The appended proviso is irrelevant in theory and was not observed

in practice. The age of classicism is faced with the fact that its

most evident and most popular poetic achievement is not classical in

composition. Renaissance romance does not follow the epic formula. True,

Ariosto does begin in _mediis rebus_ (23), as Horace bids; but even that

is not obligatory for a “manifold action”; and evidently the action may

be not merely manifold, but plural. By “continuous chain” Giraldi means

not sequence of the whole, but merely transitions; not connection, but

connectives (40, 41).

Our romancers may have learned this from Claudian (41). The

breaking off of an action creates suspense; and the main

stories remain in suspense to the completion of the whole poem

(42). Besides, variety is itself an added beauty. Why must

romances be limited to the epic way (44)? Ovid did not follow

Vergil (45). But the parts and the episodes must have the

connection of verisimilitude (55).

It seems difficult for Giraldi to think in terms of composition. Once

more we arrive at verisimilitude; and we go on to appropriateness (_il

decoro_).

This he has touched earlier in reprehending Homer (31) for

letting Nausicaa wash clothes. Here (63-65) he insists that

romance, in bringing on kings as well as shepherds and nymphs,

must make each consistent with his type. After pausing to

disagree with the Italian followers of Hermogenes, he passes

to style (83-159), including verse. The section on verse,

sometimes dubious, is often suggestive, as on Ariosto’s

admirable facility (145) in making verse run as easily as

prose [i.e., without inversions]. Petrarch is cited (147) as

the ideal combination of weight and ease.

The concluding section (160-184) on the soul of the poem

manages to lean even more on rhetoric. In oratory _anima_

depends on delivery; in poetry, not only on this, but on such

expressive words as put things before our eyes (_energia,

sotto gli occhi_). An appendix (188-197) repeats the Horatian

counsels on advice and revision.

The main significance of the treatise in 1549 is its recognition of the

actual difference of romance from epic. Giraldi’s attempts at reconciling

the two in theory seem evasions because he misses Aristotle’s controlling

view of poetic as having its own ways of sequence, distinct from those of

rhetoric.

4. MUZIO

Muzio published among his Italian poems a poetic in verse (_Rime diverse

del Mutio Iustinopolitano: tre libri di arte poetica ..._ Venice, 1551).

Diffused through some 1,600 lines (pages 68-94), it is often thin and

sometimes vague, the sort of treatise written not to teach, nor much to

theorize, but to express the author’s culture and taste via Horace’s

“Ars poetica.” What individuality it has transpires for the most part

incidentally; but the treatment of metric is fairly distinctive.

Why use Greek terms: ode, hymn, epigram, elegy (71*)? Why

talk of dactyls and spondees (72)? The difference between

quantitative and accentual verse forbids the transfer. You will

make a hodgepodge like Coccai’s.

Non puote orecchie haver giudicio saldo

Di quantità & di tempo ove la lingua

De l’accente conviene esser seguace. (72*)

“The ear cannot respond surely to quantity and time where the

tongue must follow the stress” is at once penetrative and, in

the face of the classicists, daring. After conventional remarks

on verse as expressing that harmony which in nature we see to

be divine, and on the ancient relation to the dance, he finds

the joining of lyre with song in _ottava rima_ (77) and in

_stanza_ (86). The Greeks and Romans, using hexameter for all

“three styles,” did not even adapt their verse to tragedy or

to comedy (88*) by the length of the line. Our unrhymed verse

(_versi sciolti_) is appropriate to proud and lofty emprise

(88*). For purity of style it is not enough to be born in

Tuscany. Seek usage in books (70*). Tuscan is not confined to

Petrarch. He was pure and fluent above all others—and perhaps

more timid than becomes a poet (71).

The treatment of imitation (69*, 70, 82) and of sentences (68*, 90*, 91,

93) is conventional. Sophistic appears in the recipes for verisimilitude

through appropriateness (77-78) and in the recommendation of show-pieces

(Aetna, winter, spring, etc. 83). But Muzio at once makes a significant

addition. “You might yourself look at nature, not merely seek it in

books. Learn what to dilate, what to compress.” As examples of the force

of restraint (84) he cites Vergil’s mating of Dido and Aeneas in the cave

and Dante’s Paolo and Francesca.

5. FRACASTORO

A Latin dialogue (1555) by Girolamo Fracastoro discusses poetry as a

form of eloquence, merging poetic in rhetoric (_Hieronymi Fracastorii

Naugerius sive de poetica dialogus ..._ with an English translation

by Ruth Kelso and an introduction by Murray W. Bundy, University of

Illinois Press, 1924). Ciceronian in type, it is clearly ordered and

composed, and agreeably fluent in style. Fracastoro’s motive is not

professional. Scientist and philosopher, he turns to poetry as to an

important item in culture and a suggestive topic for discussion. So

approached by not a few Renaissance scholars, it imposed no obligation to

advance critical theory.

6. PELETIER

_L’Art poétique_ of Jacques Peletier du Mans is a similar excursion of

a scholar into literature. Philosopher and mathematician as Fracastoro,

interested in languages, professor, promoter of normalized spelling,

he was known, by that adjective dear to the French Renaissance, as

“docte Peletier.” His literary associations were first with Ronsard

and Du Bellay under Jean Dorat at the Collège de Coqueret; later he

had associations in Lyon, where Jean de Tournes published his treatise

in 1555 (_L’art poëtique_ ... publié d’après l’édition unique avec

introduction et commentaire [par] André Boulanger, Paris, 1930).

His editor, regarding it as the best formulation of the Pléiade movement,

notes that it relies on Horace’s “Ars poetica” [which Peletier had

translated ten years before], Cicero, and Quintilian, that it uses no

Greek source and of the Italians only Vida, that the great model is

Vergil, and that the section on dramaturgy is slight and feeble. He sums

up the doctrine as: (1) use your vernacular and enrich it; (2) imitate

the ancients; (3) imitate nature; (4) cultivate the high poetic forms

urged by the Pléiade.

The little that Peletier has to say on poetic composition is all

rhetoric. He makes, for example, the usual transfer of the counsels for

_exordium_ to the opening of a poem. He shows the sophistic slant in

turning to encomium the Horatian commonplace that poets are givers of

fame (71, 82, 89, 176) and in the stock show-pieces (127). He is more

distinctive on rhyme (149), on classification of meters by the number

of syllables (153), and on imitation of classical verse forms (159). He

occasionally cites Ariosto (103, 201) and discusses both the sonnet and

the ode (169, 172).

7. MINTURNO

Minturno made his more comprehensive and influential Latin dialogue

on classical poetic, _De poeta_, a collection of six monologues, or

essays, with enough question and objection for occasional reminder of

the literary form, but with little real discussion (_Antonii Sebastiani

Minturni de poeta ... libri sex_, Venice, 1559). The setting, a villa

by the sea, is elaborately described in the introduction. The style,

oratorical and inclined to Ciceronianism, is throughout elaborate and

diffuse, each noun being habitually escorted by two adjectives. What is

thus conveyed with much repetition is generally Horace’s “Ars poetica”

once more, Cicero, and Quintilian; but there is also considerable use,

though little comprehension, of Aristotle’s _Poetic_. Aristotle’s

conception of poetry as a distinct kind of composition has not yet

arrived; and poetic style, which is Minturno’s actual subject, is

conceived in the terms of rhetoric. The spokesmen are: Book I Sincerus

(Sannazaro) on What is poetry?; Book II Pontanus (recalled, not present)

on What is poetic?; Book III Vopiscus on tragedy; Book IV Gauricus on

comedy; Book V Carbo on lyric; Book VI Sincerus on style. The quotations

adduced on the first two hundred pages show the following proportions:

Vergil above all (_Bucolics_, 55 lines; _Georgics_, 10 lines; _Aeneid_,

512 lines); Seneca, 101; Horace (mainly “Ars poetica”), 99; Euripides (in

Latin), 68; Sophocles (in Latin), 23.

I. What is poetry? It is a _furor coelestis_. Wisdom and

eloquence being one, all who had it used to be called poets

(Moses, Theseus, Lycurgus, Solon); for poetry was the only art

of speech. Recovering now from medieval darkness, we see Vergil

as the exemplar of everything, Homer as comprehending all

philosophy. Poetry is imitation of nature [apparently conceived

as description]. Therefore Plato’s exclusion is rejected.

The imitation is narrative in epic, through _personae_ in

dramatic poetry, and a combination of the two in melic. That

poetry is like painting (Horace’s “ut pictura poesis”) is

agreed. Poets seek variety rather than sequence, and prefer

violent or otherwise disturbed states of mind, considering

the [rhetorical] headings of appropriateness to habit, place,

and time. Plato’s preference of epic is approved against

Aristotle’s of tragedy.

II. What is poetic? [The implication of this book, as

throughout, is that poetic is rhetoric.] The ancient poets

thought their distinction to be not in verse, but in lore of

astronomy, optics, music, logic, history, geography. In _ratio

dicendi_ historians are likest to poets. Vergil was expert in

rhetoric and logic as well as in cosmogony, morals, law and

polity, medicine, athletics, etc. Poetry belongs under _ratio

civilis_. Its object is to teach, to delight, to move [the

stock summary for oratory]. It must command the “three styles”

in order to be always appropriate. The natural objection of

Traianus that this seems to be all rhetoric is answered by

citing the distinction of verse, by slipping back to the “three

styles,” and, as in a sort of desperation, by saying that the

poet’s distinctive gift is to move men to wonder (_admiratio_).

[Not only is this pure sophistic, but Minturno’s floundering

is due to his seeing no distinction at all. He always falls

back on rhetoric.] The poet, no less than the orator, must

command _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_, _memoria_,

_pronuntiatio_. Tragedy is discussed as a poem with parts

like those of a speech and with descriptive amplification.

Its _personae_ are to be fashioned through the headings of

rhetoric. “The other parts of an oration with which the orator

is concerned, division, confirmation, rebuttal, conclusion,

peroration, must also be observed (_tenendae_) by the poet.”

A book inquiring what poetic is, including tragedy, and quoting

Aristotle, has not the faintest suggestion of a distinctive poetic

composition! It can translate Aristotle’s complication and solution

without seeing that his mainspring is sequence, and consider his

“recognition” as a means of display.

Once more we are told that characterization must be true in

the sense of being true to type: Aeneas consistently _pius et

fortis_, Achilles _iracundus et magnanimus_, Ulysses _prudens

et callidus_, according to the headings of rhetoric. After a

few vague precepts on arrangement, and one more reminder of the

“three styles,” a close is at last found in the epic eminence

of Vergil.

III. (Tragedy) is again conventional. With little use of

Aristotle, it reverts to Horace and Seneca, and repeats the

rhetorical doctrine of types. Tragedy is found to consist of

plot, character, words, and pregnant sentences (_fabula_,

_mores_, _verba_, _sententiae_). Its externals are described,

its parts enumerated, its origin summarized. It should have

five acts of not more than ten scenes each. Its style should be

graphically vivid. [To this counsel of rhetoric, which applies

to drama only in the reports of messengers, no hint is added of

the distinctive quality of dramatic dialogue.]

IV. (Comedy) after a review of the history of comedy and an

enumeration of its typical _personae_, is devoted largely to

a long list of figures used for comic effect, and closes with

enumeration of its parts.

V. (Lyric) after a long introduction on _convivium_, with

quotations from the poets, distinguishes melic from dithyrambic

and nomic, and finds that lyric has as many components as drama

(_fabula_, _mores_, _verba_, _sententiae_!). Its forms are

ode (with epode and palinode), satiric iambs, elegy (nenia,

epicedium, epitaphium, epithanatium), epigram in the Greek

sense, and satire.

VI. (Style) is a summary of the section on style in any

classical rhetoric, with classified examples and with the usual

lists of figures.

