Renaissance?
In the first place, the imitation of the classics
resulted in the study and cult of external form.
Elegance, polish, clearness of design, became objects
of study for themselves; and as a result we
have the formation of æsthetic taste, and the growth
of a classic purism, to which many of the literary
tendencies of the Renaissance may be traced.[240]
Under Leo X. and throughout the first half of
the sixteenth century, the intricacies of style and
versification were carefully studied. Vida was the
first to lay down laws of imitative harmony;[241]
Bembo, and after him Dolce and others, studied
the poetic effect of different sounds, and the onomatopœic
value of the various vowels and consonants;[242]
Claudio Tolomei attempted to introduce
classical metres into the vernacular;[243] Trissino published
subtle and systematic researches in Tuscan
-127-language and versification.[244] Later, the rhetorical
treatises of Cavalcanti (1565), Lionardi (1554), and
Partenio (1560), and the more practical manuals of
Fanucci (1533), Equicola (1541), and Ruscelli (1559),
all testify to the tremendous impulse which the imitation
of the classics had given to the study of form
both in classical and vernacular literatures.
In Vida's Ars Poetica there are abundant evidences
of the rhetorical and especially the puristic
tendencies of modern classicism. The mechanical
conception of poetic expression, in which imagination,
sensibility, and passion are subjected to the
elaborate and intricate precepts of art, is everywhere
found in Vida's poem. Like Horace, Vida
insists on long preparation for the composition of
poetry, and warns the poet against the indulgence
of his first impulses. He suggests as a preparation
for the composition of poetry, that the poet should
prepare a list of phrases and images for use whenever
occasion may demand.[245] He impresses upon
the poet the necessity of euphemistic expressions
in introducing the subject of his poem; for example,
the name of Ulysses should not be mentioned,
but he should be referred to as one who
has seen many men and many cities, who has suffered
shipwreck on the return from Troy, and the
like.[246] In such mechanical precepts as these, the
rhetoric of seventeenth-century classicism is anticipated.
-128-Its restraint, its purity, its mechanical side,
are everywhere visible in Vida. A little later, in
Daniello, we find similar puristic tendencies. He
requires the severe separation of genres, decorum
and propriety of characterization, and the exclusion
of everything disagreeable from the stage. In Partenio's
Della Imitatione Poetica (1560), the poet is
expressly forbidden the employment of the ordinary
words in daily use,[247] and elegance of form is especially
demanded. Partenio regards form as of superior
importance to subject or idea; for those who hear
or read poetry care more for beauty of diction than
for character or even thought.[248]
It is on merely rhetorical grounds that Partenio
distinguishes excellent from mediocre poetry. The
good poet, unlike the bad one, is able to give splendor
and dignity to the most trivial idea by means
of adornments of diction and disposition. This
conception seems to have particularly appealed to
the Renaissance; and Tasso gives expression to a
similar notion when he calls it the poet's noblest
function "to make of old concepts new ones, to
make of vulgar concepts noble ones, and to make
common concepts his own."[249] In a higher and more
ideal sense, poetry, according to Shelley, "makes
familiar objects be as if they were not familiar."[250]
It is in keeping with this rhetorical ideal of
classicism that Scaliger makes electio et sui fastidium
the highest virtues of the poet.[251] All that is
-129-merely popular (plebeium) in thought and expression
is to be minutely avoided; for only that which
proceeds from solid erudition is proper to art. The
basis of artistic creation is imitation and judgment;
for every artist is at bottom somewhat of an echo.[252]
Grace, decorum, elegance, splendor are the chief
excellences of poetry and the life of all excellence
lies in measure, that is, moderation and proportion.
It is in the spirit of this classical purism that
Scaliger minutely distinguishes the various rhetorical
and grammatical figures, and carefully estimates
their proper place and function in poetry. His
analysis and systematization of the figures were
immediately accepted by the scholars and grammarians
of his time, and have played a large part in
French education ever since. Another consequence
of Scaliger's dogmatic teaching, the Latinization of
culture, can only be referred to here in passing.[253]
A second result of the imitation of the classics was
the paganization of Renaissance culture. Classic art
is at bottom pagan, and the Renaissance sacrificed
everything in order to appear classical.[254] Not only
did Christian literature seem contemptible when
compared with classic literature, but the mere
treatment of Christian themes offered numerous
difficulties in itself. Thus Muzio declares that the
ancient fables are the best poetic materials, since
they permit the introduction of the deities into
poetry, and a poem, being something divine, should
not dispense with the association of divinity.[255] To
-130-bring the God of Israel into poetry, to represent
him, as it were, in the flesh, discoursing and arguing
with men, was sacrilege; and to give the events
of poetic narrative divine authoritativeness, the
pagan deities became necessities of Renaissance
poetry. Savonarola, in the fifteenth century, and
the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth, reacted
against the paganization of literature, but in vain.
Despite the Council of Trent, despite Tasso and Du
Bartas, the pagan gods held sway over Parnassus
until the very end of the classical period; and in
the seventeenth century, as will be seen, Boileau
expressly discourages the treatment of Christian
themes, and insists that the ancient pagan fables
alone must form the basis of neo-classical art.
A third result of the imitation of the classics
was the development of applied, or concrete, criticism.
If the foundations of literature, if the formation
of style, can result only from a close and
judicious imitation of classical literature, this problem
confronts us: Which classical authors are we to
imitate? An answer to this question involves the
application of concrete criticism. A reason must
be given for one's preferences; in other words,
they must be justified on principle. The literary
controversies of the humanists, the disputes on the
subject of imitation, of Ciceronianism, and what
not, all tended in this direction. The judgment of
authors was dependent more or less on individual
impressions. But the longer these controversies
continued, the nearer was the approach to a literary
criticism, justified by appeals to general principles,-131-
which became more and more fixed and
determined; so that the growth of principles, or
criteria of judgment in matters of literature, is in
reality coterminous with the history of the growth
of classicism.[256]
But one of the most important consequences of
the imitation of the classics was that this imitation
became a dogma of criticism, and radically
changed the relations of art and nature in so far as
they touch letters and literary criticism. The
imitation of the classics became, in a word, the
basis of literary creation. Vida, for example, affirms
that the poet must imitate classical literature,
for only by such imitation is perfection attainable
in modern poetry. In fact, this notion is carried to
such an extreme that the highest originality becomes
for Vida merely the ingenious translation of
passages from the classic poets:—
"Haud minor est adeo virtus, si te audit Apollo,
Inventa Argivûm in patriam convertere vocem,
Quam si tute aliquid intactum inveneris ante."[257]
Muzio, echoing Horace, urges the poet to study
the classics by day and by night; and Scaliger, as
has been seen, makes all literary creation depend
ultimately on judicious imitation: "Nemo est qui
non aliquid de Echo." As a result, imitation gradually
acquired a specialized and almost esoteric
meaning, and became in this sense the starting-point
of all the educational theories of the later
-132-humanists. The doctrine of imitation set forth by
John Sturm, the Strasburg humanist, was particularly
influential.[258] According to Sturm, imitation is
not the servile copying of words and phrases; it is "a
vehement and artistic application of mind," which
judiciously uses and transfigures all that it imitates.
Sturm's theory of imitation is not entirely original,
but comes through Agricola and Melanchthon from
Quintilian.[259] Quintilian had said that the greater
part of art consists in imitation; but for the humanists
imitation became the chief and almost the
only element of literary creation, since the literature
of their own time seemed so vastly inferior to
that of the ancients.
The imitation of the classics having thus become
essential to literary creation, what was to be its relation
to the imitation of nature? The ancient
poets seemed to insist that every writer is at bottom
an imitator of nature, and that he who does not
imitate nature diverges from the purpose and principle
of art. A lesson coming from a source so
authoritative as this could not be left unheeded by
the writers of the Renaissance, and the evolution of
classicism may be distinguished by the changing
point of view of the critics in regard to the relations
between nature and art. This evolution may be
traced in the neo-classical period through three distinct
stages, and these three stages may be indicated
by the doctrines respectively of Vida, Scaliger, and
Boileau.
-133-
Vida says that it is the first essential of literary
art to imitate the classics. This, however, does not
prevent him from warning the poet that it is his
first duty to observe and copy nature:—
"Præterea haud lateat te, nil conarier artem,
Naturam nisi ut assimulet, propiusque sequatur."
For Vida, however, as for the later classicists, nature
is synonymous with civilized men, perhaps even
further restricted to the men of the city and the
court; and the study of nature was hardly more for
him than close observation of the differences of
human character, more especially of the external
differences which result from diversity of age,
rank, sex, race, profession, and which may be
designated by the term decorum.[260] The imitation
of nature even in this restricted sense Vida
requires on the authority of the ancients. The
modern poet should imitate nature because the
great classical poets have always acknowledged her
sway:—
"Hanc unam vates sibi proposuere magistram."
Nature has no particular interest for Vida in itself.
He accepts the classics as we accept the Scriptures;
and nature is to be imitated and followed because
the ancients seem to require it.
In Scaliger this principle is carried one stage
farther. The poet creates another nature and other
fortunes as if he were another God.[261] Virgil especially
has created another nature of such beauty
and perfection that the poet need not concern himself
-134-with the realities of life, but can go to the
second nature created by Virgil for the subject-matter
of his imitation. "All the things which
you have to imitate, you have according to another
nature, that is, Virgil."[262] In Virgil, as in nature,
there are the most minute details of the foundation
and government of cities, the management of armies,
the building and handling of ships, and in fact all
the secrets of the arts and sciences. What more
can the poet desire, and indeed what more can he
find in life, and find there with the same certainty
and accuracy? Virgil has created a nature far
more perfect than that of reality, and one compared
with which the actual world and life itself seem
but pale and without beauty. What Scaliger
stands for, then, is the substitution of the world of
art instead of life as the object of poetic imitation.
This point of view finds expression in many of the
theorists of his time. Partenio, for example, asserts
that art is a firmer and safer guide than nature;
with nature we can err, but scarcely with art, for
art eradicates from nature all that is bad, while
nature mingles weeds with flowers, and does not
distinguish vices from virtues.[263]
Boileau carries the neo-classical ideal of nature
and art to its ultimate perfection. According to
him, nothing is beautiful that is not true, and nothing
is true that is not in nature. Truth, for classicism,
is the final test of everything, including beauty;
and hence to be beautiful poetry must be founded
on nature. Nature should therefore be the poet's
-135-sole study, although for Boileau, as for Vida, nature
is one with the court and the city. Now, in what
way can we discover exactly how to imitate nature,
and perceive whether or not we have imitated it
correctly? Boileau finds the guide to the correct
imitation of nature, and the very test of its correctness,
in the imitation of the classics. The ancients
are great, not because they are old, but because
they are true, because they knew how to see and
to imitate nature; and to imitate antiquity is therefore
to use the best means the human spirit has
ever found for expressing nature in its perfection.[264]
The advance of Boileau's theory on that of Vida
and Scaliger is therefore that he founded the
rules and literary practice of classical literature on
reason and nature, and showed that there is nothing
arbitrary in the authority of the ancients. For
Vida, nature is to be followed on the authority
of the classics; for Boileau, the classics are to
be followed on the authority of nature and reason.
Scaliger had shown that such a poet as Virgil
had created another nature more perfect than that
of reality, and that therefore we should imitate
this more beautiful nature of the poet. Boileau, on
the contrary, showed that the ancients were simply
imitating nature itself in the closest and keenest
manner, and that by imitating the classics the poet
was not imitating a second and different nature, but
was being shown in the surest way how to imitate
the real and only nature. This final reconciliation
-136-of the imitation of nature and the imitation of the
classics was Boileau's highest contribution to the
literary criticism of the neo-classical period.
II. Aristotelianism
The influence of Aristotle's Poetics is first visible
in the dramatic literature of the early sixteenth
century. Trissino's Sofonisba (1515), usually accounted
the first regular modern tragedy, Rucellai's
Rosmunda (1516), and innumerable other tragedies
of this period, were in reality little more than mere
attempts at putting the Aristotelian theory of tragedy
into practice. The Aristotelian influence is
evident in many of the prefaces of these plays, and
in a few contemporary works of scholarship, such
as the Antiquæ Lectiones (1516) of Cælius Rhodiginus,
whom Scaliger called omnium doctissimus
præceptor noster. At the same time, the Poetics
did not immediately play an important part in the
critical literature of Italy. From the time of Petrarch,
Aristotle, identified in the minds of the
humanists with the mediæval scholasticism so obnoxious
to them, had lost somewhat of his supremacy;
and the strong Platonic tendencies of the
Renaissance had further contributed to lower the
prestige of Aristotelianism among the humanists.
At no time of the Renaissance, however, did Aristotle
lack ardent defenders, and Filelfo, for example,
wrote in 1439, "To defend Aristotle and the
truth seems to me one and the same thing."[265] In
the domain of philosophy the influence of Aristotle
-137-was temporarily sustained by the liberal Peripateticism
of Pomponazzi; and numerous others, among
them Scaliger himself, continued the traditions of a
modernized Aristotelianism. From this time, however,
Aristotle's position as the supreme philosopher
was challenged more and more; and he was
regarded by the advanced thinkers of the Renaissance
as the representative of the mediæval obscurantism
that opposed the progress of modern scientific
investigation.
But whatever of Aristotle's authority was lost in
the domain of philosophy was more than regained
in the domain of literature. The beginning of
the Aristotelian influence on modern literary
theory may be said to date from the year 1536,
in which year Trincaveli published a Greek text
of the Poetics, Pazzi his edition and Latin version,
and Daniello his own Poetica. Pazzi's son,
in dedicating his father's posthumous work, said
that in the Poetics "the precepts of poetic art
are treated by Aristotle as divinely as he has
treated every other form of knowledge." In the
very year that this was said, Ramus gained his
Master's degree at the University of Paris by defending
victoriously the thesis that Aristotle's doctrines
without exception are all false.[266] The year
1536 may therefore be regarded as a turning-point
in the history of Aristotle's influence. It marks the
beginning of his supremacy in literature, and the
decline of his dictatorial authority in philosophy.
-138-
Between the year 1536 and the middle of the
century the lessons of Aristotle's Poetics were being
gradually learned by the Italian critics and
poets. By 1550 the whole of the Poetics had been
incorporated in the critical literature of Italy, and
Fracastoro could say that "Aristotle has received no
less fame from the survival of his Poetics than from
his philosophical remains."[267] According to Bartolommeo
Ricci, in a letter to Prince Alfonso, son of
Hercules II., Duke of Ferrara, Maggi was the first
person to interpret Aristotle's Poetics in public.[268]
These lectures were delivered some time before
April, 1549. As early as 1540, Bartolommeo Lombardi,
the collaborator of Maggi in his commentary
on the Poetics, had intended to deliver public lectures
on the Poetics before a Paduan academy, but
died before accomplishing his purpose.[269] Numerous
public readings on the subject of Aristotle and
Horace followed those of Maggi,—among them
those by Varchi, Giraldi Cintio, Luisino, and Trifone
Gabrielli; and the number of public readings
on topics connected with literary criticism, and
on the poetry of Dante and Petrarch, increased
greatly from this time.
The number of commentaries on the Poetics itself,
published during the sixteenth century, is
really remarkable. The value of these commentaries
in general is not so much that they add anything
to the literary criticism of the Renaissance,
but that their explanations of Aristotle's meaning
-139-were accepted by contemporary critics, and became
in a way the source of all the literary arguments of
the sixteenth century. Nor was their influence
restricted merely to this particular period. They
were, one might almost say, living things to the
critics and poets of the classical period in France.
Racine, Corneille, and other distinguished writers
possessed copies of these commentaries, studied
them carefully, cited them in their prefaces and
critical writings, and even annotated their own
copies of the commentaries with marginal notes, of
which some may be seen in the modern editions of
their works. In the preface to Rapin's Réflexions
sur l'Art Poétique (1674) there is a history of literary
criticism, which is almost entirely devoted to
these Italian commentators; and writers like Chapelain
and Balzac eagerly argued and discussed their
relative merits.
Several of these Italian commentators have been
alluded to already.[270] The first critical edition of the
Poetics was that of Robortelli (1548), and this was
followed by those of Maggi (1550) and Vettori
(1560), both written in Latin, and both exhibiting
great learning and acumen. The first translation
of the Poetics into the vernacular was that by Segni
(1549), and this was followed by the Italian commentaries
of Castelvetro (1570) and Piccolomini
(1575). Tasso, after comparing the works of these
two commentators, concluded that while Castelvetro
-140-had greater erudition and invention, Piccolomini had
greater maturity of judgment, more learning, perhaps,
with less erudition, and certainly learning more Aristotelian
and more suited to the interpretation of the
Poetics.[271] The two last sections of Trissino's Poetica,
published in 1563, are little more than a paraphrase
and transposition of Aristotle's treatise. But the
curious excesses into which admiration of Aristotle
led the Italian scholars may be gathered from a
work published at Milan in 1576, an edition of the
Poetics expounded in verse, Baldini's Ars Poetica
Aristotelis versibus exposita. The Poetics was also
adapted for use as a practical manual for poets and
playwrights in such works as Riccoboni's brief Compendium
Artis Poeticæ Aristotelis ad usum conficiendorum
poematum (1591). The last of the great
Italian commentaries on the Poetics to have a general
European influence was perhaps Beni's, published
in 1613; but this carries us beyond the
confines of the century. Besides the published
editions, translations, and commentaries, many
others were written which may still be found in
Ms. in the libraries of Italy. Reference has
already been made to Salviati's (1586). There are
also two anonymous commentaries dating from this
period in Ms. at Florence,—one in the Magliabechiana
and the other in the Riccardiana. The
last work which may be mentioned here is Buonamici's
Discorsi Poetici in difesa d' Aristotele, in
which Aristotle is ardently defended against the
attacks of his detractors.
-141-
It was in Italy during this period that the literary
dictatorship of Aristotle first developed, and it was
Scaliger to whom the modern world owes the formulation
of the supreme authority of Aristotle as a
critical theorist. Fracastoro had likened the importance
of Aristotle's Poetics to that of his philosophical
treatises. Trissino had followed Aristotle
verbally and almost literally. Varchi had spoken of
years of Aristotelian study as an essential prerequisite
for every one who entered the field of literary
criticism. Partenio, a year before the publication
of Scaliger's Poetics, had asserted that everything
relating to tragedy and epic poetry had been settled
by Aristotle and Horace. But Scaliger went farther
still. He was the first to regard Aristotle as the
perpetual lawgiver of poetry. He was the first to
assume that the duty of the poet is first to find out
what Aristotle says, and then to obey these precepts
without question. He distinctly calls Aristotle the
perpetual dictator of all the arts: "Aristoteles imperator
noster, omnium bonarum artium dictator
perpetuus."[272] This is perhaps the first occasion in
modern literature in which Aristotle is definitely
regarded as a literary dictator, and the dictatorship
of Aristotle in literature may, therefore, be dated
from the year 1561.
But Scaliger did more than this. He was the
first apparently to attempt to reconcile Aristotle's
Poetics, not only with the precepts of Horace and
the definitions of the Latin grammarians, but with
the whole practice of Latin tragedy, comedy, and
-142-epic poetry. It was in the light of this reconciliation,
or concord of Aristotelianism with the
Latin spirit, that Aristotle became for Scaliger
a literary dictator. It was not Aristotle that primarily
interested him, but an ideal created by himself,
and founded on such parts of the doctrine of
Aristotle as received confirmation from the theory
or practice of Roman literature; and this new ideal,
harmonizing with the Latin spirit of the Renaissance,
became in the course of time one of the foundations
of classicism. The influence of Aristotelianism
was further augmented by the Council of Trent,
which gave to Aristotle's doctrine the same degree
of authority as Catholic dogma.
All these circumstances tended to favor the
importance of Aristotle in Italy during the sixteenth
century, and as a result the literary dictatorship
of Aristotle was by the Italians foisted on
Europe for two centuries to come. From 1560 to
1780 Aristotle was regarded as the supreme authority
in letters throughout Europe. At no time, even
in England, during and after that period, was there
a break in the Aristotelian tradition, and the influence
of the Poetics may be found in Sidney and Ben
Jonson, in Milton and Dryden, as well as in Shelley
and Coleridge. Lessing, even in breaking away
from the classical practice of the French stage, defended
his innovations on the authority of Aristotle,
and said of the Poetics, "I do not hesitate to
acknowledge, even if I should therefore be held up
to scorn in these enlightened times, that I consider
the work as infallible as the Elements of-143-
Euclid."[273] In 1756, a dozen years before Lessing, one
of the precursors of the romantic movement in England,
Joseph Warton, had also said of the Poetics,
"To attempt to understand poetry without having
diligently digested this treatise would be as absurd
and impossible as to pretend to a skill in geometry
without having studied Euclid."[274]
One of the first results of the dictatorship of
Aristotle was to give modern literature a body of
inviolable rules for the drama and the epic; that
is, the dramatic and heroic poets were restricted to
a certain fixed form, and to certain fixed characters.
Classical poetry was of course the ideal of the
Renaissance, and Aristotle had analyzed the
methods which these works had employed. The
inference seems to have been that by following
these rules a literature of equal importance could
be created. These formulæ were at the bottom of
classical literature, and rules which had created
such literatures as those of Greece and Rome could
hardly be disregarded. As a result, these rules
came to be considered more and more as essentials,
and finally, almost as the very tests of literature;
and it was in consequence of their acceptance
as poetic laws that the modern classical drama
and epic arose. The first modern tragedies and
the first modern epics were hardly more than
such attempts at putting the Aristotelian rules
into practice. The cult of form during the Renaissance
had produced a reaction against the
-144-formlessness and invertebrate character of mediæval
literature. The literature of the Middle Ages was
infinitely inferior to that of the ancients; mediæval
literature lacked form and structure, classical literature
had a regular and definite form. Form then
came to be regarded as the essential difference between
the perfect literatures of Greece and Rome,
and the imperfect and vulgar literature of the
Middle Ages; and the deduction from this was that,
to be classical, the poet must observe the form and
structure of the classics. Minturno indeed says
that "the precepts given of old by the ancient
masters, and now repeated by me here, are to be
regarded merely as common usage, and not as inviolable
laws which must serve under all circumstances."[275]
But this was not the general conception
of the Renaissance. Muzio, for example, specifically
says:—
"Queste legge ch' io scrivo e questi esempi
Sian, lettore, al tuo dir perpetua norma;"
and in another place he speaks of a precept he has
given, as "vera, ferma, e inevitabil legge."[276] Scaliger
goes still further than this; for, according to
him, even the classics themselves are to be judged
by these standards and rules. "It seems to me,"
says Scaliger, "that we ought not to refer everything
back to Homer, just as though he were the
norm, but Homer himself should be referred to the
norm."[277] In the modern classical period somewhat
-145-later, these rules were found to be based on
reason:—
"These rules of old, discovered not devised,
Are nature still, but nature methodized."[278]
But during the Renaissance they were accepted ex
cathedra from classical literature.
The formulation of a fixed body of critical
rules was not the only result of the Aristotelian
influence. One of the most important of these
results, as has appeared, was the rational justification
of imaginative literature. With the introduction
of Aristotle's Poetics into modern Europe the
Renaissance was first able to formulate a systematic
theory of poetry; and it is therefore to the rediscovery
of the Poetics that we may be said to owe
the foundation of modern criticism. It was on the
side of Aristotelianism that Italian criticism had
its influence on European letters; and that this
influence was deep and widespread, our study of
the critical literatures of France and England will
in part show. The critics with whom we have been
dealing are not merely dead provincial names;
they influenced, for two whole centuries, not only
France and England, but Spain, Portugal, and
Germany as well.
Literary criticism, in any real sense, did not begin
in Spain until the very end of the sixteenth
century, and the critical works that then appeared
were wholly based on those of the Italians. Rengifo's
Arte Poética Española (1592), in so far as it
-146-deals with the theory of poetry, is based on Aristotle,
Scaliger, and various Italian authorities,
according to the author's own acknowledgment.
Pinciano's Philosophia Antigua Poética (1596) is
based on the same authorities. Similarly, Cascales,
in his Tablas Poéticas (1616), gives as his authorities
Minturno, Giraldi Cintio, Maggi, Riccoboni,
Castelvetro, Robortelli, and his own countryman
Pinciano. The sources of these and all other works
written at this period are Italian; and the following
passage from the Egemplar Poético, written
about 1606 by the Spanish poet Juan de la Cueva,
is a good illustration, not only of the general influence
of the Italians on Spanish criticism, but of the
high reverence in which the individual Italian
critics were held by Spanish men of letters:—
"De los primeros tiene Horacio el puesto,
En numeros y estilo soberano,
Qual en su Arte al mundo es manifesto.
Escaligero [i.e. Scaliger] hace el paso llano
Con general enseñamiento y guia,
Lo mismo el docto Cintio [i.e. Giraldi Cintio] y Biperano.[279]
Maranta[280] es egemplar de la Poesia,
Vida el norte, Pontano[281] el ornamento,
La luz Minturno qual el sol del dia....
Acuden todos a colmar sus vasos
-147-Al oceano sacro de Stagira [i.e. Aristotle],
Donde se afirman los dudosos pasos,
Se eterniza la trompa y tierna lira."[282]
The influence of the Italians was equally great
in Germany. From Fabricius to Opitz, the critical
ideas of Germany were almost all borrowed,
directly or indirectly, from Italian sources. Fabricius
in his De Re Poetica (1584) acknowledges his
indebtedness to Minturno, Partenio, Pontanus, and
others, but above all to Scaliger; and most of the
critical ideas by which Opitz renovated modern German
literature go back to Italian sources, through
Scaliger, Ronsard, and Daniel Heinsius. No better
illustration of the influence of the Italian critics
upon European letters could be afforded than that
given by Opitz's Buch von der deutschen Poeterei.[283]
The influence of Italian criticism on the critical
literature of France and England will be more or
less treated in the remaining portions of this essay.
It may be noted here, however, that in the critical
writings of Lessing there is represented the climax
of the Italian tradition in European letters, especially
on the side of Aristotelianism. Shelley represents
a similar culmination of the Italian tradition
in England. His indebtedness to Sidney and Milton,
-148-who represent the Italian influence in the
Elizabethan age, and especially to Tasso, whom he
continually cites, is very marked. The debt of
modern literature to Italian criticism is therefore
not slight. In the half century between Vida and
Castelvetro, Italian criticism formulated three
things: a theory of poetry, a rigid form for the
epic, and a rigid form for the drama. These rigid
forms for drama and epic governed the creative
imagination of Europe for two centuries, and
then passed away. But while modern æsthetics
for over a century has studied the processes of
art, the theory of poetry, as enunciated by the
Italians of the sixteenth century, has not diminished
in value, but has continued to pervade the
finer minds of men from that time to this.
III. Rationalism
The rationalistic temper may be observed in
critical literature almost at the very beginning of
the sixteenth century. This spirit of rationalism
is observable throughout the Renaissance; and its
general causes may be looked for in the liberation
of the human reason by the Renaissance, in the
growth of the sciences and arts, and in the reaction
against mediæval sacerdotalism and dogma.
The causes of its development in literary criticism
may be found not only in these but in several other
influences of the period. The paganization of culture,
the growth of rationalistic philosophies, with
their all-pervading influence on arts and letters, and-149-
moreover the influence of Horace's Ars Poetica,
with its ideal of "good sense," all tended to make
the element of reason predominate in literature and
in literary criticism.
In Vida the three elements which are at the
bottom of classicism, the imitation of the classics,
the imitation of nature, and the authority of reason,
may all be found. Reason is for him the final test
of all things:—
"Semper nutu rationis eant res."[284] The function of the reason in art is, first, to serve
as a standard in the choice and carrying out of the
design, a bulwark against the operation of mere
chance,[285] and secondly, to moderate the expression
of the poet's own personality and passion, a bulwark
against the morbid subjectivity which is the
horror of the classical temperament.[286]
It has been said of Scaliger that he was the first
modern to establish in a body of doctrine the
principal consequences of the sovereignty of the
reason in literature.[287] That was hardly his aim, and
certainly not his attainment. But he was, at all
events, one of the first modern critics to affirm that
there is a standard of perfection for each specific
form of literature, to show that this standard may
be arrived at a priori through the reason, and to
attempt a formulation of such standard for each
literary form. "Est in omni rerum genere unum
-150-primum ac rectum ad cuius tum norman, tum rationem
cætera dirigenda sunt."[288] This, the fundamental
assumption of Scaliger's Poetics, is also one
of the basic ideas of classicism. Not only is there
a standard, a norm, in every species of literature,
but this norm can be definitely formulated and defined
by means of the reason; and it is the duty of
the critic to formulate this norm, and the duty of
the poet to study and follow it without deviating
from the norm in any way. Even Homer, as we
have seen, is to be judged according to this standard
arrived at through the reason. Such a method
cuts off all possibility of novelty of form or expression,
and holds every poet, ancient or modern, great
or small, accountable to one and the same standard
of perfection.
