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*Columbia University*
_STUDIES IN LITERATURE_
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|*Columbia University* |
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|STUDIES IN LITERATURE |
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| |
| |
|=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
[Illustration]
*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
I. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF RENAISSANCE CRITICISM 3
i. Mediaeval Conceptions of Poetry.
ii. The Moral Justification of Poetry.
iii. The Final Justification of Poetry.
II. THE GENERAL THEORY OF POETRY IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 24
i. Poetry as a Form of Scholastic Philosophy.
ii. Poetry as an Imitation of Life.
iii. The Function of Poetry.
III. THE THEORY OF THE DRAMA 60
i. The Subject of Tragedy.
ii. The Function of Tragedy.
iii. The Characters of Tragedy.
iv. The Dramatic Unities.
v. Comedy.
IV. THE THEORY OF EPIC POETRY 107
i. The Theory of the Epic Poem.
ii. Epic and Romance.
V. THE GROWTH OF THE CLASSIC SPIRIT IN ITALIAN CRITICISM 125
i. Humanism.
ii. Aristotelianism.
iii. Rationalism.
VI. ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN ITALIAN CRITICISM 155
i. The Ancient Romantic Element.
ii. Mediaeval Elements.
iii. Modern Elements.
PART SECOND
_LITERARY CRITICISM IN FRANCE_
I. THE CHARACTER AND DEVELOPMENT OF FRENCH
CRITICISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 171
i. Character.
ii. Development.
II. THE THEORY OF POETRY IN THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE 190
i. The Poetic Art.
ii. The Drama.
iii. Heroic Poetry.
III. CLASSIC AND ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN FRENCH
CRITICISM DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 214
i. Classical Elements.
ii. Romantic Elements.
IV. THE FORMATION OF THE CLASSIC IDEAL IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 232
i. The Romantic Revolt.
ii. The Reaction against the Pleiade.
iii. The Second Influx of Italian Ideas.
iv. The Influence of Rationalistic Philosophy.
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
III. THE THEORY OF DRAMATIC AND HEROIC POETRY 282
i. Tragedy.
ii. Comedy.
iii. The Dramatic Unities.
iv. Epic Poetry.
IV. CLASSICAL ELEMENTS IN ELIZABETHAN CRITICISM 296
i. Introductory: Romantic Elements.
ii. Classical Metres.
iii. Other Evidences of Classicism.
APPENDICES 312
A. Chronological Table of the Chief Critical
Works of the Sixteenth Century.
B. Salviati's Account of the Commentators on
Aristotle's _Poetics_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 317
INDEX 325
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 aesthetic
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 reestablish the aesthetic 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. _Mediaeval Conceptions of Poetry_
The mediaeval distrust of literature was the result of several
cooperating 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval period. Plato had tried
imaginative literature by the criteria of reality and morality, both of
which are unaesthetic 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval. 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
mediaeval 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 Judaeus, 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 _AEneid_ is treated as an image of
life, and the travels of AEneas 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 _AEneid_ 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval 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 AEneas 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 aesthetic appreciation
of literature, but while such ideas are not uncommon about this time,
they express isolated sentiments, rather than a doctrine strictly
coordinated with an aesthetic theory of poetry.
The more strict defence 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 AEneas 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 mediaeval 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 _Sylvae_, 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 _Sylvae_ 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
aesthetic 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 mediaeval
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 aesthetic 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 coordinate 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 Averroes 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 Graeci_ 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 mediaeval 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 AEneas did this thing, or that thing, which Homer or
Virgil ascribes to either, but if Achilles or AEneas 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 mediaeval objections, but also
of modern aesthetic 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 aesthetic. 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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.
FOOT-NOTES:
[1] _De Spectac._ xxiii.
[2] _Ibid._ xxii.
[3] _Differentiae_, iii. 13, 1.
[4] _De Spectac._ xv. _Cf._ Cyprian, _Epist. ad Donat._ viii.
[5] _Cf._ Bosanquet, _Hist. of AEsthetic_, 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] _Etymologiae_, 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'Esthetique de Savonarole_, in Didron's _Annales
Archeologiques_, 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._