What is the result of these 570 pages? Five men of letters, besides the

author, have roles in a sort of published academy; and several others at

least take a hand. They have no new ideas, except certain Aristotelian

inklings that hardly seem to fit. But they are learned in rhetoric. They

begin with the convention of the original dominance of poetry; they end

with sixty-two figures of speech. The subject is reviewed; it is not

advanced. As guidance for Latin poets—but that is hardly intended. As

inspiration this oratory is much feebler than Poliziano’s; and it never

even approaches that brief, anonymous ancient prose poem περι ὕψους, _De

sublimitate_, “on reaching up.”[54]

Minturno’s other treatise, _Arte poetica_ (1563), reduces the dialogue

form to catechism (_L’arte poetica del signor Antonio Minturno, nella

quale si contengono i precetti eroici, tragici, comici, satirici ..._

Naples, 1725). Though there is some debate in Book I on the validity of

_romanzo_ narrative, elsewhere the single interlocutor assigned to each

book merely asks the right questions. The work is not a discussion; it is

a manual of vernacular poetry so analyzed under headings and sub-headings

as to be a book of reference. Systematic and detailed, its doctrine is

classical in referring everything ultimately to ancient principles. Its

exemplification is abundant, with the usual preference for Petrarch.

Book I, discussing epic, includes the _Divina Commedia_ and

Petrarch’s _Trionfi_, and insists that the lack of unity in

Ariosto’s _Orlando_ is a cardinal fault. If the teaching of

the ancients “and the example of Homer’s poetry is true, I do

not see how another, different from that, is admissible; for

truth is one. Therefore the variation of later times will not

suffice as a warrant for letting a poem treat more than one

action, entire and of just compass, to which everything else

should be contributory” (35). What offends Minturno especially

is Ariosto’s interruption and resumption.

Book II, discussing drama, though it gives a better account of

Aristotle’s theory than the _De poeta_, still cites Horace,

calls actors _recitanti_, and does not comprehend the idea of a

play as a sequence of action.

Book III, dealing with lyric forms, is especially ample as

to _canzone_. The triad of Pindar’s odes he calls _volta_,

_rivolta_, _stanza_. His own praises of Charles V consist of

five such triads. “As Pindar,” he goes on, “narrates the myths

of Tantalus and Pelops, so I told the landing of Aeneas in

Africa and Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, with due reference to

the Trojan origin of the Romans and of the princely ancestors

of Charles” (183-184). After due citation of Dante the book

goes on to _sonetto_, _ballata_, and other forms with both

quotation and analysis, and even devotes a page to reminder of

the Latin hymns.

Book IV analyzes style under the headings of the classical

_elocutio_ and _compositio_, and with detailed consideration

of metric. The counsels for imitation, though tolerating the

usual Renaissance closeness, stop short of Ciceronianism. The

concluding advice for revision is drawn from Horace.

8. PARTENIO

Bernardino Partenio devoted five books to _Imitation in poetry_ (_Della

imitatione poetica ..._ Venice, 1560). A vernacular dialogue of the _De

oratore_ type, it achieves little interchange of views and interposes

much delay by ceremonious introduction and interruption. At Murano,

near Venice, the main speakers are two elders, Trifone and Trissino,

and two younger, Paolo Manutio and Lunisini. The literary fiction is of

instructing the latter; but whereas Lunisini remains most of the time

silent, Manutio speaks often and sometimes at length. A few other persons

pass across the background.

I. After the conventional introduction of poetry as the

original philosophy, poetic composition is left to Aristotle

and Horace, and poetic style is proposed (7) for discussion by

a most confusing division: (1) _inventioni_ through topics; (2)

_assontioni_, which also should mean topics, but are further

described as _commenti_ and _fittione poetiche_ (mythology);

(3) _ordine_, conceived as amplification and variation; (4)

_affetti_, passions and moral habit; (5) _epiteti_.

Imitation (11-13) is common, natural, even necessary, in spite

of objectors and of Pico’s assertion that what we should follow

is the _idea_, not the form. We may imitate a whole subject

(17), or particular _sententiae_, or words, changing the order,

amplifying or restricting, modifying. So did the ancients (24);

so Bembo imitated Petrarch (25); and Terence defended his use

of Menander (28). Camillo’s topics (34) for poetical _inventio_

are set forth with many examples. Partenio’s application seems

to amount to (1) mere periphrasis, (2) concrete specification,

(3) amplification.

II. The next book makes plainer that imitation is dilation,

especially in the direction of sophistic show-pieces (as in

the use of Catullus, 73). The book is not really distinct from

I. Perhaps that explains the padding (80 seq.) with discussion

of poetic diction: compounds, polysyllables, figures. It

closes with a survey of Sannazaro, Pontano, Fracastoro, Vida,

Navagero, and the chief of vernacular poets, Bembo (86).

III. Imitation may mean the expression of human life; but

specifically it is directed toward elegance of diction (93-95),

and may involve the lifting of phrases (98). The awareness

of style which comes from reading should be so confirmed

by imitation (105) as to insure a poetic fund (_copia_).

Imitation of style has always been legitimate (106), but with

variations (110). Boccaccio’s Ser Ciapeletto is dilated by a

list of specifications (119), and concludes, as it should, with

a _sententia_. But dilation demands also the use of topics

(_assontioni_). These are exhibited in tabular view (123) and

exemplified from Vergil, Horace, Catullus, and Petrarch.

IV. Further examples lead into mythology. Order of items in the

encomium recipe may be varied (155). Imitation of passions is

exemplified in Vergil’s Turnus.

V. discusses appropriateness of style (_decoro_) under the

seven _ideas_ of Hermogenes (175), the nine _sensi_, and the

eight instruments.

We have also learned earlier in this confusion that art not only comes

from nature, but is a surer and more definite guide (35). Better take

epithets from the ancient poets than hunt for them (162). Orators must

use common speech; not so poets. Poetic diction should be not only

appropriate and sonorous, but remote from daily speech (80).

Partenio’s main significance is the propagation of Camillo’s doctrine

of topics derived from Hermogenes[55] and transferred to poetic. Thus

it exhibits the common confusion both of poetic with rhetoric and of

composing with writing a theme. Its abundant examples are misapplied

to show how poetry may be brought on by dilation, which belongs not

to poetry, but to oratory. The whole treatise might be called an art

of dilation. It has hardly anything to do with writing poetry, almost

everything to do with poetifying themes.

9. SCALIGER

Julius Caesar Scaliger achieved the longest Renaissance Latin poetic

(_Julii Caesaris Scaligeri viri clarissimi poetices libri septem ..._

1561).[56] Its complacency must have been sometimes startling even to the

Renaissance. The prefatory letter to his son Sylvius is magisterial.

To this art we have applied the sanctions of philosophy, which

are the executives of all nature. That for lack of them it has

hardly been an art before us is evident from our discussion

(iii).

Horace, though he has written an “ars poetica,” teaches with

so little art that almost the whole work seems nearer to

satire. The commentaries of Aristotle, as we have them, are

incomplete. The prudent Vida gives much good advice toward

making a poet more wary, but takes him as already accomplished

to lead him to perfection. We have led him by the right way

through all paths to the very end (iv).

From time to time he inserts reminders of his magistracy.

Thus far Aristotle; but a more accurate account is as follows

(46).

For thus, with more penetration than Aristotle’s ... (201).

No one before us has reduced figures to definite classification

(307).

So much for _inventio_. With greatest toil amid many

difficulties we have elaborated these precepts, which before us

either were not explained at all, or, scattered without art or

order, were merely implied, or were in substance or expression

inept (432).

The Greeks are mistaken if they think we have taken anything

from them except to improve it (598).

As if we were servants of the Greeklings, and not correctors

(623).

His learning is too large to be limited to the subject. “Not to omit

anything that makes for erudition” (170), he inserts, for example, a long

chapter (I. xviii) on dancing, and another (III. ci) on Roman marriage

customs. He is even from time to time autobiographical.

We too have labored not a little that this glory [of _hymnus_

in its ancient sense] might be less obscure among the Latins

(123).

We too celebrated our father, brave as he was unfortunate, in

pastoral (129).

Under the title Senio we had written such a _fabula_, and

sustained the tone with Batavian chime and with such novelty of

invention as might suffice for seven Erasmuses, to say nothing

of one (374).

As we wrote in the epitaph of those who fell at Vienna in the

war against the Turks (426).

His longest quotation (VI. 781-784) is an entire poem of his own.

The seven books of this vast poetic in 310 chapters and 944 pages are as

follows.

I. _Historicus_ (57 chapters, 136 pages) presents poetic forms:

pastoral, comedy, tragedy, mime, _satira_, dance, Greek games,

Roman festivals, lyric.

II. _Hyle_ (_Materia_, 42 chapters, 64 pages) is mainly devoted

to verse-forms.

III. _Idaea_ (127 chapters, 238 pages) discusses under the

sophistic topics (sex, occupation, moral habit, fortune,

endowments, etc.) the _personae_ of the poet’s creation; sets

forth the four poetic virtues (_prudentia_, _efficacia_,

_varietas_, _figura_); and adds precepts for the several poetic

forms.

IV. _Parasceve_ (49 chapters, 98 pages) discusses the qualities

of style, with additions on figures.

V. _Criticus_ (17 chapters, 227 pages) is mainly a series of

comparative parallels (_comparationes_), first by authors

(Homer with Vergil, Vergil with Theocritus, etc.), then by

topics (691-717).

VI. _Hypercriticus_ (7 chapters, 134 pages) is a review of

Latin poetry from the sixteenth century back.

VII. _Epinomis_ (11 chapters, 47 pages) is an appendix.

Evidently the division overlaps; and the treatment involves even further

repetition. For the book is not a consecutive treatise; it is rather

a cyclopedia. Composed generally in short chapters, it indicates the

subject of each by a heading, and exhibits all the headings at the

beginning in a full table of contents. Thus its vogue may have been

mainly for reference. Since it is a guide, not an anthology, the examples

are usually brief. Longest naturally in V, the book of parallels, they

are elsewhere sometimes only single lines, and rarely exceed ten. Though

the great exemplar is Vergil, who almost monopolizes III and IV, they

exhibit a wide range.

The object proposed is to form Latin poets: _poetam creare instituimus_

(200); _quoniam perfectum poetam instituimus_ (228). The book sets forth

by precept and example not only how to admire and criticize—and correct

even famous authors, but how to attain the company of Latin poets, how

to make Latin poetry. The history of Latin poetry includes the sixteenth

century, though not the Middle Age. Latin poetry has been recovered; and

Scaliger, as one of its poets and one of its critics, shows how it is to

be carried forward. Surveying it up and down its length, he gives much

space to Claudian, Statius, and Silius Italicus, corrects Horace and

Ovid, rewrites Lucan (849), estimates his own immediate predecessors. He

is a schoolmaster giving _praelectiones_ and correcting Latin themes,

extending his instruction by summoning to his desk all authors and all

times. He has read everything. Careful to quote the Greeks abundantly in

Greek, he asserts the superiority of the Latins. For one author only he

has nothing but admiration. His great exemplar, his touchstone, is Vergil.

To pass from Scaliger’s views on individual poets and poetic methods to

his view of poetic as a whole is not easy, and is no longer important.

As to imitation, his lack of specific precepts suggests that he has no

consistent theory. The Aristotelian idea, apparently accepted at the

beginning, is misinterpreted in the appendix. The usual Renaissance

advice to imitate only with hope of adding luster, rhythm, or other charm

(_lucem, numeros, venerem adiungere_, 700) refers, of course, to the

other sort of imitation and offers little guidance. On the other hand,

Scaliger laments his own early Ciceronianism (800), and makes some acute

incidental observations. The topics of sophistic encomium in III, the

stock comparisons in V. xiv, and occasional use of terms throughout show

the usual Renaissance confusion of poetic with rhetoric. Though in other

passages Scaliger seems able to conceive poetry in its own terms, he does

not present poetic consistently as a distinct art of composition. Indeed,

what he says about composition of either sort is often meager or formal.

His preoccupation, from lexicography to figures of speech, is with style.

The great apparatus for the production of Latin poetry remains largely

rhetoric.

10. RONSARD AND TASSO

Ronsard’s brief, hasty, and perfunctory _L’Art poétique_ (1565;

reprinted, with five prefaces, Cambridge University Press, 1930) shows

the Pléiade preoccupation with “enriching” the vernacular,[57] and

applies the sophistic recipe for encomium to the poet’s celebration of

great persons in odes.

“The true aim of a lyric poet is to celebrate to the extreme

him whom he undertakes to praise ... his race ... his native

place” ... (29). Enhancing his diction above common speech

(41-44), he will amplify, even dilate.

The terms _invention_ and _disposition_, transferred

conventionally from rhetoric, do not open anything specific on

composition.

