A philosopher, Giordano Bruno, entered the lists against the "regulators of poetry": rules, said he, are derived from poetry: "there are as many genera and species of true rules as there are genera and species of true poets"; such an individualization of kinds dealt them a deathblow. "How then" (asks the interlocutory opponent) "shall veritable poets be recognized?" "By their singing of verse" (answers Bruno); "of that which, being sung, either delights or instructs, or delights and instructs at the same time."[20] In much the same way Guarini defended his Pastor fido in 1588, declaring "the world is the judge of poets; against its sentence there is no appeal."[21]
Spanish critics.
Amongst European countries, Spain was perhaps the sturdiest in her resistance to the pedantic theories of the writers of treatises; Spain was the land of freedom in criticism from Vives to Feijóo, from the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century when decadence of the old Spanish spirit allowed Luzán, with others, to introduce neo-classical poetry of Italian and French origin.[22] That rules must change with the times and with actual conditions; that modern literature demands modern poetics; that work carried out contrary to established rule does not signify that it is contrary to all rule or unwilling to submit itself to a higher law; that nature should give, not receive, laws; that the laws of the three unities are as ridiculous as it would be to forbid a painter to paint a large landscape in a small picture; that the pleasure, taste, approbation of readers and spectators are the deciding element in the long run; that notwithstanding the laws of counterpoint, the ear is the true judge of music; these affirmations and many like them are frequent in Spanish criticism of the period. One critic, Francisco de la Barreda (1622), went so far as to compassionate the strong wits of Italy bound by fear and cowardice (temerosos y acobardados) to rules that hampered them on every side;[23] he may have been thinking of Tasso, a memorable case of such degradation. Lope de Vega wavered between neglect of rules in practice, and obsequious acceptance of them in theory, alleging in excuse for his conduct that he was forced to yield to the demands of the public who paid money to see his plays; he said, "when I write my comedies, I lock and double-lock the door against the precept-mongers, that they may not rise up and bear witness against me"; "Art (that is, Poetics) speaks truth which is contradicted by the vulgar ignorant"; "may the rules forgive us when we are induced to violate them."[24] But a contemporary admirer of Lope's work writes of him that "en muchas partes de sus escritos dice que el no guardar el arte antiguo lo hace por conformarse con el gusto de la plebe ... dicelo por su natural modestia, y porqué no atribuya la malicia ignorante à arrogancia lo que es politica perfeccion."[25]
G. B. Marino.
Giambattista Marino also protested "I assert that I have a more thorough knowledge of the rules than have all the pedants in the world; but the only true rule is to know how to break the rules at the right place and time, and to conform with the custom and taste of the day."[26] The drama of Spain, the comedy of art, and other literary novelties of the seventeenth century caused Minturno, Castelvetro and other rigid treatise-writers of the preceding century to be looked at with contemptuous pity as "antiquaries"; this may be seen in Andrea Perucci (1699), the theorist of improvised comedy.[27] Pallavicino criticized the writers on "the disciplines of beautiful speech" on the ground that they "generally base their precepts on observing by experience what things in writers give pleasure, rather than pointing out what would naturally conform to the particular affections and instincts implanted by the Creator in the souls of men."[28]
G. V. Gravina.
A note of distrust towards the fixed kinds may be heard in the Discorso sull' Endimione (1691), wherein Gravina severely blames the "ambitious and miserly precepts" of rhetoricians, and makes the penetrating comment: "No work can see the fight without finding itself confronted by a tribunal of critics specially convened to examine it, and questioned firstly as to its name and nature. Next begins the action which lawyers call prejudicial, and controversy arises as to its status, whether it is a poem, a romance, a tragedy, a comedy, or another of the prescribed kinds. And if the said work have ignored the slightest precept ... they decree forthwith its exile and perpetual banishment. And yet, however they recast and expand their aphorisms, they will never be able to include all the different kinds that can be freshly created by the varied and ceaseless motion of human wit. For this reason I cannot see why we should not free ourselves from this insolent curb on the soaring grandeur of our imaginations, and allow them to follow an open road amongst those immeasurable spaces they are fitted to explore." He remarks on the work of Guidi which forms the subject of his discourse, "I know not whether it be tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, or anything else invented by rhetoricians. It is a representation of the loves of Endymion and Diana. If those terms have sufficient breadth of extension, they will comprehend this work; if they have not, let another be framed (a power which may be granted to any one in so unimportant a matter); if no such term can be invented, let us not, for want of a word, deprive ourselves of a thing so beautiful."[29] These remarks have quite a modern ring, but Gravina can hardly have thought out their implications very deeply, for later on he wrote a special treatise on the rules of the tragic kind.[30] Antonio Conti too declared at times his antagonism towards the rules, but he referred to the Aristotelian rules only.[31]
Fr. Montani.
More courage was displayed by Count Francesco Montani of Pesaro in the polemic roused by Orsi's book against Bouhours; in 1705 he wrote: "I know that there are immutable and eternal rules, founded on such sound good sense and solid reason as will remain unshaken as long as mankind lives. But these rules, whose incorruptibility gives them authority to guide our spirits to the end of time, are rare enough to be counted with the nose, and it seems to me somewhat arbitrary to claim to test and regulate our new works by old laws now wholly abrogated and annulled."[32]
Critics of the eighteenth century.