L. Castelvetro.
While Fracastoro strives to elaborate the important passage in Aristotle touching the universal of poetry, and though somewhat vague in his treatment, keeps fairly close to the mark; Castelvetro, on the contrary, judges the Aristotelian fragment with the freedom and superior knowledge of the true critic. He recognizes that the Poetics is merely a notebook recording certain principles and methods of compiling the art, not the art fully compiled. He remarks, moreover, not without logical acumen, that Aristotle having adopted the criterion of probability or of that "which presents an appearance of historic truth," should have applied his theory in the first case to history, not to poetry; for history being a "narrative according to truth of memorable human actions," and poetry a narrative according to probability of events which might possibly occur, the second cannot receive "all its radiance" from the first. Nor does it escape him that Aristotle describes two different things by the one word "imitation": (a) "following the example of another," which is "acting in exactly the same way as another without knowing the reason of such action": and (b) the imitation "demanded by poetry," which "does things in a manner totally different from that in which they have been done hitherto and proposes a new example for imitation." Nevertheless Castelvetro cannot extricate himself from the confusion between the imaginary and the historical; for he himself says "the realm of the former is generally that of certainty," but "the field of certainty is often crossed with bars of uncertainty just as the field of uncertainty is often crossed with bars of certainty." Also what can be said of this curious interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of pleasure experienced in the imitation of ugly models, that such pleasure is based on the fact that since an imitation is always imperfect, it is incapable of exciting the disgust and fear which would arise from the contemplation of real ugliness? And what of his remark that the characteristics of painting and poetry are so diverse as to be in opposition one to the other; imitation of objects giving rise to great pleasure in the former art and as great displeasure in the latter? And so on in numberless cases of bold but scarcely felicitous subtleties.[29]
Piccolomini and Pinciano.
In opposition to Robortelli, who asserted the identity of the probable and the false, Piccolomini held that the probable (verisimile) is inherently neither false nor true, only by accident becoming one or other.[30] Of the same mind is the Spaniard Alfonso Lopez Pinciano (1596), who says the scope of poetry "no es la mentira, que seria coincider con la sophística, ni la historia que seria tomar la materia al histórico; y no siendo historia porque toca fabúlas ni mentira porque toca historia, tiene por objeto el verisimil, que todo lo abraza. De aqui resulta que es un arte superior á la metaphysica, porqué comprende mucho mas, y se extiende a lo que es y á lo que no es."[31] What may lie behind this notion of probability is still indefinite and impenetrable.
Fr. Patrizzi (Patricius).
Moved by a wish to place poetry on a foundation other than the probable, Francesco Patrizzi, the anti-Aristotelian, composed his Poetica between 1555 and 1586 in refutation of all Aristotle's main doctrines. Patrizzi notes that the word "imitation" is given many meanings by the Greek philosopher, who uses it now to denote a single word, now to describe a tragedy; at times it stands for a figure of speech, at others for a fiction: whence he draws the logical conclusion (from which, however, he shrinks alarmed) "that all philosophic and other kinds of writing and speaking are poetry, since they are made of words which themselves are imitations." He observes further that, according to Aristotle, it is impossible to distinguish between poetry and history (since both are imitations), or to prove that verse is not essential to poetry, or that history, science and art are unsuitable material for it; since Aristotle in several passages says that poetry may comprise "fable, actual occurrences, belief of others, duty, the best, necessity, the possible, the probable, the credible, the incredible, the suitable" as well as "all things worldly." After these objections, some sound, others sophistical, Patrizzi comes to the conclusion that "there is no truth in the dogma that poetry is wholly imitation; and even if it be imitation at all, it belongs not to poets alone, nor is it mere imitation of any kind, but something else not mentioned by Aristotle nor pointed out by any one else, nor yet borne into the mind of man. The discovery may possibly be made in course of time, or some one may hit upon the truth and bring it to light"; but up to the present "such discovery has not been made."[32]
Yet these confessions of ignorance, these endeavours, though vain, to escape from the Aristotelian circle of ideas, and the great literary controversies of the sixteenth century concerning the concept of poetic truth and the probable had their use in that they stimulated interest by directing attention to a mystery still unsolved. Thought had once more begun to move upon the æsthetic problem, and this time it was not destined to be broken off or to lose itself.
[1] Confess, iv. x. ch. 13; De Trinitate, vi. ch. 10; Epist. 3, 18; De civitate Dei, xxii. ch. 19 (in Opera, ed. dei Maurini, Paris, 1679-1690, vols. i. ii. vii. viii.).
[2] