Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance
A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism
By
Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University
1922
To my Father and Mother
Preface
In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on
the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This
influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance
writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric.
But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical
thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the
present day.
The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of
rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part
Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of
poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but
by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical
terminology I have already touched on in an article on _The Requirements
of a Poet[1]_, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal
of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical
rhetoric.
No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can
escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose _Literary
Criticism in the Renaissance_ has so carefully traced the debt of English
criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by
many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my
own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement
what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention
to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am
able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were
profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these
mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and
that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and
less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not
lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism.
In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in
modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For
quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case
of those English critics whose writings are incorporated in the
_Elizabethan Critical Essays_ edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, or in the
_Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century_, edited by Dr. J.E. Spingarn,
I have made my citations to those collections in the belief that such a
practice would add to the convenience of the reader.
The greatest pleasure that I derive from this writing is that of
acknowledging my obligations to my friends and colleagues at Columbia
University who have so generously assisted me. Professor G.P. Krapp aided
me by his valuable suggestions before and after writing and generously
allowed me to use several summaries which he had made of early English
rhetorical treatises. Professor J.B. Fletcher helped me by his friendly
and penetrating criticism of the manuscript. I am further indebted to
Professor La Rue Van Hook, Dr. Mark Van Doren, Dr. S.L. Wolff, Mr. Raymond
M. Weaver, and Dr. H.E. Mantz for various assistance, and to the Harvard
and Columbia University Libraries for their courtesy. My greatest debt is
to Professor Charles Sears Baldwin, whose constant inspiration,
enlightened scholarship, and friendly encouragement made this book
possible.
Contents
Part First: The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry
I. Introductory
1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic
II. Classical Poetic
1. Aristotle
2. "Longinus"
3. Plutarch
4. Horace
III. Classical Rhetoric
1. Definitions
2. Subject Matter
3. Content of Classical Rhetoric
4. Rhetoric as Part of Poetic
5. Poetic as Part of Rhetoric
IV. Classical Blending of Rhetoric and Poetic
1. The Contact of Rhetoric and Poetic in Style
2. The Florid Style in Rhetoric and Poetic
3. The False Rhetoric of the Declamation Schools
4. The Contamination of Poetic by False Rhetoric
V. The Middle Ages
1. The Decay of Classical Rhetorical Tradition
2. Rhetoric as Aureate Language
VI. Logic and Rhetoric in the English Renaissance
1. The Content of Classical Rhetoric Carried over into Logic
2. The Persistence of the Mediaeval Tradition of Rhetoric
3. The Recovery of Classical Rhetoric
4. Channels of Rhetorical Theory
VII. Renaissance Poetic
1. The Reestablishment of the Classical Tradition
2. Rhetorical Elements
VIII. Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance
1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism
2. The Influence of Horace
3. The Influence of Aristotle
4. Manuals for Poets 5. Rhetorical Elements in Later English Classicism
Part Second: The Purpose of Poetry
I. The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry
1. General
2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example
3. Moral Improvement through Allegory
4. The Influence of Rhetoric
II. Medieval Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry
1. Allegorical Interpretations in the Middle Ages
2. Allegory in Mediaeval England
III. Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose
of Poetry
1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic
2. The Influence of the Classical Rhetorics
IV. English Renaissance Ideas of the Purpose of Poetry
1. Allegory and Example in Rhetoric
2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic
3. The Displacement of Allegory by Example
Index of Names
Part One
The General Theory of Rhetoric and of Poetry
Chapter I
Introductory
By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly
movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the
historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the
renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the
Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule
the literary criticism of the renaissance is no exception. The
interpretation of the critical terms used by the literary critics of the
English renaissance must depend largely on the classical tradition. This
tradition, as the labors of many scholars, especially Spingarn, have
shown, reached England both directly through the publication of classical
writings and to an even greater degree indirectly through the commentaries
and original treatises of Italian scholars.
The indebtedness to the Italian critics is well known and has been widely
discussed. Although the present study does not hope to add to what is
known of the influence exerted on the literary criticism of the English
renaissance by the Italians, it does propose to show the English critics
to have been more indebted than has been supposed to the mediaeval
development of classical theory. For this relationship to be clear it will
be necessary to review classical literary criticism and to trace its
development in post-classical times and in the middle ages as well as in
the Italian renaissance. Only by such an approach will it be possible to
show in what form classical theory was transmitted to the English
renaissance.
As the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne of England inaugurated a
new period in English criticism, during which English critical theories
were largely influenced by French criticism, this study will stop short of
this, restricting itself to the years between the publication of Thomas
Wilson's _Arte of Rhetorique_ in 1553 and that of Ben Jonson's _Timber_ in
1641. Throughout this period the English mediæval tradition of classical
theory was highly important, losing ground but gradually as the influence
first of the rhetoric newly recovered from the classics and then of
Italian criticism produced an increasingly stronger effect on English
criticism. I hope to show that the English critics who formulated theories
of poetry in the renaissance derived much of their critical terminology,
not directly from the rediscovered classical theories of poetry, but
through various channels from classical theories and practice of rhetoric.
The tendency to use the terminology of rhetoric in discussing poetical
theory did not originate in the English renaissance, but is largely an
inheritance from classical criticism as interpreted by the middle ages.
Both in England and on the continent this mediæval tradition persisted far
into the renaissance. Renaissance English writers on the theory of poetry
use to an extent hitherto unexplored the terminology of rhetoric. This
rhetorical terminology was derived from three sources: directly to some
extent from the classical rhetorics themselves; indirectly through the
influence of classical rhetoric upon the terminology of the Italian
critics of poetry; and indirectly, to a considerable extent, through the
mediæval modifications of classical and post-classical rhetoric.
1. The Distinction between Rhetoric and Poetic
Aristotle wrote two treatises on literary criticism: the _Rhetoric_ and
the _Poetics_. The fact that he gave separate treatment to his critical
consideration of oratory and of poetry is presumptive evidence that in his
mind oratory and poetry were two things, having much in common perhaps,
but distinguished by fundamental differences. With less philosophical
basis these fundamental differences were maintained by nearly all the
classical literary critics. It is important, therefore, to review briefly
what the classical writers meant by rhetoric and by poetic, and to trace
the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in
the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in
the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry
contained many elements which historically derive from classical and
mediaeval rhetoric.
Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical
critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in
addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in
separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of
history were composed in verse, they would still be something different
from poetry.[2] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings
are like those of the poets.[3] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric
against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like
that of the poets.[4] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some
fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a
difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of
ignoring.
If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of
communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry
second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one
reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry
to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a
modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared
with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry.
To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a
pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an
audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had
learned to be of value in persuasive public speech. It taught how to work
up a case by drawing valid inferences from sound evidence, how to organize
this material in the most persuasive order, how to compose in clear and
harmonious sentences. Thus to the Greeks and Romans rhetoric was defined
by its function of discovering means to persuasion and was taught in the
schools as something that every free-born man could and should learn.
In both these respects the ancients felt that poetic, the theory of
poetry, was different from rhetoric. As the critical theorists believed
that the poets were inspired, they endeavored less to teach men to be
poets than to point out the excellences which the poets had attained.
Although these critics generally, with the exceptions of Aristotle and
Eratosthenes, believed the greatest value of poetry to be in the teaching
of morality, no one of them endeavored to define poetry, as they did
rhetoric, by its purpose. To Aristotle, and centuries later to Plutarch,
the distinguishing mark of poetry was imitation. Not until the
renaissance did critics define poetry as an art of imitation endeavoring
to inculcate morality. Consequently in a historical study of rhetoric and
of the theory of poetry separate treatment of their nature and of their
purpose is not only convenient, but historical. The present discussion,
therefore, considers various critics' ideas of the nature of poetry in
Part I, and then separately in Part II their ideas of its purpose. The
object of this division is not to make an abstract distinction between
nature and purpose. Such a distinction cannot, of course, be made. It is
to approach the subject first from one point of view and then from the
other because it was in fact thus approached successively, and because
also the intention of the successive writers can thus be better
understood.
The same essential difference between classical rhetoric and poetic
appears in the content of classical poetic. Whereas classical rhetoric
deals with speeches which might be delivered to convict or acquit a
defendant in the law court, or to secure a certain action by the
deliberative assembly, or to adorn an occasion, classical poetic deals
with lyric, epic, and drama. It is a commonplace that classical literary
critics paid little attention to the lyric. It is less frequently realized
that they devoted almost as little space to discussion of metrics. By far
the greater bulk of classical treatises on poetic is devoted to
characterization and to the technic of plot construction, involving as it
does narrative and dramatic unity and movement as distinct from logical
unity and movement.
It is important that the modern reader bear these facts in mind; for in
the nineteenth century text-books of rhetoric came to include description
of a kind little considered by classical rhetoricians, and narrative of an
aim and scope which they excluded. Thus the modern treatise on rhetoric
deals not only with what the Greeks would recognize as rhetoric, but also
with what they would classify as poetic. Furthermore, narrative and
dramatic technic, which the classical critics considered the most
important elements in poetic, are now no longer called poetic. What the
ancients discussed in treatises on poetic, is now discussed in treatises
on the technique of the short-story, the technique of the drama, the
technique of the novel, on the one hand, and in treatises on
versification, prosody, and lyric poetry on the other. As these modern
developments were unheard of during the periods under consideration in
this study, and as the renaissance used the words rhetoric and poetic much
more in their classical senses than we do today, it must be understood
that throughout this study rhetoric will be used as meaning classical
rhetoric, and poetic as meaning classical poetic.
Many modern critics have found the classical distinction between rhetoric
and poetic very suggestive. In classical times imaginative and creative
literature was almost universally composed in meter, with the result that
the metrical form was usually thought to be distinctive of poetry. The
fact that in modern times drama as well as epic and romantic fiction is
usually composed in prose has made some critics dissatisfied with what to
them seems to be an unsatisfactory criterion. On the one hand Wackernagel,
who believes that the function of poetry is to convey ideas in concrete
and sensuous images and the function of prose to inform the intellect,
asserts that prose drama and didactic poetry are inartistic.[5] He thus
advocates that present practise be abandoned in favor of the custom of the
Greeks. On the other hand Newman, while granting that a metrical garb has
in all languages been appropriated to poetry, still urges that the essence
of poetry is fiction.[6] Likewise under the influence of Aristotle, Croce
differentiates between the kinds of literature not because one is written
in prose and the other in verse, but because one is the expression of what
he calls intuitive knowledge obtained through the imagination, and the
other of conceptual knowledge obtained through the intellect.[7] Similar
to the distinction expressed by Croce in the words imaginative and
intellectual, is that expressed by Eastman in the words poetical and
practical.[8] And according to Renard, Balzac distinguishes two classes of
writers: the writers of ideas and the writers of images.[9]
In view of these modern efforts to make a more scientific differentiation
between kinds of literature than is possible on the basis of the
traditional distinction between prose and poetry, the present historical
study of the distinction made by Aristotle and other Greek writers between
rhetoric and poetic may be suggestive.