and the false, Piccolomini held that the probable (_verisimile_) is
inherently neither false nor true, only by accident becoming one or
other.[30] Of the same mind is the Spaniard Alfonso Lopez Pinciano
(1596), who says the scope of poetry "_no es la mentira, que seria
coincider con la sophística, ni la historia que seria tomar la materia
al histórico; y no siendo historia porque toca fabúlas ni mentira
porque toca historia, tiene por objeto el verisimil, que todo lo
abraza. De aqui resulta que es un arte superior á la metaphysica,
porqué comprende mucho mas, y se extiende a lo que es y á lo que no
es._"[31] What may lie behind this notion of probability is still
indefinite and impenetrable.
[Sidenote: _Fr. Patrizzi_ (_Patricius_).]
Moved by a wish to place poetry on a foundation other than the
probable, Francesco Patrizzi, the anti-Aristotelian, composed his
_Poetica_ between 1555 and 1586 in refutation of all Aristotle's main
doctrines. Patrizzi notes that the word "imitation" is given many
meanings by the Greek philosopher, who uses it now to denote a single
word, now to describe a tragedy; at times it stands for a figure of
speech, at others for a fiction: whence he draws the logical conclusion
(from which, however, he shrinks alarmed) "that all philosophic and
other kinds of writing and speaking are poetry, since they are made
of words which themselves are imitations." He observes further that,
according to Aristotle, it is impossible to distinguish between poetry
and history (since both are imitations), or to prove that verse is not
essential to poetry, or that history, science and art are unsuitable
material for it; since Aristotle in several passages says that poetry
may comprise "fable, actual occurrences, belief of others, duty,
the best, necessity, the possible, the probable, the credible, the
incredible, the suitable" as well as "all things worldly." After these
objections, some sound, others sophistical, Patrizzi comes to the
conclusion that "there is no truth in the dogma that poetry is wholly
imitation; and even if it be imitation at all, it belongs not to poets
alone, nor is it mere imitation of any kind, but something else not
mentioned by Aristotle nor pointed out by any one else, nor yet borne
into the mind of man. The discovery may possibly be made in course of
time, or some one may hit upon the truth and bring it to light"; but
up to the present "such discovery has not been made."[32]
Yet these confessions of ignorance, these endeavours, though vain, to
escape from the Aristotelian circle of ideas, and the great literary
controversies of the sixteenth century concerning the concept of poetic
truth and the probable had their use in that they stimulated interest
by directing attention to a mystery still unsolved. Thought had once
more begun to move upon the æsthetic problem, and this time it was not
destined to be broken off or to lose itself.
[1] _Confess,_ iv. x. ch. 13; _De Trinitate,_ vi. ch. 10; _Epist._
3, 18; _De civitate Dei,_ xxii. ch. 19 (in _Opera,_ ed. dei Maurini,
Paris, 1679-1690, vols. i. ii. vii. viii.).
[2] _Summa theol._ I. 1. xxxix. 8; I. 11. xxvii. I (ed. Migne, i. cols.
794-795; ii. col. 219).
[3] Comparetti, _Virg. nel medio evo,_ vol. i. _passim._
[4] _De vulg. eloq._ (ed. Rajna), bk. ii. ch. 4.
[5] _Vita nuova,_ ch. 25.
[6] _Convivio,_ i. 1.
[7] _Prohemio al Condestable de Portugal,_ 1445-1449 (in _Obras,_ ed.
Amador de los Rios, 1852), § 3.
[8] _De vulg. eloq._ bk. i. ch. 3.
[9] Lately reprinted under the editorship of padre M. Fernandez Garcia,
Ad claras Aquas (Quarracchi), 1902.
[10] Windelband, _Gesch. d. Phil._ ii. pp. 251-270; De Wulf, _Philos,
médiév.,_ Louvain, 1900, pp. 317-320.
[11] _Dialogi di amore, composti per Leone, medico ...,_ Rome, 1535.
[12] _Libro di natura e d' amore,_ Venice, 1525 (Ven. 1563).
[13] _De divina proportione,_ Venice, 1509.
[14] G. P. Lomazzo, _Trattato dell' arte della pittura, scultura ed
architettura,_ Milan, 1585, i. I, pp. 22-23.
[15] Aug. Niphi, _De pulcro el amore,_ Rome, 1529.