The growth and influence of rationalism in Italian
criticism may be best observed by the gradual
effect which its development had on the element
of Aristotelianism. In other words, rationalism
changed the point of view according to which the
Aristotelian canons were regarded in the Italian
Renaissance. The earlier Italian critics accepted
their rules and precepts on the authority of Aristotle
alone. Thus Trissino, at the beginning of the
fifth section of his Poetica, finished in 1549, although
begun about twenty years before, says, "I
shall not depart from the rules and precepts of the
ancients, and especially Aristotle."[289] Somewhat
later, in 1553, Varchi says, "Reason and Aristotle
are my two guides."[290] Here the element of the
-151-reason first asserts itself, but there is no intimation
that the Aristotelian canons are in themselves
reasonable. The critic has two guides, the individual
reason and the Aristotelian rules, and each of
these two guides is to serve wherever the other is
found wanting. This same point of view is found
a decade later in Tasso, who says that the defenders
of the unity of the epic poem have made "a shield
of the authority of Aristotle, nor do they lack the
arms afforded by the reason;"[291] and similarly, in
1583, Sir Philip Sidney says that the unity of time
is demanded "both by Aristotle's precept and
common reason."[292] Here both Tasso and Sidney,
while contending that the particular law under discussion
is in itself reasonable, speak of Aristotle's
Poetics and the reason as separate and distinct
authorities, and fail to show that Aristotle himself
based all his precepts upon the reason. In Denores,
a few years later, the development is carried one
stage farther in the direction of the ultimate classical
attitude, as when he speaks of "reason and
Aristotle's Poetics, which is indeed founded on
naught save reason."[293] This is as far as Italian
criticism ever went. It was the function of neo-classicism
in France, as will be seen, to show that
such a phrase as "reason and Aristotle" is a contradiction
in itself, that the Aristotelian canons
and the reason are ultimately reducible to the same
thing, and that not only what is in Aristotle will
-152-be found reasonable, but all that reason dictates for
literary observance will be found in Aristotle.
Rationalism produced several very important results
in literature and literary criticism during the
sixteenth century. In the first place, it tended to
give the reason a higher place in literature than imagination
or sensibility. Poetry, it will be remembered,
was often classified by Renaissance critics
as one of the logical sciences; and nothing could
be in greater accord with the neo-classical ideal
than the assertion of Varchi and others that the
better logician the poet is, the better he will be as
a poet. Sainte-Beuve gives Scaliger the credit of
having first formulated this theory of literature
which subordinates the creative imagination and
poetic sensibility to the reason;[294] but the credit or
discredit of originating it does not belong exclusively
to Scaliger. This tendency toward the apotheosis
of the reason was diffused throughout the
sixteenth century, and does not characterize any individual
author. The Italian critics of this period
were the first to formulate the classical ideal that
the standard of perfection may be conceived of by
the reason, and that perfection is to be attained
only by the realization of this standard.
The rationalistic spirit also tended to set the seal
of disapprobation on extravagances of any sort.
Subjectivity and individualism came to be regarded
more and more, at least in theory, as out of keeping
with classical perfection. Clearness, reasonableness,
sociableness, were the highest requirements
-153-of art; and any excessive expression of the poet's
individuality was entirely disapproved of. Man,
not only as a reasonable being, but also as a social
being, was regarded as the basis of literature.
Boileau's lines:—
"Que les vers ne soient pas votre éternel emploi;
Cultivez vos amis, soyez homme de foi;
C'est peu d'être agréable et charmant dans un livre,
Il faut savoir encore et converser et vivre,"[295]
were anticipated in Berni's Dialogo contra i Poeti,
written in 1526, though not published until 1537.
This charming invective is directed against the
fashionable literature of the time, and especially
against all professional poets. Writing from the
standpoint of a polished and rationalistic society,
Berni lays great stress on the fact that poetry is
not to be taken too seriously, that it is a pastime,
a recreation for cultured people, a mere bagatelle;
and he professes to despise those who spend all
their time in writing verses. The vanity, the uselessness,
the extravagances, and the ribaldry of the
professional poets receive his hearty contempt;
only those who write verses for pastime merit approbation.
"Are you so stupid," he cries, "as to
think that I call any one who writes verses a
poet, and that I regard such men as Vida, Pontano,
Bembo, Sannazaro, as mere poets? I do
not call any one a poet, and condemn him as
such, unless he does nothing but write verses, and
wretched ones at that, and is good for nothing
else. But the men I have mentioned are not
-154-poets by profession."[296] Here the sentiments expressed
are those of a refined and social age,—the
age of Louis XIV. no less than that of Leo X.
The irreligious character of neo-classic art may
also be regarded as one of the consequences of this
rationalistic temper. The combined effect of humanism,
essentially pagan, and rationalism, essentially
sceptical, was not favorable to the growth
of religious feeling in literature. Classicism, the
result of these two tendencies, became more and
more rationalistic, more and more pagan; and in
consequence, religious poetry in any real sense
ceased to flourish wherever the more stringent forms
of classicism prevailed. In Boileau these tendencies
result in a certain distinct antagonism to the
very forms of Christianity in literature:—
"C'est donc bien vainement que nos auteurs déçus,
Bannissant de leurs vers ces ornemens reçus,
Pensent faire agir Dieu, ses saints et ses prophètes,
Comme ces dieux éclos du cerveau des poëtes;
Mettent à chaque pas le lecteur en enfer;
N'offrent rien qu'Astaroth, Belzébuth, Lucifer.
De la foi d'un chrétien les mystères terribles
D'ornemens égayés ne sont point susceptibles;
L'Évangile à l'esprit n'offre de tous côtés
Que pénitence à faire et tourmens mérités;
Et de vos fictions le mélange coupable
Même à ses vérités donne l'air de la fable."[297]
top
CHAPTER VI
-155-
ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN ITALIAN CRITICISM
In the Italian critical literature of the sixteenth
century there are to be found the germs of romantic
as well as classical criticism. The development
of romanticism in Renaissance criticism is
due to various tendencies, of ancient, of mediæval,
and of modern origin. The ancient element is
Platonism; the mediæval elements are Christianity,
and the influence of the literary forms and
the literary subject-matter of the Middle Ages;
and the modern elements are the growth of national
life and national literatures, and the opposition
of modern philosophy to Aristotelianism.
I. The Ancient Romantic Element
As the element of reason is the predominant
feature of neo-classicism, so the element of imagination
is the predominant feature of romanticism;
and according as the reason or the imagination
predominates in Renaissance literature,
there results neo-classicism or romanticism, while
the most perfect art finds a reconciliation of both
elements in the imaginative reason. According-156-
to the faculty of reason, when made the basis of
literature, the poet is, as it were, held down to
earth, and art becomes the mere reasoned expression
of the truth of life. By the faculty of imagination,
the poet is made to create a new world
of his own,—a world in which his genius is free
to mould whatever its imagination takes hold of.
This romantic doctrine of the freedom of genius,
of inspiration and the power of imagination, in
so far as it forms a part of Renaissance criticism,
owes its origin to Platonism. The influence of
the Platonic doctrines among the humanists has
already been alluded to. Plato was regarded by
them as their leader in the struggle against mediævalism,
scholasticism, and Aristotelianism. The
Aristotelian dialectic of the Middle Ages appealed
exclusively to the reason; Platonism gave opportunities
for the imagination to soar to vague and
sublime heights, and harmonize with the divine
mysteries of the universe. As regards poetry and
imaginative literature in general, the critics of the
Renaissance appealed from the Plato of the Republic
and the Laws to the Plato of the Ion, the
Phædrus, and the Symposium. Beauty being the
subject-matter of art, Plato's praise of beauty was
transferred by the Renaissance to poetry, and his
praise of the philosopher was transferred to the
poet.
The Aristotelian doctrine defines beauty according
to its relations to the external world; that is,
poetry is an imitation of nature, expressed in general
terms. The Platonic doctrine, on the contrary,-157-
is concerned with poetry, or beauty, in so
far as it concerns the poet's own nature; that is,
the poet is divinely inspired and is a creator like
God. Fracastoro, as has been seen, makes the Platonic
rapture, the delight in the true and essential
beauty of things, the true tests of poetic power.
In introducing this Platonic ideal of poetic beauty
into modern literary criticism, he defines and distinguishes
poetry according to a subjective criterion;
and it is according to whether the objective
or the subjective conception of art is insisted upon,
that we have the classic spirit or the romantic
spirit. The extreme romanticists, like the Schlegels
and their contemporaries in Germany, entirely
eliminate the relation of poetry to the external
world, and in this extreme form romanticism becomes
identified with the exaggerated subjective
idealism of Fichte and Schelling. The extreme
classicists entirely eliminate the poet's personality;
that is, poetry is merely reasoned expression, a
perfected expression of what all men can see in
nature, for the poet has no more insight into life—no
more imagination—than any ordinary, judicious
person.
The effects of this Platonic element upon Renaissance
criticism were various. In the first place, it
was through the Platonic influence that the relation
of beauty to poetry was first made prominent.[298] According
to Scaliger, Tasso, Sidney, another world of
beauty is created by the poet,—a world that
possesses beauty in its perfection as this world
-158-never can. The reason alone leaves no place for
beauty; and accordingly, for the neo-classicists, art
was ultimately restricted to moral and psychological
observation. Moreover, Platonism raised the
question of the freedom of genius and of the imagination.
Of all men, only the poet, as Sidney and
others pointed out, is bound down and restricted by
no laws. But if poetry is a matter of inspiration,
how can it be called an art? If genius alone suffices,
what need is there of study and artifice?
For the extreme romanticists of this period, genius
alone was accounted sufficient to produce the greatest
works of poetry; for the extreme classicists,
studious and labored art unaided by genius fulfilled
all the functions of poetic creation; but most of
the critics of the sixteenth century seem to have
agreed with Horace that genius, or an inborn aptitude,
is necessary to begin with, but that it needs
art and study to regulate and perfect it. Genius
cannot suffice without restraint and cultivation.
Scaliger, curiously, reconciles both classic and
romantic elements. The poet, according to Scaliger,
is inspired, is in fact a creator like God; but poetry
is an imitation (that is, re-creation) of nature, according
to certain fixed rules obtained from the
observation of the anterior expression of nature in
great art. It is these rules that make poetry an
art; and these rules form a distinct neo-classic element
imposed on the Aristotelian doctrine.-159-
II. Mediæval Elements
The Middle Ages contributed to the poetic
ideal of the Renaissance two elements: romantic
themes and the Christian spirit. The forms and
subjects of mediæval literature are distinctly romantic.
Dante's Divine Comedy is an allegorical
vision; it is almost unique in form, and has no
classical prototype.[299] The tendency of Petrarchism
was also in the direction of romanticism. Its
"conceits" and its subjectivity led to an unclassical
extravagance of thought and expression; and the
Petrarchistic influence made lyric poetry, and accordingly
the criticism of lyric poetry, more romantic
than any other form of literature or literary
criticism during the period of classicism. It was
for this reason that there was little lyricism in the
classical period, not only in France, but wherever
the classic temper predominated. The themes of
the romanzi are also mediæval and romantic; but
while they are mediæval contributions to literature,[300]
they became contributions to literary criticism
only after the growth of national life and the development
of the feeling of nationality, both distinctly
modern.
Some reference has already been made to the
paganization of culture by the humanists. But
with the growth of that revival of Christian sentiment
which led to the Reformation, there were
numerous attempts to reconcile Christianity with
-160-pagan culture.[301] Such men as Ficino and Pico della
Mirandola attempted to harmonize Christianity and
Platonic philosophy; and under the great patron of
letters, Pope Leo X., there were various attempts
to harmonize Christianity with the classic spirit in
literature. In such poems as Vida's Christiad and
Sannazaro's De Partu Virginis, Christianity is covered
with the drapery of paganism or classicism.
The first reaction against this paganization of culture
was, as has been seen, effected by Savonarola.
This reaction was reënforced, in the next century,
by the influence and authority of the Council of
Trent; and after the middle of the sixteenth century
the Christian ideal plays a prominent part
in literary criticism. The spirit of both Giraldi
Cintio and Minturno is distinctly Christian. For
Giraldi the romanzi are Christian, and hence superior
to the classical epics. He allows the introduction
of pagan deities only into epics dealing with
the ancient classical subjects; but Tasso goes
further, and says that no modern heroic poet should
have anything to do with them. According to
Tasso, the heroes of an heroic poem must be Christian
knights, and the poem itself must deal with a
true, not a false, religion. The subject is not to be
connected with any article of Christian faith or
dogma, because that was fixed by the Council of
Trent; but paganism in any form is altogether unfit
for a modern epic. Tasso even goes so far as to
assert that piety shall be numbered among the
virtues of the knightly heroes of epic poetry.
-161-At the same time also, Lorenzo Gambara wrote his
work, De Perfecta Poeseos Ratione, to prove that it
is essential for every poet to exclude from his
poems, not only everything that is wicked or obscene,
but also everything that is fabulous or that
deals with pagan divinities.[302] It was to this religious
reaction that we owe the Christian poetry of
Tasso, Du Bartas, and Spenser. But humanism
was strong, and rationalism was rife; and the religious
revival was hardly more than temporary.
Neo-classicism throughout Europe was essentially
pagan.
III. Modern Elements
The literature of the Middle Ages constitutes, as
it were, one vast body of European literature; only
with the Renaissance did distinctly national literatures
spring into existence. Nationalism as well as
individualism was subsequent to the Renaissance;
and it was at this period that the growth of a
national literature, of national life,—in a word,
patriotism in its widest sense,—was first effected.
The linguistic discussions and controversies of
the sixteenth century prepared the way for a higher
appreciation of national languages and literatures.
These controversies on the comparative merits of
the classical and vernacular tongues had begun in
the time of Dante, and were continued in the sixteenth
century by Bembo, Castiglione, Varchi, Muzio,
Tolomei, and many others; and in 1564 Salviati
summed up the Italian side of the question in an
-162-oration in which he asserted that the Tuscan, or, as
he called it, the Florentine language and the Florentine
literature are vastly superior to any other
language or literature, whether ancient or modern.
However extravagant this claim may appear, the
mere fact that Salviati made such a claim at all is
enough to give him a place worthy of serious consideration
in the history of Italian literature. The
other side of the controversy finds its extremest
expression in a treatise of Celio Calcagnini addressed
to Giraldi Cintio, in which the hope is
expressed that the Italian language, and all the
literature composed in that language, would be
absolutely abandoned by the world.[303]
In Giraldi Cintio we find the first traces of purely
national criticism. His purpose, in writing the
discourse on the romanzi, was primarily to defend
Ariosto, whom he had known personally in his
youth. The point of view from which he starts is
that the romanzi constitute a new form of poetry
of which Aristotle did not know, and to which,
therefore, Aristotle's rules do not apply. Giraldi
regarded the romantic poems of Ariosto and Boiardo
both as national and as Christian works; and
Italian literature is thus for the first time critically
distinguished from classical literature in regard to
language, religion, and nationality. In Giraldi's
discourse there is no apparent desire either to underrate
or to disregard the Poetics of Aristotle; the
fact was simply that Aristotle had not known the
poems which deal with many actions of many men,
-163-and hence it would be absurd to demand that such
poems should conform to his rules. The romanzi
deal with phases of poetry, and phases of life,
which Aristotle could not be expected to understand.
A similar feeling of the distinct nationality of
Italian literature is to be found in many of the
prefaces of the Italian comedies of this period. Il
Lasca, in the preface of the Strega (c. 1555), says
that "Aristotle and Horace knew their own times,
but ours are not the same at all. We have other
manners, another religion, and another mode of
life; and it is therefore necessary to make comedies
after a different fashion." As early as 1534,
Aretino, in the prologue of his Cortegiana, warned
his audience "not to be astonished if the comic
style is not observed in the manner required, for
we live after a different fashion in modern Rome
than they did in ancient Athens." Similarly, Gelli,
in the dedication of the Sporta (1543), justifies the
use of language not to be found in the great sources
of Italian speech, on the ground that "language,
together with all other natural things, continually
varies and changes."[304]
Although there is in Giraldi Cintio no fundamental
opposition to Aristotle, it is in his discourse on
the romanzi that there may be found the first attempt
to wrest a province of art from Aristotle's
supreme authority. Neither Salviati, who had
rated the Italian language above all others, nor
Calcagnini, who had regarded it as the meanest of
-164-all, had understood the discussion of the importance
of the Tuscan tongue to be concerned with
the question of Aristotle's literary supremacy. It
was simply a national question—a question as to the
national limits of Aristotle's authority, just as was
the case in the several controversies connected with
Tasso, Dante, and Guarini's Pastor Fido.[305] Castelvetro,
in his commentary on the Poetics, differs
from Aristotle on many occasions, and does not
hesitate even to refute him. Yet his reverence for
Aristotle is great; his sense of Aristotle's supreme
authority is strong; and on one occasion, where
Horace, Quintilian, and Cicero seem to differ from
Aristotle, Castelvetro does not hesitate to assert
that they could not have seen the passage of the
Poetics in question, and that, in fact, they did not
thoroughly understand the true constitution of a
poet.[306]
The opposition to Aristotelianism among the
humanists has already been alluded to. This opposition
increased more and more with the development
of modern philosophy. In 1536 Ramus had
attacked Aristotle's authority at Paris. A few
years later, in 1543, Ortensio Landi, who had been
at the Court of France for some time, published his
Paradossi, in which it is contended that the works
which pass under the name of Aristotle are not
really Aristotle's at all, and that Aristotle himself
was not only an ignoramus, but also the most villanous
man of his age. "We have, of our own
accord," he says, "placed our necks under the yoke,
-165-putting that vile beast of an Aristotle on a throne,
and depending on his conclusions as if he were an
oracle."[307] It is the philosophical authority of Aristotle
that Landi is attacking. His attitude is not
that of a humanist, for Cicero and Boccaccio do not
receive more respectful treatment at his hands than
Aristotle does. Landi, despite his mere eccentricities,
represents the growth of modern free thought
and the antagonism of modern philosophy to Aristotelianism.
The literary opposition and the philosophical opposition
to Aristotelianism may be said to meet in
Francesco Patrizzi, and, in a less degree, in Giordano
Bruno. Patrizzi's bitter Antiperipateticism is
to be seen in his Nova de Universis Philosophia
(1591), in which the doctrines of Aristotle are
shown to be false, inconsistent, and even opposed
to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His literary
antagonism to Aristotle is shown in his remarkable
work, Della Poetica, published at Ferrara in
1586. This work is divided into two parts,—the first
historical, La Deca Istoriale, and the second controversial,
La Deca Disputata. In the historical section
he attempts to derive the norm of the different
poetic forms, not from one or two great works
as Aristotle had done, but from the whole history
of literature. It is thus the first work in modern
times to attempt the philosophical study of literary
history, and to trace out the evolution of literary
forms. The second or controversial section is directed
against the Poetics of Aristotle, and in part
-166-also against the critical doctrines of Torquato
Tasso. In this portion of his work Patrizzi sets out
to demonstrate—per istoria, e per ragioni, e per
autorità de' grandi antichi—that the accepted critical
opinions of his time were without foundation;
and the Poetics of Aristotle himself he exhibits
as obscure, inconsistent, and entirely unworthy of
credence.
Similar antagonism to the critical doctrines of
Aristotle is to be found in passages scattered here
and there throughout the works of Giordano Bruno.
In the first dialogue of the Eroici Furori, published
at London in 1585, while Bruno was visiting England,
he expresses his contempt for the mere pedants
who judge poets by the rules of Aristotle's
Poetics. His contention is that there are as many
sorts of poets as there are human sentiments and
ideas, and that poets, so far from being subservient
to rules, are themselves really the authors of all
critical dogma. Those who attack the great poets
whose works do not accord with the rules of Aristotle
are called by Bruno stupid pedants and beasts.
The gist of his argument may be gathered from the
following passage:—
"Tans. Thou dost well conclude that poetry is not born
in rules, or only slightly and accidentally so; the rules are
derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and
sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets.
Cic. How then are the true poets to be known?
Tans. By the singing of their verses; in that singing
they give delight, or they edify, or they edify and delight
together.
-167-
Cic. To whom then are the rules of Aristotle useful?
Tans. To him who, unlike Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and
others, could not sing without the rules of Aristotle, and
who, having no Muse of his own, would coquette with that
of Homer."[308]
A similar antagonism to Aristotle and a similar
literary individualism are to be found in a much
later work by Benedetto Fioretti, who under the
pseudonym of Udeno Nisieli published the five volumes
of his Proginnasmi Poetici between 1620 and
1639.[309] Just before the close of the sixteenth century,
however, the Poetics had obtained an ardent
defender against such attacks in the person of
Francesco Buonamici, in his Discorsi Poetici; and
three years later, in 1600, Faustino Summo published
a similar defence of Aristotle. The attacks on
Aristotle's literary dictatorship were of little avail;
it was hardly necessary even to defend him. For two
centuries to come he was to reign supreme on the
continent of Europe; and in Italy this supremacy
was hardly disturbed until the days of Goldoni
and Metastasio.
top
Part Second
LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE
LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE
CHAPTER I
-171-
THE CHARACTER AND DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH
CRITICISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Literary criticism in France, while beginning
somewhat later than in Italy, preceded the birth of
criticism in England and in Spain by a number of
years. Critical activity in nearly all the countries
of western Europe seems to have been ushered in
by the translation of Horace's Ars Poetica into the
vernacular tongues. Critical activity in Italy began
with Dolce's Italian version of the Ars Poetica
in 1535; in France, with the French version of
Pelletier in 1545; in England, with the English
version of Drant in 1567; and in Spain, with the
Spanish versions of Espinel and Zapata in 1591 and
1592, respectively. Two centuries of literary discussion
had prepared the way for criticism in Italy;
and lacking this period of preparation, French criticism
during the sixteenth century was necessarily
of a much more practical character than that of
Italy during the same age. The critical works of
France, and of England also, were on the whole
designed for those whose immediate intention it-172-
was to write verse themselves. The disinterested
and philosophic treatment of æsthetic problems,
wholly aside from all practical considerations, characterized
much of the critical activity of the Italian
Renaissance, but did not become general in France
until the next century. For this reason, in the
French and English sections of this essay, it will
be necessary to deal with various rhetorical and
metrical questions which in the Italian section
could be largely disregarded. In these matters, as in
the more general questions of criticism, it will be seen
that sixteenth-century Italy furnished the source
of all the accepted critical doctrines of western
Europe. The comparative number of critical works
in Italy and in France is also noteworthy. While
those of the Italian Renaissance may be counted by
the score, the literature of France during the sixteenth
century, exclusive of a few purely rhetorical
treatises, hardly offers more than a single dozen.
It is evident, therefore, that the treatment of
French criticism must be more limited in extent
than that of Italian criticism, and somewhat different
in character.
The literature of the sixteenth century in France
is divided into two almost equal parts by Du
Bellay's Défense et Illustration de la Langue française,
published in 1549. In no other country of
Europe is the transition from the Middle Ages to
the Renaissance so clearly marked as it is in France
by this single book. With the invasion of Italy by
the army of Charles VIII. in 1494, the influence of
Italian art, of Italian learning, of Italian poetry,-173-
had received its first impetus in France. But over
half a century was to elapse before the effects of
this influence upon the creative literature of France
was universally and powerfully felt. During this
period the activity of Budæus, Erasmus, Dolet, and
numerous other French and foreign humanists
strengthened the cause and widened the influence
of the New Learning. But it is only with the birth
of the Pléiade that modern French literature may
be said to have begun. In 1549 Du Bellay's
Défense, the manifesto of the new school, appeared.
Ronsard's Odes were published in the next year;
and in 1552 Jodelle inaugurated French tragedy
with his Cléopâtre, and first, as Ronsard said,
"Françoisement chanta la grecque tragédie."
The Défense therefore marks a distinct epoch in the
critical as well as the creative literature of France.
The critical works that preceded it, if they may be
called critical in any real sense, did not attempt to
do more than formulate the conventional notions of
rhetorical and metrical structure common to the
French poets of the later Middle Ages. The
Pléiade itself, as will be more clearly understood
later, was also chiefly concerned with linguistic and
rhetorical reforms; and as late as 1580 Montaigne
could say that there were more poets in France
than judges and interpreters of poetry.[310] The creative
reforms of the Pléiade lay largely in the direction
of the formation of a poetic language, the
introduction of new genres, the creation of new
-174-rhythms, and the imitation of classical literature.
But with the imitation of classical literature there
came the renewal of the ancient subjects of inspiration;
and from this there proceeded a high and
dignified conception of the poet's office. Indeed,
many of the more general critical ideas of the
Pléiade spring from the desire to justify the function
of poetry, and to magnify its importance. The
new school and its epigones dominate the second
half of the sixteenth century; and as the first half
of the century was practically unproductive of critical
literature, a history of French Renaissance
criticism is hardly more than an account of the
poetic theories of the Pléiade.
The series of rhetorical and metrical treatises
that precede Du Bellay's Défense begins with L'Art
de dictier et de fere chançons, balades, virelais et
rondeaulx, written by the poet Eustache Deschamps
in 1392, over half a century after the similar work
of Antonio da Tempo in Italy.[311] Toward the close
of the fifteenth century a work of the same nature,
the Fleur de Rhétorique, by an author who refers to
himself as L'Infortuné, seems to have had some
influence on later treatises. Three works of this
sort fall within the first half of the sixteenth century:
the Grand et vrai Art de pleine Rhétorique of
Pierre Fabri, published at Rouen in 1521; the
Rhétorique metrifiée of Gracien du Pont, published
at Paris in 1539; and the Art Poétique of Thomas
Sibilet, published at Paris in 1548. The second
-175-part of Fabri's Rhétorique deals with questions of
versification—of rhyme, rhythm, and the complex
metrical form of such poets as Crétin, Meschinot,
and Molinet, in whom Pasquier found prou de rime
et équivoque, mais peu de raison. As the Rhétorique
of Fabri is little more than an amplification of
the similar work of L'Infortuné, so the work of
Gracien du Pont is little more than a reproduction
of Fabri's. Gracien du Pont is still chiefly
intent on rime équivoquée, rime entrelacée, rime
retrograde, rime concatenée, and the various other
mediæval complexities of versification. Sibilet's
Art Poétique is more interesting than any of its
predecessors. It was published a year before
the Défense of Du Bellay, and discusses many
of the new genres which the latter advocates.
Sibilet treats of the sonnet, which had recently
been borrowed from the Italians by Mellin de
Saint-Gelais, the ode, which had just been employed
by Pelletier, and the epigram, as practised by
Marot. The eclogue is described as "Greek by
invention, Latin by usurpation, and French by imitation."
But one of the most interesting passages
in Sibilet's book is that in which the French morality
is compared with the classical drama. This
passage exhibits perhaps the earliest trace of the
influence of Italian ideas on French criticism; it
will be discussed later in connection with the dramatic
theories of this period.
It is about the middle of the sixteenth century,
then, that the influence of Italian criticism is first
visible. The literature of Italy was read with-176-
avidity in France. Many educated young Frenchmen
travelled in Italy, and several Italian men of
letters visited France. Girolamo Muzio travelled
in France in 1524, and again in 1530 with Giulio
Camillo.[312] Aretino mentions the fact that a Vincenzo
Maggi was at the Court of France in 1548,
but it has been doubted whether this was the
author of the commentary on the Poetics.[313] In 1549,
after the completion of the two last parts of his
Poetica, dedicated to the Bishop of Arras, Trissino
made a tour about France.[314] Nor must we forget
the number of Italian scholars called to Paris by
Francis I.[315] The literary relations between the
two countries do not concern us here; but it is no
insignificant fact that the great literary reforms of
the Pléiade should take place between 1548 and
1550, the very time when critical activity first
received its great impetus in Italy. This Italian
influence is just becoming apparent in Sibilet, for
whom the poets between Jean le Maire de Belges
and Clément Marot are the chief models, but who
is not wholly averse to the moderate innovations
derived by France from classical antiquity and the
Italian Renaissance.
M. Brunetière, in a very suggestive chapter of
his History of French Criticism, regards the Défense
of Du Bellay, the Poetics of Scaliger, and the
Art Poétique of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye as the
most important critical works in France during
-177-the sixteenth century.[316] It may indeed be said that
Du Bellay's Défense (1549) is not in any true sense
a work of literary criticism at all; that Scaliger's
Poetics (1561) is the work, not of a French critic,
but of an Italian humanist; and that Vauquelin's
Art Poétique (not published until 1605), so far as
any influence it may have had is concerned, does
not belong to the sixteenth century, and can hardly
be called important. At the same time these three
works are interesting documents in the literary
history of France, and represent three distinct
stages in the development of French criticism in
the sixteenth century. Du Bellay's work marks
the beginning of the introduction of classical ideals
into French literature; Scaliger's work, while written
by an Italian and in Latin, was composed and
published in France, and marks the introduction
of the Aristotelian canons into French criticism;
and Vauquelin's work indicates the sum of critical
ideas which France had gathered and accepted in
the sixteenth century.
With Du Bellay's Défense et Illustration de la
Langue française (1549) modern literature and
modern criticism in France may be said to begin.
The Défense is a monument of the influence of
Italian upon French literary and linguistic criticism.
The purpose of the book, as its title implies,
is to defend the French language, and to indicate
the means by which it can approach more closely
to dignity and perfection. The fundamental contention
of Du Bellay is, first, that the French
-178-language is capable of attaining perfection; and,
secondly, that it can only hope to do so by imitating
Greek and Latin. This thesis is propounded
and proved in the first book of the Défense; and
the second book is devoted to answering the question:
By what specific means is this perfection,
based on the imitation of the perfection of Greek
and Latin, to be attained by the French tongue?
Du Bellay contends that as the diversity of language
among the different nations is ascribable
entirely to the caprice of men, the perfection of
any tongue is due exclusively to the diligence and
artifice of those who use it. It is the duty, therefore,
of every one to set about consciously to improve
his native speech. The Latin tongue was not always
as perfect as it was in the days of Virgil and
Cicero; and if these writers had regarded language
as incapable of being polished and enriched, or if
they had imagined that their language could only
be perfected by the imitation of their own national
predecessors, Latin would never have arrived at a
higher state of perfection than that of Ennius and
Crassus. But as Virgil and Cicero perfected Latin
by imitating Greek, so the French tongue can only
be made beautiful by imitating Greek, Latin, and
Italian, all of which have attained a certain share
of perfection.[317]
At the same time, two things must be guarded
against. The French tongue cannot be improved by
merely translating the classic and Italian tongues.
