Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance Part 9

His ill.u.s.trations of a fable show that he is talking about allegory. For instance, the fable of the centaur was invented to show, by the union of man and horse, the swiftness of human life.

It is very natural, then, that Dante should as the supreme poet of the middle ages furnish the supreme example of allegory. In the _Convivio_ (c.

1306), Dante gives a very full and complete exposition of the proper method of interpreting a text. Any writing, he says, should be expounded in four senses. The first is the literal. The second is called the allegorical, and is the one that hides itself under the mantle of these tales, and is a truth hidden under beauteous fiction.[328] The reason this way of hiding was devised by wise men he promises to explain in the fourteenth treatise, which he never wrote. The third sense, he goes on to say, is the moral, as from the fact that Christ took with him but three disciples when he ascended the mountain for the transfiguration we may understand that in secret things we should have but few companions. The fourth sense is the a.n.a.logical. Here the text may be literally true, but contain a spiritual significance beyond. That to Dante, however, all but the literal sense naturally coalesced as the allegorical is quite clear from the close of the chapter and from the letter to Can Grande, in which he discusses the interpretations of his _Commedia_. "Although these mystic senses are called by various names, they may all in general be called allegorical."[329] That the "beauteous fiction," the _bella menzogna_, of allegory is rhetorical in origin is clear from a pa.s.sage in the _Vita Nuova_. Dante is defending his personification of Love as one walking, speaking and laughing on the a.s.sumption that as a poet he is licensed to use figures or rhetorical colorings. These colorings, however, must have a true but hidden significance. The rhetorical figures are a garment to clothe the nakedness of truth.[330]

2. Allegory in Mediaeval England

England as well as Italy furnished a congenial soil for allegory in the thirteenth century. In his _Poetria_, John of Garland[331] explains allegorically an "elegiac, bucolic, ethic, love poem" which he quotes.

"Under the guise of the nymph," he says, "is figured forth the flesh; under that of the corrupt youth, the world or the devil; under that of the friend, reason."[332] In another ill.u.s.trative poem, this time introduced to show the proper use of the six parts of an oration, John inserts between the "_confirmacio_," and the "_confutacio_," an "_expositio mistica_" in which the Trojan War is allegorized in this fashion: "The fury of Eacides is the ire of Satan," etc.[333]

As late as 1506 Stephen Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ is as mediaeval as the _Romance of the Rose_.[334] In this allegory of the education and love adventures of Grandamour the young man sits at the feet of Dame Rethoryke to be instructed at great length in her art. To none other of the seven liberal arts, in fact, does Hawes devote so much s.p.a.ce. In the chapter on _inventio_, however, the lady seems to have forgotten all about her traditional past, for instead of discussing the method of finding all possible arguments in favor of a case, she discusses the poets, their purpose, and their fame.

The purpose of poetry is to her what it had been throughout the entire period of the middle ages. The poet presents truth under the guise of allegory.

To make of nought reason sentencious Clokynge a trouthe wyth colour tenebrous.

For often under a fayre fayned fable A trouthe appereth gretely profitable.[335]

This, says Dame Rethoryke, has the sanction of antiquity; for the old poets, who are famous for their wisdom and the imaginative power of their invention, p.r.o.nounced truth under cloudy figures. This fortified the poets against sloth.

The special treasure Of new invencion, of ydleness the foo!

Then she addresses herself directly to the poets to laud their virtues.

Your hole desyre was set Fables to fayne to eschewe ydleness,...

To dysnull vyce and the vycious to blame.

Furthermore she praises them for recording the honorable deeds of great conquerors and for furnishing the modern poets with such ill.u.s.trious models of the poetic art. This praise of the poets is complementary to a condemnation of the foolish public, whose limited intelligence prevents them from seeing the cloaked truth of the poets. Thus the dull, rude people, when they are unable to understand the moral implications of the poet's allegory, call the poets liars, deceivers, and flatterers. This, she insists, is the fault not of the poets, but of the people. If the people would take the trouble to understand these clouded truths, they would praise and appreciate the moral poets.