[16] _Il Minturno o vero de la belleza_ (in _Dialoghi,_ ed. Guasti,
vol. iii.).
[17] _Ration. philos._ part iv.; _Poeticor._ (Paris, 1638), art. vii.
[18] Fr. Robortelli, _In librum Arts, de arte poet, explicationes,_
Florence, 1548; Lud. Castelvetro, _Poetica d' Aristotele vulgarizzata
ed esposta,_ 1570 (Basle, 1576), part i. particella iv. pp. 29-30.
[19] Bern. Segni, _Rettor. e poet. trad._ Florence, 1549; Vinc. Madii,
_In Arist.... explanationes,_ 1550; Petri Victorii, _Commentarii,_
etc., Florence, 1560.
[20] _Poetica,_ 1561 (ed. 3, 1586), i. I; vii. 3.
[21] _Annotationi net libro della Poetica,_ Venice, 1575, preface.
[22] _Gerus. lib._ i. 3.
[23] _Poetic,_ ch. I, art. 1.
[24] _Poetica trad_. preface.
[25] _Pensieri diversi_, bk. x. ch. 18.
[26] La Ménardière, _Poétique_, Paris, 1640; Le Bossu, _Traité du poème
épique_, Paris, 1675.
[27] Borinski, _Poet. d. Renaiss._ p. 26.
[28] Hyeron. Frascatorii _Opera,_ Venetian edition, Giunti, 1574, pp.
112-120.
[29] _Poet., ed. cit._ i. 1; ii. 1; iii. 7; v. I (pp. 64, 66, 71-72,
208, 580).
[30] _Annotationi,_ preface.
[31] _Philosophia antiqua poetica,_ Madrid, 1596 (reprinted Valladolid
1894).
[32] Francesco Patrici, _Della poetica, la Deca disputata,_ "in
which by history, by reason, by authority of the greatest worthies
of antiquity, is shown the falsity of the most received opinions
concerning Poetry down to our own day." Ferrara, 1586.
III
FERMENTS OF THOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: _New words and new observations in the seventeenth century_]
Interest in æsthetic investigation increased rapidly in the early years
of the following century, owing either to the popularity acquired by
certain new words or to the novel meanings given to words already
familiar, which emphasized new aspects of artistic production and
criticism, complicating the problem and rendering it thereby more
puzzling and attractive. For example: wit, taste, imagination or fancy,
feeling, and several others, which must be examined rather closely.
Wit (_ingegno_) differed somewhat from intellect. Free use of the word
arose, if we mistake not, from its convenience in Rhetoric as conceived
by antiquity; that is to say, a suave and facile mode of knowledge, as
opposed to the severity of Dialectic; an "Antistrophe to Dialectic,"
which substituted for reasons of actual fact those of probability or
fancy; enthymemes for syllogisms, examples for inductions; so much
so that Zeno the Stoic figured Dialectic with her fist clenched and
Rhetoric with her hand open. The empty style of the decadent Italian
authors in the seventeenth century found its complete justification
in this theory of rhetoric; their prose and verse, Marinesque and
Achillinesque, professed to exhibit not the true but the striking,
subtly conceited, curious or nice. The word wit, _ingegno,_ was now
repeated much more frequently than in the preceding century; wit
was hailed as presiding genius of Rhetoric; its "vivacities" were
lauded to the skies; "_belli ingegni_" was a phrase seized upon by
the French, who rendered it as "_esprit_" or "_beaux esprits_."[1]
One of the most noteworthy commentators on these matters (although
opposed to the literary excesses of the times), Matteo Pellegrini
of Bologna (1650), defines wit as "that part of the soul which in
a certain way practises, aims, and seeks to find and create the
beautiful and the efficacious";[2] he considers the work of "wit" to
be the "conceits" and "subtleties" noted by him in a previous pamphlet
(1639).[3] Emmanuele Tesauro also descants at considerable length
in his _Cannochiale Aristotelico_ (1654) upon wit and subtleties,
not alone "verbal" and "lapidary" conceits, but also "symbolic" and
"figurative" (statues, stories, devices, satires, hieroglyphs, mosaics,
emblems, insignia, sceptres), and even "animated agents" (pantomimes,
play-scenes, masques and dances): all things which may be grouped under
"polite quibbling" or rhetoric as distinct from "dialectic."