Ronsard refers early to the relation of lyric to music. Except for a few

such references, he has been content to gather commonplaces on style.

The only importance of the treatise is in showing one of the foremost

sixteenth-century poets driven, when asked for theory, as it were

inevitably to rhetoric.

Tasso’s poetic, on the other hand, is the most serious, concise, and

penetrative of the Renaissance. Composed in 1568 and 1570 to be read

before the Ferrara Academy, the _Discorsi dell’arte poetica ed in

particolare sopra il poema eroico_ were later amplified, in _Poema

eroico_ c. 1590 and _Discorsi dell’arte poetica_, 1587, for Tasso’s

theory was no less studious than his practice. Though he too uses the

headings of rhetoric _inventio_ and _dispositio_, he applies them to

distinctively poetic conception and poetic movement. For he discusses

poetic specifically and consistently as movement and as poetic movement.

The inspiration is the _Poetic_ of Aristotle. Working independently,

Tasso grasped Aristotle’s animating ideas at about the same time as

Castelvetro in his illuminating commentary (1570).[58] The following

references are to Solerti’s edition of the _Discorsi_ (1901).

The epic poet should move in his own Christian faith and

history, not among pagan deities and rites (12). His field must

not be too large (23-25); his narrative scheme (_favola_), as

Aristotle says, must be entire, of manageable scope, and single

(28). For unity (33), in spite of critical disputes, in spite

of Ariosto’s success without it and of Trissino’s failure with

it, is vital. Ariosto prevails (46) not through lack of unity,

but because of his excellence in other directions. Variety

(47) is desirable only if it does not risk confusion; and,

properly considered, it is compatible with unity. [A clear and

just rebuttal; there is no value in variety unless there is

something from which to vary.]

Part III (Style), opening with the rhetorical tradition of

the “three styles,” finds the third, _magnifico_ (the Latin

_grande_), appropriate to epic (52). [Tasso’s own practice of

_magnifico_ is neither florid nor dilated.] Ariosto’s style is

_medium_; Trissino’s, _tenue_. Tragedy (53), relying oftener on

specific words (_proprio_), is less _magnifico_; lyric is more

flowered and adorned; epic, though ranging between the two, is

normally _magnifico_.

Adding (55-60) a summary of the rhetoric of style, including

figures, Tasso finds Boccaccio’s prose over-rhythmical. His

appreciation of the force of exact words in Dante is refreshing

after the earlier disparagement. He closes with an illuminating

comparison (63) of epic style in Vergil with lyric in Petrarch.

Even contributions so distinctive as these are less important than the

work as a whole. Tasso’s treatise is so consecutive and so well knit as

to be worth more than the sum of its parts. Alike in his order and in his

sentences he is firmer and more severe than his time. These _Discorsi_

are carefully planned and adjusted for teaching. They seek neither

the conversational ease of Castiglione nor the seriatim analysis of

Macchiavelli; and they are far removed from the discursive suggestions of

Montaigne. They constitute a reasoned, consecutive poetic.

11. SIDNEY

Sidney’s _Defense of Poesy_ (about 1583; edited by Albert S. Cook,

Boston, 1890) exhibits its moral function from mere moralizing, through

winsome teaching, to incitement toward higher living.

The reminiscences of rhetoric are not accidental. Sidney makes

the usual Renaissance transfer to poetry of the traditional

threefold function of oratory: to teach, to delight, to move

(9, 11, 13, 22, 26). Toward the end (55) he apologizes. “But

what! methinks I deserve to be pounded [imprisoned] for

straying from poetry to oratory. But both have such an affinity

in the wordish consideration ...” [i.e., in diction; but the

main defect of the treatise is in leaving vague the distinctive

character of poetic composition].

Moralizing, deviating to rhetoric, Sidney is nevertheless suggestive and

sometimes penetrative.

He cites Plato’s dialogues (3) as poetical. His lively account

of poetry as imaginative realization (4-6) and as insight into

human life makes clear Aristotle’s saying that poetry “is more

philosophical and more studiously serious than history” (18).

He satirizes Elizabethan ignoring of the dramatic unities (48),

and sees through Ciceronianism (53). His section (55-56) on the

character and capacity of English verse, all too brief, has

real importance.

But he is so far from grasping Aristotle’s idea of imitation that he

renders it thus:

Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle

termeth it in his word μίμησις, that is to say, a representing,

counterfeiting, or figuring forth; to speak metaphorically, a

speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight (9).

We leap away from Aristotle to Horace’s _ut pictura poesis_, and so to

rhetoric. This is not merely misinterpretation; it indicates Sidney’s

lack of any controlling poetic principle. Though he tidily provides

summaries at the ends of his sections, he has little advance of thought.

His work is what it is called, a defense[59] of poetry, not a reasoned

theory.

There is occasional significance in the usual Renaissance

array of names. Paying his respects to the Cardinals Bembo

and Bibbiena (44), Sidney immediately offsets them with the

Protestants Beza and Melancthon. He calls Fracastoro and

Scaliger “learned philosophers”; Pontano and Muret, “great

orators”; and refers twice to the Latin tragedies of George

Buchanan. His praise of l’Hospital (45) is probably reminiscent

of Ronsard’s ode; for Sidney is acquainted with the Pléiade.

Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Ariosto he merely mentions; but

he knows the greatness of Dante and of course the charm of

Sannazaro. Of the ancients, Plato is cited oftenest, then

Aristotle, Plutarch, Horace of course, and Pindar. He speaks of

“the height of Seneca’s style” (47), mentions Apuleius (50),

and cites the “Greek Romances” in an extraordinary miscellany:

“so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a friend as Pylades,

so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xenophon’s

Cyrus, so excellent a man every way as Virgil’s Aeneas” (8).

His review of English poetry (45-47) scorns the intrusion

of “base men with servile wits,” finds that Chaucer “did

excellently”—for his time, and gives vague praise to Surrey and

Spenser. The reading of the English gentleman poet has been

wide, creditably classical, undiscriminating.

12. ENGLISH DISCUSSION OF VERSE

George Gascoigne’s _Certaine notes of instruction concerning the making

of verse or rime in English_, written at the request of Master Edouardo

Donati (1575; reprinted in G. Gregory Smith’s _Elizabethan Critical

Essays_, I, 46-57) is a brief primer of English verse usage. Though it

bungles in detail, it is fairly true to the English tradition of rhythm

determined by stress.

The last years of the century prolonged in England a proposal to

classicize English metric. William Webbe’s _Discourse of English Poetrie_

(1586; Gregory Smith, I, 226-302. References are to these pages.) harps

uncertainly on classical prosody.

What shoulde be the cause that our English speeche ... hath

neuer attained to anie sufficient ripeness, nay not ful auoided

the reproch of barbarousness in poetry? (227) ... What credite

they might winne to theyr natiue speeche, what enormities they

might wipe out of English Poetry ... if English Poetrie were

truely reformed (229).

A traditional preface on the origin of poetry leads from divine

inspiration through early bards to Ovid moralized, Horace, and Mantuan

(231-239). After dismissing medieval rhymed Latin as “this brutish

poetrie,” Webbe proceeds to a review of English achievement.

“I know no memorable worke written by any Poet in our English

speeche vntill twenty yeeres past (239).

“Chawcer ... was next after [Gower].... Though the manner of

hys stile may seeme blunte and course to many fine English

eares at these dayes, yet ... a man shall perceiue ... euen a

true picture of perfect shape of a right poet.... Neere in time

... was Lydgate ... comparable with Chawcer (241). The next ...

Pierce Ploughman ... somewhat harsh and obscure, but indeede a

very pithy wryter ... the first ... that obserued the quantity

of our verse without the curiosity of ryme” (242). A review of

the sixteenth century surrounds Surrey and Sidney with an array

of second-rate poets.

Taking a fresh start with the division into “comicall,

tragicall, historiall,” Webbe finds that Chaucer (251), even as

Horace (250), mingled delight with profit. After a vague word

for John Lyly (256) he returns to Golding’s translation of Ovid

(262). “Somewhat like, but yet not altogether so poetical” is

Chaucer, whom he seems to have on his conscience. “But nowe yet

at the last,” and comparable with the best, is Spenser (263).

A brief return to the ancients proceeds from Hesiod through

Vergil to Tusser and Googe (265).

But Webbe still wishes that rhyme were not habitual. “Which

rude kinde of verse ... I may not vtterly dissalowe [266]. I am

perswaded the regard of wryters to this hath beene the greatest

decay of that good order of versifying which might ere this

haue beene established in our speeche” (274). He even finds in

English a “rule of position” (281), and that _-ly_ is short in

adverbs, long in adjectives (282). Stubbornly he closes his

stupid book with an appendix (290): “Heere followe the Cannons

or general cautions of poetry, prescribed by Horace, first

gathered by Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis.”

Deaf to the tradition of English verse, Webbe is blind to the development

of English poetry.

Puttenham’s more pretentious _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589; reprinted in

part by G. Gregory Smith, II, 1-193), after the obligatory rehearsal of

ancient seers, reads history thus.

“How the wilde and sauage people vsed a naturall poesie in

versicle and rime as our vulgar is” (chapter v); and “How the

riming poesie came first to the Grecians and Latins, and had

altered and almost spilt their maner of poesie” (chapter vi).

Classification into heroic, lyric, etc., and then into comedy,

tragedy, ode, elegy, etc., is followed (chapter xxxi) by a

review of English poetry as meager for a roll of honor as it is

undiscriminating in criticism.

Book II, Proportion Poeticall, is a misguided prosody.

“Proportion” is exhibited (chapter ii) in “staff” (i.e., stave

or stanza); (iii) in “measure” (i.e., feet) estimated by the

number of syllables without assigning a distinct function to

“accent”; (v) in caesura ranged with “comma, colon, periodus,”

terms transferred from rhetoric to serve as aspects of rhythm;

(vi and following) in “concord,” which includes rime, accent,

time, “stir,” and “cadence”; (xi) in “position”; and finally

in “figure,” square stanzas, triangles, ovals, suitable to

emblems and other devices. Through this confusion and deviation

the typical English stress habit glimmers so faintly as never

to be distinct. “How Greek and Latin feet might be applied

in English” (xiii) leads in the closing chapters to “a more

particular declaration of the metrical feet of the ancient

poets.”

Book III, Ornament, is a long and elaborate classification of

figures of speech.[60] It ends conventionally with typical

faults, with decorum, and, in tardy caution, with Horace’s _ars

celare artem_.

At the end of the sixteenth century, then, these Englishmen could still

assume, with Ascham fifty years earlier, that English poetry had no

valid tradition of its own, still seek to revive it by classicism. That

classicism should be not only revival of ancient stanza and imitation of

ancient style, as with the Pléiade, but even conformity to ancient metric

might rather have been proposed in France or Italy, where vernacular

verse had kept much of the Latin rhythmical habit. In England, where

the vernacular tradition determined the verse pattern by the Germanic

habit of stress, the proposal was foredoomed as futile. The insistence

of the classical cult nevertheless lingers in serious discussion. The

correspondence of Gabriel Harvey with Spenser on this point may be

playful, or even partly satirical; but Harvey was a fanatic, and even

Spenser sometimes read Chaucer’s verse strangely, sometimes in his

poetical youth made strange experiments. The item that lingered longest

in discussion, perhaps because it was common to both verse traditions,

is rhyme. Thomas Campion’s _Arte of English Poesie_ (1602)[61] attacked

this specifically and with more understanding of English rhythms than

Webbe had or Puttenham. Samuel Daniel replied with a correct but feeble

_Defence of Ryme_ (1603).[62] Classicism could attempt to deviate English

verse the more easily when even poets and men of some learning did not

understand the linguistic development of their own vernacular.

13. PATRIZZI

Patrizzi’s poetic (_Della poetica di Francesco Patrici la deca disputata

..._ Ferrara, 1586) renews the quarrel with Aristotle begun in his

rhetoric.

The sub-title goes on: “in which by history, by arguments,

and by authority of the great ancients is shown the falsity

of the opinions most accepted in our times concerning poetic.

