Transcriber's Notes

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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.

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 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 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. 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.

CONTENTS

PART FIRST

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY

PAGE

PART SECOND

LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE

  • I. The Character and Development of French Criticism in the Sixteenth Century[171]
    • Character.
    • Development.

PART THIRD

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ENGLAND

  • I. The Evolution of English Criticism From Ascham to Milton[253]
  • II. The General Theory of Poetry in the Elizabethan Age[261]

Part First

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY

LITERARY CRITICISM IN ITALY

CHAPTER I

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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; 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 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. 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, 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.

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FOOT-NOTES:

[1] De Spectac. xxiii.

[2] Ibid. xxii.

[3] Differentiæ, iii. 13, 1.

[4] De Spectac. xv. Cf. Cyprian, Epist. ad Donat. viii.

[5] Cf. Bosanquet, Hist. of Æsthetic, p. 148.

[6] Cf. St. Augustine, Confess. v. 14, vi. 4; Clemens Alex. Stromata, v. 8.

[7] Opera, p. 867.

[8] Cf. Dante, Epist. xi. 7; Convito, ii. 1, 1.

[9] Berni, p. 226 sq.

[10] Petrarch, Opera, p. 1205; cf. Boccaccio, Gen. degli Dei, p. 250, v.

[11] Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre, p. 132.

[12] Ibid. p. 175.

[13] Etymologiæ, viii. 7, 5.

[14] Policraticus, i. 8.

[15] Moore, Dante and his Early Biographers, London, 1890, pp. 173, 174.

[16] Ars Poet. 391 (Roscommon).

[17] Frogs, 1030 sq.

[18] Defence of Poetry, ed. Cook, p. 5.

[19] Woodberry, "A New Defence of Poetry," in Heart of Man, New York, 1899, p. 76.

[20] Woodward, p. 182 sq.

[21] Ibid. p. 131.

[22] Ibid. p. 150.

[23] Pope, Selecta Poemata, ii. 108; cf. Ars Poet. 398.

[24] Cf. Gaspary, ii. 220.

[25] Villari, p. 501 sq., and Perrens, ii. 328 sq.

[26] Cf. Cartier, L'Esthétique de Savonarole, in Didron's Annales Archéologiques, 1847, vii. 255 sq.

[27] Egger, 209 sq.

[28] Ibid. 555 sq.

[29] Segni, p. 160.

[30] B. Tasso, Lettere, ii. 525. So also, Robortelli, 1548, "Jacuit liber hic neglectus, ad nostra fere haec usque tempora."

[31] Poet. ix.

[32] Plato, Rep. x. 660.

[33] Poet. vi. 2; Pol. viii. 7.

[34] Daniello, p. 10 sq.

[35] De Poeta, p. 13 sq.

[36] Lettere, ii. 526.

[37] Poetica, p. 14 sq.

[38] De Poeta, p. 30 sq.

[39] Opera, i. 361 sq.

CHAPTER II

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 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, 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, 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 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, 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] 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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] 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 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]

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, 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.

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FOOT-NOTES:

[40] Robortelli, p. 1 sq.

[41] This analysis of Zabarella, Opera Logica, De Natura Logicæ, ii. 13-23, I owe to the kindness of Professor Butcher of Edinburgh. Zabarella probably derived his knowledge of Aristotle's Poetics from Robortelli, under whom he studied Greek. Cf. Bayle, Dict. s. v. Zabarella.

[42] Maggi, p. 28 sq. Cf. B. Tasso, Lettere, ii. 514; Scaliger, Poet. i. 2; Castelvetro, Poetica, p. 7; Salviati, Cod. Magliabech. ii. ii. 11, fol. 384 v.; B. Jonson, Timber, p. 74.

[43] Daniello, p. 41 sq.

[44] Robortelli, p. 86 sq.

[45] Robortelli, p. 90 sq.

[46] Fracastoro, i. 340.

[47] Fracastoro, i. 357 sq.

[48] Poet. vi. 2.

[49] Varchi, p. 578.

[50] E.g. Piccolomini, p. 27 sq.

[51] Tiraboschi, vii. 1331.

[52] Summo, pp. 61-69.

[53] Poet. iii. 95.

[54] Poet. i. 1.

[55] Another critic of the time, Vettori, 1560, pp. 14, 93, attacks poetic prose on the ground that in Aristotle's definition of the various poetic forms, verse is always spoken of as an essential part. It is interesting to note that the phrase "poetic prose" is used, perhaps for the first time, in Minturno, Arte Poetica, 1564, p. 3, etc.

[56] Opere, x. 254. Cf. Minturno, Arte Poetica, p. 33.

[57] Poet. iii. 96.

[58] Muzio, p. 69.

[59] Giraldi Cintio, i. 61.

[60] Art Poét. iii. 50. Cf. Horace, Ars Poet. 188.

[61] Zodiac. Vitæ, i. 143.

[62] Butcher, pp. 117, 118.

[63] Poet. i. 8.

[64] Fracastoro, i. 335 sq.

[65] Cf. Castelvetro, Poetica, p. 27 sq.

[66] Rhet. i. 11.

[67] Cf. A. Segni, 1581, cap. i.

[68] Varchi, p. 227 sq.

[69] Capriano, cap. ii.

[70] Lionardi, p. 43 sq.

[71] Lettere, ii. 525.

[72] Scaliger, Poet. i. 2.

[73] Defense, pp. 10, 11.

[74] De Poeta, p. 53 sq.

[75] Castelvetro, Poetica, p. 23 sq.

[76] Ibid. p. 190.

[77] Cf. T. Tasso, xi. 51.

[78] Poetica, p. 158.

[79] Poetica, p. 191.

[80] Ars Poet. 333.

[81] Butcher, p. 185.

[82] Daniello, p. 25.

[83] Ibid. p. 40.

[84] Fracastoro, i. 363.

[85] Scaliger, Poet. vi. ii. 2.

[86] De Poeta, p. 102. Cf. Scaliger, Poet. iii. 96.

[87] De Poeta, p. 11.

[88] Essay of Dramatic Poesy, p. 104.

[89] De Poeta, p. 79.

[90] Œuvres, vii. 318.

[91] Works, i. 333.

[92] Prose Works, iii. 118.

[93] Characteristicks, 1711, i. 207.

[94] H. C. Robinson, Diary, May 29, 1812, "Coleridge talked of the impossibility of being a good poet without being a good man."

[95] Defence of Poetry, p. 42.

[96] Minturno plainly says as much, De Poeta, p. 105.

[97] Geog. i. ii. 5, as cited by Shaftesbury.

[98] Lettere, ii. 195.

[99] Essay of Dramatic Poesy, p. 104.

[100] Cf. Piccolomini, p. 369.

[101] Castelvetro, Poetica, p. 505. Cf. Twining, ii. 449, 450.

[102] Poetica, p. 29.

[103] Posnett, cited by Cook, p. 247.

[104] Opere, viii. 26 sq.

[105] Ibid. ix. 123.

[106] Ibid. xii. 13.

[107] Ibid. xi. 50.

[108] Ibid. xii. 212.

CHAPTER III

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 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 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, 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 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 "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 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.

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 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]