Amongst such treatises, product of their age, one written by the
Spaniard Baltasar Gracian (1642) became celebrated throughout
Europe.[4] Wit became in his hands the strictly inventive or artistic
faculty, "genius"; _génie,_ "genius" were now used as synonyms of
wit, _ingegno_ and _esprit._ In the following century Mario Pagano[5]
wrote: "Wit may be taken as equivalent to the _génie_ of the French, a
word now commonly used in Italy." To return to the seventeenth century,
Bouhours, a Jesuit writer of dialogues on the _Manière de bien penser
dans les ouvrages d'esprit_ (1687), says that "'heart' and 'wit' are
greatly in fashion just now, nothing else is spoken of in polite
conversation, and all discourse is at last brought round to _l'esprit
et le cœur._"[6]
[Sidenote: _Taste._]
The word _taste_ or _good taste_ was equally widespread and
fashionable, signifying the faculty of judgement brought to bear
on the beautiful, distinct to some extent from intellectual power,
and sometimes divided into active and passive, so that it was usual
to speak of one kind of taste as "productive" or "fertile" (thus
coinciding with "wit"), and of another as "sterile."
[Sidenote: _Various meanings of the word taste._]
From the rough notes which we possess as to the history of the concept
of taste, several meanings of the word, not all of equal importance
as indications of the development of ideas, detach themselves in a
somewhat confused manner. "Taste," meaning "pleasure" or "delight," was
an old-established word in Italy and Spain, as is shown in such phrases
as "to have a taste for, to be to one's taste"; when Lope di Vega
and other Spaniards speak continually of the drama of their country
as seeking to please the popular taste ("_deleita el gusto_"; "_para
darle gusto_") they mean only the "pleasure" of the populace. In Italy
there was a very ancient use of the word in the metaphorical sense
of "judgement," either literary, scientific, or artistic; numberless
examples of this use occur in writers of the sixteenth century
(Ariosto, Varchi, Michæl Angelo, Tasso). To take but one of these: the
lines in _Orlando Furioso_ where it is said of the Emperor Augustus,
"_L' aver avuto in poesia buon gusto La proscrizione iniqua gli
perdona,_" "For having had good taste in poetry he shall be forgiven
his iniquitous proscriptions"; or the remark of Ludovico Dolce that'
some person "had such exquisite taste, he sang no verses save those of
Catullus and Calvus."[7] The word "taste," in the sense of a special
faculty or attitude of mind, appears to have been used for the first
time in Spain in the middle of the seventeenth century by Gracian,[8]
the moralist and political writer already quoted. It is evidently to
him that the Italian author Trevisano alludes in a preface to a book by
Muratori (1708) when he speaks of "Spaniards, above all others cunning
in metaphor," who express themselves in "that eloquent and laconic
phrase, good taste"; touching further on taste and genius he quotes,
"that ingenious Spaniard," Gracian,[9] who gave the word the sense of
"practical wit," enabling one to perceive the "true signification" of
things; his "man of good taste" becomes in our language "a man of tact"
in the affairs of life.[10]
The transference of the word to the domain of æsthetic seems to have
taken place in France during the last quarter of the century. "_Il y
a dans l'art un point de perfection, comme de bonté ou de maturité
dans la nature: celui qui le sent et qui l'aime a le goût parfait;
celui qui ne le sent pas, et qui aime au deçà ou au delà, a le goût
défectueux. Il y a donc un bon et un mauvais goût, et l'on dispute des
goûts avec fondement,_" writes La Bruyère[11] (1688). As attributes
or variants of taste it was usual to mention _delicacy_ and _variety_
or _variability._ Bearing its fresh critical--literary content,
but not freed from the encumbrance of its earlier practical and
moral significance, the word spread from France into other European
countries. Thomasius introduced it into Germany in 1687;[12] and in
England it becomes "good taste." In Italy it appears as early as 1696
as title of a large book written by Camillo Ettori, the Jesuit, _Il
buon gusto ne' componimenti rettorici_.[13] The preface notes: "The
expression 'good taste,' proper to those who rightly distinguish good
from bad flavour in foods, is now in general use and claimed by every
one as a title in connexion with literature and the humanities"; it
reappears in 1708 at the beginning of Muratori's[14] book already
quoted: Trevisano treats of it philosophically: Salvini discusses it
in his note upon the _Perfetta Poesia_ of Muratori above mentioned,
where the subject of good taste occupies several pages,[15] and finally
it gives its name to the Academy of Good Taste founded at Palermo in
1718.[16] Scholars of the day who took up the discussion of the theme,
recollecting some passages scattered throughout the ancient classics,
placed the new concept in relation with the "_tacitus quidam sensus
sine ulla ratione et arte_" of Cicero; and with the "_indicium_" which
"_nec magis arte traditur quam gustus aut odor_" of Quintilian.[17]
More particularly Montfaucon de Villars (1671)[18] wrote a book on
"Delicacy"; Ettori strove to find some definition more satisfactory
than those current at the time (_e.g._ "it is the finest invention
of wit, the flower of wit and extract of beauty's self," and similar
conceits);[19] Orsi made it the subject of his _Considerazioni_ written
in reply to Bouhours' book.