Translation has its value in popularizing ideas; but
-179-by mere translation no language or literature can
hope to attain perfection. Nor is a mere bald imitation
sufficient; but, in Du Bellay's oft-cited phrase,
the beauties of these foreign tongues "must be converted
into blood and nourishment."[318] The classics
have "blood, nerves, and bones," while the older
French writers have merely "skin and color."[319]
The modern French writer should therefore dismiss
with contempt the older poets of France, and
set about to imitate the Greeks, Latins, and Italians.
He should leave off composing rondeaux, ballades,
virelays, and such épiceries, which corrupt the taste
of the French language, and serve only to show its
ignorance and poverty; and in their stead he should
employ the epigram, which mingles, in Horace's
words, the profitable with the pleasant, the tearful
elegy, in imitation of Ovid and Tibullus, the ode,
one of the sublimest forms of poetry, the eclogue, in
imitation of Theocritus, Virgil, and Sannazaro,
and the beautiful sonnet, an Italian invention no
less learned than pleasing.[320] Instead of the morality
and the farce, the poet should write tragedies and
comedies; he should attempt another Iliad or
Æneid for the glory and honor of France. This
is the gist of Du Bellay's argument in so far as it
deals in general terms with the French language
and literature. The six or seven concluding chapters
treat of more minute and detailed questions of
language and versification. Du Bellay advises the
adoption of classical words as a means of enriching
the French tongue, and speaks with favor of the
-180-use of rhymeless verse in imitation of the classics.
The Défense ends with an appeal to the reader not
to fear to go and despoil Greece and Rome of their
treasures for the benefit of French poetry.[321]
From this analysis it will be seen that the Défense
is really a philological polemic, belonging to
the same class as the long series of Italian discussions
on the vulgar tongue which begins with
Dante, and which includes the works of Bembo,
Castiglione, Varchi, and others. It is, as a French
critic has said, a combined pamphlet, defence, and
ars poetica;[322] but it is only an ars poetica in so far
as it advises the French poet to employ certain
poetic forms, and treats of rhythm and rhyme in a
concluding chapter or two. But curiously enough,
the source and inspiration of Du Bellay's work have
never been pointed out. The actual model of the
Défense was without doubt Dante's De Vulgari
Eloquio, which, in the Italian version of Trissino,
had been given to the world for the first time in
1529, exactly twenty years before the Défense.
The two works, allowing for the difference in time
and circumstance, resemble each other closely in
spirit and purpose as well as in contents and design.
Du Bellay's work, like Dante's, is divided
into two books, each of which is again divided into
about the same number of chapters. The first book
of both works deals with language in general, and
the relations of the vulgar tongue to the ancient
and modern languages; the second book of both
works deals with the particular practices of the
-181-vulgar tongue concerning which each author is
arguing. Both works begin with a somewhat
similar theory of the origin of language; both
works close with a discussion of the versification of
the vernacular. The purpose of both books is the
justification of the vulgar tongue, and the consideration
of the means by which it can attain perfection;
the title of De Vulgari Eloquio might be
applied with equal force to either treatise. The
Défense, by this justification of the French language
on rational if not entirely cogent and consistent
grounds, prepared the way for critical activity in
France; and it is no insignificant fact that the first
critical work of modern France should have been
based on the first critical work of modern Italy.
Thirty years later, Henri Estienne, in his Précellence
du Langage françois, could assert that French
is the best language of ancient or modern times,
just as Salviati in 1564 had claimed that preëminent
position for Italian.[323]
It is not to be expected that so radical a break
with the national traditions of France as was implied
by Du Bellay's innovations would be left
unheeded by the enemies of the Pléiade. The answer
came soon, in an anonymous pamphlet, entitled
Le Quintil Horatian sur la Défense et Illustration
de la Langue françoise. Until a very few years ago,
this treatise was ascribed to a disciple of Marot,
Charles Fontaine. But in 1883 an autograph letter
of Fontaine's was discovered, in which he strenuously
denies the authorship of the Quintil Horatian;
-182-and more recent researches have shown pretty conclusively
that the real author was a friend of Fontaine's,
Barthélemy Aneau, head of the College of
Lyons.[324] The Quintil Horatian was first published
in 1550, the year after the appearance of the Défense.[325]
The author informs us that he had translated
the whole of Horace's Ars Poetica into
French verse "over twenty years ago, before Pelletier
or any one else," that is, between 1525 and
1530.[326] This translation was never published, but
fragments of it are cited in the Quintil Horatian.
The pamphlet itself takes up the arguments of Du
Bellay step by step, and refutes them. The author
finds fault with the constructions, the metaphors,
and the neologisms of Du Bellay. Aneau's temperament
was dogmatic and pedagogic; his judgment
was not always good; and modern French
critics cannot forgive him for attacking Du Bellay's
use of such a word as patrie.
But it is not entirely just to speak of the Quintil
Horatian, in the words of a modern literary historian,
as full of futile and valueless criticisms. The
author's minute linguistic objections are often hypercritical,
but his work represents a natural reaction
against the Pléiade. His chief censure of the Défense
was directed against the introduction of classical
and Italian words into the French language.
"Est-ce là défense et illustration," he exclaims, "ou
-183-plus tost offense et dénigration?" He charges
the Pléiade with having contemned the classics of
French poetry; the new school advocated the disuse
of the complicated metrical forms merely because
they were too difficult. The sonnet, the ode,
and the elegy he dismisses as useless innovations.
The object of poetry, according to Horace, is to
gladden and please, while the elegy merely saddens
and brings tears to the eyes. "Poetry," he says,
"is like painting; and as painting is intended to
fill us with delight, and not to sadden us, so the
mournful elegy is one of the meanest forms of
poetry." Aneau is unable to appreciate the high
and sublime conception of the poet's office which
the Pléiade first introduced into French literature;
for him the poet is a mere versifier who amuses his
audience. He represents the general reaction of
the national spirit against the classical innovations
of the Pléiade; and the Quintil Horatian may therefore
be called the last representative work of the
older school of poetry.
It was at about this period that Aristotle's Poetics
first influenced French criticism. In one of the
concluding chapters of the Défense Du Bellay
remarks that "the virtues and vices of a poem have
been diligently treated by the ancients, such as
Aristotle and Horace, and after them by Hieronymus
Vida."[327] Horace is mentioned and cited in
numerous other places, and the influence of the
general rhetorical portions of the Ars Poetica is
very marked throughout the Défense; there are
-184-also many traces of the influence of Vida. But
there is no evidence whatsoever of any knowledge
of Aristotle's Poetics. Of its name and importance
Du Bellay had probably read in the writings of the
Italians, but of its contents he knew little or nothing.
There is indeed no well-established allusion
to the Poetics in France before this time. None of
the French humanists seems to have known it. Its
title is cited by Erasmus in a letter dated February
27, 1531, and it was published by him without any
commentary at Basle in the same year, though
Simon Grynæus appears to have been the real editor
of this work. An edition of the Poetics was
also published at Paris in 1541, but does not seem
to have had any appreciable influence on the critical
activity of France. Several years after the publication
of the Défense, in the satirical poem, Le Poëte
Courtisan, written shortly after his return from
Italy in 1555, Du Bellay shows a somewhat more
definite knowledge of the contents of the Poetics:—
"Je ne veux point ici du maistre d'Alexandre [i.e. Aristotle],
Touchant l'art poétic, les preceptes t'apprendre
Tu n'apprendras de moy comment jouer il faut
Les miseres des rois dessus un eschaffaut:
Je ne t'enseigne l'art de l'humble comœdie
Ni du Méonien la muse plus hardie:
Bref je ne monstre ici d'un vers horacien
Les vices et vertus du poëme ancien:
Je ne depeins aussi le poëte du Vide."[328]
In 1555 Guillaume Morel, the disciple of Turnebus,
published an edition of Aristotle's Poetics at
-185-Paris. It is interesting to note, however, that the
reference in the Défense is the first allusion to the
Poetics to be found in the critical literature of
France; by 1549 the Italian Renaissance, and Italian
criticism, had come into France for good. In
1560, the year before the publication of Scaliger's
Poetics, Aristotle's treatise had acquired such prominence
that in a volume of selections from Aristotle's
works, published at Paris in that year, Aristotelis
Sententiæ, the selections from the Poetics are placed
at the head of the volume.[329] In 1572 Jean de la
Taille refers his readers to what "the great Aristotle
in his Poetics, and after him Horace though not with
the same subtlety, have said more amply and better
than I."[330]
The influence of Scaliger's Poetics on the French
dramatic criticism of this period has generally been
overestimated. Scaliger's influence in France was
not inconsiderable during the sixteenth century,
but it was not until the very end of the century
that he held the dictatorial position afterward accorded
to him. No edition of his Poetics was ever
published at Paris. The first edition appeared at
Lyons, and subsequent editions appeared at Heidelberg
and Leyden. It was in Germany, in Spain,
and in England that his influence was first felt;
and it was largely through the Dutch scholars,
Heinsius and Vossius, that his influence was carried
into France in the next century. It is a mistake
to say that he had any primary influence on
-186-the formulation and acceptance of the unities of
time and place in French literature; there is in his
Poetics, as has been seen, no such definite and formal
statement of the unities as may be found in Castelvetro,
in Jean de la Taille, in Sir Philip Sidney, or
in Chapelain. At the same time, while Scaliger's
Poetics did not assume during the sixteenth century
the dictatorial supremacy it attained during the
seventeenth, and while the particular views enunciated
in its pages had no direct influence on the current
of sixteenth-century ideas, it certainly had an
indirect influence on the general tendency of the
critical activity of the French Renaissance. This
indirect influence manifests itself in the gradual
Latinization of culture during the second half of
the sixteenth century, and, as will be seen later, in
the emphasis on the Aristotelian canons in French
dramatic criticism. Scaliger was a personal
friend of several members of the Pléiade, and
there is every reason to believe that he wielded
considerable, even if merely indirect, influence
on the development of that great literary movement.
The last expression of the poetic theories of the
Pléiade is to be found in the didactic poem of
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, L'Art Poétique françois,
où l'on peut remarquer la perfection et le défaut
des anciennes et des modernes poésies. This poem,
though not published until 1605, was begun in
1574 at the command of Henry III., and, augmented
by successive additions, was not yet complete
by 1590. Vauquelin makes the following-187-
explicit acknowledgment of his indebtedness to the
critical writers that preceded him:—
"Pour ce ensuivant les pas du fils de Nicomache [i.e. Aristotle],
Du harpeur de Calabre [i.e. Horace], et tout ce que remache
Vide et Minturne aprés, j'ay cet œuvre apresté."[331]
Aristotle, Horace, Vida, and Minturno are thus
his acknowledged models and sources. Nearly the
whole of Horace's Ars Poetica he has translated
and embodied in his poem; and he has borrowed
from Vida a considerable number of images and
metaphors.[332] His indebtedness to Aristotle and to
Minturno brings up several intricate questions. It
has been said that Vauquelin simply mentioned
Minturno in order to put himself under the protection
of a respectable Italian authority.[333] On the
contrary, exclusive of Horace, Ronsard, and Du
Bellay, the whole of whose critical discussions he has
almost incorporated into his poem, Minturno is his
chief authority, his model, and his guide. In fact,
it was probably from Minturno that he derived his
entire knowledge of the Aristotelian canons; it is
not Aristotle, but Minturno's conception of Aristotle,
that Vauquelin has adhered to. Many points in
his poem are explained by this fact; here only
one can be mentioned. Vauquelin's account, in the
second canto of his Art Poétique, of the origin of
-188-the drama from the songs at the altar of Bacchus
at the time of the vintage, is undoubtedly derived
from Minturno.[334] It may have been observed that
during the Renaissance there were two distinct
conceptions of the origin of poetry. One, which
might be called ethical, was derived from Horace,
according to whom the poet was originally a lawgiver,
or divine prophet; and this conception persists
in modern literature from Poliziano to Shelley.
The other, or scientific conception, was especially
applied to the drama, and was based on Aristotle's
remarks on the origin of tragedy; this attempt to
discover some scientific explanation for poetic phenomena
may be found in the more rationalistic of
Renaissance critics, such as Scaliger and Viperano.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, the disciple of Ronsard
and the last exponent of the critical doctrines of
the Pléiade, thus represents the incorporation of
the body of Italian ideas into French criticism.
With Vauquelin de la Fresnaye and De Laudun
Daigaliers (1598) the history of French criticism
during the sixteenth century is at an end. The
critical activity of this period, as has already been
remarked, is of a far more practical character than
that of Italy. Literary criticism in France was
created by the exigencies of a great literary movement;
and throughout the century it never lost its
connection with this movement, or failed to serve
it in some practical way. The poetic criticism was
carried on by poets, whose desire it was to further
-189-a cause, to defend their own works, or to justify
their own views. The dramatic criticism was for
the most part carried on by dramatists, sometimes
even in the prefaces of their plays. In the sixteenth
century, as ever since, the interrelation of
the creative and the critical faculties in France
was marked and definite. But there was, one
might almost say, little critical theorizing in the
French Renaissance. Excepting, of course, Scaliger,
there was even nothing of the deification of
Aristotle found in Italian criticism. To take
notice of a minute but significant detail, there
was no attempt to explain Aristotle's doctrine of
katharsis, the source of infinite controversy in Italy.
There was no detailed and consistent discussion of
the theory of the epic poem. All these things may
be found in seventeenth-century France; but their
home was sixteenth-century Italy.
top
CHAPTER II
-190-
THE THEORY OF POETRY IN THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
It is in keeping with the practical character of
the literary criticism of this period that the members
of the Pléiade did not concern themselves with
the general theory of poetry. Until the very end
of the century there is not to be found any systematic
poetic theory in France. It is in dramatic
criticism that this period has most to offer, and
the dramatic criticism is peculiarly interesting because
it foreshadows in many ways the doctrines
upon which were based the dramas of Racine and
Corneille.
I. The Poetic Art
In Du Bellay's Défense there is no attempt to
formulate a consistent body of critical doctrine;
but the book exhibits, in a more or less crude form,
all the tendencies for which the Pléiade stands in
French literature. The fundamental idea of the
Défense is that French poetry can only hope to
reach perfection by imitating the classics. The
imitation of the classics implies, in the first place,
erudition on the part of the poet; and, moreover,-191-
it requires intellectual labor and study. The poet
is born, it is true; but this only refers to the ardor
and joyfulness of spirit which naturally excite him,
but which, without learning and erudition, are absolutely
useless. "He who wishes poetic immortality,"
says Du Bellay, "must spend his time in
the solitude of his own chamber; instead of eating,
drinking, and sleeping, he must endure hunger,
thirst, and long vigils."[335] Elsewhere he speaks
of silence and solitude as amy des Muses. From all
this there arises a natural contempt for the ignorant
people, who know nothing of ancient learning:
"Especially do I wish to admonish him who aspires
to a more than vulgar glory, to separate himself
from such inept admirers, to flee from the ignorant
people,—the people who are the enemies of all
rare and antique learning,—and to content himself
with few readers, following the example of him who
did not demand for an audience any one beside Plato
himself."[336]
In the Art Poétique of Jacques Pelletier du Mans,
published at Lyons in 1555, the point of view is
that of the Pléiade, but more mellow and moderate
than that of its most advanced and radical members.
The treatise begins with an account of the
antiquity and excellence of poetry; and poets are
spoken of as originally the maîtres et réformateurs
de la vie. Poetry is then compared with oratory
and with painting, after the usual Renaissance
fashion; and Pelletier agrees with Horace in regarding
the combined power of art and nature as
-192-necessary to the fashioning of a poet. His conception
of the latter's office is not unlike that of Tasso
and Shelley, "It is the office of the poet to give
novelty to old things, authority to the new, beauty
to the rude, light to the obscure, faith to the doubtful,
and to all things their true nature, and to their
true nature all things." Concerning the questions
of language, versification, and the feeling for natural
scenery, he agrees fundamentally with the chief
writers of the Pléiade.
The greatest of these, Ronsard, has given expression
to his views on the poetic art in his Abrégé
de l'Art Poétique françois (1565), and later
in the two prefaces of his epic of the Franciade.
The chief interest of the Abrégé in the present discussion
is that it expounds and emphasizes the high
notion of the poet's office introduced into French
poetry by the Pléiade. Before the advent of the
new school, mere skill in the complicated forms of
verse was regarded as the test of poetry. The
poet was simply a rimeur; and the term "poète,"
with all that it implies, first came into use with
the Pléiade. The distinction between the versifier
and the poet, as pointed out by Aristotle and insisted
upon by the Italians, became with the Pléiade
almost vital. Binet, the disciple and biographer
of Ronsard, says of his master that "he was the
mortal enemy of versifiers, whose conceptions are
all debased, and who think they have wrought a
masterpiece when they have transposed something
from prose into verse."[337] Ronsard's own account
-193-of the dignity and high function of poetry must
needs be cited at length:—
"Above all things you will hold the Muses in reverence,
yea, in singular veneration, and you will never let them
serve in matters that are dishonest, or mere jests, or injudicious
libels; but you will hold them dear and sacred, as
the daughters of Jupiter, that is, God, who by His holy
grace has through them first made known to ignorant people
the excellencies of His majesty. For poetry in early times
was only an allegorical theology, in order to make stupid
men, by pleasant and wondrously colored fables, know
the secrets they could not comprehend, were the truth
too openly made known to them.... Now, since the
Muses do not care to lodge in a soul unless it is good,
holy, and virtuous, you should try to be of a good disposition,
not wicked, scowling, and cross, but animated
by a gentle spirit; and you should not let anything enter
your mind that is not superhuman and divine. You should
have, in the first place, conceptions that are high, grand,
beautiful, and not trailing upon the ground; for the principal
part of poetry consists of invention, which comes as
much from a beautiful nature as from the reading of good
and ancient authors. If you undertake any great work,
you will show yourself devout and fearing God, commencing
it either with His name or by any other which represents
some effects of His majesty, after the manner of the
Greek poets ... for the Muses, Apollo, Mercury, Pallas,
and other similar deities, merely represent the powers of
God, to which the first men gave several names for the
diverse effects of His incomprehensible majesty."[338]
In this eloquent passage the conception of the
poet as an essentially moral being,—a doctrine
first enunciated by Strabo, and repeated by Minturno
and others,—and Boccaccio's notion of
-194-poetry as originally an allegorical theology, are
both introduced into French criticism. Elsewhere
Ronsard repeats the mediæval concept that poets
"d'un voile divers
Par fables ont caché le vray sens de leurs vers."[339]
It will be seen also that for Ronsard, poetry is essentially
a matter of inspiration; and in the poem
just quoted, the Discours à Jacques Grévin, he follows
the Platonic conception of divine inspiration
or madness. A few years later Montaigne said of
poetry that "it is an easier matter to frame it than
to know it; being base and humble, it may be
judged by the precepts and art of it, but the good
and lofty, the supreme and divine, are beyond rules
and above reason. It hath no community with our
judgment, but ransacketh and ravisheth the same."[340]
In his various critical works Ronsard shows
considerable indebtedness to the Italian theorists,
especially to Minturno. He does not attempt any
formal definition of poetry, but its function is described
as follows: "As the end of the orator is
to persuade, so that of the poet is to imitate, invent,
and represent the things that are, that can be, or
that the ancients regarded as true."[341] The concluding
clause of this passage is intended to justify
the modern use of the ancient mythology; but the
whole passage seems primarily to follow Scaliger[342]
-195-and Minturno.[343] It is to be observed that verse is
not mentioned in this definition as an essential
requirement of poetry. It was indeed a favorite
contention of his, and one for which he was indebted
to the Italians, that all who write in verse
are not poets. Lucan and Silius Italicus have robed
history with the raiment of verse; but according
to Ronsard they would have done better in many
ways to have written in prose. The poet, unlike
the historian, deals with the verisimilar and the
probable; and while he cannot be responsible for
falsehoods which are in opposition to the truth of
things, any more than the historian can, he is not
interested to know whether or not the details of
his poems are actual historical facts. Verisimilitude,
and not fact, is therefore the test of poetry.
In Vauquelin de la Fresnaye may be found most
of the Aristotelian distinctions in regard to imitation,
harmony, rhythm, and poetic theory in general;
but these distinctions he derived, as has already
been said, not directly from Aristotle, but in all probability
from Minturno. Poetry is defined as an art
of imitation:—
"C'est un art d'imiter, un art de contrefaire
Que toute poësie, ainsi que de pourtraire."[344]
Verse is described as a heaven-sent instrument,
the language of the gods; and its value in poetry
consists in clarifying and making the design compact.[345]
But it is not an essential of poetry; Aristotle
-196-permits us to poetize in prose; and the
romances of Heliodorus and Montemayor are examples
of this poetic prose.[346] The object of poetry
is that it shall cause delight, and unless it succeeds
in this it is entirely futile:—
"C'est le but, c'est la fin des vers que resjouir:
Les Muses autrement ne les veulent ouir."
As it is the function of the orator to persuade and
the physician to cure, and as they fail in their
offices unless they effect these ends, so the poet fails
unless he succeeds in pleasing.[347] This comparison
is a favorite one with the Italian critics. A similar
passage has already been cited from Daniello; and
the same notion is thus expressed by Lodovico
Dolce: "The aim of the physician is to cure diseases
by means of medicine; the orator's to persuade
by force of his arguments; and if neither
attains this end, he is not called physician or orator.
So if the poet does not delight, he is not a poet, for
poetry delights all, even the ignorant."[348]
But delight, according to Vauquelin, is merely
the means of directing us to higher things; poetry
is a delightful means of leading us to virtue:—
"C'est pourquoy des beaus vers la joyeuse alegresse
Nous conduit aux vertus d'une plaisante addresse."[349]
Vauquelin, like Scaliger, Tasso, Sidney, compares
the poet with God, the great Workman, who made
-197-everything out of nothing.[350] The poet is a divinely
inspired person, who, sans art, sans sçavoir, creates
works of divine beauty. Vauquelin's contemporary,
Du Bartas, has in his Uranie expressed this idea in
the following manner:—
"Each art is learned by art; but Poesie
Is a mere heavenly gift, and none can taste
The dews we drop from Pindus plenteously,
If sacred fire have not his heart embraced.
"Hence is't that many great Philosophers,
Deep-learned clerks, in prose most eloquent,
Labor in vain to make a graceful verse,
Which many a novice frames most excellent."[351]
While this is the accepted Renaissance doctrine of
inspiration, Vauquelin, in common with all other
followers of the Pléiade, was fully alive to the necessity
of artifice and study in poetry; and he agrees
with Horace in regarding both art and nature as
equally necessary to the making of a good poet. It
is usage that makes art, but art perfects and regulates
usage:—
"Et ce bel Art nous sert d'escalier pour monter
A Dieu."[352] II. The Drama
Dramatic criticism in France begins as a reaction
against the drama of the Middle Ages. The
mediæval drama was formless and inorganic, without
-198-art or dignity. The classical drama, on the
other hand, possessed both form and dignity; and
the new school, perceiving this contrast, looked to
the Aristotelian canons, as restated by the Italians,
to furnish the dignity and art which the tragedy of
Greece and Rome possessed, and which their own
moralities and farces fundamentally lacked. In the
first reference to dramatic literature in French criticism,
the mediæval and classical dramas are compared
after this fashion; but as Sibilet (1548), in
whose work this passage appears, wrote a year or so
before the advent of the Pléiade, the comparison is
not so unfavorable to the morality and the farce as
it became in later critics. "The French morality,"
says Sibilet, "represents, in certain distinct traits,
Greek and Latin tragedy, especially in that it
treats of grave and momentous deeds (faits graves
et principaus); and if the French had always made
the ending of the morality sad and dolorous, the
morality would be a tragedy. But in this, as in all
things, we have followed our natural taste or inclination,
which is to take from foreign things not
all we see, but only what we think will be useful
to us and of national advantage; for in the morality
we treat, as the Greeks and Romans do in their
tragedies, the narration of deeds that are illustrious,
magnanimous, and virtuous, or true, or at least
verisimilar; but we do otherwise in what is useful
to the information of our manners and life, without
subjecting ourselves to any sorrow or pleasure of
the issue."[353] It would seem that Sibilet regards
-199-the morality as lacking nothing but the unhappy
ending of classical tragedy. At the same time this
passage exhibits perhaps the first trace of Aristotelianism
in French critical literature; for Sibilet
specifies several characteristic features of Greek
and Latin tragedy, which he could have found only
in Aristotle or in the Italians. In the first place,
tragedy deals only with actions that are grave,
illustrious, and for the most part magnanimous
or virtuous. In the second place, the actions of
tragedy are either really true, that is, historical, or
if not true, have all the appearance of truth, that
is, they are verisimilar. Thirdly, the end of
tragedy is always sad and dolorous. Fourthly,
tragedy performs a useful function, which is connected
in some way with the reformation of manners
and life; and, lastly, the effect of tragedy is
connected with the sorrow or pleasure brought
about by the catastrophe. These distinctions anticipate
many of those found later in Scaliger and in
the French critics.
In Du Bellay (1549) we find no traces of dramatic
theory beyond the injunction, already noted,
that the French should substitute classical tragedy
and comedy for the old morality and farce. A few
years later, however, in Pelletier (1555), there appears
an almost complete system of dramatic
criticism. He urges the French to attempt the
composition of tragedy and comedy. "This species
of poetry," he says, "will bring honor to the French
language, if it is attempted,"—a remark which
illustrates the innate predisposition of the French-200-
for dramatic poetry.[354] He then proceeds to distinguish
tragedy from comedy much in the same
manner as Scaliger does six years later. It is to
be remembered that Pelletier's Art Poétique was
published at Lyons in 1555, while Scaliger's Poetics
was published at the same place in 1561. Pelletier
may have known Scaliger personally; but it is
more probable that Pelletier derived his information
from the same classical and traditional sources
as did Scaliger. At all events, Pelletier distinguishes
tragedy from comedy in regard to style,
subject, characters, and ending in exact Scaligerian
fashion. Comedy has nothing in common with
tragedy except the fact that neither can have more
or less than five acts. The style and diction of
comedy are popular and colloquial, while those of
tragedy are most dignified and sublime. The comic
characters are men of low condition, while those of
tragedy are kings, princes, and great lords. The
conclusion of comedy is always joyous, that of
tragedy is always sorrowful and heart-rending.
The themes of tragedy are deaths, exiles, and
unhappy changes of fortune; those of comedy are
the loves and passions of young men and young
women, the indulgence of mothers, the wiles of
slaves, and the diligence of nurses.[355]
By this time, then, Aristotle's theory of tragedy,
as restated by the Italians, had become part of
French criticism. The actual practice of the French
drama had been modified by the introduction of
these rules; and they had played so important a
-201-part that Grévin, in his Bref Discours pour l'Intelligence
de ce Théâtre, prefixed to his Mort de César
(1562), could say that French tragedy had already
attained perfection, even when regarded from the
standpoint of the Aristotelian canons. "Our tragedies,"
says Grévin, "have been so well polished
that there is nothing left now to be desired,—I
speak of those which are composed according to
the rules of Aristotle and Horace." Grévin's Discours
was published the year after Scaliger's Poetics,
but shows no indication of Scaligerian influence.
His definition of tragedy is based on a most vague
and incomplete recollection of Aristotle, "Tragedy,
as Aristotle says in his Poetics, is an imitation or
representation of some action that is illustrious and
great in itself, such as the death of Cæsar." He
shows his independence or his ignorance of Scaliger
by insisting on the inferiority of Seneca, whom
Scaliger had rated above all the Greeks; and he
shows his independence of the ancients by substituting
a crowd of Cæsar's soldiers for the singers
of the older chorus, on the ground that there ought
not to be singing in the representation of tragedy
any more than there is in actual life itself, for
tragedy is a representation of truth or of what has
the appearance of truth. There are in Grévin's
Discours several indications that the national feeling
had not been entirely destroyed by the imitation
of the classics; but a discussion of this must
be left for a later chapter.
In Jean de la Taille's Art de Tragédie, prefixed
to his Saül le Furieux (1572), a drama in which a-202-
biblical theme is fashioned after the manner of
classical tragedy, there is to be found the most explicit
and distinct antagonism to the old, irregular
moralities, which are not modelled according to the
true art and the pattern of the ancients. They are
but amères épiceries—words that recall Du Bellay.
But curiously enough, Jean de la Taille differs
entirely from Grévin, and asserts positively that
France had as yet no real tragedies, except possibly
a few translated from the classics. Waging
war, as he is, against the crude formlessness of the
national drama, perfect construction assumes for
him a very high importance. "The principal
point in tragedy," he says, "is to know how to
dispose and fashion it well, so that the plot is well
intertwined, mingled, interrupted, and resumed,
... and that there is nothing useless, without
purpose, or out of place." For Jean de la Taille,
as for most Renaissance writers, tragedy is the
least popular and the most elegant and elevated
form of poetry, exclusive of the epic. It deals
with the pitiful ruin of great lords, with the inconstancy
of fortune, with banishment, war, pestilence,
famine, captivity, and the execrable cruelty
of tyrants.[356] The end of tragedy is in fact to move
and to sting the feelings and the emotions of men.
The characters of tragedy—and this is the Aristotelian
conception—should be neither extremely
bad, such men as by their crimes merit punishment,
nor perfectly good and holy, like Socrates, who was
wrongfully put to death. Invented or allegorical
-203-characters, such as Death, Avarice, or Truth, are
not to be employed. At the same time, Jean de
la Taille, like Grévin, is not averse to the use of
scriptural subjects in tragedy, although he cautions
the poet against long-winded theological discussions.
The Senecan drama was his model in treating of
tragedy, as it was indeed that of the Renaissance
in general; and tragedy approached more and more
closely to the oratorical and sententious manner of
the Latin poet. Ronsard, for example, asserts that
tragedy and comedy are entirely didascaliques et enseignantes,
and should be enriched by numerous excellent
and rare sentences (sententiæ), "for in a few
words the drama must teach much, being the mirror
of human life."[357] Similarly, Du Bellay advises
poets to embellish their poetry with grave sentences,
and Pelletier praises Seneca principally because
he is sentencieux.
Vauquelin, in his Art Poétique, gives a metrical
paraphrase of Aristotle's definition of tragedy:—
"Mais le sujet tragic est un fait imité
De chose juste et grave, en ses vers limité;
Auquel on y doit voir de l'affreux, du terrible,
Un fait non attendu, qui tienne de l'horrible,
Du pitoyable aussi, le cœur attendrissant
D'un tigre furieux, d'un lion rugissant."[358]
The subject of tragedy should be old, and should
be connected with the fall of great tyrants and
princes;[359] and in regard to the number of acts, the
number of interlocutors on the stage, the deus ex
-204-machina, and the chorus,[360] Vauquelin merely paraphrases
Horace. Comedy is defined as the imitation
of an action which by common usage is
accounted wicked, but which is not so wicked that
there is no remedy for it; thus, for example, a
man who has seduced a young girl may recompense
her by taking her in marriage.[361] Hence while the
actions of tragedy are "virtuous, magnificent, and
grand, royal, and sumptuous," the incidents of
comedy are actually and ethically of a lower grade.[362]
For tragi-comedy Vauquelin has nothing but contempt.
It is, in fact, a bastard form, since the
tragedy with a happy ending serves a similar but
more dignified purpose. Vauquelin, like Boileau
and most other French critics after him, follows
Aristotle at length in the description of dramatic
recognitions and reversals of fortune.[363] Most of the
other Aristotelian distinctions are also to be found
in his work.
In the Art Poétique françois of Pierre de Laudun,
Sieur d'Aigaliers, published in 1598, these distinctions
reappear in a more or less mutilated form.
In the fifth and last book of this treatise, De Laudun
follows the Italian scholars, especially Scaliger and
Viperano. He does not differ essentially from
Scaliger in the definition of tragedy, in the division
into acts and the place of the chorus, in the discussion
of the characters and subjects of tragedy, and
in the distinction between tragedy and comedy.[364]
-205-His conception of tragedy is in keeping with the
usual Senecan ideal; it should be adorned by frequent
sentences, allegories, similitudes, and other
ornaments of poetry. The more cruel and sanguinary
the tragic action is, the more excellent it will
be; but at the same time, much that makes the action
cruel is to be enacted only behind the stage.
Like Pelletier, he objects to the introduction of all
allegorical and invented characters, or even gods
and goddesses, on the ground that these are not
actual beings, and hence are out of keeping with
the theme of tragedy, which must be real and historical.
De Laudun has also something to say concerning
the introduction of ghosts in the tragic
action; and his discussion is peculiarly interesting
when we remember that it was almost at this very
time, in England, that the ghost played so important
a part in the Shakespearian drama. "If the
ghosts appear before the action begins," says De
Laudun, "they are permissible; but if they appear
during the course of the action, and speak to the
actors themselves, they are entirely faulty and reprehensible."
De Laudun borrowed from Scaliger
the scheme of the ideal tragedy: "The first act
contains the complaints; the second, the suspicions;
the third, the counsels; the fourth, the menaces
and preparations; the fifth, the fulfilment and effusion
of blood."[365] But despite his subservience to
Scaliger, he is not afraid to express his independence
of the ancients. We are not, he says, entirely
bound to their laws, especially in the number
-206-of actors on the stage, which according to classic
usage never exceeded three; for nowadays, notwithstanding
the counsels of Aristotle and Horace, an
audience has not the patience to be satisfied with
only two or three persons at one time.
The history of the dramatic unities in France
during the sixteenth century demands some attention.
That they had considerable effect on the
actual practice of dramatic composition from the
very advent of the Pléiade is quite obvious; for in
the first scene of the first French tragedy, the
Cléopâtre of Jodelle (1552), there is an allusion to
the unity of time, which Corneille was afterward
to call the règle des règles:—
"Avant que ce soleil, qui vient ores de naître,
Ayant tracé son jour chez sa tante se plonge,
Cléopâtre mourra!"
In 1553 Mellin de Saint-Gelais translated Trissino's
Sofonisba into French, and the influence of the Italian
drama became fixed in France. But the first distinct
formulation of the unities is to be found in Jean de la
Taille's Art de Tragédie (1572). His statement of
the unity is explicit, "Il faut toujours représenter
l'histoire ou le jeu en un même jour, en un même
temps, et en un même lieu."[366] Jean de la Taille
was indebted for this to Castelvetro, who two years
before had stated them thus, "La mutatione tragica
non può tirar con esso seco se non una giornata
e un luogo."[367] The unity of time was adopted by
Ronsard about this same time in the following
words:—
-207-
"Tragedy and comedy are circumscribed and limited to a
short space of time, that is, to one whole day. The most
excellent masters of this craft commence their works from
one midnight to another, and not from sunrise to sunset, in
order to have greater compass and length of time. On the
other hand, the heroic poem, which is entirely of a martial
character (tout guerrier), comprehends only the actions of
one whole year."[368]
This passage is without doubt borrowed from
Minturno (1564):—
"Whoever regards well the works of the most admired
ancient authors will find that the materials of scenic poetry
terminate in one day, or do not pass beyond the space of two
days; just as the action of the epic poem, however great and
however long it may be, does not occupy more than one
year."[369]
Minturno, it will be remembered, was the first to
limit the action of the heroic poem to one year. In
another passage he deduces the rule from the practice
of Virgil and Homer;[370] but Ronsard seems to
think that Virgil himself has not obeyed this law.
We have already alluded to the influence of Minturno
on the Pléiade. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who explicitly
acknowledges his indebtedness to Minturno,
also follows him in limiting the action of the drama
to one day and that of the epic to one year:—
"Or comme eux l'heroic suivant le droit sentier,
Doit son œuvre comprendre au cours d'un an entier;
Le tragic, le comic, dedans une journee
Comprend ce que fait l'autre au cours de son annee:
Le theatre jamais ne doit estre rempli
D'un argument plus long que d'un jour accompli."[371]
-208-The two last lines of this passage bear considerable
resemblance to Boileau's famous statement of the
unities three-quarters of a century later.[372]
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, then,
the unity of time, and in a less degree the unity
of place, had become almost inviolable laws of the
drama. But at this very period strong notes of
revolt against the tyranny of the unities begin to
be heard. Up to this time the classical Italian
drama had been the pattern for French playwrights;
but the irregular Spanish drama was now commencing
to exert considerable influence in France,
and with this Spanish influence came the Spanish
opposition to the unities. In 1582 Jean de Beaubreuil,
in the preface of his tragedy of Régulus, had
spoken with contempt of the rule of twenty-four
hours as trop superstitieux. But De Laudun was
probably the first European critic to argue formally
against it. The concluding chapter of his Art
Poétique (1598) gives five different reasons why the
unity of time should not be observed in the drama.
The chapter is entitled, "Concerning those who say
that the action of tragedy must conclude in a single
day;" and De Laudun begins by asserting that this
opinion had never been sustained by any good
author. This is fairly conclusive evidence that De
Laudun had never directly consulted Aristotle's
Poetics, but was indebted for his knowledge of
Aristotle to the Italians, and especially to Scaliger.
The five arguments which he formulates against the
unity of time are as follows:—
-209-
"In the first place, this law, if it is observed by any
of the ancients, need not force us to restrict our tragedies in
any way, since we are not bound by their manner of writing
or by the measure of feet and syllables with which they compose
their verses. In the second place, if we were forced to
observe this rigorous law, we should fall into one of the
greatest of absurdities, by being obliged to introduce impossible
and incredible things in order to enhance the beauty of
our tragedies, or else they would lack all grace; for besides
being deprived of matter, we could not embellish our poems
with long discourses and various interesting events. In the
third place, the action of the Troades, an excellent tragedy
by Seneca, could not have occurred in one day, nor could
even some of the plays of Euripides or Sophocles. In the
fourth place, according to the definition already given [on
the authority of Aristotle], tragedy is the recital of the lives
of heroes, the fortune and grandeur of kings, princes, and
others; and all this could not be accomplished in one day.
Besides, a tragedy must contain five acts, of which the first
is joyous, and the succeeding ones exhibit a gradual change,
as I have already indicated above; and this change a single
day would not suffice to bring about. In the fifth and last
place, the tragedies in which this rule is observed are not any
better than the tragedies in which it is not observed; and
the tragic poets, Greek and Latin, or even French, do not
and need not and cannot observe it, since very often in a
tragedy the whole life of a prince, king, emperor, noble, or
other person is represented;—besides a thousand other
reasons which I could advance if time permitted, but which
must be left for a second edition."[373]
The history of the unity of time during the next
century does not strictly concern us here; but it
may be well to point out that it was through the
offices of Chapelain, seconded by the authority of
Cardinal Richelieu, that it became fixed in the
-210-dramatic theory of France. In a long letter, dating
from November, 1630, and recently published for
the first time, Chapelain sets out to answer all the
objections made against the rule of twenty-four
hours. It is sustained, he says, by the practice of
the ancients and the universal consensus of the
Italians; but his own proof is based on reason
alone. It is the old argument of vraisemblance, as
found in Maggi, Scaliger, and especially Castelvetro,
whom Chapelain seems in part to follow. By 1635
he had formulated the whole theory of the three
unities and converted Cardinal Richelieu to his
views. In the previous year Mairet's Sophonisbe, the
first "regular" French tragedy, had been produced.
In 1636 the famous Cid controversy had begun.
By 1640 the battle was gained, and the unities became
a part of the classic theory of the drama
throughout Europe. A few years later their practical
application was most thoroughly indicated by
the Abbé d'Aubignac, in his Pratique du Théâtre;
and they were definitely formulated for all time by
Boileau in the celebrated couplet:—
"Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli
Tienne jusqu'à la fin le théâtre rempli."[374]
III. Heroic Poetry
It was the supreme ambition of the Pléiade to
produce a great French epic. In the very first
manifesto of the new school, Du Bellay urges every
French poet to attempt another Iliad or Æneid for
-211-the honor and glory of France. For Pelletier
(1555) the heroic poem is the one that really gives
the true title of poet; it may be compared to the
ocean, and all other forms to rivers.[375] He seems to
be following Giraldi Cintio's discourse on the romanzi,
published the year before his own work, when he
says that the French poet should write a Heracleid,
the deeds of Hercules furnishing the mightiest and
most heroic material he can think of.[376] At the same
time Virgil is for him the model of an epic poet;
and his parallel between Homer and Virgil bears
striking resemblance to the similar parallel in Capriano's
Della Vera Poetica, published in the very
same year as his own treatise.[377] Like Capriano,
Pelletier censures the superfluous exuberance, the
loquaciousness, the occasional indecorum, and the
inferiority in eloquence and dignity of Homer when
compared with the Latin poet.
It was Ronsard's personal ambition to be the
French Virgil, as in lyric poetry he had been proclaimed
the French Pindar. For twenty years he
labored on the Franciade, but never finished it.
In the two prefaces which he wrote for it, the first
in 1572, and the second (published posthumously)
about 1584, he attempts to give expression to his
ideal of the heroic poet. In neither of them does
he succeed in formulating any very definite or consistent
body of epic theory. They are chiefly interesting
in that they indicate the general tendencies of
the Pléiade, and show Ronsard's own rhetorical principles,
-212-and his feeling for nature and natural beauty.
The passage has already been cited in which he
speaks of the heroic poem as entirely of a martial
character, and limits its action to the space of one
year. It has also been seen that for him, as for the
Italians, verisimilitude, and not fact, is the test of
poetry. At the same time, the epic poet is to avoid
anachronisms and misstatements of fact. Such
faults do not disturb the reader so much when the
story is remote in point of time; and the poet
should therefore always use an argument, the events
of which are at least three or four hundred years
old. The basis of the work should rest upon some
old story of past times and of long-established renown,
which has gained the credit of men.[378] This
notion of the antiquity of the epic fable had been
accepted long ago by the Italians. It is stated, for
example, in Tasso's Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica,
written about 1564, though not published until
1587, fifteen years after Tasso had visited Ronsard
in Paris.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has the Pléiade veneration
for heroic poetry; but he cannot be said to
exhibit any more definite conception of its form
and function. For him the epic is a vast and
magnificent narration, a world in itself, wherein
men, things, and thoughts are wondrously mirrored:—
"C'est un tableau du monde, un miroir qui raporte
Les gestes des mortels en differente sorte....
-213-
Car toute poësie il contient en soyméme,
Soit tragique ou comique, ou soit autre poëme."[379]
With this we may compare what Muzio had said in
1551:—
"Il poema sovrano è una pittura
De l'universo, e però in sè comprende
Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."
But despite this very vague conception of the epic
in the French Renaissance, there was, as has been
said, a high veneration for it as a form, and for its
masters, Homer and especially Virgil. This accounts
for the large number of attempts at epic
composition in France during the next century.
But beyond the earlier and indefinite notion of
heroic poetry the French did not get for a long
time to come. Even for Boileau the epic poem was
merely the vaste récit d'une longue action.[380]
top
CHAPTER III
-214-
CLASSIC AND ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN FRENCH CRITICISM DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The principle for which the Pléiade stood was,
like that of humanism, the imitation of the classics;
and the Pléiade was the first to introduce this as
a literary principle into France. This means, as
regards French literature, in the first place, the
substitution of the classical instead of its own
national tradition; and, secondly, the substitution
of the imitation of the classics for the imitation of
nature itself. In making these vital substitutions,
Du Bellay and his school have been accused of
creating once and for all the gulf that separates
French poetry from the national life.[381] This accusation
is perhaps unfair to the Pléiade, which insisted
on the poet's going directly to nature, which emphasized
most strongly the sentiment for natural scenery
and beauty, and which first declared the
importance of the artisan and the peasant as subjects
for poetry. But there can be but little doubt
that the separation of poetry from the national life
was the logical outcome of the doctrines of the
Pléiade. In disregarding the older French poets
and the evolution of indigenous poetry, in formulating
-215-an ideal of the poet as an unsociable and
ascetic character, it separated itself from the natural
tendencies of French life and letters, and
helped to effect the final separation between poetry
and the national development.
I. Classical Elements
It was to Du Bellay (1549) that France owes the
introduction of classical ideas into French literature.
He was the first to regard the imitation of
the classics as a literary principle, and to advise the
poet, after the manner of Vida, to purloin all
the treasures of Greek and Latin literature for the
benefit of French poetry. Moreover, he first formulated
the aristocratic conception of the poet held
by the Pléiade. The poet was advised to flee from
the ignorant people, to bury himself in the solitude
of his own chamber, to dream and to ponder,
and to content himself with few readers. "Beyond
everything," says Du Bellay, "the poet should have
one or more learned friends to whom he can show
all his verses; he should converse not only with
learned men, but with all sorts of workmen,
mechanics, artists, and others, in order to learn
the technical terms of their arts, for use in beautiful
descriptions."[382] This was a favorite theory of
the Pléiade, which like some of our own contemporary
writers regarded the technical arts as important
subjects of inspiration. But the essential
point at the bottom of all these discussions is a high
-216-contempt for the opinion of the vulgar in matters
of art.
The Quintil Horatian (1550) represents, as has
already been seen, a natural reaction against the
foreign and classical innovations of the Pléiade.
Du Bellay's advice, "Prens garde que ce poëme soit
eslogné du vulgaire,"—advice insisted upon by
many of the rhetoricians of the Italian Renaissance,—receives
considerable censure; on the contrary,
says the author of the Quintil, the poet must
be understood and appreciated by all, unlearned as
well as learned, just as Marot was. The Quintil
was, in fact, the first work to insist on definiteness
and clearness in poetry, as these were afterward
insisted on by Malherbe and Boileau. Like
Malherbe, and his disciple Deimier, the author
of the Académie de l'Art Poétique (1610), in which
the influence of the Quintil is fully acknowledged,
the author of the Quintil objects to all forms of
poetic license, to all useless metaphors that obscure
the sense, to all Latinisms and foreign terms and
locutions.[383] Du Bellay had dwelt on the importance
of a knowledge of the classical and Italian tongues,
and had strongly advised the French poet to naturalize
as many Latin, Greek, and even Spanish
and Italian terms as he could. The Quintil is particularly
bitter against all such foreign innovations.
The poet need not know foreign tongues at all;
without this knowledge he can be as good a poet as
any of the græcaniseurs, latiniseurs, et italianiseurs
en françoys. This protest availed little, and Du
-217-Bellay's advice in regard to the use of Italian terms
was so well followed that several years later, in 1578,
Henri Estienne vigorously protested against the
practice in his Dialogues du Nouveau Langage
françois italianisé. As Ronsard and Du Bellay
represent the foreign elements that went to make
up classicism in France, so the author of the Quintil
Horatian may be said to represent in his humble
way certain enduring elements of the esprit gaulois.
He represents the national traditions, and he prepares
the way for the two great bourgeois poets of
France,—Boileau, with his "Tout doit tendre au
bon sens," and Molière, with his bluff cry, "Je
suis pour le bon sens."
According to Pelletier (1555), French poetry is
too much like colloquial speech; in order to equal
classical literature, the poets of France must be
more daring and less popular.[384] Pelletier's point of
view is here that of the Pléiade, which aimed at
a distinct poetic language, diverse from ordinary
prose speech. But he is thoroughly French, and
in complete accord with the author of the Quintil
Horatian, in his insistence on perfect clearness in
poetry. "Clearness," he says, "is the first and
worthiest virtue of a poem."[385] Obscurity is the
chief fault of poetry, "for there is no difference
between not speaking at all and not being understood."[386]
For these reasons he is against all unnecessary
and bombastic ornament; the true use of
metaphors and comparisons of all sorts is "to explain
and represent things as they really are."
-218-Similarly, Ronsard, while recognizing the value of
comparisons, rightfully used, as the very nerves
and tendons of poetry, declares that if instead of
perfecting and clarifying, they obscure or confuse
the idea, they are ridiculous.[387] Obscurity was
the chief danger, and indeed the chief fault, of the
Pléiade; and it is no small merit that both Ronsard
and Pelletier perceived this fact.
The Pléiade exhibits the classic temper in its
insistence on study and art as essential to poetry;
but it was not in keeping with the doctrines of
later French classicists in so far as it regarded the
poetic labors as of an unsociable and even ascetic
character. In this, as has been seen, Ronsard is a
true exponent of the doctrines of the new school.
But on the whole the classic spirit was strong in
him. He declares that the poet's ideas should be
high and noble, but not fantastic. "They should
be well ordered and disposed; and while they seem
to transcend those of the vulgar, they should always
appear to be easily conceived and understood by
any one."[388] Here Du Bellay's aristocratic conception
of poetry is modified so as to become a very
typical statement of the principle underlying French
classicism. Again, Ronsard points out, as Vida and
other Italian critics had done before, that the great
classical poets seldom speak of things by their bare
and naked names. Virgil does not, for example,
say, "It was night," or "It was day," but he uses
some such circumlocution as this:—
"Postera Phœbea lustrabat lampade terras."
-219-
The unfortunate results of the excessive use of such
circumlocutions are well exemplified in the later
classicists of France. Ronsard perhaps foresaw
this danger, and wisely says that circumlocution,
if not used judiciously, makes the style inflated
and bombastic. In the first preface to the Franciade,
he expresses a decided preference for the
naïve facility of Homer over the artful diligence of
Virgil.[389] In the second preface, however, written a
dozen years later, and published posthumously as
revised by his disciple Binet, there is interesting
evidence, in the preëminence given to Virgil, of the
rapidity with which the Latinization of culture was
being effected at this period. "Our French authors,"
says Ronsard, "know Virgil far better than
they know Homer or any other Greek writer."
And again, "Virgil is the most excellent and the
most rounded, the most compact and the most perfect
of all poets."[390] Of the naïve facility of Homer
we hear absolutely nothing.
We are now beginning to enter the era of rules.
Ronsard did not undervalue the "rules and secrets"
of poetry; and Vauquelin de la Fresnaye calls his
own critical poem cet Art de Règles recherchées.[391] In
regard to the imitation of the classics, Vauquelin
agrees heart and soul with the Pléiade that the
ancients
"nous ont desja tracé
Un sentier qui de nous ne doit estre laissé."[392]
Nothing, indeed, could be more classical than his
-220-comparison of poetry to a garden symmetrically
laid out and trimmed.[393] Moreover, like the classicists
of the next century, he affirms, as does Ronsard
also, that art must fundamentally imitate and
resemble nature.[394]
The imitation of the classics had also a decided
effect on the technique of French verse and on the
linguistic principles of the Pléiade. Enjambement
(the carrying over into another line of words required
to complete the sense) and hiatus (the clash
of vowels in a line) were both employed in Latin
and Greek verse, and were therefore permitted in
French poetry by the new school. Ronsard, however,
anticipated the reforms of Malherbe and the
practice of French classic verse, in forbidding both
hiatus and enjambement, though in a later work of
his this opinion is reversed. He was also probably
the first to insist on the regular alternation of masculine
and feminine rhymes in verse. This had
never been strictly adhered to in practice, or required
by stringent rule, before Ronsard, but has
become the invariable usage of French poetry ever
since. Ronsard regards this device as a means of
making verse keep tune more harmoniously with
the music of instruments. It was one of the
favorite theories of the Pléiade that poetry is intended,
not to be read, but to be recited or sung, and
that the words and the notes should be coupled
lovingly together. Poetry without an accompaniment
of vocal or instrumental music exhibits but a
small part of its harmony or perfection; and while
-221-composing verses, the poet should always pronounce
them aloud, or rather sing them, in order to test
their melody.[395] This conception of music "married
to immortal verse" doubtless came from Italy, and
is connected with the rise of operatic music. De
Laudun (1598) differs from the members of the
Pléiade in forbidding the use of words newly
coined or taken from the dialects of France, and
in objecting to the use of enjambement and hiatus.
It is evident, therefore, that while the influence of
the Pléiade is visible throughout De Laudun's treatise,
his disagreement with Ronsard and Du Bellay
on a considerable number of essential points shows
that by the end of the century the supremacy of
the Pléiade had begun to wane.
The new school also attempted to introduce classical
metres into French poetry. The similar attempt
at using the ancient versification in Italy has
already been incidentally referred to.[396] According
to Vasari, Leon Battista Alberti, in his epistle,
"Questa per estrema miserabile pistola mando,"
was the first to attempt to reduce the vernacular
versification to the measure of the Latins.[397] In October,
1441, the Scena dell' Amicizia of Leonardo Dati
was composed and recited before the Accademia Coronaria
at Florence.[398] The first two parts of this piece
-222-are written in hexameters, the third in Sapphics, the
fourth in sonnet form and rhymed. The prologues
of Ariosto's comedies, the Negromante and the Cassaria,
are also in classical metres. But the remarkable
collection of Claudio Tolomei, Versi e Regole de
la Nuova Poesia Toscana, published at Rome in
1539, marked an epoch in sixteenth-century letters.
In this work the employment of classical metres in
the vulgar tongue is defended, and rules for their
use given; then follows a collection of Italian verse
written after this fashion by a large number of
scholars and poets, among them Annibal Caro and
Tolomei himself. This group of scholars had
formed itself into an esoteric circle, the Accademia
della Nuova Poesia; and from the tone of the
verses addressed to Tolomei by the members of
this circle, it would seem that he regarded himself,
and was regarded by them, as the founder and expositor
of this poetic innovation.[399] Luigi Alamanni,
whose life was chiefly spent at the Court of France,
published in 1556 a comedy, La Flora, written in
classical metres; and two years later Francesco
Patrizzi published an heroic poem, the Eridano,
written in hexameters, with a defence of the form
of versification employed.[400]
This learned innovation spread throughout western
Europe.[401] In France, toward the close of the
-223-fifteenth century, according to Agrippa d'Aubigné,
a certain Mousset had translated the Iliad and the
Odyssey into French hexameters; but nothing else
is known either of Mousset or of his translations.
As early as 1500 one Michel de Bouteauville, the
author of an Art de métrifier françois, wrote a poem
in classical distichs on the English war. Sibilet
(1548) accepted the use of classical metres, though
with some distrust, for to him rhyme seemed as
essential to French poetry as long and short syllables
to Greek and Latin. In 1562 Ramus, in his
Grammar, recommended the ancient versification,
and expressed his regret that it had not been accepted
with favor by the public. In the same year
Jacques de la Taille wrote his treatise, La Manière
de faire des Vers en françois comme en grec et en
latin, but it was not published until 1573, eleven
years after his death. His main object in writing
the book was to show that it is not as difficult to
employ quantity in French verse as some people
think, nor even any more difficult than in Greek
and Latin.[402] In answer to the objection that the
vulgar tongues are by their nature incapable of
quantity, he argues, after the manner of Du Bellay,
that such things do not proceed from the nature of
a language, but from the labor and diligence of
those who employ it. He is tired of vulgar rhymes,
and is anxious to find a more ingenious and more
-224-difficult path to Parnassus. He then proceeds to
treat of quantity and measure in French, of feet
and verse, and of figures and poetic license.[403]
The name most inseparably connected with the
introduction of classical metres into France in the
sixteenth century is that of Jean Antoine de Baïf.
This young member of the Pléiade, after publishing
several unsuccessful volumes of verse, visited Italy,
and was present at the Council of Trent in 1563.
In Italy he doubtless learnt of the metrical innovations
then being employed; and upon his return,
without any apparent knowledge of Jacques de la
Taille's as yet unpublished treatise, he set about to
make a systematic reform in French versification.
His purpose was to bring about a more perfect unison
between poetry and music; and in order to
accomplish this, he adopted classical metres, based
as they were on a musical prosody, and accepted
the phonetic reforms of Ramus. He also established,
no doubt in imitation of the Accademia della
Nuova Poesia, the Académie de Poésie et de Musique,
authorized by letters patent from Charles IX.
in November, 1570.[404] The purpose of this academy
was to encourage and establish the metrical and
musical innovations advocated by Baïf and his
friends. On the death of Charles IX. the society's
existence was menaced; but it was restored, with a
-225-broader purpose and function, as the Académie du
Palais, by Guy du Faur de Pibrac in 1576, under
the protection of Henry III., and it continued to
nourish until dispersed by the turmoils of the
League about 1585. But Baïf's innovations were
not entirely without fruit. A similar movement,
and a not dissimilar society, will be found somewhat
later in Elizabethan England.
II. Romantic Elements
Some of the romantic elements in the critical
theory of the Pléiade have already been indicated.
The new movement started, in Du Bellay's Défense,
with a high conception of the poet's office. It emphasized
the necessity, on the part of the poet, of
profound and solitary study, of a refined and
ascetic life, and of entire separation from vulgar
people and pleasures. Du Bellay himself is romantic
in that he decides against the traditions de règles,[405]
deeming the good judgment of the poet sufficient
in matters of taste; but the reason of this was that
there were no rules which he would have been willing
to accept. It took more than a century for the
French mind to arrive at the conclusion that reason
and rules, in matters of art, proceed from one and
the same cause.
The feeling for nature and for natural beauty is
very marked in all the members of the Pléiade.
Pelletier speaks of war, love, agriculture, and pastoral
life as the chief themes of poetry.[406] He warns
-226-the poet to observe nature and life itself, and not
depend on books alone; and he dwells on the value
of descriptions of landscapes, tempests, and sunrises,
and similar natural scenes.[407] The feeling for nature
is even more intense in Ronsard; and like Pelletier,
he urges the poet to describe in verse the rivers,
forests, mountains, winds, the sea, gods and goddesses,
sunrise, night, and noon.[408] In another place
the poet is advised to embellish his work with accounts
of trees, flowers, and herbs, especially those
dignified by some medicinal or magical virtues, and
with descriptions of rivers, towns, forests, mountains,
caverns, rocks, harbors, and forts. Here the
appreciation of natural beauty as introduced into
modern Europe by the Italian Renaissance—the
feeling for nature in its wider aspects, the broad
landscape, the distant prospect—first becomes
visible in France. "In the painting or rather imitation
of nature," says Ronsard, "consists the very
soul of heroic poetry."
Ronsard also gives warning that ordinary speech
is not to be banished from poetry, or too much
evaded, for by doing so the poet is dealing a death-blow
to "naïve and natural poetry."[409] This sympathy
for the simple and popular forms of poetry as
models for the poetic artist is characteristic of the
Pléiade. There is a very interesting passage in
Montaigne, in which the popular ballads of the
peasantry are praised in a manner that recalls the
famous words of Sir Philip Sidney concerning
-227-the old song of Percy and Douglas,[410] and which
seems to anticipate the interest in popular poetry
in England two centuries later:—
"Popular and purely natural and indigenous poetry has
a certain native simplicity and grace by which it may be
favorably compared with the principal beauty of perfect
poetry composed according to the rules of art; as may be
seen in the villanelles of Gascony, and in songs coming from
nations that have no knowledge of any science, not even of
writing. But mediocre poetry, which is neither perfect nor
popular, is held in disdain by every one, and receives neither
honor nor reward."[411]
The Pléiade, as has already been intimated,
accepted without reserve the Platonic doctrine of
inspiration. By 1560 a considerable number of the
Platonic dialogues had already been translated into
French. Dolet had translated two of the spurious
dialogues; Duval, the Lysis in 1547; and Le Roy,
the Phædo in 1553 and the Symposium in 1559.
The thesis of Ramus in 1536 had started an anti-Aristotelian
tendency in France, and the literature
of the French Renaissance became impregnated
with Platonism.[412] It received the royal favor of
Marguerite de Navarre, and its influence became
fixed in 1551, by the appointment of Ramus to a
professorship in the Collège de France. Ronsard,
Vauquelin, Du Bartas, all give expression to the
Platonic theory of poetic inspiration. The poet
must feel what he writes, as Horace says, or his
reader will never be moved by his verses; and for
-228-the Pléiade, the excitement of high emotions in the
reader or hearer was the test or touchstone of
poetry.[413]
The national and Christian points of view never
found expression in France during the sixteenth
century in so marked a manner as in Italy. There
are, indeed, traces of both a national and a Christian
criticism, but they are hardly more than sporadic.
Thus, it has been seen that Sibilet, as early as 1548,
had clearly perceived the distinguishing characteristic
of the French genius. He had noted that the
French have only taken from foreign literature
what they have deemed useful and of national
advantage; and only the other day a distinguished
French critic asserted in like manner that the high
importance of French literature consists in the fact
that it has taken from the other literatures of
Europe the things of universal interest and disregarded
the accidental picturesque details. Distinct
traces of a national point of view may be found in
the dramatic criticism of this period. Thus Grévin,
in his Bref Discours (1562), attempts to justify the
substitution of a crowd of Cæsar's soldiers for the
singers of the ancient chorus, in one of his tragedies,
on the following grounds:—
"If it be alleged that this practice was observed throughout
antiquity by the Greeks and Latins, I reply that it is
permitted to us to attempt some innovation of our own, especially
when there is occasion for it, or when the grace of
the poem is not diminished thereby. I know well that it
will be answered that the ancients employed the chorus of
-229-singers to divert the audience, made gloomy perhaps by the
cruelties represented in the play. To this I reply that
diverse nations require diverse manners of doing things, and
that among the French there are other means of doing this
without interrupting the continuity of a story."[414]
The Christian point of view, on the other hand,
is found in Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who differs
from Ronsard and Du Bellay in his preference for
scriptural themes in poetry. The Pléiade was essentially
pagan, Vauquelin essentially Christian.
The employment of the pagan divinities in modern
poetry seemed to him often odious, for the times
had changed, and the Muses were governed by different
laws. The poet should attempt Christian
themes; and indeed the Greeks themselves, had
they been Christians, would have sung the life and
death of Christ. In this passage Vauquelin is evidently
following Minturno, as the latter was afterward
followed by Corneille:—
"Si les Grecs, comme vous, Chrestiens eussent escrit,
Ils eussent les hauts faits chanté de Iesus Christ....
Hé! quel plaisir seroit-ce à cette heure de voir
Nos poëtes Chrestiens, les façons recevoir
Du tragique ancien? Et voir à nos misteres
Les Payens asservis sous les loix salutaires
De nos Saints et Martyrs? et du vieux testament
Voir une tragedie extraite proprement?"[415]
Vauquelin's opinion here is out of keeping with
the general theory of the Pléiade, especially in
that his suggestions imply a return to the mediæval
-230-mystery and morality plays. The Uranie
of Du Bartas is another and more fervid expression
of this same ideal of Christian poetry. In
the Semaines, Du Bartas himself composed the
typical biblical poem; and tragedies on Christian
or scriptural subjects were composed during the
French Renaissance from the time of Buchanan
and Beza to that of Garnier and Montchrestien.
But Vauquelin's ideal was not that of the later classicism;
and Boileau, as has been seen, distinctly
rejects Christian themes from modern poetry.
Although the linguistic and prosodic theories of
the Pléiade partly anticipate both the theory and
the practice of later classicism, the members of the
school exhibit numerous deviations from what was
afterward accepted as inviolable law in French
poetry. The most important of these deviations concerns
the use of words from the various French dialects,
from foreign tongues, and from the technical
and mechanical arts. A partial expression of this
theory of poetic language has already been seen in
Du Bellay's Défense et Illustration, in which the
poet is urged to use the more elegant technical dialectic
terms. Ronsard gives very much the same
advice. The best words in all the French dialects
are to be employed by the poet; for it is doubtless to
the number of the dialects of Greece that we may
ascribe the supreme beauty of its language and
literature. The poet is not to affect too much the
language of the court, since it is often very bad, being
the language of ladies and of young gentlemen who
make a profession of fighting well rather than of-231-
speaking well.[416] Unlike Malherbe and his school,
Ronsard allows a certain amount of poetic license,
but only rarely and judiciously. It is to poetic
license, he says, that we owe nearly all the beautiful
figures with which poets, in their divine rapture,
enfranchising the laws of grammar, have enriched
their works. "This is that birthright," said Dryden,
a century later, in the preface of his State of
Innocence and the Fall of Man, "which is derived
to us from our great forefathers, even from Homer
down to Ben; and they who would deny it to us
have, in plain terms, the fox's quarrel to the grapes—they
cannot reach it." Vauquelin de la Fresnaye
follows Ronsard and Du Bellay in urging the
use of new and dialect words, the employment of
terms and comparisons from the mechanic arts,
and the various other doctrines by which the
Pléiade is distinguished from the school of Malherbe.
How these useless linguistic innovations
were checked and banished from the French language
forever will be briefly alluded to in the
next chapter.
top
CHAPTER IV
-232-
THE FORMATION OF THE CLASSIC IDEAL IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
I. The Romantic Revolt
It is a well-known fact that between 1600 and
1630 there was a break in the national evolution
of French literature. This was especially so in
the drama, and in France the drama is the connecting
link between century and century. The
dramatic works of the sixteenth century had been
fashioned after the regular models borrowed by
the Italians from Seneca. The change that came
was a change from Italian classical to Spanish
romantic models. The note of revolt was beginning
to be heard in Grévin, De Laudun, and others.
The seventeenth century opened with the production
of Hardy's irregular drama, Les Amours de Théagène
et Cariclée (1601), and the influence of the
Spanish romantic drama and the Italian pastoral,
dominant for over a quarter of a century, was inaugurated
in France.
The logic of this innovation was best expounded
in Spain, and it was there that arguments in favor
of the romantic and irregular drama were first
formulated. The two most interesting defences of
the Spanish national drama are doubtless the-233-
Egemplar Poético of Juan de la Cueva (1606) and
Lope de Vega's Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias
(1609). Their inspiration is at bottom the same.
Their authors were both classicists at heart, or
rather classicists in theory, yet with differences.
Juan de la Cueva's conception of poetry is entirely
based on the precepts of the Italians, except in
what regards the national drama, for here he is a
partisan and a patriot. He insists that the difference
of time and circumstance frees the Spanish
playwright from all necessity of imitating the
ancients or obeying their rules. "This change in
the drama," he says, "was effected by wise men,
who applied to new conditions the new things they
found most suitable and expedient; for we must
consider the various opinions, the times, and the
manners, which make it necessary for us to change
and vary our operations."[417] His theory of the
drama was entirely opposed to his conception of the
other forms of poetry. According to this standpoint,
as a recent writer has put it, "the theatre
was to imitate nature, and to please; poetry was to
imitate the Italians, and satisfy the orthodox but
minute critic."[418] Lope de Vega, writing three
years later, does not deny the universal applicability
of the Aristotelian canons, and even acknowledges
that they are the only true rules. But the
people demand romantic plays, and the people,
rather than the poet's literary conscience, must be
satisfied by the playwright. "I myself," he says,
-234-"write comedies according to the art invented by
those whose sole object it is to obtain the applause
of the crowd. After all, since it is the public who
pays for these stupidities, why should we not serve
what it wants?"[419]
Perhaps the most interesting of all the expositions
of the theory of the Spanish national drama
is a defence of Lope de Vega's plays by one Alfonso
Sanchez, published in 1618 in France, or possibly
in Spain with a false French imprint. The apology
of Sanchez is comprehended in six distinct propositions.
First, the arts have their foundation in
nature. Secondly, a wise and learned man may
alter many things in the existing arts. Thirdly,
nature does not obey laws, but gives them.
Fourthly, Lope de Vega has done well in creating
a new art. Fifthly, in his writings everything is
adjusted to art, and that a real and living art.
Lastly, Lope de Vega has surpassed all the ancient
poets.[420] The following passage may be extracted
from this treatise, if only to show how little there
was of novelty in the tenets of the French romanticists
two centuries later:—
"Is it said that we have no infallible art by which to
adjust our precepts? But who can doubt it? We have art,
we have precepts and rules which bind us, and the principal
precept is to imitate nature, for the works of poets express
the nature, the manners, and the genius of the age in which
they write.... Lope de Vega writes in conformity with
art, because he follows nature. If, on the contrary, the
Spanish drama adjusted itself to the rules and laws of the
-235-ancients, it would proceed against the requirements of
nature, and against the foundations of poetry.... The
great Lope has done things over and above the laws of the
ancients, but never against these laws."
Another Spanish writer defines art as "an attentive
observation of examples graded by experience, and
reduced to method and the majesty of laws."[421]
It was this naturalistic conception of the poetic
art, and especially of the drama, that obtained in
France during the first thirty years of the seventeenth
century. The French playwrights imitated
the Spanish drama in practice, and from the Spanish
theorists seemed to have derived the critical justification
of their plays. Hardy himself, like Lope de
Vega, argues that "everything which is approved by
usage and the public taste is legitimate and more
than legitimate." Another writer of this time, François
Ogier, in the preface of the second edition of
Jean de Schelandre's remarkable drama of Tyr et
Sidon (1628), argues for intellectual independence of
the ancients much in the same way as Giraldi Cintio,
Pigna, and the other partisans of the romanzi had
done three-quarters of a century before. The taste
of every nation, he says, is quite different from any
other. "The Greeks wrote for the Greeks, and in
the judgment of the best men of their time they
succeeded. But we should imitate them very much
better by giving heed to the tastes of our own
country, and the genius of our own language, than
by forcing ourselves to follow step by step both
their intention and their expression." This would
-236-seem to be at bottom Goethe's famous statement
that we can best imitate the Greeks by trying to
be as great men as they were. It is interesting to
note, in all of these early critics, traces of that historical
criticism which is usually regarded as the
discovery of our own century. But after all, the
French like the Spanish playwrights were merely
beginning to practise what the Italian dramatists
in their prefaces, and some of the Italian critics
in their treatises, had been preaching for nearly a
century.
The Abbé d'Aubignac speaks of Hardy as
"arresting the progress of the French theatre";
and whatever practical improvements the French
theatre owes to him, there can be little doubt that
for a certain number of years the evolution of the
classical drama was partly arrested by his efforts
and the efforts of his school. But during this
very period the foundations of the great literature
that was to come were being built on classical
lines; and the continuance of the classical tradition
after 1630 was due to three distinct causes,
each of which will be discussed by itself as briefly
as possible. These three causes were the reaction
against the Pléiade, the second influx of the critical
ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and the influence
of the rationalistic philosophy of the period.
II. The Reaction against the Pléiade
The reaction against the Pléiade was effected, or
at least begun, by Malherbe. Malherbe's power or-237-
message as a poet is of no concern here; in his rôle of
grammarian and critic he accomplished certain important
and widespread reforms in French poetry.
These reforms were connected chiefly, if not entirely,
with the external or formal side of poetry.
His work was that of a grammarian, of a prosodist—in
a word, that of a purist. He did not, indeed,
during his lifetime, publish any critical work, or
formulate any critical system. But the reforms he
executed were on this account no less influential or
enduring. His critical attitude is to be looked for
in the memoirs of his life written by his disciple
Racan, and in his own Commentaire sur Desportes,
which was not published in its entirety until very
recently.[422] This commentary consists of a series of
manuscript notes written by Malherbe about the
year 1606 in the margins of a copy of Desportes.
These notes are of a most fragmentary kind; they
seldom go beyond a word or two of disapproval,
such as faible, mal conçu, superflu, sans jugement,
sottise, or mal imaginé; and yet, together with a
few detached utterances recorded in his letters and
in the memoirs by Racan, they indicate quite clearly
the critical attitude of Malherbe and the reforms
he was bent on bringing about.
These reforms were, in the first place, largely
linguistic. The Pléiade had attempted to widen
the sphere of poetic expression in French literature
-238-by the introduction of words from the classics,
from the Italian and even the Spanish, from the
provincial dialects, from the old romances, and from
the terminology of the mechanic arts. All these
archaisms, neologisms, Latinisms, compound words,
and dialectic and technical expressions, Malherbe
set about to eradicate from the French language.
His object was to purify French, and, as it were, to
centralize it. The test he set up was actual usage,
and even this was narrowed down to the usage of
the court. Ronsard had censured the exclusive use
of courtly speech in poetry, on the ground that the
courtier cares more about fighting well than about
speaking or writing well. But Malherbe's ideal
was the ideal of French classicism—the ideal of
Boileau, Racine, and Bossuet. French was to be
no longer a hodgepodge or a patois, but the pure
and perfect speech of the king and his court.
Malherbe, while thus reacting against the Pléiade,
made no pretensions of returning to the linguistic
usages of Marot; his test was present usage, his
model the living language.[423] At the same time his
reforms in language, as in other things, represent a
reaction against foreign innovations and a return
to the pure French idiom. They were in the interest
of the national traditions; and it is this
national element which is his share in the body
of neo-classical theory and practice. His reforms
were all in the direction of that verbal and mechanical
perfection, the love of which is innate in
the French nature, and which forms the indigenous
-239-or racial element in French classicism. He eliminated
from French verse hiatus, enjambement, inversions,
false and imperfect rhymes, and licenses
or cacophonies of all kinds. He gave it, as has
been said, mechanical perfection,—
"Et réduisit la Muse aux règles du devoir."
For such a man—tyran des mots et des syllabes,
as Balzac called him—the higher qualities of poetry
could have little or no meaning. His ideals were
propriety, clearness, regularity, and force. These,
as Chapelain perceived at the time, are oratorical
rather than purely poetic qualities; yet for these,
all the true qualities that go to make up a great
poet were to be sacrificed. Of imagination and
poetic sensibility he takes no account whatsoever.
After the verbal perfection of the verse, the logical
unity of the poem was his chief interest. Logic
and reason are without doubt important things, but
they cannot exist in poetry to the exclusion of
imagination. By eliminating inspiration, as it
were, Malherbe excluded the possibility of lyrical
production in France throughout the period of
classicism. He hated poetic fictions, since for him,
as for Boileau, only actual reality is beautiful. If he
permitted the employment of mythological figures,
it was because they are reasonable and universally
intelligible symbols. The French mind is essentially
rational and logical, and Malherbe reintroduced
this native rationality into French poetry.
He set up common sense as a poetic ideal, and
made poetry intelligible to the average mind. The-240-
Pléiade had written for a learned literary coterie;
Malherbe wrote for learned and unlearned alike.
For the Pléiade, poetry had been a divine office, a
matter of prophetic inspiration; for Malherbe, it
was a trade, a craft, to be learnt like any other.
Du Bellay had said that "it is a well-accepted fact,
according to the most learned men, that natural
talents without learning can accomplish more in
poetry than learning without natural talents."
Malherbe, it has been neatly said, would have
upheld the contrary doctrine that "learning without
natural talents can accomplish more than
natural talents without learning."[424] After all,
eloquence was Malherbe's ideal; and as the French
are by nature an eloquent rather than a poetic people,
he deserves the honor of having first shown
them how to regain their true inheritance. In a
word, he accomplished for classical poetry in France
all that the national instinct, the esprit gaulois,
could accomplish by itself. Consistent structural
laws for the larger poetic forms he could not give;
these France owes to Italy. Nor could he appreciate
the high notion of abstract perfection, or the
classical conception of an absolute standard of
taste—that of several expressions or several ways
of doing something, one way and only one is the
right one; this France owes to rationalistic philosophy.
Malherbe seems almost to be echoing Montaigne
when he says in a letter to Balzac:—
"Do you not know that the diversity of opinions is as
natural as the difference of men's faces, and that to wish
-241-that what pleases or displeases us should please or displease
everybody is to pass the limits where it seems that God in
His omnipotence has commanded us to stop?"[425]
With this individualistic expression of the questions
of opinion and taste, we have but to compare the
following passage from La Bruyère to indicate how
far Malherbe is still from the classic ideal:—
"There is a point of perfection in art, as of excellence or
maturity in nature. He who is sensible of it and loves it has
perfect taste; he who is not sensible of it and loves this or
that else on either side of it has a faulty taste. There is
then a good and a bad taste, and men dispute of tastes not
without reason."[426]
III. The Second Influx of Italian Ideas
The second influx of Italian critical ideas into
France came through two channels. In the first
place, the direct literary relations between Italy
and France during this period were very marked.
The influence of Marino, who lived for a long time
at Paris and published a number of his works
there, was not inconsiderable, especially upon the
French concettists and précieux. Two Italian
ladies founded and presided over the famous Hotel
de Rambouillet,—Julie Savelli, Marquise de Pisani,
and Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet.
It was partly to the influence of the Accademia
della Crusca that the foundation of the French
Academy was due. Chapelain and Ménage were
-242-both members of the Italian society, and submitted
to it their different opinions on a verse of Petrarch.
Like the Accademia della Crusca, the French Academy
purposed the preparation of a great dictionary;
and each began its existence by attacking a great
work of literature, the Gerusalemme Liberata in
the case of the Italian society, Corneille's Cid in
the case of the French. The regency of Marie de
Medici, the supremacy of Mazarin, and other political
events, all conspired to bring Italy and France
into the closest social and literary relationship.
But the two individuals who first brought into
French literature and naturalized the primal critical
concepts of Italy were Chapelain and Balzac.
Chapelain's private correspondence indicates how
thorough was his acquaintance with the critical
literature of Italy. "I have a particular affection
for the Italian language," he wrote in 1639 to Balzac.[427]
Of the Cid, he says that "in Italy it would
be considered barbarous, and there is not an academy
which would not banish it beyond the confines
of its jurisdiction."[428] Speaking of the greatness of
Ronsard, he says that his own opinion was in
accord with that of "two great savants beyond the
Alps, Speroni and Castelvetro";[429] and he had considerable
correspondence with Balzac on the subject
of the controversy between Caro and Castelvetro in
the previous century. In a word, he knew and
-243-studied the critics and scholars of Italy, and was
interested in discussing them. Balzac's interest,
on the other hand, was rather toward Spanish
literature; but he was the agent of the Cardinal de
la Valette at Rome, and it was on his return to
France that he published the first collection of his
letters. The influence of both Chapelain and Balzac
on French classicism was considerable. During
the sixteenth century, literary criticism had been
entirely in the hands of learned men. Chapelain
and Balzac vulgarized the critical ideas of the
Italian Renaissance, and made them popular, human,
but inviolable. Balzac introduced into France
the fine critical sense of the Italians; Chapelain
introduced their formal rules, and imposed the
three unities on French tragedy. Together they
effected a humanizing of the classical ideal, even
while subjecting it to rules.
It was to the same Italian influences that France
owed the large number of artificial epics that appeared
during this period. About ten epics were
published in the fifteen years between 1650 and
1665.[430] The Italians of the sixteenth century had
formulated a fixed theory of the artificial epic; and
the nations of western Europe rivalled one another
in attempting to make practical use of this theory.
It is to this that the large number of Spanish epics
in the sixteenth century and of French epics in the
seventeenth may be ascribed. Among the latter
-244-we may mention Scudéry's Alaric, Lemoyne's Saint
Louis, Saint-Amant's Moyse Sauvé, and Chapelain's
own epic, La Pucelle, awaited by the public for
many years, and published only to be damned forever
by Boileau.
The prefaces of all these epics indicate clearly
enough their indebtedness to the Italians. They
were indeed scarcely more than attempts to put the
rules and precepts of the Italian Renaissance into
practice. "I then consulted the masters of this
art," says Scudéry, in the preface of Alaric, "that
is to say, Aristotle and Horace, and after them
Macrobius, Scaliger, Tasso, Castelvetro, Piccolomini,
Vida, Vossius, Robortelli, Riccoboni, Paolo
Beni, Mambrun, and several others; and passing
from theory to practice I reread very carefully the
Iliad and the Odyssey, the Æneid, the Pharsalia,
the Thebaid, the Orlando Furioso, and the Gerusalemme
Liberata, and many other epic poems in
diverse languages." Similarly, Saint-Amant, in
the preface of his Moyse Sauvé, says that he had
rigorously observed "the unities of action and
place, which are the principal requirements of the
epic; and besides, by an entirely new method, I
have restricted my subject not only within twenty-four
hours, the limit of the dramatic poem, but
almost within half of that time. This is more than
even Aristotle, Horace, Scaliger, Castelvetro, Piccolomini,
and all the other moderns have ever
required." It is obvious that for these epic-makers
the rules and precepts of the Italians were the final
tests of heroic poetry. Similarly, the Abbé d'Aubignac,-245-
at the beginning of his Pratique du Théâtre,
advises the dramatic poet to study, among other
writers, "Aristotle, Horace, Castelvetro, Vida,
Heinsius, Vossius, and Scaliger, of whom not a
word should be lost." From the Italians also came
the theory of poetry in general as held throughout
the period of classicism, and expounded by the
Abbé d'Aubignac, La Mesnardière, Corneille, Boileau,
and numerous others; and it is hardly necessary
to repeat that Rapin, tracing the history of
criticism at the beginning of his Réflexions sur la
Poétique, deals with scarcely any critics but the
Italians.
Besides the direct influence of the Italian critics,
another influence contributed its share to the sum
of critical ideas which French classicism owes to
the Italian Renaissance. This was the tradition of
Scaliger, carried on by the Dutch scholars Heinsius
and Vossius. Daniel Heinsius was the pupil of
Joseph Scaliger, the illustrious son of the author of
the Poetics; and through Heinsius the dramatic
theories of the elder Scaliger influenced classical
tragedy in France. The treatise of Heinsius, De
Tragœdiæ Constitutione, published at Leyden in
1611, was called by Chapelain "the quintessence of
Aristotle's Poetics"; and Chapelain called Heinsius
himself "a prophet or sibyl in matters of criticism."[431]
Annoted by Racine, cited as an infallible
authority by Corneille, Heinsius's work exercised
-246-a marked influence on French tragedy by fixing
upon it the laws of Scaliger; and later the works
of Vossius coöperated with those of Heinsius in
widening the sphere of the Italian influence. It is
evident, therefore, that while French literature had
already during the sixteenth century taken from the
Italian Renaissance its respect for antiquity and its
admiration for classical mythology, the seventeenth
century owed to Italy its definitive conception of the
theory of poetry, and especially certain rigid structural
laws for tragedy and epic. It may be said
without exaggeration that there is not an essential
idea or precept in the works of Corneille and
D'Aubignac on dramatic poetry, or of Le Bossu and
Mambrun on epic poetry, that cannot be found in
the critical writings of the Italian Renaissance.
IV. The Influence of Rationalistic Philosophy
The influence of rationalistic philosophy on the
general attitude of classicism manifested itself in
what may be called the gradual rationalization of all
that the Renaissance gave to France. The process
thus effected is most definitely exhibited in the evolution
of the rules which France owed to Italy. It
has already been shown how the rules and precepts
of the Italians had originally been based on authority
alone, but had gradually obtained a general significance
of their own, regardless of their ancient
authority. Somewhat later, in England, the Aristotelian
canons were defended by Ben Jonson on the
ground that Aristotle understood the causes of-247-
things, and that what others had done by chance
or custom, Aristotle did by reason alone.[432] By this
time, then, the reasonableness of the Aristotelian
canons was distinctly felt, although they were still
regarded as having authoritativeness in themselves;
and it was first in the French classicists of the
seventeenth century that reason and the ancient
rules were regarded as one and inseparable.
Rationalism, indeed, is to be found at the very outset
of the critical activity of the Renaissance; and
Vida's words, already cited, "Semper nutu rationis
eant res," represent in part the attitude of the Renaissance
mind toward literature. But the "reason"
of the earlier theorists was merely empirical
and individualistic; it did not differ essentially
from Horace's ideal of "good sense." In fact, rationalism
and humanism, while existing together
throughout the Renaissance, were never to any extent
harmonized; and extreme rationalism generally
took the form of an avowed antagonism to Aristotle.
The complete rationalization of the laws of literature
is first evident toward the middle of the seventeenth
century. "The rules of the theatre," says
the Abbé d'Aubignac, at the beginning of his
Pratique du Théâtre, "are founded, not on authority,
but on reason," and if they are called the rules
of the ancients, it is simply "because the ancients
have admirably practised them." Similarly, Corneille,
in his discourse Des Trois Unités, says that
the unity of time would be arbitrary and tyrannical
if it were merely required by Aristotle's Poetics,
-248-but that its real prop is the natural reason; and
Boileau sums up the final attitude of classicism in
these words:—
"Aimez donc la raison; que toujours vos écrits
Empruntent d'elle seule et leur lustre et leur prix."[433]
Here the rationalizing process is complete, and the
actual requirements of authority become identical
with the dictates of the reason.
The rules expounded by Boileau, while for the
most part the same as those enunciated by the Italians,
are no longer mere rules. They are laws dictated
by abstract and universal reason, and hence
inevitable and infallible; they are not tyrannical
or arbitrary, but imposed upon us by the very nature
of the human mind. This is not merely, as
we have said, the good nature and the good sense,
in a word, the sweet reasonableness, of such a critic
as Horace.[434] There is more than this in the classicists
of the seventeenth century. Good sense becomes
universalized, becomes, in fact, as has been
said, not merely an empirical notion of good sense,
but the abstract and universal reason itself. From
this follows the absolute standard of taste at the
bottom of classicism, as exemplified in the passage
already cited from La Bruyère, and in such a line
as this from Boileau:—
"La raison pour marcher n'a souvent qu'une voie."[435] This rationalization of the Renaissance rules of
-249-poetry was effected by contemporary philosophy;
if not by the works and doctrines of Descartes himself,
at least by the general tendency of the human
mind at this period, of which these works and doctrines
are the most perfect expressions. Boileau's
Art Poétique has been aptly called the Discours de
la Méthode of French poetry. So that while the
contribution of Malherbe and his school to classicism
lay in the insistence on clearness, propriety,
and verbal and metrical perfection, and the contribution
of the Italian Renaissance lay in the infusion
of respect for classical antiquity and the imposition
of a certain body of fixed rules, the contribution of
contemporary philosophy lay in the rationalization
or universalization of these rules, and in the imposition
of an abstract and absolute standard of taste.
But Cartesianism brought with it certain important
limitations and deficiencies. Boileau himself
is reported to have said that "the philosophy of
Descartes has cut the throat of poetry;"[436] and there
can be no doubt that this is the exaggerated expression
of a certain inevitable truth. The excessive
insistence on the reason brought with it a corresponding
undervaluation of the imagination. The
rational and rigidly scientific basis of Cartesianism
was forced on classicism; and reality became its
supreme object and its final test:—
"Rien n'est beau que le vrai."
Reference has already been made to various disadvantages
imposed on classicism by the very nature
-250-of its origin and growth; but the most vital of all
these disadvantages was the influence of the Cartesian
philosophy or philosophic temper. With
the scientific basis thus imposed on literature, its
only safeguard against extinction was the vast influence
of a certain body of fixed rules, which literature
dared not deviate from, and which it
attempted to justify on the wider grounds of philosophy.
These rules, then, the contribution of
Italy, saved poetry in France from extinction during
the classical period; and of this a remarkable
confirmation is to be found in the fact that not until
the rationalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries was superseded in France, did French literature
rid itself of this body of Renaissance rules.
Cartesianism, or at least the rationalistic spirit,
humanized these rules, and imposed them on the
rest of Europe. But though quintessentialized,
they remained artificial, and circumscribed the
workings of the French imagination for over a
century.
top
Part Third
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND
LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
-253-
THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH CRITICISM FROM ASCHAM TO MILTON
Literary criticism in England during the Elizabethan
age was neither so influential nor so rich
and varied as the contemporary criticism of Italy
and France. This fact might perhaps be thought
insufficient to affect the interest or patriotism of
English-speaking people, yet the most charming
critical monument of this period, Sidney's Defence
of Poesy, has been slightingly referred to by the
latest historian of English poetry. Such interest
and importance as Elizabethan criticism possesses
must therefore be of an historical nature, and lies
in two distinct directions. In the first place, the
study of the literature of this period will show,
not only that there was a more or less complete
body of critical doctrine during the Renaissance,
but also that Englishmen shared in this creation,
or inheritance, of the Renaissance as truly as did
their continental neighbors; and on the other hand
this study may be said to possess an interest in itself,
in so far as it will make the growth of classicism in
England intelligible, and will indicate that the-254-
formation of the classic ideal had begun before the
introduction of the French influence. In neither
case, however, can early English criticism be considered
wholly apart from the general body of
Renaissance doctrine; and its study loses in importance
and perspicuity according as it is kept distinct
from the consideration of the critical literature
of France, and especially of Italy.
English criticism, during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, passed through five more or less
distinct stages of development. The first stage,
characterized by the purely rhetorical study of
literature, may be said to begin with Leonard
Coxe's Arte or Crafte of Rhetoryke, a hand-book for
young students, compiled about 1524, chiefly from
one of the rhetorical treatises of Melanchthon.[437] This
was followed by Wilson's Arte of Rhetorike (1553),
which is more extensive and certainly more original
than Coxe's manual, and which has been called
by Warton "the first book or system of criticism
in our language." But the most important figure
of this period is Roger Ascham. The educational
system expounded in his Scholemaster, written
between 1563 and 1568, he owed largely to his
friend, John Sturm, the Strasburg humanist, and
to his teacher, Sir John Cheke, who had been
Greek lecturer at the University of Padua; but
for the critical portions of this work he seems
directly indebted to the rhetorical treatises of the
Italians.[438] Yet his obligations to the Italian humanists
-255-did not prevent the expression of his stern and
unyielding antagonism to the romantic Italian spirit
as it influenced the imaginative literature of his
time. In studying early English literature it must
always be kept in mind that the Italian Renaissance
influenced the Elizabethan age in two different
directions. The Italianization of English poetry
had been effected, or at least begun, by the publication
of Tottel's Miscellany in 1557; on this, the
creative side of English literature, the Italian
influence was distinctly romantic. The influence
of the Italian humanists, on the other hand, was
directly opposed to this romantic spirit; even in
their own country they had antagonized all that
was not classical in tendency. Ascham, therefore,
as a result of his humanistic training, became not
only the first English man of letters, but also the
first English classicist.
The first stage of English criticism, then, was
entirely given up to rhetorical study. It was at
this time that English writers first attained the
appreciation of form and style as distinguishing
features of literature; and it was to this appreciation
that the formation of an English prose
style was due. This period may therefore be compared
with the later stages of Italian humanism in
the fifteenth century; and the later humanists were
the masters and models of these early English
rhetoricians. Gabriel Harvey, as a Ciceronian of
the school of Bembo, was perhaps their last representative.
The second stage of English criticism—a period-256-
of classification and especially of metrical studies—commences
with Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction
concerning the making of Verse,[439] published in 1575,
and modelled apparently on Ronsard's Abrégé de
l'Art Poétique françois (1565). Besides this brief
pamphlet, the first work on English versification,
this stage also includes Puttenham's Arte of English
Poesie, the first systematic classification of
poetic forms and subjects, and of rhetorical figures;
Bullokar's Bref Grammar, the first systematic
treatise on English grammar; and Harvey's Letters
and Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, the first
systematic attempts to introduce classical metres
into English poetry. This period was characterized
by the study and classification of the
practical questions of language and versification;
and in this labor it was coöperating with the very
tendencies which Ascham had been attempting to
counteract. The study of the verse-forms introduced
into England from Italy helped materially
to perfect the external side of English poetry; and
a similar result was obtained by the crude attempts
at quantitative verse suggested by the school of
Tolomei. The Italian prosodists were thus, directly
or indirectly, the masters of the English students
of this era.
The representative work of the third stage—the
period of philosophical and apologetic criticism—is
Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy, published posthumously
in 1595, though probably written about
-257-1583. Harington's Apologie of Poetrie, Daniel's
Defence of Ryme, and a few others, are also contemporary
treatises. These works, as their titles indicate,
are all defences or apologies, and were called
forth by the attacks of the Puritans on poetry,
especially dramatic poetry, and the attacks of the
classicists on English versification and rhyme.
Required by the exigencies of the moment to defend
poetry in general, these authors did not
attempt to do so on local or temporary grounds, but
set out to examine the fundamental grounds of
criticism, and to formulate the basic principles of
poetry. In this attempt they consciously or unconsciously
sought aid from the critics of Italy, and thus
commenced in England the influence of the Italian
theory of poetry. How great was their indebtedness
to the Italians the course of the present study
will make somewhat clear; but it is certainly remarkable
that this indebtedness has never been
pointed out before. Speaking of Sidney's Defence
of Poesy, one of the most distinguished English
authorities on the Renaissance says: "Much as
the Italians had recently written upon the theory
of poetry, I do not remember any treatise which can
be said to have supplied the material or suggested
the method of this apology."[440] On the contrary,
the doctrines discussed by Sidney had been receiving
very similar treatment from the Italians for
over half a century; and it can be said without exaggeration
that there is not an essential principle in
-258-the Defence of Poesy which cannot be traced back
to some Italian treatise on the poetic art. The age
of which Sidney is the chief representative is therefore
the first period of the influence of Italian critics.
The fourth stage of English criticism, of which
Ben Jonson is, as it were, the presiding genius,
occupies the first half of the seventeenth century.
The period that preceded it was in general romantic
in its tendencies; that of Jonson leaned toward a
strict though never servile classicism. Sidney's
contemporaries had studied the general theory of
poetry, not for the purpose of enunciating rules or
dogmas of criticism, but chiefly in order to defend
the poetic art, and to understand its fundamental
principles. The spirit of the age was the spirit, let
us say, of Fracastoro; that of Jonson was, in a
moderate form, the spirit of Scaliger or Castelvetro.
With Jonson the study of the art of poetry became
an inseparable guide to creation; and it is this
element of self-conscious art, guided by the rules
of criticism, which distinguishes him from his
predecessors. The age which he represents is
therefore the second period of the influence of
Italian criticism; and the same influence also is to
be seen in such critical poems as Suckling's Session
of the Poets, and the Great Assises holden in Parnassus,
ascribed to Wither, both of which may be
traced back to the class of critical poetry of which
Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso is the type.[441]
-259-
The fifth period, which covers the second half
of the seventeenth century, is characterized by
the introduction of French influence, and begins
with Davenant's letter to Hobbes, and Hobbes's
answer, both prefixed to the epic of Gondibert
(1651). These letters, written while Davenant
and Hobbes were at Paris, display many of the
characteristic features of the new influence,—the
rationalistic spirit, the stringent classicism, the
restriction of art to the imitation of nature, with the
further limitation of nature to the life of the city
and the court, and the confinement of the imagination
to what is called "wit." This specialized
sense of the word "wit" is characteristic of the
new age, of which Dryden, in part the disciple of
Davenant, is the leading figure. The Elizabethans
used the term in the general sense of the understanding,—wit,
the mental faculty, as opposed to
will, the faculty of volition. With the neo-classicists
it was used sometimes to represent, in a limited
sense, the imagination,[442] more often, however,
to designate what we should call fancy,[443] or even
mere propriety of poetic expression;[444] but whatever
its particular use, it was always regarded as
of the essence of poetic art.
With the fifth stage of English criticism this
essay is not concerned. The history of literary
criticism in England will be traced no farther than
1650, when the influence of France was substituted
-260-for that of Italy. This section deals especially
with the two great periods of Italian influence,—that
of Sidney and that of Ben Jonson. These
two men are the central figures, and their names,
like those of Dryden, Pope, and Samuel Johnson,
represent distinct and important epochs in the
history of literary criticism.
top
CHAPTER II
-261-
THE GENERAL THEORY OF POETRY IN THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
Those who have some acquaintance, however
superficial, with the literary criticism of the Italian
Renaissance will find an account of the Elizabethan
theory of poetry a twice-told tale. In England, as
in France, criticism during this period was of a
more practical character than in Italy; but even
for the technical questions discussed by the Elizabethans,
some prototype, or at least some equivalent,
may be found among the Italians. The first
four stages of English criticism have therefore little
novelty or original value; and their study is chiefly
important as evidence of the gradual application of
the ideas of the Renaissance to English literature.
The writers of the first stage, as might be expected,
concerned themselves but little with the
theory of poetry, beyond repeating here and there
the commonplaces they found in the Italian rhetoricians.
Yet it is interesting to note that as early
as 1553, Wilson, in the third book of his Rhetoric,
gives expression to the allegorical conception of
poetry which in Italy had held sway from the time
of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and which, more than
anything else, colored critical theory in Elizabethan-262-
England. The ancient poets, according to Wilson,
did not spend their time inventing meaningless
fables, but used the story merely as a framework
for contents of ethical, philosophic, scientific, or
historical import; the trials of Ulysses, for example,
were intended to furnish a lively picture
of man's misery in this life. The poets are, in
fact, wise men, spiritual legislators, reformers, who
have at heart the redressing of wrongs; and in
accomplishing this end,—either because they fear
to rebuke these wrongs openly, or because they
doubt the expediency or efficacy of such frankness
with ignorant people,—they hide their true meaning
under the veil of pleasant fables. This theory
of poetic art, one of the commonplaces of the age,
may be described as the great legacy of the Middle
Ages to Renaissance criticism.
The writers of the second stage were, in many
cases, too busy with questions of versification and
other practical matters to find time for abstract
theorizing on the art of poetry. A long period of
rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate
a rhetorical and technical conception of the
poet's function, aptly exemplified in the sonnet
describing the perfect poet prefixed to King
James's brief treatise on Scotch poetry.[445] The
marks of a perfect poet are there given as skilfulness
in the rhetorical figures, quick wit, as shown
in the use of apt and pithy words, and a good memory;—a
merely external view of the poet's gifts,
which takes no account of such essentials as imagination,
-263-sensibility, and knowledge of nature and
human life.
Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) gives
expression to a conception of the object of poetry
which is the logical consequence of the allegorical
theory, and which was therefore almost universally
accepted by Renaissance writers. The poet teaches
by means of the allegorical truth hidden under the
pleasing fables he invents; but his first object must
be to make these fables really pleasing, or the
reader is deterred at the outset from any acquaintance
with the poet's works. Poetry is therefore a
delightful form of instruction; it pleases and profits
together; but first of all it must delight, "for the
very sum and chiefest essence of poetry did always
for the most part consist in delighting the readers
or hearers."[446] The poet has the highest welfare of
man at heart; and by his sweet allurements to
virtue and effective caveats against vice, he gains
his end, not roughly or tyrannically, but, as it
were, with a loving authority.[447] From the very beginnings
of human society poetry has been the
means of civilizing men, of drawing them from
barbarity to civility and virtue. If it be objected
that this art—or rather, from the divine origin of
its inspiration, this more than art—has ever been
made the excuse for the enticing expression of obscenity
and blasphemy, Webbe has three answers.
In the first place, poetry is to be moralized, that is,
to be read allegorically. The Metamorphoses of
Ovid, for example, will become, when so understood,
-264-a fount of ethical teaching; and Harington, a few
years later, actually explains in detail the allegorical
significance of the fourth book of that poem.[448] This
was a well-established tradition, and indeed a favorite
occupation, of the Middle Ages; and the Ovide
Moralisé, a long poem by Chrétien Le Gouais,
written about the beginning of the fourteenth century,
and the equally long Ovidian commentary of
Pierre Berçuire, are typical examples of this practice.[449]
In the second place, the picture of vices to
be found in poetry is intended, not to entice the
reader to imitate them, but rather to deter sensible
men from doing likewise by showing the misfortune
that inevitably results from evil. Moreover,
obscenity is in no way essentially connected with
poetic art; it is to the abuse of poetry, and not to
poetry itself, that we must lay all blame for this
fault.
A still higher conception of the poet's function is
to be found in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie
(1589). The author of this treatise informs us
that he had lived at the courts of France, Italy, and
Spain, and knew the languages of these and other
lands; and the results of his travels and studies
are sufficiently shown in his general theory of
poetry. His conception of the poet is directly
based on that of Scaliger. Poetry, in its highest
form, is an art of "making," or creation; and in
this sense the poet is a creator like God, and forms
a world out of nothing. In another sense, poetry
-265-is an art of imitation, in that it presents a true and
lively picture of everything set before it. In either
case, it can attain perfection only by a divine instinct,
or by a great excellence of nature, or by
vast observation and experience of the world, or
indeed by all these together; but whatever the source
of its inspiration, it is ever worthy of study and
praise, and its creators deserve preëminence and
dignity above all other artificers, scientific or mechanical.[450]
The poets were the first priests, prophets,
and legislators of the world, the first philosophers,
scientists, orators, historians, and musicians. They
have been held in the highest esteem by the greatest
men from the very first; and the nobility,
antiquity, and universality of their art prove its
preëminence and worth. With such a history and
such a nature, it is sacrilege to debase poetry, or to
employ it upon any unworthy subject or for ignoble
purpose. Its chief themes should therefore be such
as these: the honor and glory of the gods, the
worthy deeds of noble princes and great warriors,
the praise of virtue and the reproof of vice, instruction
in moral doctrine or scientific knowledge, and
finally, "the common solace of mankind in all the
travails and cares of this transitory life," or even
for mere recreation alone.[451]
This is the sum of poetic theorizing during the
second stage of English criticism. Yet it was at
this very time that the third, or apologetic, period
was prepared for by the attacks which the Puritans
directed against poetry, and especially the drama.
-266-Of these attacks, Gosson's, as the most celebrated,
may be taken as the type. Underlying the rant
and exaggerated vituperation of his Schoole of
Abuse (1579), there is a basis of right principles,
and some evidence at least of a spirit not wholly
vulgar. He was a moral reformer, an idealist, who
looked back with regret toward "the old discipline
of England," and contrasted it with the spirit of
his own day, when Englishmen seemed to have
"robbed Greece of gluttony, Italy of wantonness,
Spain of pride, France of deceit, and Dutchland
of quaffing."[452] The typical evidences of this moral
degradation and effeminacy he found in poetry and
the drama; and it is to this motive that his bitter
assault on both must be ascribed. He specifically
insists that his intention was not to banish poetry,
or to condemn music, or to forbid harmless recreation
to mankind, but merely to chastise the abuse
of all these.[453] He praises plays which possess real
moral purpose and effect, and points out the true
use and the worthy subjects of poetry much in the
same manner as Puttenham does a few years later.[454]
But he affirms, as Plato had done hundreds of years
before, and as a distinguished French critic has
done only the other day, that art contains within
itself the germ of its own disintegration; and he
shows that in the English poetry of his own time
this disintegration had already taken place. The
delights and ornaments of verse, intended really to
make moral doctrine more pleasing and less abstruse
-267-and thorny, had become, with his contemporaries,
mere alluring disguises for obscenity and blasphemy.
In the first of the replies to Gosson, Lodge's Defence
of Poetry, Musick, and Stage Plays, written
before either of the treatises of Webbe and Puttenham,
are found the old principles of allegorical and
moral interpretation,—principles which to us may
seem well worn, but which to the English criticism
of that time were novel enough. Lodge points out
the efficacy of poetry as a civilizing factor in primitive
times, and as a moral agency ever since. If the
poets have on occasion erred, so have the philosophers,
even Plato himself, and grievously.[455] Poetry
is a heavenly gift, and is to be contemned only
when abused and debased. Lodge did not perceive
that his point of view was substantially the same
as his opponent's; and indeed, throughout the
Elizabethan age, there was this similarity in the
point of view of those who attacked and those who
defended poetry. Both sides admitted that not
poetry, but its abuse, is to be disparaged; and they
differed chiefly in that one side insisted almost
entirely on the ideal perfection of the poetic art,
while the other laid stress on the debased state into
which it had fallen. A dual point of view was
attempted in a work, licensed in January, 1600,
which pretended to be "a commendation of true
poetry, and a discommendation of all bawdy, ribald,
and paganized poets."[456] This Puritan movement
-268-against the paganization of poetry corresponds to
the similar movement started by the Council of
Trent in Catholic countries.
The theory of poetry during the second stage of
English criticism was in the main Horatian, with
such additions and modifications as the early
Renaissance had derived from the Middle Ages.
The Aristotelian canons had not yet become a part
of English criticism. Webbe alludes to Aristotle's
dictum that Empedocles, having naught but metre
in common with Homer, was in reality a natural
philosopher rather than a poet;[457] but all such allusions
to Aristotle's Poetics were merely incidental
and sporadic. The introduction of Aristotelianism
into England was the direct result of the influence
of the Italian critics; and the agent in bringing
this new influence into English letters was Sir
Philip Sidney. His Defence of Poesy is a veritable
epitome of the literary criticism of the Italian
Renaissance; and so thoroughly is it imbued with
this spirit, that no other work, Italian, French, or
English, can be said to give so complete and so
noble a conception of the temper and the principles
of Renaissance criticism. For the general theory
of poetry, its sources were the critical treatises of
Minturno[458] and Scaliger.[459] Yet without any decided
novelty of ideas, or even of expression, it can lay
-269-claim to distinct originality in its unity of feeling,
its ideal and noble temper, and its adaptation to
circumstance. Its eloquence and dignity will hardly
appear in a mere analysis, which pretends to give
only the more important and fundamental of its
principles; but such a summary—and this is quite
as important—will at least indicate the extent of
its indebtedness to Italian criticism.
In all that relates to the antiquity, universality,
and preëminence of poetry, Sidney apparently follows
Minturno. Poetry, as the first light-giver to
ignorance, flourished before any other art or science.
The first philosophers and historians were poets;
and such supreme works as the Psalms of David
and the Dialogues of Plato are in reality poetical.
Among the Greeks and the Romans, the poet was
regarded as a sage or prophet; and no nation, however
primitive or barbarous, has been without poets,
or has failed to receive delight and instruction from
poetry.[460]
But before proceeding to defend an art so ancient
and universal, it is necessary to define it; and the
definition which Sidney gives agrees substantially
with what might be designated Renaissance Aristotelianism.
"Poetry," says Sidney,[461] "is an art of
imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word
μίμησις, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting,
or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a
-270-speaking picture,[462] with this end,—to teach and
delight."[463] Poetry is, accordingly, an art of imitation,
and not merely the art of versifying; for
although most poets have seen fit to apparel their
poetic inventions in verse, verse is but the raiment
and ornament of poetry, and not one of its causes
or essentials.[464] "One may be a poet without versing,"
says Sidney, "and a versifier without poetry."[465]
Speech and reason are the distinguishing features
between man and brute; and whatever helps to
perfect and polish speech deserves high commendation.
Besides its mnemonic value, verse is the
most fitting raiment of poetry because it is most
dignified and compact, not colloquial and slipshod.
But with all its merits, it is not an essential of
poetry, of which the true test is this,—feigning
notable images of vices and virtues, and teaching
delightfully.
In regard to the object, or function, of poetry,
Sidney is at one with Scaliger. The aim of poetry
is accomplished by teaching most delightfully a
notable morality; or, in a word, by delightful instruction.[466]
Not instruction alone, or delight alone,
-271-as Horace had said, but instruction made delightful;
and it is this dual function which serves not
only as the end but as the very test of poetry.
The object of all arts and sciences is to lift human
life to the highest altitudes of perfection; and in
this respect they are all servants of the sovereign,
or architectonic, science, whose end is well-doing
and not well-knowing only.[467] Virtuous action is
therefore the end of all learning;[468] and Sidney sets
out to prove that the poet, more than any one else,
conduces to this end.
This is the beginning of the apologetic side of
Sidney's argument. The ancient controversy—ancient
even in Plato's days—between poetry and
philosophy is once more reopened; and the question
is the one so often debated by the Italians,—shall
the palm be given to the poet, to the philosopher,
or to the historian? The gist of Sidney's argument
is that while the philosopher teaches by precept
alone, and the historian by example alone, the poet
conduces most to virtue because he employs both
precept and example. The philosopher teaches
virtue by showing what virtue is and what vice is,
by setting down, in thorny argument, and without
clarity or beauty of style, the bare rule.[469] The historian
teaches virtue by showing the experience of
past ages; but, being tied down to what actually
happened, that is, to the particular truth of things
-272-and not to general reason, the example he depicts
draws no necessary consequence. The poet alone
accomplishes this dual task. What the philosopher
says should be done is by the poet pictured most
perfectly in some one by whom it has been done,
thus coupling the general notion with the particular
instance. The philosopher, moreover, teaches the
learned only; the poet teaches all, and is, in Plutarch's
phrase, "the right popular philosopher,"[470]
for he seems only to promise delight, and moves
men to virtue unawares. But even if the philosopher
excel the poet in teaching, he cannot move his
readers as the poet can, and this is of higher importance
than teaching; for what is the use of teaching
virtue if the pupil is not moved to act and accomplish
what he is taught?[471] On the other hand, the
historian deals with particular instances, with vices
and virtues so commingled that the reader can find
no pattern to imitate. The poet makes history
reasonable; he gives perfect examples of vices and
virtues for human imitation; he makes virtue
succeed and vice fail, as history can but seldom do.
Poetry, therefore, conduces to virtue, the end of all
learning, better than any other art or science, and
so deserves the palm as the highest and the noblest
form of human wisdom.[472]
The basis of Sidney's distinction between the
-273-poet and the historian is the famous passage in
which Aristotle explains why poetry is more philosophic
and of more serious value than history.[473]
The poet deals, not with the particular, but with the
universal,—with what might or should be, not with
what is or has been. But Sidney, in the assertion
of this principle, follows Minturno[474] and Scaliger,[475]
and goes farther than Aristotle would probably
have gone. All arts have the works of nature as
their principal object, and follow nature as actors
follow the lines of their play. Only the poet is
not tied to such subjects, but creates another nature
better than ever nature itself brought forth. For,
going hand in hand with nature, and being enclosed
not within her limits, but only by the zodiac of his
own imagination, he creates a golden world for
nature's brazen; and in this sense he may be compared
as a creator with God.[476] Where shall you
find in life such a friend as Pylades, such a hero as
Orlando, such an excellent man as Æneas?
Sidney then proceeds to answer the various objections
that have been made against poetry. These
objections, partly following Gosson and Cornelius
Agrippa,[477] and partly his own inclinations, he reduces
to four.[478] In the first place, it is objected
that a man might spend his time more profitably
than by reading the figments of poets. But since
teaching virtue is the real aim of all learning, and
since poetry has been shown to accomplish this
-274-better than all other arts or sciences, this objection
is easily answered. In the second place, poetry has
been called the mother of lies; but Sidney shows
that it is less likely to misstate facts than other
sciences, for the poet does not publish his figments
as facts, and, since he affirms nothing, cannot ever
be said to lie.[479] Thirdly, poetry has been called the
nurse of abuse, that is to say, poetry misuses and
debases the mind of man by turning it to wantonness
and by making it unmartial and effeminate.
But Sidney argues that it is man's wit that abuses
poetry, and not poetry that abuses man's wit; and as
to making men effeminate, this charge applies to all
other sciences more than to poetry, which in its
description of battles and praise of valiant men
notably stirs courage and enthusiasm. Lastly, it
is pointed out by the enemies of poetry that Plato,
one of the greatest of philosophers, banished poets
from his ideal commonwealth. But Plato's Dialogues
are in reality themselves a form of poetry;
and it argues ingratitude in the most poetical of
philosophers, that he should defile the fountain
which was his source.[480] Yet though Sidney perceives
how fundamental are Plato's objections to poetry,
he is inclined to believe that it was rather against
the abuse of poetry by the contemporary Greek
poets that Plato was chiefly cavilling; for poets are
praised in the Ion, and the greatest men of every
age have been patrons and lovers of poetry.
-275-
In the dozen years or so which elapsed between
the composition and the publication of the Defence
of Poesy, during which time it seems to have circulated
in manuscript, a number of critical works appeared,
and the indebtedness of several of them to
Sidney's book is considerable. This is especially
so of the Apologie of Poetrie which Sir John Harington
prefixed to his translation of the Orlando
Furioso in 1591. This brief treatise includes an
apology for poetry in general, for the Orlando
Furioso in particular, and also for his own translation.
The first section, which alone concerns us
here, is almost entirely based on the Defence of
Poesy. The distinguishing features of poetry are
imitation, or fiction, and verse.[481] Harington disclaims
all intention of discussing whether writers
of fiction and dialogue in prose, such as Plato and
Xenophon, are poets or not, or whether Lucan,
though writing in verse, is to be regarded as an
historiographer rather than as a poet;[482] so that his
argument is confined to the element of imitation,
or fiction. He treats poetry rather as a propædeutic
to theology and moral philosophy than as one of the
fine arts. All human learning may be regarded by
the orthodox Christian as vain and superfluous;
but poetry is one of the most effective aids to the
higher learning of God's divinity, and poets themselves
are really popular philosophers and popular
divines. Harington then takes up, one by one, the
four specific charges of Cornelius Agrippa, that
poetry is a nurse of lies, a pleaser of fools, a
-276-breeder of dangerous errors, and an enticer to wantonness;
and answers them after the manner of
Sidney. He differs from Sidney, however, in laying
particular stress on the allegorical interpretation
of imaginative literature. This element is minimized
in the Defence of Poesy; but Harington
accepts, and discusses in detail, the mediæval conception
of the three meanings of poetry, the literal,
the moral, and the allegorical.[483] The death-knell of
this mode of interpreting literature was sounded by
Bacon, who, while not asserting that all the fables
of poets are but meaningless fictions, declared without
hesitation that the fable had been more often
written first and the exposition devised afterward,
than the moral first conceived and the fable merely
framed to give expression to it.[484]
This passage occurs in the second book of the
Advancement of Learning (1605), where Bacon has
briefly stated his theory of poetry. His point of
view does not differ essentially from that of Sidney,
though the expression is more compact and logical.
The human understanding, according to Bacon, includes
the three faculties of memory, imagination,
and reason, and each of these faculties finds typical
expression in one of the three great branches of
learning, memory in history, reason in philosophy,
and imagination in poetry.[485] The imagination, not
being tied to the laws of matter, may join what
nature has severed and sever what nature has joined;
and poetry, therefore, while restrained in the measure
-277-of words, is in all things else extremely licensed.
It may be defined as feigned history, and in so far
as its form is concerned, may be either in prose or
in verse. Its source is to be found in the dissatisfaction
of the human mind with the actual world;
and its purpose is to satisfy man's natural longing
for more perfect greatness, goodness, and variety
than can be found in the nature of things. Poetry
therefore invents actions and incidents greater and
more heroic than those of nature, and hence conduces
to magnanimity; it invents actions more
agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, more
just in retribution, more in accordance with revealed
providence, and hence conduces to morality;
it invents actions more varied and unexpected,
and hence conduces to delectation. "And therefore
it was ever thought to have some participation
of divineness, because it doth raise the mind,
by submitting the shows of things to the desires
of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and
bow the mind unto the nature of things."[486] For
the expression of affections, passions, corruptions,
and customs, the world is more indebted to
poets than to the works of philosophers, and for
wit and eloquence no less than to orators and their
orations. It is for these reasons that in rude times,
when all other learning was excluded, poetry alone
found access and admiration.
This is pure idealism of a romantic type; but in
his remarks on allegory Bacon was foreshadowing
the development of classicism, for from the time of
-278-Ben Jonson the allegorical mode of interpreting
poetry ceased to have any effect on literary criticism.
The reason for this is obvious. The allegorical
critics regarded the plot, or fable,—to use
a simile so often found in Renaissance criticism—as
a mere sweet and pleasant covering for the
wholesome but bitter pill of moral doctrine. The
neo-classicists, limiting the sense and application of
Aristotle's definition of poetry as an imitation of
life, regarded the fable as the medium of this imitation,
and the more perfect according as it became
more truly and more minutely an image of human
life. In criticism, therefore, the growth of classicism
is more or less coextensive with the growth
of the conception of the fable, or plot, as an end in
itself.
This vaguely defines the change which comes
over the spirit of criticism about the beginning of
the seventeenth century, and which is exemplified
in the writings of Ben Jonson. His definition of
poetry does not differ substantially from that of
Sidney, but seems more directly Aristotelian:—
"A poet, poeta, is ... a maker, or feigner; his art, an
art of imitation or feigning; expressing the life of men in fit
measure, numbers, and harmony; according to Aristotle
from the word ποιεῖν, which signifies to make or feign.
Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure
only, but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes
things like the truth; for the fable and fiction is, as it were,
the form and soul of any poetical work or poem."[487]
-279-
Poetry and painting agree in that both are arts of
imitation, both accommodate all they invent to the
use and service of nature, and both have as their
common object profit and pleasure; but poetry is a
higher form of art than painting, since it appeals
to the understanding, while painting appeals primarily
to the senses.[488] Jonson's conception of his art
is thus essentially noble; of all arts it ranks highest
in dignity and ethical importance. It contains
all that is best in philosophy, divinity, and the
science of politics, and leads and persuades men to
virtue with a ravishing delight, while the others
but threaten and compel.[489] It therefore offers to
mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well
and happily in human society. This conception of
poetry Jonson finds in Aristotle;[490] but it is to the
Italians of the Renaissance, and not to the Stagyrite,
that these doctrines really belong.
Jonson ascribes to the poet himself a dignity no
less than that of his craft. Mere excellence in style
or versification does not make a poet, but rather the
exact knowledge of vices and virtues, with ability
to make the latter loved and the former hated;[491]
and this is so far true, that to be a good poet it is
necessary, first of all, to be a really good man.[492] A
similar doctrine has already been found in many
critical writers of the sixteenth century; but perhaps
the noblest expression of this conception of
the poet's consecrated character and office occurs in
-280-the original quarto edition of Jonson's Every Man
in his Humour, in which the "reverend name" of
poet is thus exalted:—
"I can refell opinion, and approve
The state of poesy, such as it is,
Blessed, eternal, and most true divine:
Indeed, if you will look on poesy,
As she appears in many, poor and lame,
Patched up in remnants and old worn-out rags,
Half-starved for want of her peculiar food,
Sacred invention; then I must confirm
Both your conceit and censure of her merit:
But view her in her glorious ornaments,
Attired in the majesty of art,
Set high in spirit with the precious taste
Of sweet philosophy; and, which is most,
Crowned with the rich traditions of a soul,
That hates to have her dignity prophaned
With any relish of an earthly thought,
Oh then how proud a presence doth she bear!
