Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance Part 5

The relative importance of Cicero's rhetorical works to the middle ages is well ill.u.s.trated by a count of the ma.n.u.scripts preserved. In the libraries of Europe today there exist seventy-nine ma.n.u.scripts of the _De inventione_, eighty-three of the _Ad Herennium_, forty of the _De oratore_, fourteen of the _Brutus_, and twenty of the _Orator._[163] Thus in the University of Bologna the study of rhetoric was based on the _De inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_.[164] The _De inventione_ is the source for Alcuin's rhetorical writings, and was the only Ciceronian rhetoric known to Abelard or Dante. Brunette Latini translated seventeen chapters of it into Italian.[165] Although mutilated codices of the _De oratore_ and the _Orator_ were known to Servatus Lupus and John of Salisbury, complete ma.n.u.scripts of these most important works were not known previous to 1422.[166] The _Ad Herennium_ and the _De inventione_ were first printed by Jenson at Venice in 1470. The first book printed at Angers (1476) was the _Ad Herennium_ under the usual mediaeval t.i.tle of the _Rhetorica nova_. The first edition of the _De oratore_ was printed in the monastery of Subaco about 1466. The _Brutus_ first appeared in Rome (1469) in the same year which witnessed the first edition of the Orator.[167]

Before its first printing the _Orator_ was used as a reference book for advanced students by Guarino in his school at Ferrara.

Castiglione's indebtedness to the _De oratore_ is well known, but few notice that his first paragraphs are a close paraphrase of Cicero's dedicatory paragraphs of the _Orator._

But in England the first reference to the _Orator_ appears in Ascham's _Scholemaster_ (1570) one hundred years after its first printing.[168]

Thus the Ciceronian rhetoric of the middle ages was derived from the pseudo-Ciceronian _Ad Herennium_ and from the youthful _De inventione_, not from the best rhetorical treatises of Cicero as we know them.

Moreover the mediaeval tradition persisted in England for over a hundred years after it had been displaced in Italy.

The _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle was known to the middle ages only through a Latin translation by Herma.n.u.s Allema.n.u.s (c. 1256) of Alfarabi's commentary. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ (1508), and was for the first time incorporated in the works of Aristotle published in Basel, 1531. As early as 1478, however, the Latin version by George of Trebizond had been published in Venice.[169] This was frequently reissued in the _Opera_ of Aristotle together with the _Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, long believed to be the work of Aristotle, in the Latin translation by Filelfo, and the _Poetics_ in Pazzi's translation. As the true _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, known to the renaissance as the _Ars rhetoricorum ad Theodecten_, was so frequently published with the spurious _Rhetorica_, references to Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ in the sixteenth century are likely to be confusing. Thus it is difficult to tell whether the _Rhetoric_ required to be read by Oxford students in the fifteenth century[170] is the one or the other. The surprising thing is, however, with all the editions and translations of Aristotle which were available, that the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle had so slight an influence on English rhetorical theory.

The _De inst.i.tutione oratoria_ of Quintilian was too long to be preserved intact. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, however, it was well known and highly valued by Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome, and Rufinus, and closely followed and abridged in their rhetorical works by Ca.s.siodorus, Julius Victor, and Isidore of Seville. From the eighth century until Poggio discovered the complete ma.n.u.script at St. Gall in 1416, the world knew only mutilated fragments of the text. On the basis of an incomplete ma.n.u.script Etienne de Rouen prepared in the twelfth century an abridgment of Quintilian, and soon after an anonymous enthusiast made a selection of the _Flores Quintilianei_.[171] Thus, while the rhetorical works of Aristotle were practically unknown, and the Ciceronian tradition rested on the _De inventione_ and the _Ad Herennium_, the rhetorical ideas of Quintilian, as preserved in abridgments and in the treatises of Ca.s.siodorus and Isidore, pa.s.sed current throughout the middle ages. When the first edition was published by Campano in 1470, the world of scholars welcomed a familiar friend.

Other cla.s.sical critical treatises filtered into England even more slowly.

The _De compositione verborum_ of Dionysius of Halicarna.s.sus received its first printing at the hands of Aldus in 1508 and was edited again by Estienne in 1546, and by Sturm in 1550. Yet had Ascham not been a friend of Sturm's, it might not have been heard of in England as early as 1570, when the _Scholemaster_ was published. Ascham says it is worthy of study, but shows no great familiarity with the text.[172]

The _De sublimitate_ of pseudo-Longinus has a similar history in England.