[Sidenote: _Fancy or Imagination._]
In Italy in the seventeenth century we find imagination or fancy
placed on a pinnacle. What do you mean by talking of probability
and historical truth (asks Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino in 1644), of
false or true in connexion with poetry; which deals not with fiction,
fact or historical probability but with primary apprehensions which
assert neither truth nor falsehood? Following this line of argument,
imagination takes the place of that probable, neither true nor false,
advocated by some commentators of Aristotle; a theory strongly
criticized by Pallavicino, here agreeing with Piccolomini, whom however
he does not name, and in opposition to Castelvetro whom he explicitly
mentions. He who goes to the play (continues Pallavicino) knows quite
well that the scenes acted on the stage are not real; although he has
no belief in them yet they please him greatly. For "if poetry desired
to be mistaken for truth, the end she had in view would be a he, by
the laws of nature and of God doomed inevitably to perish: for a lie
is nothing but an untruth uttered in the hope that it may be mistaken
for truth. How then should an art so tainted be allowed to flourish in
the best-regulated republics? How should it be commended and used by
the very writers of Holy Scripture?" _Ut pictura poësis_: poetry is
like painting, which is a "diligent imitation" aiming at a close copy
of the features, colours, acts, nay, even the hidden motives, of the
objects it represents: and it "does not pretend that fiction is truth."
The sole aim of poetic tales is "to adorn our understanding with
imagery, that is to say, with sumptuous, novel, marvellous and splendid
appearances. And this is known to diffuse so useful an influence on
mankind that humanity insists on rewarding poets with praise more
glorious than is bestowed on any other men; their books are protected
from the ravages of time with greater solicitude than is shown to
scientific treatises or productions of any other art; in the end the
names of poets are crowned with adoring veneration. See how the world
thirsts for beautiful first apprehensions, although these are neither
laden with science nor are they vehicles of truth."[20]
Sixty years later these ideas, although expressed by a Cardinal, seemed
all too daring to Muratori, who could not bring himself to allow poets
so much latitude, or to enfranchize them from their obligations to the
probable. Nevertheless Muratori allows a large space to imagination,
"an inferior apprehensive faculty" which, without caring whether
things be false or true, confines itself to apprehending them, and
"represents" the truth merely, leaving the task of "cognition" to the
"superior apprehensive faculty" or intellect.[21] Even the stony heart
of Gravina yields to the charm of imagination: he admits it occupies
a considerable place in the realm of poetry and suffers his own arid
prose to describe it as "a sorceress, but beneficent," "a delirium
which cures madness."[22]
Earlier than either of these, Ettori commended it to the good
rhetorician, "who in order that he may awaken images" must "familiarize
himself with whatever is subject to bodily feeling" and "encounter
the genius of imagination, which is a sensuous faculty," to these
ends using "species rather than genera (since the latter, being more
universal than the former, are less sensible), individuals rather than
species, effects than causes, the number of the greater rather than the
number of the less."[23]
As far back as 1578 the Spaniard Huarte had maintained that eloquence
is the product of imagination rather than of intellect or reason.[24]
In England Bacon (1605) ascribed science to intellect, history to
memory and poetry to imagination or fancy:[25] Hobbes inquired into
the procedure of poetry:[26] Addison (1712) devoted several numbers
of his _Spectator_ to analysis of the "pleasures of imagination."[27]
Somewhat later, the importance of imagination was felt in Germany,
where it found advocates in Bodmer, Breitinger and other writers of the
Swiss school, who owed much to the influence of the Italians (Muratori,
Gravina, Calepio) and the English: acting in their turn as teachers of
Klopstock and the new German critical school.[28]
[Sidenote: _Feeling._]
It was at this same period that opposition became clearly marked
between those accustomed "_à juger par le sentiment_" and those used
to "_raisonner par principes_."[29] The Frenchman, Du Bos, author of
_Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et la peinture_ (1719), upholds the
theory of feeling; according to him art is simply a self-abandonment