Then is she like herself, fit to be seen
Of none but grave and consecrated eyes."[493]
Milton also gives expression to this consecrated
conception of the poet. Poetry is a gift granted by
God only to a few in every nation;[494] but he who
would partake of the gift of eloquence must first of
all be virtuous.[495] It is impossible for any one to
write well of laudable things without being himself
a true poem, without having in himself the experience
and practice of all that is praiseworthy.[496]
Poets are the champions of liberty and the "strenuous
-281-enemies of despotism";[497] and they have power
to imbreed and cherish in a people the seeds of
virtue and public civility, to set the affections in
right tune, and to allay the perturbations of the
mind.[498] Poetry, which at its best is "simple, sensuous,
and passionate," describes everything that
passes through the brain of man,—all that is holy
and sublime in religion, all that in virtue is amiable
and grave. Thus by means of delight and the
force of example, those who would otherwise flee
from virtue are taught to love her.
top
CHAPTER III
-282-
THE THEORY OF DRAMATIC AND HEROIC POETRY
Dramatic criticism in England began with Sir
Philip Sidney. Casual references to the drama
can be found in critical writings anterior to the
Defence of Poesy; but to Sidney belongs the credit
of having first formulated, in a more or less systematic
manner, the general principles of dramatic
art. These principles, it need hardly be said, are
those which, for half a century or more, had been
undergoing discussion and modification in Italy and
France, and of which the ultimate source was the
Poetics of Aristotle. Dramatic criticism in England
was thus, from its very birth, both Aristotelian
and classical, and it remained so for two centuries.
The beginnings of the Elizabethan drama were
almost contemporary with the composition of the
Defence of Poesy, and the decay of the drama
with Jonson's Discoveries. Yet throughout this
period the romantic drama never received literary
exposition. The great Spanish drama had its critical
champions and defenders, the Elizabethan drama
had none. It was, perhaps, found to be a simpler
task to echo the doctrines of others, than to formulate
the principles of a novel dramatic form. But
the true explanation has already been suggested.-283-
The sources of the dramatic criticism were the
writings of the Italian critics, and these were entirely
classical. In creative literature, however,
the Italian Renaissance influenced the Elizabethans
almost entirely on the romantic side. This,
perhaps, suffices to explain the lack of fundamental
coördination between dramatic theory and dramatic
practice during the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. Ascham, writing twenty
years before Sidney, indicated "Aristotle's precepts
and Euripides' example" as the criteria of
dramatic art;[499] and in spirit these remained the
final tests throughout the Elizabethan age.
I. Tragedy
In Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie we find
those general distinctions between tragedy and
comedy which had been common throughout the
Middle Ages from the days of the post-classic
grammarians. Tragedies express sorrowful and
lamentable histories, dealing with gods and goddesses,
kings and queens, and men of high estate,
and representing miserable calamities, which become
worse and worse until they end in the most
woful plight that can be devised. Comedies, on
the other hand, begin doubtfully, become troubled
for a while, but always, by some lucky chance, end
with the joy and appeasement of all concerned.[500]
This distinction is said to be derived from imitation
of the Iliad and the Odyssey; and in this, as well in
-284-his fanciful account of the origins of the drama,
Webbe seems to have had a vague recollection of
Aristotle. Puttenham's account of dramatic development
is scarcely more Aristotelian;[501] yet in its general
conclusions it agrees with those in the Poetics.
His conception of tragedy and comedy is similar
to Webbe's. Comedy expresses the common behavior
and manner of life of private persons, and
such as are of the meaner sort of men.[502] Tragedy
deals with the doleful falls of unfortunate and
afflicted princes, for the purpose of reminding men
of the mutability of fortune, and of God's just punishment
of a vicious life.[503]
The Senecan drama and the Aristotelian precepts
were the sources of Sidney's theory of tragedy.
The oratorical and sententious tragedies of Seneca
had influenced dramatic theory and practice throughout
Europe from the very outset of the Renaissance.
Ascham, indeed, preferred Sophocles and Euripides
to Seneca, and cited Pigna, the rival of Giraldi
Cintio, in confirmation of his opinion;[504] but this,
while an indication of Ascham's own good taste, is
an exceptional verdict, and in direct opposition to
the usual opinion of contemporary critics. Sidney,
in his account of the English drama, could find but
one tragedy modelled as it should be on the Senecan
drama.[505] The tragedy of Gorboduc, however,
has one defect that provokes Sidney's censure,—it
does not observe the unities of time and place.
-285-In all other respects, it is an ideal model for English
playwrights to imitate. Its stately speeches
and well-sounding phrases approach almost to the
height of Seneca's style; and in teaching most delightfully
a notable morality, it attains the very
end of poetry.
The ideal tragedy—and in this Sidney closely
follows the Italians—is an imitation of a noble
action, in the representation of which it stirs "admiration
and commiseration,"[506] and teaches the
uncertainty of the world and the weak foundations
upon which golden roofs are built. It makes kings
fear to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their tyrannical
humors. Sidney's censure of the contemporary
drama is that it outrages the grave and weighty
character of tragedy, its elevated style, and the
dignity of the personages represented, by mingling
kings and clowns, and introducing the most inappropriate
buffoonery. There are, indeed, one or
two examples of tragi-comedy in ancient literature,
such as Plautus's Amphitryon;[507] but never do the
ancients, like the English, match hornpipes and
funerals.[508] The English dramas are neither true
comedies nor true tragedies, and disregard both
the rules of poetry and honest civility. Tragedy
is not tied to the laws of history, and may arrange
and modify events as it pleases; but it is certainly
bound by the rules of poetry. It is evident, therefore,
-286-that the Defence of Poesy, as a French writer
has observed, "gives us an almost complete theory
of neo-classic tragedy, a hundred years before the
Art Poétique of Boileau: the severe separation of
poetic forms, the sustained dignity of language, the
unities, the tirade, the récit, nothing is lacking."[509]
Ben Jonson pays more attention to the theory of
comedy than to that of tragedy; but his conception
of the latter does not differ from Sidney's. The
parts, or divisions, of comedy and tragedy are the
same, and both have on the whole a common end,
to teach and delight; so that comic as well as
tragic poets were called by the Greeks διδάσκαλοι.[510]
The external conditions of the drama require that
it should have the equal division into acts and
scenes, the true number of actors, the chorus, and
the unities.[511] But Jonson does not insist on the
strict observance of these formal requirements, for
the history of the drama shows that each successive
poet of importance has gradually and materially
altered the dramatic structure, and there is
no reason why the modern poet may not do likewise.
Moreover, while these requirements may
have been regularly observed in the ancient state
and splendor of dramatic poetry, it is impossible to
retain them now and preserve any measure of popular
delight. The outward forms of the ancients,
therefore, may in part be disregarded; but there are
certain essentials which must be observed by the
tragic poet in whatsoever age he may flourish.
These are, "Truth of argument, dignity of persons,
-287-gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency
of sentence."[512] In other words, Jonson's
model is the oratorical and sententious tragedy of
Seneca, with its historical plots and its persons of
high estate.
In the address, "Of that Sort of Dramatic Poem
which is called Tragedy," prefixed to Samson
Agonistes, Milton has minutely adhered to the Italian
theory of tragedy. After referring to the
ancient dignity and moral effect of tragedy,[513] Milton
acknowledges that, in the modelling of his poem,
he has followed the ancients and the Italians as of
greatest authority in such matters. He has avoided
the introduction of trivial and vulgar persons and
the intermingling of comic and tragic elements;
he has used the chorus, and has observed the laws
of verisimilitude and decorum. His explanation of
the peculiar effect of tragedy—the purgation of
pity and fear—has already been referred to in the
first section of this essay.[514]
II. Comedy
The Elizabethan theory of comedy was based on
the body of rules and observations which the Italian
critics, aided by a few hints from Aristotle, had
deduced from the practice of Plautus and Terence.
-288-It will, therefore, be unnecessary to dwell at any
great length on the doctrines of Sidney and Ben
Jonson, who are the main comic theorists of this
period. Sidney defines comedy as "an imitation
of the common errors of our life," which are represented
in the most ridiculous and scornful manner,
so that the spectator is anxious to avoid such errors
himself. Comedy, therefore, shows the "filthiness
of evil," but only in "our private and domestical
matters."[515] It should aim at being wholly delightful,
just as tragedy should be maintained by a
well-raised admiration. Delight is thus the first
requirement of comedy; but the English comic
writers err in thinking that delight cannot be obtained
without laughter, whereas laughter is neither
an essential cause nor an essential effect of delight.
Sidney then distinguishes delight from laughter
almost exactly after the manner of Trissino.[516] The
great fault of English comedy is that it stirs
laughter concerning things that are sinful, i.e.
execrable rather than merely ridiculous—forbidden
plainly, according to Sidney, by Aristotle himself—and
concerning things that are miserable,
and rather to be pitied than scorned. Comedy
should not only produce delightful laughter, but
mixed with it that delightful teaching which is the
end of all poetry.
Ben Jonson, like Sidney, makes human follies or
errors the themes of comedy, which should be
-289-
"an image of the times,
And sport with human follies, not with crimes,
Except we make them such, by loving still
Our popular errors, when we know they're ill;
I mean such errors as you'll all confess
By laughing at them, they deserve no less."[517]
In depicting these human follies, it is the office
of the comic poet to imitate justice, to improve the
moral life and purify language, and to stir up gentle
affections.[518] The moving of mere laughter is not
always the end of comedy; in fact, Jonson interprets
Aristotle as asserting that the moving of
laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude
that depraves a part of man's nature.[519] This conclusion
is based on an interpretation of Aristotle
which has persisted almost to the present day. In
the Poetics, τὸ γελοῖον, the ludicrous, is said to be
the subject of comedy;[520] and many critics have
thought that Aristotle intended by this to distinguish
between the risible and the ridiculous, between
mere laughter and laughter mixed with
contempt or disapprobation.[521] The nature and the
source of one of the most important elements in
Jonson's theory of comedy, his doctrine of "humours,"
have been briefly discussed in the first
section of this essay. It will suffice here to define
a "humour" as an absorbing singularity of character,[522]
and to note that it grew out of the conception
-290-of decorum which played so important a part
in poetic theory during the Italian Renaissance.
III. The Dramatic Unities
Before leaving the theory of the drama, there is one
further point to be discussed,—the doctrine of the
unities. It has been seen that the unities of time
and place were, in Italy, first formulated together
by Castelvetro in 1570, and in France by Jean de la
Taille in 1572. The first mention of the unities in
England is to be found, a dozen years later, in the
Defence of Poesy, and it cannot be doubted that Sidney
derived them directly from Castelvetro. Sidney,
in discussing the tragedy of Gorboduc, finds it
"faulty in time and place, the two necessary companions
of all corporal actions; for where the stage
should always represent but one place, and the
uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both
by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one
day, there [i.e. in Gorboduc] is both many days and
many places inartificially imagined."[523] He also objects
to the confusions of the English stage, where
on one side Africa and on the other Asia may be
represented, and where in an hour a youth may grow
from boyhood to old age.[524] How absurd this is,
common sense, art, and ancient examples ought to
-291-teach the English playwright; and at this day, says
Sidney, the ordinary players in Italy will not err in
it. If indeed it be objected that one or two of the
comedies of Plautus and Terence do not observe the
unity of time, let us not follow them when they err
but when they are right; it is no excuse for us to
do wrong because Plautus on one occasion has done
likewise.
The law of the unities does not receive such rigid
application in England as is given by Sidney until
the introduction of the French influence nearly three
quarters of a century later. Ben Jonson is considerably
less stringent in this respect than Sidney.
He lays particular stress on the unity of action,
and in the Discoveries explains at length the Aristotelian
conception of the unity and magnitude of
the fable. "The fable is called the imitation of one
entire and perfect action, whose parts are so joined
and knit together, as nothing in the structure can
be changed, or taken away, without impairing or
troubling the whole, of which there is a proportionable
magnitude in the members."[525] Simplicity,
then, should be one of the chief characteristics of
the action, and nothing receives so much of Jonson's
censure as "monstrous and forced action."[526] As to
the unity of time, Jonson says that the action should
be allowed to grow until necessity demands a conclusion;
the argument, however, should not exceed
the compass of one day, but should be large enough
to allow place for digressions and episodes, which
are to the fable what furniture is to a house.[527]
-292-Jonson does not formally require the observance of
the unity of place, and even acknowledges having
disregarded it in his own plays; but he does not
favor much change of scene on the stage. In the
prologue of Volpone, he boasts that he has followed
all the laws of refined comedy,
"As best critics have designed;
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth."
Milton observes the unity of time in the Samson
Agonistes: "The circumscription of time, wherein
the whole drama begins and ends is, according to
ancient rule and best example, within the space of
twenty-four hours."
With the introduction of the French influence,
the unities became fixed requirements of the English
drama, and remained so for over a century.
Sir Robert Howard, in the preface of his tragedy,
The Duke of Lerma, impugned their force and
authority; but Dryden, in answering him, pointed
out that to attack the unities is really to contend
against Aristotle, Horace, Ben Jonson, and Corneille.[528]
Farquhar, however, in his Discourse upon Comedy
(1702), argued with force and wit against the unities
of time and place, and scoffed at all the legislators
of Parnassus, ancient and modern,—Aristotle,
Horace, Scaliger, Vossius, Heinsius, D'Aubignac,
and Rapin.
-293-
IV. Epic Poetry
The Elizabethan theory of heroic poetry may be
dismissed briefly. Webbe refers to the epic as
"that princely part of poetry, wherein are displayed
the noble acts and valiant exploits of puissant
captains, expert soldiers, wise men, with the famous
reports of ancient times;"[529] and Puttenham
defines heroic poems as "long histories of the noble
gests of kings and great princes, intermeddling the
dealings of gods, demi-gods, and heroes, and weighty
consequences of peace and war."[530] The importance
of this form of poetry, according to Puttenham, is
largely historical, in that it sets forth an example
of the valor and virtue of our forefathers.[531] Sidney
is scarcely more explicit.[532] He asserts that heroic
poetry is the best and noblest of all forms; he
shows that such characters as Achilles, Æneas, and
Rinaldo are shining examples for all men's imitation;
but of the nature or structure of the epic he
says nothing.
The second part of Harington's Apologie of Poetrie
is given up to a defence of the Orlando Furioso,
and here the Aristotelian theory of the epic appears
for the first time in English criticism. Harington,
taking the Æneid as the approved model of all
heroic poetry, first shows that Ariosto has followed
closely in Virgil's footsteps, but is to be preferred
even to Virgil in that the latter pays reverence to
false deities, while Ariosto has the advantage of the
-294-Christian spirit. But since some critics, "reducing
all heroical poems unto the method of Homer and
certain precepts of Aristotle," insist that Ariosto
is wanting in art, Harington sets out to prove that
the Orlando Furioso may not only be defended by
the example of Homer, but that it has even followed
very strictly the rules and precepts of Aristotle.[533]
In the first place, Aristotle says that the
epic should be based on some historical action, only
a short part of which, in point of time, should be
treated by the poet; so Ariosto takes the story of
Charlemagne, and does not exceed a year or so in
the compass of the argument.[534] Secondly, Aristotle
holds that nothing that is utterly incredible should
be invented by the poet; and nothing in the Orlando
exceeds the possibility of belief. Thirdly, epics,
as well as tragedies, should be full of περιπέτεια,
which Harington interprets to mean "an agnition
of some unlooked for fortune either good or bad,
and a sudden change thereof"; and of this, as well
as of apt similitudes and passions well expressed,
the Orlando is really full.
In conclusion, it may be observed that epic
poetry did not receive adequate critical treatment
in England until after the introduction of the
French influence. The rules and theories of the
Italian Renaissance, restated in the writings of Le
Bossu, Mambrun, Rapin, and Vossius, were thus
brought into English criticism, and found perhaps
-295-their best expression in Addison's essays on Paradise
Lost. Such epics as Davenant's Gondibert,
Chamberlayne's Pharonnida, Dryden's Annus Mirabilis,
and Blackmore's Prince Arthur, like the
French epics of the same period, doubtless owed
their inspiration to the desire to put into practice
the classical rules of heroic poetry.[535]
top
CHAPTER IV
-296-
CLASSICAL ELEMENTS IN ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM
I. Introductory: Romantic Elements
It were no less than supererogation to adduce
evidences of the romantic spirit of the age of
Shakespeare. No period in English literature is
more distinctly romantic; and although in England
criticism is less affected by creative literature, and
has had less effect upon it, than in France, it is
only natural to suppose that Elizabethan criticism
should be as distinctly romantic as the works of
imagination of which it is presumably an exposition.
As early as Wilson's Rhetoric we find evidences
of that independence of spirit in questions
of art which seems typical of the Elizabethan age;
and none of the writers of this period exhibits anything
like the predisposition of the French mind to
submit instinctively to any rule, or set of rules,
which bears the stamp of authority. From the
outset the element of nationality colors English
criticism, and this is especially noticeable in the
linguistic discussions of the age. At the very time
when Sidney was writing the Defence of Poesy,
Spenser's old teacher, Mulcaster, wrote: "I love
Rome, but London better; I favor Italy, but England-297-
more; I honor the Latin, but I worship the
English."[536] It is this spirit which pervades what
may be called the chief expression of the romantic
temper in Elizabethan criticism,—Daniel's Defence
of Rhyme (1603), written in answer to Campion's
attack on rhyme in the Observations in the Art of
English Poesy. The central argument of Daniel's
defence is that the use of rhyme is sanctioned both
by custom and by nature—"custom that is before
all law, nature that is above all art."[537] He rebels
against that conception which would limit
"Within a little plot of Grecian ground
The sole of mortal things that can avail;"
and he shows that each age has its own perfections
and its own usages. This attempt at historical
criticism leads him into a defence of the Middle
Ages; and he does not hesitate to assert that even
classical verse had its imperfections and deficiencies.
In the minutiæ of metrical criticism, also, he
is in opposition to the neo-classic tendencies of the
next age; and his favorable opinion of enjambement
and his unfavorable comments on the heroic
couplet[538] drew from Ben Jonson an answer, never
published, in which the latter attempted to prove
that the couplet is the best form of English verse,
and that all other forms are forced and detestable.[539]
-298-
II. Classical Metres
Daniel's Defence of Rhyme may be said to have
dealt a death-blow to a movement which for over
half a century had been a subject of controversy
among English men of letters. In reading the
critical works of this period, it is impossible not to
notice the remarkable amount of attention paid by
the Elizabethans to the question of classical metres
in the vernacular. The first organized attempt to
introduce the classical versification into a modern
language was, as Daniel himself points out,[540] that of
Claudio Tolomei in 1539. The movement then
passed into France; and classical metres were
adopted by Baïf in practice, and defended by
Jacques de la Taille in theory. In England the
first recorded attempt at the use of quantity in the
vernacular was that of Thomas Watson, from whose
unpublished translation of the Odyssey in the
metre of the original Ascham has cited a single
distich:—
"All travellers do gladly report great prayse of Ulysses,
For that he knew many mens maners, and saw many cities."[541]
This was probably written between 1540 and 1550;
toward the close of the preceding century, we are
told, a certain Mousset had already translated the
Iliad and the Odyssey into French hexameters.
Ascham was the first critical champion of the
use of quantity in English verse.[542] Rhyme, he says,
-299-was introduced by the Goths and Huns at a time
when poetry and learning had ceased to exist in
Europe; and Englishmen must choose either to
imitate these barbarians or to follow the perfect
Grecians. He acknowledges that the monosyllabic
character of the English language renders the use
of the dactyl very difficult, for the hexameter "doth
rather trot and hobble than run smoothly in our
English tongue;" but he argues that English will
receive the carmen iambicum as naturally as Greek
or Latin. He praises Surrey's blank verse rendering
of the fourth book of the Æneid, but regrets that,
in disregarding quantity, it falls short of the "perfect
and true versifying." An attempt to put
Ascham's theories into practice was made by
Thomas Blenerhasset in 1577; but the verse of his
Complaynt of Cadwallader, though purporting to be
"a new kind of poetry," is merely an unrhymed
Alexandrine.[543]
In 1580, however, five letters which had passed
between Spenser and Gabriel Harvey appeared in
print as Three proper, and wittie, familiar Letters and
Two other very commendable Letters; and from this
correspondence we learn that an organized movement
to introduce classical metres into English
had been started. It would seem that for several
years Harvey had been advocating the use of quantitative
verse to several of his friends; but the
organized movement to which reference has just
-300-been made seems to have been started independently
by Thomas Drant, who died in 1578. Drant had
devised a set of rules and precepts for English classical
verse; and these rules, with certain additions
and modifications, were adopted by a coterie of
scholars and courtiers, among them being Sidney,
Dyer, Greville, and Spenser, who thereupon formed
a society, the Areopagus,[544] independent of Harvey,
but corresponding with him regularly. This society
appears to have been modelled on Baïf's
Académie de Poésie et de Musique, which had
been founded in 1570 for a similar purpose, and
which Sidney doubtless became acquainted with
when at Paris in 1572.
From the correspondence published in 1580, it
becomes evident that Harvey's and Drant's systems
of versification were almost antipodal. According
to Drant's system, the quantity of English words
was to be regulated entirely by the laws of Latin
prosody,—by position, diphthong, and the like.
Thus, for example, the penult of the word carpēnter
was regarded as long by Drant because followed by
two consonants. Harvey, who was unacquainted
with Drant's rules before apprised of them by
Spenser in the published letters, follows a more
normal and logical system. To him, accent alone is
the best of quantity, and the law of position cannot
make the penult of carpēnter or majēsty long.
"The Latin is no rule for us," says Harvey;[545] and
often where position and diphthong fall together,
-301-as in the penult of merchaŭndise, we must pronounce
the syllable short. In all such matters, the use,
custom, propriety, or majesty of our speech must be
accounted the only infallible and sovereign rule of
rules.
It was not, then, Harvey's purpose to Latinize
our tongue. His intention was apparently twofold,—to
abolish rhyme, and to introduce new
metres into English poetry. Only a few years before,
Gascoigne had lamented that English verse
had only one form of metre, the iambic.[546] Harvey,
in observing merely the English accent, can scarcely
be said to have introduced quantity into our verse,
but was simply adapting new metres, such as
dactyls, trochees, and spondees, to the requirements
of English poetry.
Drant's and Harvey's rules therefore constitute
two opposing systems. According to the former,
English verse is to be regulated by Latin prosody
regardless of accent; according to the latter, by
accent regardless of Latin prosody. By neither
system can quantity be successfully attempted in
English; and a distinguished classical scholar of
our own day has indicated what is perhaps the only
method by which this can be accomplished.[547] This
method may be described as the harmonious observance
of both accent and position; all accented
syllables being generally accounted long, and no
syllable which violates the Latin law of position
-302-being used when a short syllable is required by the
scansion. These three systems, with more or less
variation, have been employed throughout English
literature. Drant's system is followed in the
quantitative verse of Sidney and Spenser; Harvey's
method is that employed by Longfellow in Evangeline;
and Tennyson's beautiful classical experiments
are practical illustrations of the method of
Professor Robinson Ellis.
In 1582, Richard Stanyhurst published at Leyden
a translation of the first four books of the Æneid
into English hexameters. From Ascham he seems
to have derived his inspiration, and from Harvey
his metrical system. Like Harvey he refuses to be
bound by the laws of Latin prosody,[548] and follows
the English accent as much as possible. But in
one respect his translation is unique. Harvey, in
his correspondence with Spenser, had suggested
that the use of quantitative verse in English necessitated
the adoption of a certain uniformity in
spelling; and the curious orthography of Stanyhurst
was apparently intended as a serious attempt
at phonetic reform. Spelling reform had been
agitated in France for some time; and in Baïf's
Etrennes de Poésie françoise (1574), we find French
quantitative verse written according to the phonetic
system of Ramus.
Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie is really a
plea in favor of quantitative verse. His system is
based primarily on Latin prosody, but reconciled
with English usage. The Latin rules are to be followed
-303-when the English and Latin words agree;
but no word is to be used that notoriously impugns
the laws of Latin prosody, and the spelling of English
words should, when possible, be altered to
conform to the ancient rules. The difficulty of
observing the law of position in the middle of English
words may be obviated by change in spelling,
as in the word mournfūlly, which should be spelled
mournfŭly; but where this is impossible, the law of
position is to be observed, despite the English
accent, as in royālty. Unlike Ascham, Webbe regards
the hexameter as the easiest of all classical
metres to use in English.[549]
Puttenham is not averse to the use of classical
metres, but as a conservative he considers all sudden
innovations dangerous.[550] The system he adopts
is not unlike Harvey's. Sidney's original enthusiasm
for quantitative verse soon abated; and in the
Defence of Poesy he points out that although the
ancient versification is better suited to musical accompaniment
than the modern, both systems cause
delight, and are therefore equally effective and valuable;
and English is more fitted than any other
language to use both.[551] Campion, like Ascham, regards
English polysyllables as too heavy to be used
as dactyls; so that only trochaic and iambic verse
can be suitably employed in English poetry.[552] He
suggests eight new forms of verse. The English
accent is to be diligently observed, and is to yield
to nothing save the law of position; hence the
-304-second syllable of Trumpīngton is to be accounted
long.[553] In observing the law of position, however,
the sound, and not the spelling, is to be the test
of quantity; thus, love-sick is pronounced love-sĭk,
dangerous is pronounced dangerŭs, and the like.[554]
III. Other Evidences of Classicism
With Campion's Observations (1602) the history
of classical metres in England may be said to
close, until the resuscitation of quantitative verse
in the present century. Daniel's Defence of Rhyme
effectually put an end to this innovation; but the
strong hold which the movement seems to have had
during the Elizabethan age is interesting evidence
of the classical tendencies of the period. Ben
Jonson has usually been regarded as the forerunner
of neo-classicism in England; but long before
his influence was felt, classical tendencies may
be observed in English criticism. Thus Ascham's
conservatism and aversion to singularity in matters
of art are distinctly classical. "He that can
neither like Aristotle in logic and philosophy, nor
Tully in rhetoric and eloquence," says Ascham,
"will from these steps likely enough presume by
like pride to mount higher to the misliking of
graver matters; that is, either in religion to have
a dissentious head, or in the commonwealth to have
a factious heart."[555] His insistence that it is no
slavery to be bound by the laws of art, and the stress
he lays on perfection of style, are no less classical.[556]
-305-
Similar tendencies may be observed in the writers
that follow Ascham. Harvey's strictures on the
Faerie Queene were inspired by two influences. As
a humanist, he looked back with contempt on
mediæval literature in general, its superstitions,
its fairy lore, and the like. As a classicist in art,
he preferred the regular, or classic, form of the
epic to the romantic, or irregular form; and his
strictures may be compared in this respect with
those of Bembo on the Orlando or those of Salviati
on the Gerusalemme. So Harington attempts to
make the Orlando chime with the laws of Aristotle,
and Sidney attempts to force these laws on the
English drama. So also Sidney declares that genius,
without "art, imitation, and exercise," is as nothing,
and censures his contemporaries for neglecting
"artificial rules and imitative patterns."[557] So
Webbe attempts to find a fixed standard or criterion
by which to judge good and bad poets, and translates
Fabricius's summary of the rules of Horace as
a guide for English poetry.[558]
English criticism, therefore, may be said to exhibit
classical tendencies from its very beginning.
But it is none the less true that before Ben Jonson
there was no systematic attempt to force, as it were,
the classic ideal on English literature. In Spain,
as has been seen, Juan de la Cueva declared that
poetry should be classical and imitative, while the
drama should be romantic and original. Sidney,
on the contrary, sought to make the drama classical,
while allowing freedom of imagination and
-306-originality of form to the non-dramatic poet. Ben
Jonson was the first complete and consistent English
classicist; and his classicism differs from that
of the succeeding age rather in degree than in kind.
Bacon's assertion that poetry is restrained in
the measure of words, but in all other points extremely
licensed,[559] is characteristic of the Elizabethan
point of view. The early critics allowed
extreme license in the choice and treatment of
material, while insisting on strict regularity of
expression. Thus Sidney may advocate the use
of classical metres, but this does not prevent him
from celebrating the freedom of genius and the
soaring heights of the imagination. There is nothing
of these things in Ben Jonson. He, too, celebrates
the nobility and power of poetry, and the
dignity of the poet's office; but nowhere does he
speak of the freedom of the imagination or the
force of genius. Literature for him was not an
expression of personality, not a creation of the
imagination, but an image of life, a picture of the
world. In other words, he effected what may be
called an objectification of the literary ideal.
In the second place, this image of life can be
created only by conscious effort on the part of the
artist. For the creation of great poetry, genius,
exercise, imitation, and study are all necessary,
but to these art must be added to make them perfect,
for only art can lead to perfection.[560] It is this
insistence on art as a distinct element, almost as
an end in itself, that distinguishes Jonson from
-307-his predecessors; and nowhere is his ideal of art
expressed as pithily as in the address to the reader
prefixed to the Alchemist (1612):—
"In Poetry, especially in Plays, ... the concupiscence
of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from
nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that
tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place,
do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate
contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals,
as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple
mocking at the terms, when they understand not the
things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay,
they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this,
by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment.
For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers;
who, if they come in robustiously, and put for it with a
great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows;
when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their
disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that
boisterous force the foil. I deny not but that these men,
who always seek to do more than enough, may some time
happen on some thing that is good and great; but very
seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest
of their ill.... But I give thee warning, that there is a
great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of
copy [i.e. copiousness], utter all they can, however unfitly;
and those that use election and a mean[561] [i.e. selection and
moderation]. For it is only the disease of the unskilful to
think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more
numerous than composed."[562]
Literature, then, aims at presenting an image
of life through the medium of art; and the guide
-308-to art, according to Jonson, is to be found in the
rules of criticism. Thus, for example, success in
comedy is to be attained
"By observation of those comic laws
Which I, your master, first did teach the age;"[563] and elsewhere, it will be remembered, Jonson boasts
that he had swerved from no "needful law." But
though art can find a never-failing guide and monitor
in the rules of criticism, he does not believe
in mere servile adherence to the practice or theory
of classical literature. The ancients are to be regarded
as guides, not commanders.[564] In short, the
English mind was not yet prepared to accept the
neo-classic ideal in all its consequences; and absolute
subservience to ancient authority came only
with the introduction of the French influence.