There is added the _Trimerone_ of the same author in reply to

the objections raised by Signor Torquato Tasso[63] against his

defence of Ariosto.” The ten sections severally inquire: I

concerning poetic inspiration (_furore poetico_), II whether

poetry originated in the causes assigned by Aristotle, III

whether poetry is imitation, IV whether the poet is an

imitator, V whether poetry can be written in prose, VI whether

plot (_favola_) is rather distinctive of the poet than verse,

VII whether Empedocles as a poet was inferior to Homer, VIII

whether poetry can be made from history, IX whether ancient

poems imitated by harmony and rhythm, X whether the modes of

imitation are three.

The divisions obviously overlap, and there is confusion in VII (152)

between the origin of poetry and its essential character, in VIII (168)

between historical material and history. Section VIII also misses the

point of Aristotle’s creative characterization for poetic consistency.

These misinterpretations, common enough at the time, are due with

Patrizzi to his missing Aristotle’s idea of imitation as the distinctive

poetic form of composition. Aristotle thinking of composition remains

dark or wrong to Patrizzi thinking of style.[64] Thus he is typical of

that general Renaissance difficulty with Aristotle which came from

looking the other way. Even after Tasso and Castelvetro, Renaissance

poetic kept its preoccupation with style.

14. DENORES

Jason Denores, on the contrary, made his _Poetica_ a digest of Aristotle

with a tabular view at the end of each section (_Poetica di Iason

Denores, nella qual per via di definitione & divisione si tratta secondo

l’opinion d’Aristotele della tragedia, del poema heroico, & della comedia

..._ Padua, 1588). The book has no critical grasp.

Section I (Tragedy) classifies characterization by types

(good rulers, bad rulers, etc.) and by the sophistic headings

for encomium. “Appropriateness of the traits of the tragic

personae consists in conformity (_decoro_) to age, emotion,

sex, country, profession” (folio 24, verso). In a word, it is

consistency. Chapter IX sums up what makes “una perfettissima

tragedia”; and the concluding chapter (X) exemplifies an ideal

tragic plot (_argomento_) by a novella of Boccaccio.

Section II (Epic) imposes the obligation of a single action

as against the _Achilleis_ of Statius, the _Metamorphoses_ of

Ovid, “and many of the romances of our time” (58). The _Aeneid_

has not one action (63) and is not so well extended (_distesa_)

as the _Odyssey_ (66). Denores thinks that Aristotle intends

the same demands as to plot (_favola_, Chapter I) and even as

to component parts (Chapter VI) as for tragedy. Reviewing as

before in Chapter IX, he again demonstrates in Chapter X by a

story of Boccaccio.

Section III (Comedy) is merely an adaptation of the headings

for tragedy. Denores even makes bold to say: “But since

Aristotle seems to intend that the parts of comedy should be

as many as for tragedy, therefore we have for convenience

attributed to comedy prologue, episode, exode. The chorus we

have not included, since in general it seems not to have been

used” (folio 138, verso). This section, too, is concluded by a

review and a demonstration from Boccaccio.

15. VAUQUELIN

The poetic of the Sieur Vauquelin de la Fresnaye is important mainly for

confirmation at the end of the century (_L’Art poétique de Vauquelin

de la Fresnaye, ou l’on peut remarquer la perfection et le défaut des

anciennes et des modernes poésies_; text of 1605 edited by Georges

Pellissier,[65] Paris, 1885). Conceived in 1574 and embracing the ideas

of the Pléiade, it was still unfinished in 1585 and finally published at

Caen only two years before the gentleman poet’s death. The latter part of

the sub-title refers to the addition of a sort of _catalogue raisonné_

of poets. Seventeen hundred and sixty Alexandrine couplets survey poetry

in three books as style and metric; for composition enters rarely and

in terms of rhetoric. Though Aristotle is cited, the base is once more

the “Ars poetica” of Horace. Once more poetry is “speaking pictures” (I.

226); once more the Pléiade repudiates _balades_ and _rondeaux_ (I. 546).

The doctrine of appropriateness (_bienséance_, _il decoro_) indicates

characterization by type (II. 330; III. 499); and the ideal poetic

combination is of instruction with delight (III. 609, _utile-dulce_).

Instead of saying that Vauquelin outlived his age,[66] we may rather

reflect that change in doctrine had been slow and was not yet recognized

generally.

16. SUMMARY

In the variety of these poetics appear certain habits and tendencies

significant of the period. First, the Renaissance gentleman scholar

finds it becoming not only to write verse, especially Latin verse, but

to discuss poetic. Sound taste and informed judgment in poetry, as

in painting and sculpture, give him rank as accomplished. The people

assembled by Castiglione to discuss the ideal courtier agree on this;

and indeed several of them might have written the dialogues examined

above. Modern readers impatient at the willingness to talk from the book

without independent thinking should beware of disparaging the value of a

general obligation to be informed about poetry. But even the Renaissance

gentlemen who were in the stricter sense scholars seem content with

learning for itself. Instead of interpreting and advancing, they exhibit.

The confusion about imitation is too general to be attributed to the

stupidity of individuals. It reflects the clash of two conceptions:

Aristotle’s idea of imitating human life[67] by focusing its actions

and speech in such continuity as shall reveal its significance, an idea

of composition; and the humanist idea of imitating classical style. As

ideas, the two have nothing to do with each other; but they tripped

each other in fact. For the first was new, not yet understood either

exactly or generally; and the second was a widespread habit of thought.

Imitation suggested classicism. Aristotle, being an ancient, must in some

way be reconciled to this. Meantime it is evident, especially from the

more commonplace discussions, that though the theory might not be clear,

the practice inclined toward dilation and borrowing. Ciceronianism,

even while it waned, had spread far beyond Cicero. Bembo’s imitation of

Petrarch was not a reproach; it was an added virtue.

The cult of the great period does not preclude citation of Claudian,

Statius, Silius Italicus; and Scaliger adds Ausonius and Sidonius.

Even Apuleius is not excluded; and space is occasionally found for the

dullness of Aulus Gellius and Macrobius. The “Greek Romances” of Achilles

Tatius, Apollonius or Heliodorus find place not only with Cinthio,

Scaliger, and Vauquelin, but also with Ronsard and Sidney. Indeed, those

poetic habits summed up in the term Alexandrianism and corresponding to

the decadent rhetoric called sophistic, crop out often enough to suggest

a considerable vogue. The sophistic recipe for encomium is accepted by

Ronsard; and there is common approval, in doctrine as in practice, of

parenthetical dilation by descriptive show-pieces. So the rhetoric of

Hermogenes, embraced by Camillo and Partenio for poetic, is mentioned

elsewhere with respect. Alexandrianism is at least an inclination of the

Renaissance.

But the commonest sign of the times is the unabated vogue of Horace’s

“Ars poetica”. It is gospel as much to the Renaissance as it had been to

the Middle Age. The cynical explanation would be its very shallowness

and conventionality; but probably the deeper reason is that Renaissance

thinking on poetic, as Horace’s, was essentially rhetorical. Here, at any

rate, is the main significance of these poetics. Various as they may be

otherwise, they have this in common. Tasso stands out as an exception,

in theory as in practice, by his clear view of poetic as a distinct

art of composition; and he is supported by Castelvetro’s penetrative

interpretation of the _Poetic_ of Aristotle. But Vauquelin has not heard

them; and even Sidney, though he sees the distinction, still falls back

on rhetoric. Even to the end of the sixteenth century, Renaissance poetic

was largely rhetoric.[68]

Chapter VIII

PROSE NARRATIVE

1. TALES

Nothing is more characteristic of the Renaissance than the abundance of

tales. Printed in large collections, they evidently answered a steady

demand; and they furnished many plots for the Elizabethan stage. Often

significant of Renaissance taste in stories, they are generally less

interesting in narrative art.

(_a_) _Bandello_

Bandello dedicates each of his 224 _novelle_ to some friend in a

prefatory letter which usually represents it as actually told in his

hearing by a person whom he names (_Le quattro parti de le novelle del

Bandello riprodotte sulle antiche stampe di Lucca_ [1554] _e di Lione_

[1573] _a cura di Gustavo Balsamo-Crivelli_, Turin, 1910). The stories

are further documented by proper names; or Bandello tells us that he has

substituted fictitious ones to shield well-known families. _Novella_ 16,

for instance, of Part I “happened last winter in this city of Mantua.”

Though this and many others are conventional _fabliaux_ or stock friar

tales, they are all alike told for their news value, as striking or

exciting. Bandello seems more intent on finding good stories than on

making stories good. Hence he is more significant of the appetite and

taste of his time than as a story-teller.

The Elizabethans, who often hunted in his collection, often through

French or English translations, created from some of his persons

characters as convincing as Juliet and the Duchess of Malfi; but

characterization rarely detains Bandello himself. Since he may be content

with a mere clever retort or a dirty trick, many of his tales are brief,

and many of these are mere anecdote. Even so the obligatory introduction

summarizing the situation may occupy a fourth, or even a third; and the

rehearsal of the facts may suffice without the salience that would give

them narrative interpretation.

_Novella_ 9 of Part I in ten pages exhibits a husband so

jealous as to violate the confessional and thereupon murder his

wife. First displaying the luxury of Milan, the scene of the

story, and even pausing to comment on the Milanese dialect, it

proceeds to slow exposition of the situation, with dialogue of

minor persons not active in the story, and with lingering over

minor details. The only scene developed before our eyes is the

violated confession. Thus bungled, the ugly story becomes more

tedious than tragic.

Lack of salience, though not often so flagrant, is habitual. Without

salience, without sufficient motivation, Bandello’s tales are oftener

a mere series of events than a sequence of scenes. They are not

consistently developed by action. Instead of revealing themselves

progressively before our eyes, his persons make speeches or even think

aloud. Their speeches are far oftener oratory than narrative dialogue.

Indeed, they may repeat what has been already thought or done. The very

inequality in the collection betrays Bandello’s weakness in narrative

composition. His ornate style is fairly constant in elegant fluency;

but his composition is hit or miss. He has no steady command of story

management.

Nor is his art sure in the eighteen longer tales. Of these, twelve (Part

I. 5, 17, 21, 34, 45, 49; Part II. 24, 28, 36, 40, 41, 44), averaging

about twenty-three pages, have essentially the same slack composition as

the shorter tales. The remaining six deserve more attention.

I. 2 (26 pages) Ariobarzanes, proud and generous courtier,

endured from Artaxerxes a series of humiliations, and emerged

triumphant. The tale begins with the posing of a question: is

the life of a courtier essentially liberality and courtesy, or

obligation and debt? The series of trials is cumulative enough

to give a certain sequence; but that it involved a struggle

against detraction is not disclosed until the final oration,

and thus does not operate as motivation.

I. 15 (23 pages) Two clever wives conspired to outwit the

intrigues of their husbands, delivered them from prison, and

reconciled them to each other. Here are complication and

solution, but through a plot as artificial as it is ingenious.

Though the detail is livelier, the action is slow. It halts

in the middle; and the dénouement comes finally through a

long oration rehearsing the whole story in court. The only

characterization is of a third lady in the sub-plot.

I. 22 (25 pages) Timbreo, betrothed to Fenicia, repudiated

her through a dastardly trick of his rival. The lady, who was

supposed to be dead of shame, hid herself in a villa. The rival

repenting and confessing, both men vowed to set her name right.

At the request of her father marrying “Lucilla,” Timbreo found

her to be Fenicia. The rival married a sister, and the King

adorned the wedding with royal festivities, dowries for the

brides, and posts for the men. Here again are complication and

solution. Though some of the scenes are realized, there is not

that salience of critical situations which leads a narrative

sequence onward. The royal wedding at the end, for instance,

has as much space as the repudiation. Fenicia is presented with

some hints of characterization.

I. 27 (27 pages) Don Diego and Ginevra, two very young country

gentlefolk, falling in love utterly at sight, the girl turned

so violently jealous as to deny all attempts at reconciliation;

and the boy in despair went far away to end his days as a

hermit in a cave. An old friend of both families, finding his

retreat, reasoned with him in vain, but roused his hope by

promising to move the girl. The girl was so far from being

moved that she planned to elope with an adventurer. The old

friend frustrated this and, in spite of the girl’s fury,

carried her off toward the boy’s cave. Her pride remaining

quite obstinate, the old friend finally lost patience and

told her to go her own foolish way; but the boy, coming to

meet them, showed so deep and unselfish devotion that she

fell on his neck. This tale, which Bandello had from Spain,

has not only complication and solution, but, in spite of some

unnecessary interruption, an engaging narrative progress.