Published by Robortelli in Basel in 1554, it was reissued three times, once with a Latin translation, before Langhorne edited it (1636) at Oxford. No Elizabethan writer alludes to it or seems to have been aware of its existence until Thomas Farnaby cites it as an authority for his _Index Rhetoricus_ (1633). The advance of cla.s.sical scholars.h.i.+p in England is indeed no better ill.u.s.trated than by a comparison of Farnaby's cited sources with those of Thomas Wilson (1553). Wilson knew and used Cicero, Quintilian, Plutarch, Basil the Great, and Erasmus. Farnaby cites an imposing list of sources.

"Greek: Aristotle, Hermogenes, Sopatrus, Dionysius of Halicarna.s.sus, Demetrius Phal,[173] Menander, Aristides, Apsinus, Longinus _De sublimitate_, Theonus, Apthonius. Latin: Cicero, Quintilian, Martia.n.u.s Capella, Curio Fortunatus, Mario Victorino, Victore, Emporio, Augustino, Ruffinus, Trapezuntius, P. Ramus, L. Vives, Soarez, J. C. Scaliger, Sturm, Strebaeus, Kechermann, Alstedius, N. Caussinus, J. G. Voss, A.

Valladero."

Whether Farnaby had read the works of these gentlemen through from cover to cover is another matter. He at least knew their names, and had read in Vossius, whose footnotes would refer him to all these sources as well as to others, both cla.s.sical and mediaeval.

With this evidence before us it is easy to understand why the traditions of the English middle ages persisted so long in the literary criticism of the English renaissance. The theories of rhetoric and of poetry in mediaeval England had in the first place, because of remoteness and the lack of easy transportation, become farther and farther removed from such cla.s.sical tradition as was preserved in the Mediterranean countries. In the second place, the recovery of cla.s.sical criticism in the Italian renaissance antedated by a hundred years the domestication of cla.s.sical theory in England. Not until the seventeenth century, as has been shown, did rhetoric in England come again to mean what it had in cla.s.sical antiquity. Subsequent chapters will show that cla.s.sical theories of poetry, as published and interpreted by the Italian critics, made almost as slow head against English mediaeval tradition.

Chapter VII

Renaissance Poetic

1. The Reestablishment of the Cla.s.sical Tradition

In concluding his authoritative study, _A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance_, Spingarn a.s.serts that before the sixteenth century, "Poetic theory had been nourished upon the rhetorical and oratorical treatises of Cicero, the moral treatises of Plutarch (especially those upon the reading of poets and the education of youth), the _Inst.i.tutions Oratoriae_ of Quintilian, and the _De Legendis Gentilium Libris_ of Basil the Great."[174] With the turn of the century, he goes on to say, a great change was brought about by the publication of the cla.s.sical critical writings, especially the _Poetics_ of Aristotle. Then the mediaeval criteria of _doctrina_ and _eloquentia_ were superseded by many new ones.

The development of Aristotelian poetic in the Italian renaissance is a separate inquiry, which has been made extensively, and need not be gone into here. The results which bear upon the present inquiry may be summarized as follows:

The recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_ brought about a complete change in poetical theory, and stimulated in Italy a great body of critical writing and discussion, the results of which did not reach England until almost a hundred years later.

_The Poetics_ had been known to the middle ages only through a Latin abridgment by Hermannus Allema.n.u.s. This was derived from a Hebrew translation from the Arabic of Averroes, who, in turn, knew only a Syriac translation of the Greek.[175] Although the _Poetics_ was not included in the Aldine _Aristotle_ (1495-8), the Latin abstract by Hermannus was printed with Alfarabi's commentary on the _Rhetoric_ for the first time at Venice (1481). Valla published a Latin translation in 1498. The Greek text was first published in the Aldine _Rhetores Graeci_ (1508)[176] badly edited by Ducas. A Latin translation made by Pazzi in 1536 appears in the Basel edition of Aristotle's _Opera_ (1538) with Filelfo's version of the _Rhetorica ad Alexandrum_, falsely attributed to Aristotle, and George of Trebizond's (Trapezuntius) translation of the _Rhetoric_. Robortelli edited it in 1548. Segni translated it in 1549. It was edited again by Maggi in 1550, by Vettori in 1560, by Castelvetro in 1570, and by Piccolomini in 1575. It had inspired the _De Poeta_ (1559) of Minturno and the _Poetics_ (1561) of Scaliger. But in England its critical theories were ignored before Ascham, who cites them in the _Scholemaster_ (1570), and never elucidated before Sidney's _Defense of Poesie_ (c. 1583, pub.