"_aux impressions que les objets étrangers font sur nous,_" setting
aside all reflective labour. He laughs at those philosophers who
deny the force of imagination, and Malebranche's eloquent discourse
founded on this denial draws from Du Bos the remark, "_c'est à notre
imagination qu'il parle contre l'abus de l'imagination._" He refuses
to see any intellectual nucleus in the productions of the arts, saying
that art consists not in instruction but in style: nor is he too
respectful towards the probable: he says he finds himself unable to
set limits between it and the marvellous, and leaves to "born poets"
the task of thus miraculously uniting opposites. For Du Bos there is
no criterion of art save feeling, which he calls a "_sixième sens,_"
against which dispute is vain since in such matters popular opinion
invariably wins the day over the dogmatic pronouncements of artists
and men of letters: all the ingenious conceits of the greatest
metaphysicians, though unimpeachable in themselves, will not in the
slightest degree diminish the lustre of poetry or despoil it of one
single attraction. Attempts to discredit Ariosto and Tasso in the eyes
of Italians were as vain as those made against the _Cid_ in France.
Other people's arguments can never persuade us of the contrary of
what we feel.[29] These notions were adopted by many French writers:
for example Cartaut de la Villate[30] observes, "_Le grand talent
d'un écrivain qui veut plaire, est de tourner ses réflexions en
sentiments_;" and Trublet, "_C'est un principe sûr, que la poésie doit
être une expression de sentiment._"[30] Nor were the English slow in
emphasizing the concept of "emotion" in their theories of literature.
[Sidenote: _Tendency to unite these terms._]
In the writings of this period _imagination_ was often identified with
_wit, wit_ with _taste, taste_ with _feeling,_ and _feeling_ with
first apprehensions or _imagination_;[31] we have already noted that
taste is sometimes critical and sometimes productive: this fusion,
identification and subordination of terms apparently distinct shows how
they gravitate round one single concept.
[Sidenote: _Difficulties and contradictions in their definition._]
A German critic, one of the very few who have sought to penetrate
the darkness surrounding the origins of modern Æsthetic, considers
the concept of taste (which we owe, he thinks, to Gracian) "the
most important æsthetic doctrine which remained for modern times to
discover."[32] But without going so far as to say that taste is the
chief doctrine of the science, and the foundation of all the rest,
instead of only a particular doctrine, and without recapitulating what
we have already said of Gracian's relation to the theory of taste,
it is well to repeat that taste, wit, imagination, feeling, and so
on, instead of new concepts scientifically grasped, were simply new
words corresponding to vague impressions: at most they were problems,
not concepts: apprehensions of ground still to be conquered, not yet
annexed and brought into subjection. It must not be forgotten that the
very men who made use of these terms could scarcely grope after the
ideas they suggested without falling back into the old traditions, the
only ones on which they had an intellectual grasp. To them the new
words were shades, not bodies: when they tried to embrace them their
arms returned empty to their own breasts.
[Sidenote: _Wit and intellect._]
Certainly wit differs to a certain extent from intellect. Yet
Pellegrini and Tesauro, with other writers of treatises, never fail to
point out that intellectual truth lies at the root of wit. Trevisano
defines it as "an internal virtue of the soul which invents methods
for expressing and executing its own concepts: it is recognizable now
in the arrangement of things we invent, now in the clear expression
of them: sometimes in cunning reconciliations of matters seemingly
opposed, sometimes in tracing analogies but faintly discernible." To
sum up, one must not "allow the actions of wit to go unaccompanied
by those of intellect," or even by those of practical morality.[33]
More ingenuously Muratori says, "Wit is that virtue and active force
with which the intellect is able to assemble, unite and discover the
similarities, relations and reasons of things."[34] In this manner wit,
after having been distinguished from intellect, eventually becomes a
part or a manifestation of it. By a somewhat different path the same
conclusion is reached by Alexander Pope when he counsels that wit be
reined in like a mettlesome horse, and observes:
For wit and judgement often are at strife,
Though meant each other's aid like man and wife.[35]
[Sidenote: _Taste and intellectual judgement._]