Besides the constant motivation of the persons’ youth, there is

definite characterization of the old friend, of the boy, and

especially of the girl. No other tale of the collection equals

this in narrative composition.

II. 9 (35 Pages) The now familiar tale of Romeo and Juliet is

told straight through with little salience and with little

characterization.

II. 37 (48 pages) Edward III, suing a lady long in vain, at

last had to marry her. The lady’s first high-spirited and

intelligent response has some distinct characterization; but

the situation is repeated again and again with cumulative

urgency until this longest of the tales becomes tedious.

Even these better longer tales, then, are quite unequal in story

management. Bandello seems to take his stories as he finds them. His

literary fiction of writing a story that he has heard seems essentially

true in that sense. As he has not discerned in Boccaccio the various

achievement of a narrative artist, so he does not see what makes his own

best tales good, much less shape others accordingly. He is not creative.

(_b_) _Marguerite de Navarre_

The collection of tales made by Marguerite de Navarre, probably with

her literary household, and now known as the _Heptameron_, was first

printed as _Les Amants fortunés_ in 1558. Obviously patterned on

Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, it uses the literary frame of an aristocratic

house party more realistically. The dialogue in comment on the stories

is developed to characterize each person. Thus the collection is made a

series of cases (_exempla_) for social comment. But the tales themselves

are inferior. Told simply, without much flavor, “for fear” says the

preface, “that beauty of style might prejudice historical truth,” they

are usually lucid, somewhat conversational, often lax. There is no

mastery of narrative movement. The steadfast purity of the wife is,

indeed, a constant motivation in II. 3; but the few salient scenes

hardly constitute a sequence. The mere series of events in III. 1 makes

eighteen pages tedious and ends in mere reversal. The dialogue of the

retold _Châtelaine de Vergi_ (VII. 10; 20 pages) is oftener oratory than

narrative. The longest of the tales (I. 10; 32 pages), a romance covering

years, has so little salience that it might as well have ended earlier.

Most of the tales are either anecdote or _fabliau_ of about seven

pages. Put forward as actual, they are sometimes stock medieval tales,

especially of the stupidity or brutality of friars, and where they appear

to narrate facts, sometimes merely report them without realizing any

moment as a scene. Boccaccio, too, has simple anecdotes, in which all the

charm is of style; he too prolongs some of his stories without salience;

but among his many experiments are five _novelle_ (I. 4, II. 1 and 2,

VIII. 8, IX. 6) intensified by their sequence. Far from noticing this

difference, the writers of the _Heptameron_ show little awareness of

narrative composition. The accompaniment of discussion is better managed

than the stories themselves.

(_c_) _Giraldi Cinthio_

The collection _Hecatommithi_ (hundred fables) of Giovan-Battista

Giraldi, known as Giraldi Cinthio,[69] accumulated through years.

Begun apparently in his young manhood, it had reached seventy tales in

1560,[70] was published in 1565, and reprinted in 1566, 1574, 1580, and

1584.[71] (_Hecatommithi, ouero cento nouelle, di M. Giovanbattista

Giraldi Cinthio_, nobile ferrarese: nelle quali, oltre le diletteuole

materie, si conoscano moralità vtilissime a gli huomini per il benviuere,

& per destare altresi l’intelletto alla sagacità; potendosi da esse

con facilità apprendere il vero modo di scriuere toscano ... 4th

edition, Venice, 1580.) Thus the moralizing suggestion of the title

is confirmed by the sub-title. Here are offered one hundred—indeed,

with the preliminary decade, one hundred and ten—_exempla_. Nor is

the collection made less formidable by being classified: ten tales to

exhibit the superiority of wedded love, ten to show the risks of dealing

with courtesans, ten on infidelity, ten on chivalry, etc. Nevertheless

the tales are not all moralities, and in some the moral is not even

clear; for here once more are both _fabliaux_ and anecdotes. The frame

is once more Boccaccio’s. Young aristocrats, escaped from the sack of

Rome (1527), board ship and on a slow cruise entertain one another with

tales. The style, though sometimes slack and diffuse, is not dilated for

decoration. There is a leisurely introduction; each tale is prefaced by

comment on the preceding; and each decade has an epilogue of discussion

and verse. The whole ends with a roll of fame commemorating some hundred

and fifty men of letters in _terza rima_, and adding a list of eminent

ladies.

Running generally from three pages to ten, the tales, even the

few that run to fourteen, remain scenario. II. ii. recounts in

fourteen pages a Persian tale of Oronte and Orbecche. V. x.

tells at the same length how the virtuous wife of Filogamo,

shipwrecked, resisted the Prince of Satalia, and that he was

thereupon expelled. In X. viii two quarreling nobles come

to blows, are imprisoned by King Louis, and subsequently

reconciled by the courtesy of one. Even the tale of the Moorish

captain, which has hardly more than eight pages, is not

developed narratively. Looking back to it from _Othello_, one

distinguishes the motivation discerned by Shakspere; but in

Giraldi’s tale this is either generalized or merely hinted; it

does not conduct the narrative.

The composition, then, is generally scenario. If the dialogue sometimes

rises to narrative economy, it also becomes sometimes mere oration.

Character, often merely typical, rarely suffices for motivation.

Unnecessary spreading of the time-lapse betrays a carelessness of focus.

There is no habit either of realizing scenes concretely in action, or of

conducting them in a sequence.

A typical example is I. v. Pisti, condemned in Venice for

killing a man that had sought to debauch his wife, escaped to

Ferrara and was banned. The situation is first propounded, and

then recounted by his wife. She and his daughter being left

in poverty, he wrote anxiously, urging them to maintain their

honor. He was betrayed into captivity by two supposed friends,

that their father, who was also under Venice ban, might by

delivering him up reinstate himself. The father, refusing to

take advantage of their treachery, liberated Pisti on condition

that he forgive them. Pisti, returning secretly to Venice, bade

his wife denounce him to the Signory and claim the reward for

his head. She refused in an oration so fervent as to attract

the guard, who thereupon arrested him. Going with him to

court, she so told the whole story that the Signory pardoned

Pisti, restored his property, gave the reward to his daughter

for dowry, and even pardoned his false friends’ father. The

motivation of an ingenious complication and solution is all

here—in the abstract. But the tale in eight pages merely sums

up or orates instead of realizing it in scenes. The _novella_

thus remains an _exemplum_ of generosity, instead of becoming a

story of Pisti’s wife.

Thus Giraldi, seeking with Bandello news interest and therefore

melodrama, proposing an edification often quite dubious, ignored the

deeper narrative values. Reporter, manipulator, moralizer, he is not a

creator.

(_d_) _Belleforest, Painter, and Fenton_

The collections of tales, then, show Renaissance story-telling as a

regression from the fourteenth century. The narrative art of Boccaccio,

to say nothing of Chaucer, has suffered eclipse. Far from being advanced,

it is not even discerned. Renaissance story-telling is generally as

inferior as it is abundant. The few well managed stories stand out

in sharp relief against the mass of convention and of bungling. But

this is not all. Bandello’s tales as rendered (1566-1576) in French by

Belleforest and in English through him by Painter and Fenton, are not

merely translated; they are dilated and decorated to the point of being

actually obscured as stories. Bandello’s forty-ninth tale, already

doubled by Belleforest, is trebled in Fenton’s first. Livio and Camilla,

told by Bandello in 1,500 words, has nearly 11,000 in Belleforest’s

twenty-second, and 16,731 in Fenton’s second. The dilation is by

show-pieces of description, by oratory, by moralizing, by allusions to

classical mythology and to the “natural” history derived from Pliny, and

by those balanced iterations known generically in English as euphuism.

Belleforest in his preface (1568) begs the reader’s pardon for not

“subjecting” himself to the style of Bandello. “I have made a point,” he

says, “of recasting it.” His _Continuation_ informs the Duc d’Orléans in

a dedication that he has “enriched with maxims, stories, harangues, and

epistles.” So Painter must pause to describe.

There might be seene also a certain sharpe and rude situation

of craggy and vnfruictful rocks, which notwithstanding yelded

some pleasure to the Eyes to see theym tapissed with a pale

moasie greene, which disposed into a frizeled guise made the

place pleasaunt and the rock soft according to the fashion of

a couerture. There was also a very fayre and wide Caue, which

liked him well, compassed round about with Firre trees, Pine

apples, Cipres, and Trees distilling a certayne Rosen or Gumme,

towards the bottom whereof, in the way downe to the valley, a

man might haue viewed a passing company of Ewe trees, Poplers

of all sortes, and Maple trees, the Leaues whereof fell into a

Lake or Pond, which came by certaune smal gutters into a fresh

and very cleare fountayne right agaynst that Caue. The knight

viewing the auncientry and excellency of the place, deliberated

by and by to plant there the siege of his abode for performing

of his penaunce and life (Vol. III, p. 222, of the 1890

reprint).

Description for itself, without function, and even more plainly the

other habitual means of decoration, show not only the general habit of

dilation, but also the general carelessness of narrative values. So is

smothered even the Spanish tale of Don Diego and Ginevra,[72] which

Bandello had the wit, or the luck, to repeat in its original sequence.

Evidently these versions were looking not to composition, not to the

conduct of the story, but only to style.

(_e_) _Pettie, Lyly, and Greene_

William Pettie’s _A Petite Pallace of Pettie His Pleasure, containing

many pretie histories by him set forth in comely colours and most

delightfully discoursed_ (1576) iterates the medieval balance figures

and reënforces them with alliteration. Thus his rendering of the tale

of Scylla and Minos, after an expository summary and due moralizing,

presents:

one Nisus, who had to daughter a damsel named Scilla, a proper

sweet wench, in goodliness a goddess, in shape Venus herself,

in shew a saint, in perfection of person peerless, but in deeds

a dainty dame, in manners a merciless maid, and in works a

wilful wench.... But to paint her out more plainly, she was

more coy than comely, more fine than well-favoured, more lofty

than lovely, more proud than proper, more precise than pure.

If there be any place for such style, surely it is not in story. The

story is hardly told; it is decorated, moralized, generalized without

narrative salience. The decoration thus abused by Pettie became a vogue

through John Lyly (1553?-1606). His _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_ (1578)

and _Euphues and His England_ (1580) made the _schemata_ of sophistic,

especially isocolon, parison, and paromoion,[73] a main item in the

curious style called euphuism.

Come therefore to me, all ye lovers that have been deceived

by fancy, the glass of pestilence, or deluded by women, the

gate to perdition; be as earnest to seek a medicine as you

were eager to run into a mischief. The earth bringeth forth as

well endive to delight the people as hemlock to endanger the

patient, as well the rose to distil as the nettle to sting,

as well the bee to give honey as the spider to yield poison

(Croll’s ed., p. 93).

Yet if thou be so weak, being bewitched with their wiles,

that thou hast neither will to eschew nor wit to avoid their

company, if thou be either so wicked that thou wilt not or so

wedded that thou canst not abstain from their glances, yet at

the least dissemble thy grief. If thou be as hot as the mount

Aetna, feign thyself as cold as the hill Caucasus, carry two

faces in one hood, cover thy flaming fancy with feigned ashes,

show thyself sound when thou art rotten, let thy hue be merry

when thy heart is melancholy, bear a pleasant countenance with

pined conscience, a painted sheath with leaden dagger (Ibid.,

p. 104).

The tiresome heaping of balances and allusions so cumbers narrative that

these books keep little semblance of story.

Nevertheless the habit was continued in the longer English tales,

sometimes called novels, of the 1580’s and 90’s. Greene’s _Carde of

Fancie_ (1584-1587) decorates emotion with allusion and supplies balances

by handfuls.

He manfullie marcht on towards her, and was as hastilie

incountred by Castania, who embracing Gwydonius in her armes,

welcommed him with this salutation.