The conclusion is not difficult. The mediaeval poets are on the defensive, as their brothers had been through all the past. To justify art, the middle ages had to show its usefulness not only to morals, but to theology. Thus Dame Rethoryke in her talk on _inventio_, is conducting a defense of poetry on the following grounds: it teaches profound truth under the guise of allegory; it blames the vicious and overcomes vice; it is the enemy of sloth; it records the honorable deeds of great men.

The chapter on style only continues the song. It is the art, says Hawes, to cloak the meaning under misty figures of many colors, as the old poets did, who took similitudes from beasts and birds.

And under colour of this beste, pryvely The morall sense they cloake full subtyly.[336]

The poets write, he continues, under a misty cloud of covert likeness. For instance, the poets feign that King Atlas bore the heavens on his shoulders, meaning only that he was unusually versed in high astronomy.

Likewise the story of the centaurs only exemplifies the skill of Mylyzyus in breaking the wildness of the royal steeds. Pluto, Cerberus, and the hydra receive like explanations. The poets feign these fables, of course, to lead the readers out of mischief. A poet to be great must drink of the redolent well of poetry whence flow the four rivers of Understanding, Close-concluding, Novelty, and Carbuncles. These rivers are translatable into: understanding of good and evil, moral purpose, novelty, rhetorical adornment of figures and so forth.

The poets praised--Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate--deserve their fame, he says, for their morality. They cleanse our vices. They kindle our hearts with love of virtue. Lydgate's _Falls of Princes_ is an especially great poem,

A good ensample for us to dispyse This worlde, so ful of mutabilyte.[337]

Other cunning poets are, however, not so praiseworthy. Instead of feigning pleasant and covert fables, they spend their time in vanity, making ballades of fervent love and such like tales and trifles. This, he insists, is an unfruitful manner in which to spend one's efforts.

This unanimous judgment of the middle ages that the purpose of poetry is to teach spiritual truth and inculcate morality under the cloak of allegory was perpetuated far into the renaissance, especially in England, where, as has been shown, the recovery of cla.s.sical culture made slow progress.[338]

Chapter III

Rhetorical Elements in Italian Renaissance Conceptions of the Purpose of Poetry

In his study of the function of poetry in the literary criticism of the Italian renaissance, Spingarn has shown[339] that the characteristic opinions reflect the ideas of Horace in his famous line,

Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae.

The purpose of poetry, they thought, was to please, to instruct, or to combine pleasure and instruction. He goes further to show that with the notable exceptions of Bernardo Ta.s.so and Castelvetro, who claimed no further function for poetry than delight and delight alone, the general conception was ethical. "Even when delight was admitted as an end, it was simply because of its usefulness in effecting the ethical aim.[340]" This chapter, resuming briefly the results of Spingarn's investigations where they help the reader to understand better the situation in English criticism, will bring into sharper relief than has heretofore been done two influences which affected the renaissance view not a little--scholastic philosophy and the cla.s.sical rhetorics.

To St. Thomas Aquinas, logic was the art of arts, because in action we are directed by reason. Thus all arts proceed from it, and rhetoric is a part of it.[341] The Thomistic philosophy which included rhetoric and poetic in logic, whereas Aristotle had cla.s.sified the three arts as coordinate within the same category, seems, says Spingarn, "to have been accepted by the scholastic philosophers of the middle ages."[342] The appearance of this scholastic grouping in the renaissance criticism is parallel with a gradual abandonment of the popular mediaeval preoccupation with allegory, in favor of the cla.s.sical view which considered example as the best vehicle for moral improvement.

In the age of the Medicis, when refined courts of Italy were so greatly delighted at the recovery of the least edifying literary monuments of cla.s.sical antiquity, allegorical interpretation had probably so often become but a cloak for licentiousness in poetry that it was becoming discredited. At any rate, Loyola rejected allegorical interpretation of cla.s.sical literature for the Jesuit colleges. He based moral education on example, and expurgated any element which he thought might have a pernicious effect on young people. For instance, except in the most advanced cla.s.s, the Dido episode was deleted from the _aeneid_.[343]

Savonarola rejected allegory and considered logic, rhetoric, and poetic as parts of philosophy. Logic proceeds by induction and syllogism, rhetoric by the enthymeme, and poetic by the example. Therefore the office of the poet is to teach by examples, to induce men to virtuous living by fitting representations. Because our minds delight greatly in song and harmony, the early poets used meter and rhythm better to incline the soul of man to virtue and morality. It is impossible, however, for a person ignorant of logic to be a true poet. A mere concern with rhythm and the composition of sentences profits nothing, for what is the use of painting and decorating a ship if it is going to be swamped in the storm and never come to port?