1595).

But with all the changes which were worked in the literary criticism of the renaissance by the recovery of Aristotle's _Poetics_, renaissance theories of poetry were nevertheless tinged with rhetoric. Vossler has summarized renaissance theories of the nature of poetry as pa.s.sing through three stages: of theology, of oratory, and finally of rhetoric and philology.[177] While the influence of Aristotle is most clearly seen in the new emphasis on plot construction and characterization, the importance the renaissance attached to style is in no small measure a survival of the mediaeval tradition of cla.s.sical rhetoric. Moreover, as Spingarn has pointed out, there was a tendency in the renaissance for the cla.s.sical theories of poetry to be accepted as rules which must be followed by those who would compose poetry. If a poet followed these rules and modeled his poem on great poems of cla.s.sical antiquity, some critics suggested, he could not go far wrong. Thus one should follow the precepts of Aristotle for theory, and imitate Virgil for epic and Seneca for tragedy. The rhetorical character of these poetical models is significant. Both are stylists, of a distinct literary flavor. Both recommended themselves to the renaissance because they too were imitators of earlier literary models.

Although with good taste as well as cla.s.sical erudition Ascham preferred Sophocles and Euripides to the oratorical and sententious Seneca, his view was not shared by the renaissance. Scaliger, preoccupied as he was with style, found his ideal of tragedy not in the plays of the great Greeks, but in the closet dramas of the declamatory Spaniard. Seneca appealed to the renaissance not only on account of his verbal dexterity and point, but also on account of his moral maxims or _sententiae_. In England the two greatest literary critics, Sidney and Jonson, followed Scaliger in this high regard for Seneca. Sidney found only one tragedy in England, _Gorbuduc_, modeled as it should be on his dramas. Its speeches are stately, its phrases high sounding, and its moral lesson delightfully taught.[178] And Jonson conceived the essentials of tragedy to be those elements found in Seneca: "Truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity and height of elocution, fullness and frequency of sentence."

The middle ages conceived of poetry as being compounded of profitable subject-matter and beautiful style. The English renaissance never entirely evacuated this position. Consequently the Aristotelian doctrine that the essence of poetry is imitation was either entertained simultaneously, as in Sidney, or interpreted to mean the same thing, as in Jonson. The commoner renaissance idea of imitation is not that of Aristotle, but that of Plutarch, whose speaking picture so often appears in the critical treatises.

Robertelli thought poetic might be either in prose or in verse if it were an imitation; Lucian, Apuleius, and Heliodorus were to him poets.[179]

Scaliger, on the other hand, insisted that a poet makes verses. Lucan is a poet; Livy a historian.[180] Castelvetro probably came nearest to Aristotle in a.s.serting that Lucian and Boccaccio are poets though in prose, although verse is a more fitting garment for poetry than is prose.[181] Vossius antic.i.p.ates p.r.i.c.kard's explanation of Aristotle by defining poetry as the art of imitating actions in metrical language. To him verse alone does not make poetry. Herodotus in verse would remain a historian; but no prose work can be poetry.[182] These are only a few examples typical of the general tendency which Spingarn has so thoroughly studied.

2. Rhetorical Elements

This tendency to follow Aristotle in allowing that the vehicle of verse was not characteristic of poetry tended to preclude any vital distinction between rhetoric and poetic. The renaissance had inherited from the middle ages the belief that poetry was composed of two parts: a profitable subject matter _(doctrina)_ and style (_eloquentia_). If the definition goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[183]

In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the _Poetics_ practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's over-a.n.a.lysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high, low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution) of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[184] Maggi[185] and Tifernas[186] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by meter. J. Ponta.n.u.s insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same material,[187] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to discriminate in their choice of words.[188]

As an interpretation of cla.s.sical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but Ponta.n.u.s runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the _narratio_ of cla.s.sical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of facts. Confusing the _narratio_ of oratory with narrative, Ponta.n.u.s says:

There are three virtues of a narration, brevity, probability and perspicuity. The epic poet should diligently strive to attain the second and third, and may learn how to do it from the masters of rhetoric.[189]

Thus a poet should seek in an epic the same qualities which an orator is supposed by cla.s.sical rhetorics to strive for in the statement of facts of his speech.[190] Furthermore, says Ponta.n.u.s, one can write very good poetry by paraphrasing orations in verse.[191] No wonder Luis Vives complained in his _De Causis Corruptarum Artium_,

The moderns confound the arts by reason of their resemblance, and of two that are very much opposed to each other make a single art. They call rhetoric grammar, and grammar rhetoric, because both treat of language.

The poet they call orator, and the orator poet, because both put eloquence and harmony into their discourses.[192]

From this brief summary, derived for the most part from the exhaustive studies of Vossler and Spingarn, one may recognize some of the rhetorical elements in the theories of poetry current in the Italian renaissance. The Aristotelian studies of the Italian scholars very largely accomplished the overthrow of the mediaeval theories of poetry and the re-establishment of the sounder critical theories of cla.s.sical antiquity. Their service to subsequent criticism has been so great and their critical thinking on the whole so sound that it may seem ungracious to call attention to a few cases where they were unable to shake themselves entirely free from the mediaeval tradition of cla.s.sical rhetoric.

Chapter VIII

Theories of Poetry in the English Renaissance

1. The Rhetorical Period of English Criticism

Spingarn has carefully traced the introduction of the theories of poetry formulated by the Italian critics into England at the end of the sixteenth century. It is the purpose of this study not to go over the ground which Spingarn has so admirably covered, but to point out in English renaissance theories of poetry those elements which derive from the mediaeval tradition and from the cla.s.sical rhetorics, and to trace the gradual displacements of these elements by the sounder cla.s.sical tradition which reached England from Italy.

"The first stage of English Criticism," say Spingarn, "was entirely given up to rhetorical study."[193] In his period he includes c.o.x and Wilson, the rhetoricians, and Ascham, the scholar. Of the second period, which he characterizes as one of cla.s.sification and metrical studies, he says, "A long period of rhetorical and metrical study had helped to formulate a rhetorical and technical conception of the poet's function."[194] These two periods have so much in common that they may readily be considered together.

Throughout this period in England there was no abstract theorizing on the art of poetry. The rhetorics of c.o.x (1524) and Wilson (1553) were rhetorics and made no pretence of treating poetry. This is significant of a direct contact with cla.s.sical rhetoric. Because c.o.x founded his treatise on the sound scholars.h.i.+p of Melanchthon, and Wilson wrote with the text of his Cicero and his Quintilian open before him, neither was so completely under the mediaeval influence as were most of the subsequent writers on rhetoric in England.

Another scholar in cla.s.sical rhetoric was Roger Ascham, whose _Scholemaster_ (1570) contains the first reference in England to Aristotle's _Poetics_. But except as a teacher of language and of literature Ascham does not treat of poetry. Following Quintilian, he cla.s.sifies literature into _genres_ of poetry, history, philosophy, and oratory, each with its appropriate subdivisions. Both Ascham and Quintilian are interested in literature as professors who must organize a field for presentation to students; and as is frequently the case, the result is apt to become arid, schematic, and lifeless. In his criticism of individual poems, also, Ascham praises the authors less for creative power than for adherence to certain formal tests. Watson's _Absolon_ and Buchanan's _Iephthe_ he considers the best tragedies of his age because only they can "abide the trew touch" of Aristotle's precepts and Euripides's example. They were good because they were according to rule, and in imitation of good models.[195] Watson he especially praises for his refusal to publish _Absolon_ because in several places an anapest was subst.i.tuted for an iambus. Thus far we have the influence of cla.s.sical rhetoric urging as an ideal for poetry formal correctness.

The rhetoric of Gascoigne, however, was not derived from the cla.s.sical treatises, but from the middle ages. His _Certayne Notes of Instruction_ (1575) marks the beginning of the period of metrical studies. Now in the English middle ages, prosody had consistently been treated as a part of grammar, following the cla.s.sical tradition; but in France prosody had regularly been discussed in treatises bearing the name of rhetoric. As Spingarn has shown, this tradition of the French middle ages persisted in the works of Du Bellay and Ronsard, whose works in turn inspired Gascoigne.[196]

Following Ronsard, Gascoigne devotes a great deal of attention to what, borrowing the terminology of rhetoric, he calls "invention." But whereas Ronsard had meant by invention high, grand, and beautiful conceptions, Gascoigne means "some good and fine devise, shewing the quicke capacitie of a writer." That Gascoigne takes invention to mean a search for fancies is ill.u.s.trated by his own example.