This is, perhaps, best indicated by the history
of Aristotle's influence in English criticism from
Ascham to Milton. The first reference to the
Poetics in England is to be found in Ascham's
Scholemaster.[565] There we are told that Ascham,
Cheke, and Watson had many pleasant talks together
at Cambridge, comparing the poetic precepts
of Aristotle and Horace with the examples
of Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca. In Sidney's
Defence of Poesy, Aristotle is cited several times;
and in the drama, his authority is regarded by
Sidney as almost on a par with that of the "common
reason."[566] Harington was not satisfied until he
-309-had proved that the Orlando agrees substantially
with Aristotle's requirements. Jonson wrote a
commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica, with elucidations
from Aristotle, in which
"All the old Venusine [i.e. Horace], in poetry,
And lighted by the Stagyrite [i.e. Aristotle], could spy,
Was there made English;"[567]
but the manuscript was unfortunately destroyed by
fire in 1623. Yet Jonson was aware how ridiculous
it is to make any author a dictator.[568] His admiration
for Aristotle was great; but he acknowledges
that the Aristotelian rules are useless without natural
talent, and that a poet's liberty cannot be bound
within the narrow limits prescribed by grammarians
and philosophers.[569] At the same time, he
points out that Aristotle was the first critic, and
the first of all men to teach the poet how to write.
The Aristotelian authority is not to be contemned,
since Aristotle did not invent his rules, but, taking
the best things from nature and the poets, converted
them into a complete and consistent code of
art. Milton, also, had a sincere admiration for "that
sublime art which [is taught] in Aristotle's Poetics,
in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro,
Tasso, Mazzoni, and others."[570] But despite all
this, the English independence of spirit never
failed; and before the French influence we can
-310-find no such thing in English criticism as the literary
dictatorship of Aristotle.[571]
To conclude, then, it would seem that by the
middle of the sixteenth century there had grown up
in Italy an almost complete body of poetic rules and
theories. This critical system passed into France,
England, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and Holland;
so that by the beginning of the seventeenth
century there was a common body of Renaissance
doctrine throughout western Europe. Each country,
however, gave this system a national cast of its
own; but the form which it received in France
ultimately triumphed, and modern classicism therefore
represents the supremacy of the French phase,
or version, of Renaissance Aristotelianism. A
number of modern writers, among them Lessing
and Shelley, have returned more or less to the original
Italian form. This is represented, in Elizabethan
criticism, by Sidney; Ben Jonson represents
a transitional phase, and Dryden and Pope
the final form of French classicism.
top
-312-
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE CHIEF CRITICAL WORKS OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
| Date | Italy | Date | France | Date | England |
| 1527 | Vida: De Arte Poetica. | | | c. 1524 | Cox: Rhetoric. |
| 1529 | Trissino: Poetica, pts. i.-iv. | | | | |
| 1535 | Dolce: trans. of Horace's Ars Poetica. | | | | |
| 1536 | Pazzi: transl. of Aristotle's Poetics. | | | | |
| 1536 | Daniello: Poetica. | | | | |
| 1539 | Tolomei: Versi e Regole della Nuova Poesia. | 1545 | Pelletier: trans. of Horace's Ars Poetica. | | |
| 1548 | Robortelli: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | 1548 | Sibilet: Art Poétique. | | |
| 1549 | Segni: transl. of Aristotle's Poetics. | 1549 | Du Bellay: Défense et Illustration. | | |
| 1550 | Maggi: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | | | 1553 | Wilson: Rhetoric. |
| 1551 | Muzio: Arte Poetica. | | | | |
| -313- | | | | |
| 1554 | Giraldi Cintio: Discorsi. | 1554 | Pelletier: Art Poétique. | | |
| 1559 | Minturno: De Poeta. | 1555 | Morel: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | | |
| | | | 1567 | Drant: transl. of Horace's Ars Poetica. |
| 1560 | Vettori: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | 1560 | Pasquier: Recherches. | | |
| 1561 | Scaliger: Poetics. | 1561 | [Scaliger: Poetics.] | 1570 | Ascham: Scholemaster. |
| 1563 | Trissino: Poetica, pts. v., vi. | | | 1575 | Gascoigne: Notes of Instruction. |
| 1564 | Minturno: Arte Poetica. | | | | |
| 1570 | Castelvetro: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | 1565 | Ronsard: Abrégé de l'Art Poétique. | 1579 | Gosson: School of Abuse. |
| | | | 1579 | Lodge: Reply to Gosson. |
| 1575 | Piccolomini: ed. of Aristotle's Poetics. | 1572 | Jean de la Taille: preface of Saül. | 1580 | Harvey and Spenser: Letters. |
| | | | c. 1583 | Sidney: Defence of Poesy (publ. 1595). |
| 1579 | Viperano: De Arte Poetica. | 1572 | Ronsard: preface of Franciade. | | |
| 1586 | Patrizzi: Della Poetica. | | | 1585 | James VI.: Reulis and Cautelis. |
| 1587 | T. Tasso: Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica. | 1573 | Jacques de la Taille: treatise on French classical metres. | | |
| | | | 1586 | Webbe: Discourse of English Poetrie. |
| 1588 | Denores: Poetica. | | | | |
| 1597 | Buonamici: Discorsi Poetici. | 1598 | De Laudun: Art Poétique françois. | 1589 | Puttenham: Arte of English Poesie. |
| 1598 | Ingegneri: Poesia Rappresentativa. | | | | |
| | — | Vauquelin: Art Poétique. | 1591 | Harington: Apologie of Poetrie. |
| 1600 | Summo: Discorsi Poetici. | | | | |
top
APPENDIX B
-314-
SALVIATI'S ACCOUNT OF THE COMMENTATORS ON ARISTOTLE'S "POETICS."
The following is Lionardo Salviati's account of the
commentators on Aristotle's Poetics up to 1586. The
passage is cited from an unpublished Ms. at Florence
(Cod. Magliabech. ii. ii. II.), beginning at fol. 371. The
title of the Ms. is Parafrasi e Commento della Poetica
d'Aristotile; and at fol. 370 it is dated January 28, 1586.
DELLI INTERPRETI DI QUESTO LIBRO DELLA POETICA
Averroës.
Averroe primo di tutti quelli interpreti della Poetica
che a nostri tempi sono pervenuti, fece intorno a esso una
breve Parafrasi, nella quale come che pure
alcune buone considerationi si ritrovino,
tutta via per la diversità e lontananza de costumi, che tra
greco havea, e tra gli arabi poca notizia havendone,
pochissima ne potè dare altrui. Appresso hebbe voglia
Valla.Giorgio Valla di tradur questo libro in
latino, ma o che la copia del testo greco lo
ingannasse, o che verso di sè fusse l'opera malagevole per
ogni guisa massimamente in quei tempi, egli di quella
impresa picciola lode si guadagnò.
Pazzi.
Il che considerando
poi Alessandro de Pazzi, huomo delle lingue
intendente, et ingegnoso molto, alla medesima
cura si diede, et ci lasciò la latina traduzzione, che-315-
in tutti i latini comenti fuorch'in quello del Vettorio
si leggie. E per ciò che dotto huomo era, et hebbe
copia di ottimi testi scritti a penna, diede non poca luce
a questa opera, e più anche fatto havrebbe se da la morte
stato non fusse sopravenuto.
Robortelli.
Francesco Rubertello a
tempi nostri, nelli studj delle lingue esercitatissimo,
conoscendo che di maggior aviso
li faceva mestieri, non solamente purgò il testo di molte
macchie che accecato il tenevano, ma il primo fu ancora,
che con distese dichiarationi, et con innumerabili esempli
di poeti greci e latini, fece opera di illustrarlo.
Segni.
Vulgarizzollo appresso Bernardo
Segni in questo nostro Idioma, et con alcune sue brevi
annotationi lo diede in luce. E nella tradutione per
alcune proprie voci et ai greci vocaboli ottimamente corrisposero,
non se n' uscì anche egli senza commendazione.
Ma con molto maggior grido et applauso, il comento del
Maggi.Maggio, chiarissimo filosopho, fu dal mondo
ricevuto; perciochè havendo egli con somma
gloria nella continua lettura della Philosophia i suoi anni
trapassati, con l' ordine principalmente giovò a questo
libro, e col mostrarne la continuatione et in non pochi
luoghi soccorse il Rubertello. E se si fusse alquanto
meno ardente contro di lui dimonstrato, nè così vago
stato fusse di contrapporseli, sarebbe alcuna volta per
avventura uscito fuor più libero il parer suo, e più saldo.
Vettori.
A lato a quel del Maggio fu la latina traduzione et comento
di Pier Vettori pubblicato, il quale essendo
oltre ad ogni altro, delle antiche scritture
diligentissimo osservatore, e nella cognitione delle lingue
havendosi sì come io stimo a tempi nostri, il primo luogo
guadagnato, hauta commodità, et in gran numero di
preziosi et antichi esemplarj scritti a mano, in ogni parte,
ma nella correzzione del testo spetialmente e nella traduzione,
ha fatto sì che poco più avanti pare che di lume a-316-
questo libro possa desiderarsi.
Castelvetro.
Pur non di manco a
questi anni di nuovo, da un dotto huomo in
questa lingua volgarizzato et esposto, et più
a lungo che alcun altro che ciò habbia fin quì adoprato
ancor mai. Questo sarà da me per tutto ovunque mi convenga
nominarlo, il comento vulgare appellato, e per più
brevità con quelle due prime lettere C. V. in questa guisa
lo noterò. Nel qual comento hanno senza alcun fallo di
sottilissimi avvedimenti, ma potrebb' essere, sì come io
credo, più sincero. Perciò che io stimo, che dove egli dal
vero si diparte, il faccia per emulazione per lo più per
dimostrarsi di sottil sentimento e per non dire come li
altri. È la costui tradutione, fuorchè in alcune parti
dove egli secondo che io avviso volontariamente erra, tra
le toscane la migliore. E sono le sue parole et in essa e
nell' espositione molto pure, et in puro volgare fiorentino,
quanto comporta la materia l'una e l'altra è dettata. Ultimamente la traduzzione, e con essa l'annotazione di
Piccolomini.Mgr. Alessandro Piccolomini sono uscite in
stampa, il quale havendosi con molte altre
sue opere d' astrologia e di filosofia e di rettorica parte composte,
parte volgarizzate, non picciol nome e molta riputazione
acquistata, creder si può altrettanto doverli della
presente faticha avvenire.
Salviati.
Dietro a sì chiari interpreti
non per emulatione, la quale tra me e sì fatti huomini
non potrebbe haver luogo, ma per vaghezza
che io pure havrei di dover ancor io, se io
potessi a questa impresa, alcun aiuto arrecare dopo lo
studio di dieci anni che io ci ho spesi, scendo, quantunque
timido, in questo campo, più con accesa volontà, che con
speranza, o vigore desideroso che avanti che venirmi gloria
per false opinioni, sieno i miei difetti discretamente da
savio giudice gastigati.
top
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This bibliography includes a list of the principal
books and editions used in the preparation of the essay,
and should be consulted for the full titles of works
cited in the text and in the foot-notes.-317-
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Carducci, G. La Poesia Barbara nei Secoli XV e XVI.
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Haslewood, J. Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets
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Arnaud, C. Études sur la Vie et les Œuvres de l'Abbé
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Aronstein, P. "Ben Jonson's Theorie des Lustspiels,"
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top
INDEX
-325-
- Abu-Baschar, 16.
- Académie de Poésie et de Musique, 224, 300.
- Accademia della Crusca, 123.
- Accademia della Nuova Poesia, 222, 224.
- Addison, 295.
- Æschylus, 96.
- Agricola, 132.
- Agrippa, Cornelius, 7, 273, 275.
- Alamanni, Luigi, 222.
- Alberti, Leon Battista, 221.
- Alexander of Aphrodisias, 78.
- Ambrose of Milan, 7.
- Aneau, Barthélemy, 182 sq.
- Aphthonius, 27.
- Aquinas, Thomas, 6, 15.
- Areopagus, 300.
- Aretino, 106, 163.
- Ariosto, 109, 112 sq., 115 sq., 123, 162, 222, 293 sq.
- Aristophanes, 11.
- Aristotle, passim, especially 16 sq., 136 sq., 164 sq., 183 sq., 308 sq.;
Poetics, passim; Rhetoric, 86.
- Ascham, 254 sq., 283 sq., 298 sq., 302 sq.; Scholemaster, 254.
- Aubignac, Abbé d', 210, 223, 236, 245 sq.; Pratique du Théâtre, 210, 245.
- Averroës, 16, 24, 26, 314.
- Bacon, Francis, 276 sq., 306; Advancement of Learning, 276.
- Bacon, Roger, 16.
- Baïf, J. A. de, 224 sq., 298, 300.
- Baldini, Ars Poetica Aristotelis, 140.
- Balzac, Guez de, 139, 239 sq.
- Bartas, Salluste du, 130, 161, 197, 227, 230.
- Beaubreuil, Jean de, 208.
- Bellay, Joachim du, 172 sq., 182 sq., 199 sq., 210 sq.;
Défense et Illustration, 172, 177 sq.
- Bembo, 117, 126, 153, 161, 180, 255, 305.
- Beni, Paolo, 36, 92, 123, 140, 244.
- Bernays, 80.
- Berni, Dialogo contra i Poeti, 9, 153.
- Beza, 230.
- Binet, 192, 219.
- Blackmore, 295.
- Blenerhasset, Thomas, 299.
- Boccaccio, 8, 13, 16, 35, 165, 193, 261; De Genealogia Deorum, 9.
- Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso, 258.
- Boileau, 39, 48, 108, 130 sq., 153, 208 sq., 245 sq., 286; Art Poétique, 108, 249.
- Bossuet, 7, 238.
- Bouteauville, Michel de, 223.
- Breitinger, H., 90.
- Brunetière, 93, 176.
- Bruni, Lionardo, 10, 12; De Studiis et Literis, 10.
- Bruno, Giordano, 165 sq.
- Buchanan, 230.
- Budæus, 173, 310 n.
- Bullokar, 256.
- Buonamici, Discorsi Poetici, 140, 167.
- Butcher, S. H., 26 n., 40, 64, 75.
- Calcagnini, 162 sq.
- Cammillo, Giulio, 32, 176.
- Campanella, 26 sq.
- Campion, Observations in the Art of English Poesy, 297, 304.
- Capriano, 83, 87, 120; Della Vera Poetica, 42, 211.
- Caro, Annibal, 222.
- Cascales, 146.
- Castelvetro, 44 sq., 55, 316, et passim.
- Castiglione, 103, 161, 180.
- Cavalcanti, 127.
- Cecchi, 106.
- Cervantes, 36, 104, 258 n., 290 n.
- Chamberlayne, 295.
- Chapelain, 139, 186, 210, 239 sq.
- Cheke, Sir John, 254, 308.
- Chrétien Le Gouais, 264.
- Cicero, 16, 30, 54, 104, 164, 178.
- Coleridge, 54, 56, 142.
- Corneille, 75, 84, 90, 101, 139, 206, 210, 229, 245.
- Council of Trent, 15, 130, 142, 160, 224, 268, 292.
- Coxe, Leonard, 254.
- Cueva, Juan de la, 146, 233, 305; Egemplar Poético, 146, 234.
- Dacier, 63, 70, 75.
- Daniel, Defence of Rhyme, 257, 297 sq., 304.
- Daniello, 20, 28, 48, 61, 82, 137, 196.
- Dante, 8, 16, 51, 66, 109, 138, 180 sq.
- Dati, Leonardo, 221.
- Davenant, 259, 295.
- Deimier, 216.
- Denores, 151.
- Descartes, 249.
- Deschamps, Eustache, 174.
- Desportes, 237.
- Diomedes, 64 sq.
- Dolce, Lodovico, 126, 171, 196.
- Dolet, 173, 227.
- Donatus, 104.
- Drant, Thomas, 171, 300 sq.
- Dryden, 53, 75, 100, 142, 231, 259, 295, 310.
- Duval, 227.
- Dyer, 300.
- Ellis, Robinson, 301 sq.
- Equicola, 58, 127.
- Erasmus, 173, 184.
- Espinel, 171.
- Estienne, Henri, 181, 217.
- Euanthius-Donatus, 65.
- Euripides, 284, 308.
- Fabri, Pierre, 174 sq.
- Fabricius, 147, 305.
- Fanucci, 127.
- Farquhar, 292.
- Fichte, 157.
- Ficino, 160.
- Filelfo, 32, 136.
- Fioretti, Benedetto, 167.
- Fleur de Rhétorique, 174.
- Fontaine, Charles, 181 sq.
- Fracastoro, 22, 31 sq., 40 sq., 141, 157, 258; Naugerius, 31.
- Fulgentius, 7, 8.
- Gabrielli, Trifone, 138.
- Gambara, De Perfecta Poeseos Ratione, 161.
- Garnier, 230.
- Gascoigne, 256, 301.
- Gelli, 106, 163.
- Giraldi Cintio, 49, 62, 67, 76, 83, 91, 110 sq., 123, 138, 146, 162,
211, 235, 284.
- Goldoni, 167.
- Gosson, 7, 266 sq., 273.
- Gracien du Pont, 174 sq.
- Great Assises holden in Parnassus, 258, 310 n.
- Gregory the Great, 8.
- Greville, Fulke, 300.
- Grévin, 201 sq., 228, 232.
- Grynæus, 184.
- Guarini, Pastor Fido, 164.
- Guarino, De Ordine Docendi, 10.
- Hardy, Alexandre, 232, 235 sq.
- Harington, 275, 293, 305, 308; Apologie of Poetrie, 257, 275, 293.
- Harvey, Gabriel, 117, 255, 299 sq., 303 sq.
- Heinsius, Daniel, 147, 185, 245, 292; De Tragœdiæ Constitutione, 245.
- Heliodorus, 36, 196.
- Hermann, 16.
- Hermogenes, 32; Idea, 32.
- Hilary of Poitiers, 7.
- Hobbes, 103 n., 259.
- Homer, 4, 6, 18, et passim.
- Horace, 11, 16, et passim; Ars Poetica, passim.
- Howard, Sir Robert, 292.
- Isidore of Seville, 5, 11, 65.
- James VI. of Scotland, 262.
- Jodelle, 173, 206.
- Johannes Januensis de Balbis, 66.
- John of Salisbury, 11.
- Johnson, Samuel, 79, 260.
- Jonson, Ben, 54, 88 sq., 104, 142, 246, 258, 278 sq., 288 sq., 297, 304 sq.
- La Bruyère, 241, 248.
- Lamartine, 48.
- La Mesnardière, 245.
- Landi, Ortensio, 164, 165;
Paradossi, 164.
- Lasca, Il, 104, 106, 163.
- Laudun, Pierre de, 188, 204, 221, 233; Art Poétique, 208.
- Le Bossu, 246, 294.
- Lemoyne, 244.
- Leo X., 126, 154, 160.
- Le Roy, 227.
- Lessing, 75, 79, 142, 147, 310.
- Lionardi, Alessandro, 43, 127.
- Livy, 29, 37.
- Lodge, Defence of Poetry, Musick, and Stage Plays, 267.
- Lombardi, 138.
- Longfellow, 302.
- Lucan, 195, 275.
- Lucian, 35.
- Lucretius, 45.
- Luisino, 138.
- Luther, 147 n.
- Macrobius, 244.
- Maggi, 27, 49, 63, 78, 314, et passim.
- Mairet, 210.
- Malherbe, 216, 220, 231, 236 sq.; Commentaire sur Desportes, 237.
- Mambrun, 244, 246, 294.
- Mantinus of Tortosa, 16.
- Mantuan, 9.
- Maranta, 108, 146.
- Marguerite de Navarre, 227.
- Marino, 241.
- Marot, 175, 216, 238.
- Mascardo, 310 n.
- Maximus of Tyre, 6.
- Mazzoni, Jacopo, 309; Difesa di Dante, 124 n.
- Melanchthon, 132, 254.
- Mellin de Saint-Gelais, 175, 206.
- Ménage, 241.
- Metastasio, 167.
- Michele, A., 36.
- Milton, 54, 70 n., 80 sq., 142, 147, 280, 287, 292,
308 sq.
- Minturno, 21, 52, 269, et passim; Arte Poetica, 119; De Poeta, 21.
- Mirandola, Pico della, 160, 310 n.
- Molière, 217.
- Montaigne, 173, 194, 226 sq., 240.
- Montchrestien, 230.
- Montemayor, 196.
- Morel, Guillaume, 184.
- Mousset, 223, 298.
- Mulcaster, 296.
- Musæus, 88.
- Muzio, 38, 58, 87, 104, 129, 144, 161, 213; Arte Poetica, 50.
- Nisieli, Udeno, v. Fioretti, Benedetto.
- Nores, J. de, v. Denores.
- Ogier, François, 235.
- Opitz, Buch von der deutschen Poeterei, 147.
- Ovid, 179, 263.
- Palingenius, 39.
- Partenio, 127, 134, 141, 147; Della Imitatione Poetica, 128.
- Pasquier, 223 n.
- Patrizzi, 165 sq., 222; Della Poetica, 165.
- Pazzi, Alessandro de', 17, 137, 314.
- Peacham, Compleat Gentleman, 310 n.
- Pellegrino, Camillo, 122 sq.
- Pelletier, 171, 175, 182, 191, 199 sq., 205, 211, 217, 225.
- Petrarch, 8, 16, 58, 138, 261.
- Philo Judæus, 7.
- Pibrac, Guy du Faur de, 225.
- Piccolomini, Æneas Sylvius, 12.
- Piccolomini, Alessandro, 139 sq., 244, 316.
- Pierre Berçuire, 264.
- Pigna, G. B., 115 sq., 123, 235, 284.
- Pinciano, 146.
- Pindar, 211.
- Pisani, Marquise de, 241.
- Plato, 4 sq., 14, 78, et passim, especially 156 sq.
- Plautus, 85, 102, 285, 291.
- Plutarch, 27, 42, 114.
- Poliziano, 13 sq., 188; Sylvæ, 13.
- Pomponazzi, 137.
- Pontano, G., 103 n., 146 n., 153.
- Pontano, P., 146 n.
- Pontanus, J., 146 n., 147.
- Pope, Alexander, 260, 310; Essay on Criticism, 108.
- Prynne, 7.
- Puttenham, 264 sq., 284, 293; Arte of English Poesie, 256, 264.
- Quintil Horatian, 181 sq., 216 sq.
- Quintilian, 16, 54, 132, 164.
- Racan, 237.
- Racine, 75, 139, 238, 245.
- Rambouillet, Marquise de, 241.
- Ramus, 137, 164, 223 sq., 227.
- Rapin, 75, 106, 245, 292, 294; Réflexions sur l'Art Poétique, 139.
- Regolo, 108.
- Rengifo, 145.
- Rhetores Græci, 17.
- Rhodiginus, 136.
- Ricci, B., 138.
- Riccoboni, 140, 146, 244.
- Richelieu, 209 sq.
- Robortelli, 17, 25, 29 sq., 63, 77, 91, 103, 139, 244, 315.
- Ronsard, 54, 147, 173, 187 sq., 206, 211, 218 sq., 226 sq., 231, 256.
- Rucellai, 136.
- Ruscelli, 58, 127.
- Sackville, Gorboduc, 284, 290.
- Saint-Amant, 244.
- Sainte-Beuve, 152.
- Salviati, Lionardo, 88 sq., 123 sq., 139 n., 140, 162, 181, 305, 314, 316.
- Sanchez, Alfonso, 234.
- Sannazaro, 35, 153, 160, 179, 234.
- Savonarola, 6, 13 sq., 24, 27, 130, 160.
- Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 245.
- Scaliger, Julius Cæsar, 14, 36 sq., 43, 58, 131 sq., 310 n., et passim;
Poetics, 150, 176, et passim.
- Schelandre, J. de, 235.
- Schelling, 157.
- Schlegel, 157.
- Schosser, Disputationes de Tragœdia, 147 n.
- Scudéry, 244.
- Segni, A., 42 n.
- Segni, B., 17, 92, 139, 315.
- Selden, 310 n.
- Seneca, 62, 69, 85, 201, 232, 284 sq., 308.
- Shaftesbury, 54.
- Shakespeare, 46, 56, 79, 104 sq., 205, 296.
- Shelley, 12, 54, 128, 142, 147, 188, 192, 310.
- Sibilet, 174 sq., 223; Art Poétique, 175.
- Sidney, Sir Philip, 34, 51, 104, 142, et passim; Defence of Poesy, 268 sq., et passim.
- Silius Italicus, 195.
- Simonides, 42.
- Sophocles, 62, 284, 308.
- Spenser, 117, 161, 296, 299, 302, 305.
- Speroni, Sperone, 75, 81, 116 sq., 242.
- Stanyhurst, Richard, 302.
- Strabo, 24, 27, 47, 54, 193.
- Sturm, John, 132, 254.
- Suckling, Session of the Poets, 258.
- Suetonius, De Poetis, 65.
- Summo, Faustino, 36, 167.
- Surrey, 299.
- Symonds, J. A., 257.
- Taille, Jacques de la, 223 sq., 298.
- Taille, Jean de la, 185 sq., 201 sq., 290; Art de Tragédie, 201, 206.
- Tasso, Bernardo, 17, 22, 55, 119.
- Tasso, Torquato, 8, 34, 37, 56, 117, 119 sq., 128, 130, 139, 151, 192, 309;
Discorsi dell'Arte Poetica, 119, 213; Apologia, 123.
- Tempo, Antonio di, 174.
- Tennyson, 302.
- Terence, 85, 106, 287, 291.
- Tertullian, 5.
- Theocritus, 179.
- Theophrastus, 64 sq.
- Tibullus, 179.
- Tolomei, Claudio, 126, 161, 222, 256, 298.
- Tomitano, 43.
- Toscanella, 108.
- Tottel's Miscellany, 255.
- Trincaveli, 137.
- Trissino, 58, 92 sq., 102, 106, 112, 126, 136, 176, 206, 288; Poetica, 76, 92, 109, 140, 150.
- Turnebus, 184.
- Twining, 80.
- Valla, Giorgio, 17, 314.
- Varchi, 27, 34, 41, 50, 124 n., 138, 141, 150, 161, 180.
- Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, 48, 176 sq., 186, 196, 203, 207, 212, 219, 227 sq.
- Vega, Lope de, 233 sq., 258 n.
- Vettori, 37 n., 77, 97, 139, 315.
- Vida, 13, 87, 106, 126 sq., 131 sq., 148, 160, 183, 187, 215, 218, 244, 247.
- Viperano, 146 n., 188, 204.
- Virgil, 18, 30, 87, 106, et passim.
- Voltaire, 95.
- Vossius, 185, 244 sq., 292, 294, 310 n.
- Warton, Joseph, 143.
- Warton, Thomas, 254.
- Watson, Thomas, 298, 308.
- Webbe, William, 268, 284, 293, 302, 305; Discourse of English Poetrie, 256, 263, 283.
- Wilson, Rhetoric, 254, 261, 296.
- Wither, 258.
- Woodberry, G. E., 12 n.
- Xenophon, 30, 275.
- Zabarella, 26 sq.
- Zapata, 171.
LI LIVRES DU GOUVERNEMENT
DES ROIS.
Being a Thirteenth Century French Version of EGIDIO
COLONNA'S treatise, "De Regimine Principium."
From the Kerr MS.
EDITED BY
SAMUEL PAUL MOLENAER, A.M.,
Instructor in the University of Pennsylvania; Sometime
Fellow of Columbia University.
8vo. Cloth. $3.00, net.
This treatise, "On the Education of Princes," was prepared in Latin about
the year 1285, by the preceptor of the boy prince Philip the Fair (afterward
Philip IV. of France), and on the accession of the youthful king was by him
ordered translated into French for the benefit of the general public. Numerous
editions in the original Latin were published in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, but the French version has never before appeared in print. The
work covers a wide range of topics, educational and social, discussed in the
spirit of enlightened mediæval scholarship. It is believed that, in its present
accessible form, it will be found to constitute an interesting chapter in the
history of educational ideas.
BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.
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On the Meaning of 'Nauta' and 'Viator' in Horace, Sat. i. 5. 11-23.
Anaximander on the Prolongation of Infancy in Man. A Note on the
History of the Theory of Evolution.
Of Two Passages in Euripides' Medea.
The Preliminary Military Service of the Equestrian Cursus Honorum.
References to Zoroaster in Syriac and Arabic Literature.
Literary Frauds among the Greeks.
Henotheism in the Rig-Veda.
On Plato and the Attic Comedy.
Herodotus vii. 61, or the Arms of the Ancient Persian Illustrated from
Iranian Sources.
Archaism in Aulus Gellius.
On Certain Parallelisms between the Ancient and the Modern Drama.
Ovid's Use of Colour and Colour-Terms.
A Bronze of Polyclitan Affinities in the Metropolitan Museum.
Geryon in Cyprus.
Hercules, Hydra, and Crab.
Onomatopoetic Words in Latin.
Notes on the Vedic Deity Pūşan.
The So-Called Medusa Ludovisi.
Aristotle and the Arabs.
Iphigenia in Greek and French Tragedy.
Gargettus: an Attic Deme.
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Corrections:
Footnote 30: ad nostras was changed to ad nostra ("Jacuit liber hic
neglectus, ad nostra").
Page 26: τῶν ἐυαντίων was changed to τῶν ἐναντίων.
Page 218: Postero was changed to Postera (Postera Phoebea lustrabat
lampade terras).
Page 229: sulutaires was changed to salutaires (sous les loix
salutaires).
Remarks:
Part I, Chapter IV:
Trissino (1561): Appendix A does not list Trissino in 1561.
Part II, Chapter I:
The two subsections listed in the Table of Contents do not
appear in the text.
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