Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance. Donald Lemen Clark
study. Two points, however, are of importance to treat here: his theory of poetical imitation, and his comparison of poetry with painting.
The "imitation" of Plutarch was far narrower than that of Aristotle. To Plutarch, imitation meant a naturalistic copy of things as they are. "While poetry is based on imitations … it does not resign the likeness of the truth, since the charm of imitation is probability."[35] As a result of his naturalism, Plutarch admitted as appropriate poetical material immorality and obscenity as well as virtue, because these things are in life. If the copy is good, the poem is artistic and praiseworthy, just as a painting of a venomous spider, if a faithful representation of its loathsome subject, is praised for its art.
Perhaps it was Plutarch's naturalistic theory of imitation in poetry which led him to compare poetry with painting. This he does in what he says was a common phrase that "poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent poetry."[36] The false analogy, "ut pictura poesis," establishing, as it does, a sanction in criticism for the static in drama, flourished until Lessing exposed it in his Laocoon. Aristotle at the beginning had made clear that the essential element in drama is movement, a movement which could have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
4. Horace
The remains of Roman literary criticism are not so philosophical as are the Greek. The treatise of Horace is not in Aristotle's sense a poetic; it is an ars poetica. Ars, to the Roman, meant a body of rules which a practitioner would find useful as a guide in composing. As a practitioner himself, Horace is more interested in the craft of poetry than in its philosophy or theory. He writes as a poet to young men who desire to become poets. The essence of poetry he ignores or takes for granted. He says, in effect, "Here are some practical suggestions which I have found of assistance."
In structure, also, the ars poetica is not a critical analysis, but a text-book. The first ninety-eight lines cover the fundamental considerations which the poet must have in mind before he starts to compose. He should choose a subject he can handle; he should plan it so that it be unified and coherent, and have each element in the right place; he should choose words in good use, and write in an appropriate meter.
The subject of the second section is the Roman theatre. From line 99 to line 288, Horace devotes his attention to the rules governing the writing of tragedy. This is significant, again, of the classical opinion that the most important poetical form is drama. Whatever differences there are between the views of Aristotle, Longinus, and Horace, they all agree in that. In his treatment of characters and plot, however, Horace places his emphasis on character, while Aristotle had emphasized plot. Of plot Horace says little, only suggesting that the poet should not begin ab ovo but plunge at once into the midst of the action. Concerning character he says much. The language should be appropriate to the emotions supposed to be animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode presented on the stage is more vivid than if it were narrated as having taken place off stage, horrors and murders should be kept off lest they offend.
The third section of the book is mainly concerned with revision. This is good pedagogy, for advice as to how to improve sentences or verses is appropriate only after the sentences have been planned and written. Besides urging the young poet to revise and correct his manuscript carefully, to put it aside nine years, and to seek the criticism of a sincere friend, Horace considers the value of the finished product. A poem will please more people if it combines the pleasant with the profitable. If a poem is not really good, it is bad. If the young poet finds that his work is not of high excellence, he would do better not to publish it. A poem is like a picture, Horace says, in that some poems appear to better advantage close up, and others at a distance. It is noteworthy that in his "ut pictura poesis" Horace is not pressing the analogy between the arts as did subsequent critics who quoted his phrase incompletely.
Of the four classical discussions of the theory of poetry which are here treated, that of Horace was best known throughout the middle ages and the early renaissance. Just what the influence of the Ars poetica was and why it was so great a favorite will be discussed in subsequent chapters.
Chapter III
Classical Rhetoric
1. Definitions
The importance of rhetoric in ancient education and public life is reflected in the wealth of rhetorical treatises composed by classical orators and teachers of oratory. An understanding of classical rhetoric can be gained only by a study of its purpose, subject-matter, and content. The Rhetoric of Aristotle has sometimes been called the first rhetoric. In two senses this is not true. Aristotle's contribution to rhetorical theory is not a text-book, but a philosophical treatise, a part of his whole philosophical system. In the second place, even in his day there were many text-books of rhetoric with which Aristotle finds fault for their incomplete and unphilosophical treatment. If the Rhetoric ad Alexandrum, at one time falsely attributed to Aristotle and incorporated in early editions of his works, is typical of the earliest Greek text-books, the failure of the others to survive is fortunate. Aristotle's rhetorical theories superseded those of the early text-books, and through the influence of his Rhetoric and the teaching of his pupil Theophrastus set their seal on subsequent rhetorical theory. In practice as distinct from theory, Isocrates probably had an influence more direct and intense, but briefer.
Definitions
"Rhetoric," says Aristotle, "may be defined as a faculty of discovering all the possible means of persuasion in any subject."[37]
He compares rhetoric with medicine; for the purpose of medicine, he believes, is not "to restore a person to perfect health but only to bring him to as high a point of health as possible."[38] Neither medicine nor rhetoric can promise achievement, for in either case there is always something incalculable.
Although Aristotle, with philosophical caution, was careful to state that the function of rhetoric is not to persuade but to discover the available means of persuasion,[39] his successors were more direct, if less accurate. Hermagoras affirms that the purpose of rhetoric is persuasion,[40] and Dionysius of Halicarnassus defines rhetoric as the artistic mastery of persuasive speech in communal affairs.[41] But the anonymous author of the Latin rhetorical treatise addressed to C. Herennius, long believed to be the work of Cicero, qualifies this by defining the purpose of rhetoric as "so to speak as to gain the assent of the audience as far as possible."[42] And the sum of Cicero's opinion is that the office of the orator is to speak in a way adapted to win the assent of his audience.[43] In his definition of rhetoric Quintilian makes a departure from the habits of his predecessors by defining rhetoric as the ars bene dicendi, or good public speech.[44] Here the bene implies not only effectiveness, but moral worth; for in Quintilian's conception the orator is a good man skilled in public speech, and there are times when, as in the case of Socrates, who refused to defend himself, to persuade would be dishonorable.[45] Quintilian's precepts, however, are more in line with Aristotle than his definition. He busies himself throughout twelve books in teaching his students how to use all possible means to persuasion. The consensus of classical opinion, then, agrees that the purpose of rhetoric is persuasive public speaking.
2. Subject Matter
If then the purpose of classical rhetoric was to come as near persuasion as it could, what was its subject matter? Aristotle, following Plato,[46] says in his definition "any subject," for any subject can be made persuasive. But this was too philosophical for his contemporaries and successors, who saw in their own environment that in practice rhetoric was almost entirely concerned with persuading a jury that certain things were or