The poets who endeavor to place their poems on a par with the Scriptures overlook the fact that only the sacred writings can have an allegorical, parabolical or spiritual meaning. Since Dante had made all these claims, the inference is that Savonarola declined to accept poetry as part of theology, and rejected both Dante and the popular mediaeval tradition.

Poets, he goes on to say, use metaphors because of the weakness of their material. If you took away the verbal ornament, you would not read the poets, because there would be nothing left. The theologian uses metaphor only as an adornment to his solid matter. The poet who sings of love, praises idols, and narrates lies has a very bad effect on young men. He incites to l.u.s.t and immorality. But poets who describe in verses moral actions and the deeds of brave men should not on that account be condemned.[344]

1. The Scholastic Grouping of Poetic, Rhetoric and Logic

The scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic which Savonarola derived from St. Thomas Aquinas[345] persisted for four centuries, rejuvenated by contact with the richer cla.s.sical scholarship of the renaissance. B. Lombardus, for instance, in his preface to Maggi's edition of Aristotle's _Poetics_ (1550), differentiates logic, rhetoric, and poetic by the same criteria. Logic, he says, proves by syllogism, and in this is different from both rhetoric and poetic, which use enthymeme and example as more appropriate to a popular audience, while poetic uses example almost entirely and scarcely ever enthymeme.[346]

Spingarn calls attention to a similar distinction in the _Lezione_ (1553) of Benedetto Varchi. Varchi says:

Just as the logician uses for his means the n.o.blest of all instruments, that is, demonstration or the demonstrative syllogism; so the dialectician, the topical syllogism; and the sophist, the sophistical, that is, the apparent and deceitful; the rhetorician, the enthymeme, and the poet, the example, which is the least worthy of all. So the subject of poetry is the feigned fable and the fabulous, and its means or instrument is the example.[347]

This has its ultimate source in the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle, who made the following distinction between logic and rhetoric: Logic aims at demonstration by the syllogism and by induction; rhetoric aims at persuasion by the enthymeme and the example. The enthymeme is a rhetorical syllogism, usually with the conclusion or either premise unexpressed. Moreover the premises of an enthymeme are likely to rest on opinion rather than on axioms. The example is a rhetorical induction, usually from fewer cases than are necessary to scientific induction.[348]

The same scholastic grouping of logic, rhetoric, and poetic appears in the treatise _On the Nature of the Art of Poetry_ (1647) of the Dutch scholar Vossius, who writes:

As rhetoric is called by Aristotle the counterpart of dialect and that especially because it teaches the manner by which enthymemes may be utilized in communal matters, without a doubt poetic is also to be thought a part of logic, because it discloses the use of examples in fict.i.tious matters.... But rhetoric and poetic seek not only to prove something, but also to delight; they seek not only understanding, but action as well. Wherefore poetic has this in common with rhetoric; that both are the servants of the state.[349]

Vossius thus, like Scaliger, makes poetic and rhetoric one in their end to promote desirable action.

How persistent is this rhetorical view of poetry is well ill.u.s.trated by the _Ars Rhetorica_ of the Jesuit Martin Du Cygne, first published in 1666, and still used as a text-book in Georgetown University. He is discussing the three kinds of argument: syllogism, enthymeme, and example, or induction.

Induction is delightful and is appropriate to an ignorant audience because of its similitudes and examples. This argument is frequently used by rhetoricians and poets, especially Ovid; because it explains attractively and clearly.[350]

Thus the grouping of poetic with rhetoric and logic naturally tended to make it partake more and more of the nature of the other two. All of them were taken to be occupied with proving something in an effort to make other people good. They differed only because they used different kinds of proof.

2. The Influence of the Cla.s.sical Rhetorics