As the whale, Gwydonius, maketh alwaies signe of great joye

at the sight of the fishe called _Talpa Marina_, as the Hinde

greatlie delighteth to see the Leopard, as the Lion fawneth

at the view of the Unicorne, and as he which drinketh of the

Fountaine Hipenis in Scithia feeleth his mind so drowned in

delight that no griefe, though never so great, is able to

assuage it, so, Gwydonius, I conceive such surpassing pleasure

in thy presence, and such heavenlie felicitie in the sight of

thy perfection, that no miserie though never so monstrous, is

able to amaze me, no dolour though never so direfull is able

to daunt me, nor no mishap though never so perillous is able

to make me sinke in sorrow, as long as I injoy thy presence,

which I count a soveraine preservative against all carefull

calamities.

It is not necessary to regard this as quite serious to see that balanced

iteration and learned allusion had become epidemic, and that both arise

from the habit of dilation. For even plain Thomas Deloney must decorate

his clothier Jack of Newbury (1597) with myth and marvel. That such

perversion of narrative, owing something now and then, perhaps, to the

_Hypnerotomachia_ or to Apuleius, is imitated more specifically from the

Greek Romances is plainest in Sidney’s _Arcadia_.[74] It is one of the

clearest instances of Renaissance Alexandrianism.

2. RABELAIS

Émile Egger was once moved to protest: “The actual French usage of 1530

shows nowhere in either speech or writing the diction of Rabelais.”[75]

Every student of Rabelais will recognize this observation as a lead. It

means much more than the truisms that every eminent author has his own

style, and that study of style is the most constantly fruitful study of

literature. It means that Rabelais makes the special demand of compelling

attention always to his style. His vocabulary[76] ranges from Latinizing

to dialect and jargon; his word-play from reckless puns to various

iteration; his cadences from the clausula of Cicero to mere lists. His

volubility flashes with picturesque concreteness. He is popular, yes,

but rarely in being simple, usually in talking with his readers and in

stimulating them by extravagance. The fifteenth-century extravagance of

Skelton, showing a similar volubility, has less display. Rabelais will

not let us ever forget his style.

Pantagruel rencontra un escolier tout joliet.... “Mon amy,

dond viens tu à ceste heure?” L’escolier luy respondit: “De

l’alme, inclyte, et celebre academie que l’on vocite Lutece.”

“Q’est ce à dire?” dist Pantagruel à un de ses gens. “C’est,”

respondit il, “de Paris.” “Tu viens donc de Paris,” dit il.

“Et à quoy passez vous le temps, vous autres estudiants audit

Paris?” Respondit l’escolier: “Nous transfretons la Sequane au

dilucule et crepuscule, nous deambulons par les compites et

quadrivies de l’urbe, nous despumons la verbocination latiale,

et comme verisimiles amorabonds captons la benevolence de

l’omnijuge, omniforme, et omnigene sexe feminin.... Et si par

forte fortune y a rarité ou penurie de pecune en nos marsupies,

et soient exhaustes de metal ferruginé, pour l’escot nous

dimittons nos codices et vestes oppigncrées, prestolans les

tabellaires à venirdes penates et lares patriotiques.” A quoy

Pantagruel dist “Quel diable de langage est cecy? Par dieu,

tu es quelque heretique.” “Segnor no,” dist l’escolier; “car

libentissimement des ce qu’illucesce quelque minutule lesche

de jour, je demigre en quelqu’un de ces tant bien architectés

monstiers, et là, me irrorant de belle eau lustrale, grignotte

d’un transon de quelque missique precation de nos sacrificules.

Et submirmillant mes precules horaires, elue et absterge mon

anime de ses inquinamens nocturnes. Je revere les olympicoles.

Je venere latrialement le supernel astripotens.” Je dilige

et redame mes proximes. Je serve les prescrits decalogiques,

et selon la facultatule de mes vires n’en discede le late

unguicule.... “Et bren, bren,” dist Pantagruel, “Qu’est ce

que veult dire ce fol? Je croy qu’il nous forge icy quelque

langage diabolique, et qu’il nous charme comme enchanteur.”

A quoy dist un de ces gens: “Seigneur, sans nul doubte ce

gallant veult contrefaire la langue des Parisiens; mais il ne

fait que escorcher le latin, et cuide ainsi pindariser; et

luy semble bien qu’il est quelque grand orateur en françois

parce qu’il dedaigne l’usance commun de parler.” A quoy dist

Pantagruel, “Est il vray?” L’escolier respondit: “Segnor

missayre, mon genie n’est point apte nate à ce que dit ce

flagitiose nebulon, pour escorier la cuticule de nostre

vernacule gallique; mais vice-versement je gnave, opere, et par

veles et rames je me enite de le locupleter de la redondance

latinicome.” “Par dieu,” dit Pantagruel, “je vous apprendray à

parler” (II. vi).

The parody is of that Latinizing “enrichment” of the vernacular which was

a wide preoccupation and the special creed of the Pléiade. Rabelais, as

Erasmus, ridicules its paganizing. The larger satire is the rendering of

the conventions of student wildness in an iterative learned jargon. For

the iteration is not careless. Thus he prolongs a mere play upon the word

_Sorbonne_:

... ces marauds de sophistes, sorbillans, sorbonagres,

sorbinigenes, sorbonicoles, sorboniformes, sorbonisecques,

niborcisans (II. xviii).

Thus he prolongs a parody of legal citations.

Ayant bien veu, reveu, leu, releu, paperassé, et feuilleté

les complainctes, adjournemens, comparitions, commissions,

informations, avant procedés, productions, allegations,

intenditz, contredits, requestes, enquestes, repliques,

dupliques, tripliques, escritures, reproches, griefz,

salvations, recollements, confrontations, acarations, libelles,

apostoles, lettres royaulx, compulsoires, declinatoires,

anticipatoires, evocations, envoyz, renvoyz, conclusions, fins

de non proceder, apoinctemens, reliefz, confessions, exploictz,

et autres telles dragées et espiceries d’une part et d’autre,

comme doibt faire le bon juge selon ce qu’en a _not. spec.

de ordinario § 3 et tit. de offic. omn. jud. § fin. et de

rescript. praesentat., § 1_ (III. xxxix).

Thus the resolution of Diogenes to do his part in the defense of Corinth

lets Rabelais stop to amplify the commonplaces of a siege.

When Philip threatened siege, the Corinthians prepared for

defense. Some from the fields to the fortresses brought

household goods, cattle, wine, food, and necessary munitions.

Others repaired walls, raised bastions ... [and so through

a series of 25 predicates]. Some polished corselets [and so

through another catalogue of particulars]. Diogenes girt his

loins, rolled up his sleeves, gave his manuscripts to the

charge of an old friend [and so through another series of

details].... “Icy beuvant je delibere, je discours, je resouldz

et concluds. Aprés l’epilogue je ris, j’escris, je compose,

je boy. Ennius beuvant escrivoit, escrivant beuvoit. Eschylus

(si à Plutarche foy avez in _Symposiacis_) beuvoit composant,

beauvant composait. Homere jamais n’escrivit à jeun. Caton

jamais n’escrivit qu’aprés boire.” Thus the resolution gives

occasion for eight pages. (Prologue to Tiers Livre.) As here,

the amplification is often oratorical.

This various diffuseness, parody of Latinizing, legal iteration,

oratorical amplitude, is gift of gab, oral expansiveness, passion for

words; it is satire; and ultimately it is search for a reading public.

Taking his cue from the almanacs and giant stories, Rabelais was

exploiting the grotesque. He was clever enough to see that he could amuse

not only the _bon bourgeois_ who bought almanacs, but also those who had

some pretensions to studies. Both, as Ariosto knew, found relaxation in

the grotesque. The latter would appreciate technical jargon more; but the

former would catch enough of its satire and get some amusement from its

very strangeness. Both he could feed also with the marvels of voyages.

For the grotesque is an adult fairyland.

Rabelais takes us in and out of it, back and forth. Though the work is

largely narrative, it is not progressive story. The persons, often

vividly realized at a given moment, are not advancing to a destined

issue. There is much description, much discussion; and each has its

effect rather by itself than in a reasoned sequence. Thus the disgusting

story of the lady haunted by dogs, one of the most notorious of his

incidental _nouvelles_, is told quite as much for its own shock as for

any turn it gives to the larger story.

On the whole, Rabelais’ writing is _conte_, though usually involving

some exposition in aim and some actual comment. The series of _exempla_

and opinions as to whether Panurge shall marry (III. xxi, seq.) reaches

neither a decision on the marriage nor a conclusion of character. We

find ourselves discussing the mendicant friars, listening to a discourse

on devils, and ending on sheer lore about the herb Pantagruelion (III.

xlix, seq.). All the while the concreteness of the rendering is vivid

in contrast to the conventional generalities of the collections of

tales. The dialogue, instead of being exchange of orations, sometimes

flashes with narrative interaction. Rabelais takes us traveling, as it

were, through many excitements with a group of voluble grotesques whose

ideas are not developed in sequences of paragraphs, nor their habits in

sequences of chapters. He opened both novel and essay without achieving

the form of either. For he was moving toward that other kind of story and

discussion which ripened in journalism. Integration and continuity are

less important to attract readers than abundance and animation. Instead

of making a point, he often hovers around it with many suggestions.

Instead of giving a scene distinct significance to lead into the next, he

plays it with many overtones. Unsystematic as his various abundance is

certainly, and sometimes confusing, it must be recognized as creative.

Rabelais is not content merely to rehearse, paraphrase, or decorate.

Charged with various lore, his work is never second-hand. What he seizes

he animates.

The satire of Rabelais, as distinct from his more descriptive ridicule,

is directed oftenest against pedantry. The idea that he satirizes the

Middle Age as an apostle of Renaissance enlightenment extends a dubious

contrast beyond the evidence. For Rabelais is in some aspects medieval.

He was a wandering scholar, a _vagans_; he was something of a _goliard_;

and in the way of Godescalc he was a _mauvais clerc_. His satire on monks

and friars is medieval literary stock. Indeed, it is much less attack,

still less reform, than excitement. Against medieval education he does

not urge Renaissance enlightenment except in irony.

In a letter of June 3, 1532, he raised a disconcerting question.

How comes it, most learned Tiraqueau, that in the abundant

light of our century, in which by some special gift of the gods

we see all the better disciplines recovered, there are still

found everywhere men so constituted as to be either unwilling

or unable to lift their eyes from the more than Cimmerian

darkness of the gothic time to the evident torch of the sun?[77]

The irony of this is iterated and underlined in the oft-quoted eighth

chapter of his _Pantagruel_, where Gargantua recalls his youth.

As you may easily understand, the times were not so suited, so

convenient for literature, as the present, and had few such

teachers as you have had. The times were still dark, and still

exhaled the awkwardness and ill luck of the Goths, who had

destroyed all good literature. But by divine goodness light and

dignity have been restored to literature in my time; and I see

such improvement that at present I should hardly be received

in the beginning class, though as a man I used to be reputed

the most learned of my time. I say this not in vain boasting,

though I might legitimately do so in writing to you (see Marcus

Tullius _De senectute_ and Plutarch in the book entitled _How

to praise oneself without reproach_), but to show you my deep

affection.

Nowadays all the disciplines have been restored, the languages

reëstablished: Greek, without which ’tis a shame for any one to

call himself learned, Hebrew, Chaldee, Latin; printed editions

as elegant as correct in usage, which were invented in my time

by divine inspiration, as artillery by suggestion of the devil.

The whole world is full of scholars, of most learned teachers,

most ample libraries; and it seems to me that neither the

time of Plato nor that of Cicero offered such convenience for

study as is seen now. Hereafter we need not find in office or

in society any one unpolished by the shop of Minerva. I see

brigands, executioners, adventurers, stableboys of today more

learned than the doctors and preachers of my time. Nay more,

women and girls have aspired to that praise and celestial manna

of good instruction.

What is pierced here is not medieval ignorance, but Renaissance

complacency. The pedantry that Rabelais satirizes is of both ages. His

quarrel with the Sorbonne of his own day may have been edged by the

banning of _Pantagruel_. The book was banned as obscene. It is obscene.

Let us no longer pretend that he attacked obscurantism as a champion

of enlightenment. For whatever his motive, Rabelais remained singularly

detached. He was far from being an apostle of enlightenment, or of

anything else.

Yet he is still cited in some histories as forecasting modern education.

An educational theory has been extracted from him, even a scheme. To

support this, his conventional or picturesque ridicule of university

teaching and of student manners is at most negative. A positive

contribution has been found in his abbey of Thelème (I. lii-lviii).

Thelème, the ideal abbey that is the scene of the so-called scheme of

education, takes its name probably from that preposterous allegory

_Hypnerotomachia_,[78] wherein the hero forsakes the guidance of Reason

(Logistica) for that of will (Thelemia). Its architecture and landscape

gardening, again reminding of Colonna’s pseudo-classical elaboration,

receive, with the furniture and accessories, ten times as much space as

the studies. It has 9,332 suites. Its library abounds in Greek, Latin,

Hebrew, French, Tuscan, and Spanish (omitting English and German); and

its frescoes are of “antiques prouesses.” Outside are fountains, a

hippodrome, a theater, swimming pool, garden, labyrinth, tennis court,

and park. Inside it is supplied with costumers and furnishers. Its

community of men and women, all handsome, richly dressed, and commanding

the six languages well enough to compose in prose and verse, has no

community obligation. Living in luxury, with the six languages among

their pastimes, freed from the world and from all duties to one another,

these privileged souls have for their community device “Fais ce que

voudras.”

The humor of this, which ought to be discernible even to those

preoccupied with schemes of education, might more easily be taken to

imply that irresponsibility plus command of languages is not a sufficient

educational formula even in an ideally luxurious environment. Since

this would be a shrewd satire on the Renaissance, it may well be what

Rabelais meant. Certainly he did not mean to propose Thelème for adoption

as an idea, much less as a scheme. Do as you please, provided you live

in luxury and command six languages. Is that an educational idea? Is it

by any tenable interpretation an educational scheme? To range Rabelais

with such pioneers of the fifteenth century as Guarino and Vittorino, or

with such coming leaders as Vives and Loyola, is not only to misinterpret

him; it is to do him wrong. His satire is not limited to the loud and

boisterous; he is master also of irony. Let Thelème rest as he left it,

an ironical fantasy.

Nor should Gargantua’s studious day (I. xxiii), no hour unfilled, no

subject neglected, be called a program of education.[79] Rabelais

must have been aware that for educational reform he had no warrant.

Whatever else may be laid to his charge, he was not pretentious. His own

education, interrupted, never carried through in any field, but widely

ranging, gave him not a system, but a singularly various fund. His

reputation for scholarship, recently urged, is hardly borne out by the

few contemporary compliments. Rather their fewness and their vagueness,

in a period of mutual admiration among scholars, suggest that he was less

famous than he has been made to appear. He was not Latinist enough to

detect the fabrication of the so-called _Will of Lucius Cuspidius_, which

he published in 1532.[80] His Greek, extending to the translation of

certain well-known Greek works of medicine,[81] may have been fortified

by previous Latin translations. His knowledge of law is vouched by his

abundant use of legal terms, evidence rather of his friendship with

lawyers and his appetite for jargon. He knew medicine enough to be

house physician at the Lyon Hôtel Dieu and personal physician in the

suite of the Cardinal du Bellay. Certainly this is evidence, almost the

only specific evidence, of his achievement in learning. But it should

not imply that he was a scientist. At most he did not advance the

narrow limits of the medicine current in his time. He was an acceptable

practitioner in a period of prolonged ignorance.

But such generalizations are less suggestive than what has been

laboriously pieced together of his very meager chronology. In 1530 he

was matriculated in medicine at the University of Montpellier. In 1532

he was practicing medicine at Lyon and publishing the Latin letters

of the Italian physician Manardi, the _Aphorisms_ of Hippocrates, the

fabricated Cuspidius, and his own _Pantagruel_. This in two years. Within

the two years preceding 1530 it is suggested that he may have studied

law at Poitiers and visited other universities. Even if the suggestion

could be brought to the dignity of an inference, what would it guarantee

of learning? Except for a single undated letter from the priory of

Ligugé, we have no documentation on Rabelais from 1521 to 1530. But if

indeed he did study law at Poitiers and did visit other universities

before he turned to medicine, or if he picked up some medicine on the

way, then he was superficially experimenting toward versatility. The

issue is sometimes dodged by calling him a humanist.[82] But though he

had humanist friends, he was obviously not a classicist. Or again, his

learning, because his allusions are astonishingly various, is called

encyclopedic. As a compliment to learning, the adjective is dubious;

but in another sense it is suggestive of his intellectual curiosity and

his acute awareness of words. Knowing that there is much to be learned,

as Dr. Johnson said, from the backs of books, he was alert to pick up

a little of everything. He found that for his new readers bits of lore

had the interest of news. While they liked his samples of learning

and relished his satire on the pedantries of humanism, the humanists,

seeing more in the joke, relished it none the less. It was gay, but also

thoughtful, escape from the solemn Renaissance fictions of classicism.

Rabelais already knew his readers well enough to carry them wine on both

shoulders.

The insistent and various extravagance anticipated journalism in that

it was the cultivation of style as advertisement. Besides perennial

excitements of substance he uses dialect, slang, jargon, parody, oratory,

not in ebullience, not in occasional outbreak, but in constant parade of

style. He is a sensationalist; his readers are to be shocked and amused.

So he turned to the grotesque, and so he pursued it. He has no winsome

persons; his satire has no indignation; his laughter, no sympathy.

In this aspect a most suggestive contrast is offered by Cervantes.

“Cervantes laughed Spain’s chivalry away” is unjust because it is

shallow. From the beginning and throughout, _Don Quixote_ thrives on what

Rabelais precludes, geniality. The grotesque of Cervantes is human enough

to make us feel a certain social service beyond laughter in attacks on

windmills; and his great achievement is the creation of a grotesque whom

we come to love.

3. HISTORY

History straddles the fundamental division of composition into the forms

of discussion or persuasion on the one hand and, on the other, those

of story or play. For history is now one, now the other, and now both

together. Earlier chronicles, more or less epic, hardly discuss at all;

some recent histories are so bent on analysis as hardly to narrate at

all; and some of the greater histories, ancient or modern, Thucydides,

Tacitus, Macchiavelli, bring the two into effective combination. In any

age this last is so difficult as to demand superior grasp. Livy, for

instance, being generally content with narrative, hardly makes even

his imaginary orations to troops expository. But Thucydides, narrating

effectively, is no less concerned to instruct his readers in the issues.

His “Expedition against Syracuse” thus became both tragedy and sermon.

(_a_) _Latin Histories_

The fifteenth century shows the advance of history beyond chronicle in

the Latin of Leonardo Bruni, of Arezzo (1369-1444; _Leonardi Aretini

historiarum florentini populi libri XII_, Florence, 1855-1860, 3 vols.,

ed. by Mancini, Leoni, and Tonietti, with the Italian translation of

Donato Acciajuoli). Chronicles nevertheless persisted; for they still

had, perhaps still have, the values realized by Herodotus. But Bruni

undertook and fairly accomplished something more: “history, which in

so many simultaneous events must keep the longer sequence, explain the

causes of single facts, and bring out the interpretation” (I. 52). Not

quite Thucydides or Tacitus, perhaps, he has clearly moved in their

direction. His style is periodic in habit without often conforming

strictly, humanistic without being laboriously imitative or diffuse,

intelligently Ciceronian without being inhibited by Ciceronianism. The

orations inserted after the fashion of Livy show, indeed, that he felt

bound to such amplitude, variety, and classical allusion as should

climb the high style; but they are neither frequent nor conventionally

decorative, and some of them are both lively and urgent pleas. The

following examples are typical.

Book III: Pope Gregory to the Florentines for peace through the

restoration of the exiles; and the Florentine speech of refusal.

Book IV: Ianus Labella for insuring the republic against the

pride of the nobles.

Book VI: Debate of the Perugian envoys with the Florentines.

Book VIII: The Florentine envoys to the Pope; the Pope’s reply

and Barbadoro’s indignant rejoinder.

Book XII: The Milanese legates at Venice against the

Florentines, and the Florentine reply.

Bruni puts orations oftenest into the mouths of envoys to develop issues

which he has already summarized. Generally they are terser than the

speeches of the fashionable dialogues; and sometimes, for he had often

been an envoy himself, they are warm with actual debate. In this way his

narrative is interpreted by exposition. Remaining narrative in plan, it

indicates the animating considerations and interprets the outcome.

Book I, for instance, closes a summary of ancient history with

a survey of Italian cities after the invasions, and Frederick

II’s fatal widening of the breach between Empire and Papacy.

Book II shows Florence in full republican career thwarted by

factions; Book IV, the creation of the _vexillifer justitiae_

as a republican means of checking the selfish ambitions of the

nobles. The increasing use of mercenaries shown in Book VII

leads to chronic difficulties detailed later. The last three

books present the war with Milan not only in its succession of

events, but also as a single enterprise.

Finishing his first book in 1416, his sixth in 1429, Bruni solemnly

presented nine books to the Signory in 1439, and lived to finish his long

labor before 1444.

_De bello italico adversos gothos gesto historia_ (1441), an

amplification of the summary in the first book of his History of

Florence, has less interpretation. The steady, concise narrative, with

little comment, has sometimes too little salience. But to attentive

reading the story of battle after battle, now victory, now defeat,

gradually gives some grasp of the military operations to hold Italy for

Justinian. The main figure is Belisarius. Except in occasional concrete

description, this history is more like Caesar’s, and is an experiment in

that expository narrative later mastered by Macchiavelli. Belisarius is

clearly exhibited not only as marvelous in military science, but as an

intelligent organizer and administrator. When he feels himself let down

by Justinian, and is approached by the Goths toward a joint kingdom,

he will not commit himself to any disloyalty. His triumphal return to

Justinian reports his intelligent discipline in Italy. Later his recall

to Italy after other generals had meantime failed finds the task of

reorganization hopeless in the disaffection of the imperial soldiers so

long unpaid and ill led. With very little comment or review Belisarius

emerges clearly from the narrative itself.

Bruni’s histories are evidence of a sober earlier humanism immune to the

extravagances of Ciceronianism and to that allusive display that led to

dilation. They go about their business. Oratory is kept subsidiary to

the story and the message. This tradition of Latin history continues in

the _Scotorum historiae_ (1526) of Hector Boece, and again in the _Rerum

scoticarum historia_ (1582) of George Buchanan. Both wrote Latin history

seriously as European scholars. Buchanan, sometimes arid and partisan,

was nationalist, indeed, only in his later years. Meantime he had taught

for many years in France, had written Latin tragedies, and had been

saluted by Joseph Scaliger as the foremost of Latin poets. History, then,

kept alive among the humanists the medieval tradition of international

Latin. Its classicism, more restrained and more intelligent, less of

style than of method, was the more valid imitation.

(_b_) _Vernacular Histories_

MORE

Sir Thomas More’s study of Richard III (_The History of King Richard

the Thirde ... Writen by Master Thomas More ... 1513_, ed. J. R. Lumby,

Cambridge, 1883) shows these preoccupations in both Latin and English.

Though it is unfinished, it is not fragmentary, nor merely descriptive;

it is a thoroughgoing interpretation. All the more conspicuous,

therefore, is its concrete vividness. Though judge and afterward

pamphleteer, More cast this history as story. He makes us understand

largely by making us see. Thus the Queen surrenders her son.

All this notwithstanding, here I deliuer him, and hys brother

in him, to kepe into your handes, of whom I shall aske them

both afore God and the world. Faithfull ye be, that wot I wel,

and I know wel ye be wise. Power and strength to kepe him if

you list neither lacke ye of yourself nor can lack helpe in

this cause. And if ye cannot elsewhere, than may ye leue him

here. But only one thing I beseche you, for the trust that his

father put in you euer and for the trust that I put in you now,

that as farre as ye thinke that I fere to muche, be ye wel ware

that ye fere not as farre to little. And therewithall she said

vnto the child: Farewel, my own swete sonne; God send you good

keping; let him kis you ones yet ere ye goe, for God knoweth

when we shal kis togither agayne. And therewith she kissed him

and blessed him, turned her back and wept and went her way,

leauing the childe weping as fast. When the lord Cardinal and

these other lordes with him had receiued this yong duke, thei

brought him into the sterrechamber, where the protectour toke

him in his armes and kissed him with these wordes: Now welcome,

my lord, euen with al my very hart. And he sayd in that of

likelihod as he thought. Thereupon forthwith they brought him

to the kynge his brother into the bishoppes palice at Powles,

and from thence through the citie honorably into the Tower, out

of which after that day they neuer came abrode (40).

The three pages devoted to the episode of Shore’s wife, lively at once

with irony and with image, pass to calm estimate and moral reflection.

And for thys cause as a goodly continent prince, clene and

faultles of himself, sent out of heauen into this vicious world

for the amendment of mens maners, he caused the bishop of

London to put her to open penance, going before the crosse in

procession upon a Sonday with a taper in her hand. In which she

went in countenance and pace demure so womanly, and albeit she

were out of al array saue her kyrtle only, yet went she so fair

and louely, namelye while the wondering of the people caste a

comly rud in her chekes, of whiche she before had most misse,

that her great shame wan her much praise.... But me semeth the

chaunce so much the more worthy to be remembred in how much she

is now in the more beggerly condicion, vnfrended and worne out

of acquaintance, after good substance, after as gret fauour

with the prince, after as gret sute and seking to with al those

that those days had busynes to spede, as many other men were in

their times, which be now famouse only by the infamy of their

il dedes. Her doinges were not much lesse, albeit thei be much

lesse remembred because thei were not so euil (53).

The conversations of the Duke of Buckingham with Cardinal Morton,

functioning as exposition, close at the end of More’s manuscript almost

as a scene in a play.

The duke laughed merely at the tale, and said: My lord, I

warant you neither the lyon nor the bore shal pyke anye matter

at any thyng here spoken; for it shall neuer come nere their

eare. In good fayth, sir, said the bishop, if it did, the thing

that I was about to say, taken as wel as afore God I ment it,

could deserue but thank; and yet taken as I wene it wold, might

happen to turne me to litle good and you to lesse. Then longed

the duke yet moch more to wit what it was. Wherupon the byshop

said: In good faith, my lord, as for the late protector, sith

he is now king in possession, I purpose not to dispute his

title. But for the weale of this realm, wherof his grace hath

now the gouernance, and wherof I am my self one poore member,

I was about to wish that to those habilities wherof he hath

already right many litle nedyng my prayse, it might yet haue

pleased God for the better store to haue geuen him some of

suche other excellente vertues mete for the rule of a realm as

our Lorde hath planted in the parsone of youre grace (91).

More’s diction is discreetly popular, both choice and homely, pointed

with proverbs, occasionally reminiscent of popular poetry.

The Quene her self satte alone alowe on the rishes all desolate

and dismayde (20).

The management of sentences is less expert. More, as many other

humanists, was bilingual to the extent of composing habitually in Latin

even when he meant to publish in the vernacular. _Richard III_ he

composed in both. This may partly explain his frequent use of what are

now subordinating conjunctions to begin sentences. _Wherefore_ is often

used in sixteenth-century English, as Latin _quare_, where modern use

requires _therefore_. But when allowance is made for this, there still

remains some uncertainty as to sentence boundaries, some doubt as to

whether an added clause is subordinate or independent. Writing racy

English for the larger audience, More tolerated the looser aggregative

habit of English prose in his time. But his English, as well as his

Latin, shows clear grasp of the period, and even occasional strict

conformity. Current English still lagged in this respect throughout the

century. Before Hooker English prose is generally less controlled than

Italian. On the other hand, More uses balance and epigram discreetly, not

for decorative display, but strictly for point; and his shifting from

longer aggregations to sharp short sentences gives pleasant variety.

MACCHIAVELLI

Narrative and exposition are perfectly fused in Macchiavelli (_Istorie

fiorentine, testo critico con introduzione e note per cura di Plinio

Carli_, Florence, Sansoni, 1927, 2 vols.). His history of Florence (1532)

not only has an insistent moral; it is at once narrative and expository.

While we see the events, we see into them. His analytic narrative carries

the orator’s art of _narratio_,[83] the statement of the facts involved

in an argument, to greater scope. We follow Macchiavelli not merely as

assenting to his conclusions, but as reaching them ourselves. The more

distinctively narrative values of vividness and directness he brings

out often enough to show his control. But his ultimate object is not

imaginative realization; it is rather persuasion. The sequence is not

only of events, but of ideas. The admirable orations given to leaders

at crises are not merely conventional, nor mainly to characterize the

speaker as a person in a play, but to expound the situation. Livian in

model, they are oratory of a higher order, both acutely reasoned and

persuasive.

Macchiavelli’s exposition is sometimes separate, as in the essay that

prefaces each book, or in those _sententiae_ that from time to time open

vistas of thought.

Beyond doubt rancor seems greater and strokes are heavier when

liberty is recovered than when it is defended (II. xxxvii. 123).

For a republic no law can be framed which is more vicious than

one that looks to the past (III. iii. 136).

No one who starts a revolution in a city should expect either

to stop it where he intends, or to regulate it in his own way

(III. x. 148).

Between men who aspire to the same position it is easy to

arrange alliance, but not friendship (VI. ix. 34).

For men in power shame consists in losing, not in crooked

winning (VI. xvii. 81).

Thereupon arose in the city those evils which oftenest spawn in

a peace. For the young, freer than usual, spent immoderately on

dress, suppers, and such luxuries, and being idle, wasted their

time and substance on gaming and women. Their study was to

appear splendid in dress, sage and astute in speech; and he who

was quickest with biting phrase was wisest and most esteemed

(VII. xxviii. 155).

Force and necessity, not written promises and obligations, make

princes keep faith (VIII. xxii. 198).

But most of his exposition is not added; it is welded. The narrative

itself is made expository by a constant chain of cause and effect. It

is clear both in its events and in their significance for policy. We

learn at every turn not only what Florence did, but why; and we forecast

the result. Stefano Porcari, lamenting the decay of the Church (VI.

xxix. 101), is inspired by Petrarch’s “Spirto gentil.” The account of

the conspiracy nipped by the Pope is rather a story plot than a story.

Macchiavelli is content to suggest that it was operatic. He is not

concerned to work out its story values; he is bent on its historical

significance. The spectacles at the wedding of Lorenzo to Clarice (VII.

xxi. 148) are not elaborated descriptively; they are summed up as

indicative of the habit of the time. So is handled (VII. xxxiii. 162)

Professor Cola Montano’s doctrinaire enthusiasm for republics and scorn

of tyrants. His pupils find the issue in assassination. The splendid

audience of the Pope (VIII. xxxvi. 218) to the ambassadors of Florence

for reconciliation is at once description and argument. Thus the progress

of the _Istorie fiorentine_ is simultaneously of facts and of ideas. It

is analyzed narrative.

Fused also is the style. Heightened for the orations (II. xxxiv; III. v,

xi, xiii, xxiii; IV. xxi; V. viii, xi, xxi, xxiv; VI. xx; VII. xxiii;

VIII. x), it is never decorated, never diffused, so ascetically conformed

to its message as never to obtrude. This is not negatively the art that

knows how to conceal itself, but positively the art that is devoted

singly. True in the choice of words, it is expert in the telling emphasis

of sentences. Its reasoned balances suffice without the empty iteration

of English euphuism. They are played never for display, always for

point. The Latin period, welcome to the habit of Macchiavelli’s mind, is

rarely pushed to a conformity that would in the vernacular have seemed

artificial. Macchiavelli’s sentences are in logic fifty years ahead of

the French and the English; but they do not force his own vernacular.

Chapter IX

ESSAYS

1. DISCUSSIONS ON POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Two Italian books of the early sixteenth century became so famous as

to be almost proverbial. Written about the same time, Macchiavelli’s

_Principe_ (1513) and Castiglione’s _Cortegiano_ (1514) are

complementary. Macchiavelli expounds princely policy in war and in the

truces between wars; Castiglione leads princely leisure into culture.

The policy and the culture are parts of the same Italian world; but the

two books are in sharpest contrast. Macchiavelli’s facts are strictly

analyzed; Castiglione’s are habitually idealized. Macchiavelli’s

style is stripped and so fused with the message as to be inseparable;

Castiglione’s is ample, manipulating the decorative diffuseness of its

time and its setting to elegance. Macchiavelli’s economy is insistent,

urgent; Castiglione’s is gracious, deliberate, suggestive, rising to

oratory. Both men used their thorough control of Latin to shape their

writing of Italian prose; but Macchiavelli was applying rather such

compression as that of Tacitus, Castiglione the composition of Cicero.

It is Macchiavelli’s triumph that consideration of his doctrine has quite

submerged his style.

I have not adorned nor distended this book with ample cadences,

nor with precious or magnificent words or any other extrinsic

charm or ornament, such as many are wont to use for descriptive

decoration; for I have wished that nothing might win it praise,

in other words that it should be acceptable only for the truth

of its matter and the gravity of its subject (Dedication to

Lorenzo).

Since my object is to write something useful to him who

understands it, I have thought it more fitting to follow rather

the effectual truth of the thing itself than its concept

[immaginazione] (Opening of xv).

His name soon became a byword; for Englishmen and Frenchmen found it

easier to denounce Italian statecraft than to explain wherein their own

was different. Formulated for Italian despots, his doctrine that the

safety and independence of the state are paramount over any consideration

of justice or mercy became more and more sinister in terms of the

rising new national monarchs beyond his ken. In the composition of the

whole Macchiavelli was still young. He had not yet achieved the sure

control felt in his _Istorie fiorentine_. Masterly already in expository

analysis, eloquent in its close, the _Principe_ has not a compelling

logical sequence.

In sequence and in detail the _Cortegiano_ is more mature than

Macchiavelli’s _Principe_. Castiglione kept it by him ten years. The

final revision (Codex Laurentianus, Rome, 1524) was published at Florence

in 1528. All this care left the diction unpretentious. Scholarly without

pedantry, Castiglione even forestalls the Tuscans by openly proclaiming

his right to Lombard words. “I have written in my own tongue, and as I

speak, and to those who speak as I do.” Thinking often of rhetoric,

feeling the Latin period and attentive to _clausula_, he applies his

lore to Italian sentences without stiffness or formality, happily

reconciling gravity with ease. Encomium, inevitable in his subject and

his time, is oftener implied than dilated. The plan of the dialogue is

taken from Cicero’s _De oratore_. Reminiscence in detail is negligible.

Castiglione’s imitation is not the common Renaissance borrowing of

passages; it is the adaptation of Cicero’s plan for presenting the

typical Roman statesman to survey of the typical Italian. Thus the

dialogue is Ciceronian in proceeding logically from point to point.

Within the frame of Cicero the conduct of the book expands the dialogue

toward conversation. This is not dramatic dialogue; nor is it imitation

of the Platonic quest. Rather Castiglione’s intention was to realize the

human scene, to flavor the point with the speaker; and his achievement in

suggesting the gracious interchange of the court of Urbino has been found

quite as significant as the conclusions of his debates.

For the _Cortegiano_ is one of the few Renaissance books that have

endured the test of time. Details of place and time have been made to

carry so much larger human suggestion that it has been reprinted again

and again; it has been widely translated; it has today an audience not

only of special students, but of the many more who love literature.

Though the very term “courtier” is obsolete, though the particular

social function soon faded, the book endures. It is not only the best of

Renaissance dialogues; it is a classic.

The _Utopia_ (1516) of Sir Thomas More, beginning as a dialogue on

certain social evils in England, passes to descriptive exposition of

a state organized and operated solely for the common weal. Though the

name _Utopia_ means “nowhere,” this polity is described as the actual

experience of a returned traveler. The literary form is thus reminiscent

of Lucian, whom More ten years before had translated with Erasmus. It

is reminiscent also of Plato, of the travelers’ tales popular in that

age of discovery and explanation, and more faintly of those distant or

fortunate isles (_îles lointaines_) which had often been posed as abodes

of idealized communities. But though these hints were doubtless intended,

they are incidental. They fade as we read on.

Unfortunately for More’s literary reputation, most of us read his

best-known book only in a pedestrian translation (Ralph Robinson, 1551;

second edition, 1556). Keeping much of the vivacity of the diction, this

is quite unequal to More’s flexible Latin rhythms.[84] For More, as for

Poliziano and Leonardo Aretino, Erasmus and Buchanan, Latin was a primary

language. But whereas Erasmus had, so to speak, no effective vernacular,

More’s literary achievement in English is both distinguished in itself

and ahead of his time. In spite of some uncertain ascriptions, we may be

fairly sure that the English version of his _Richard III_,[85] as well as

the Latin, is his own.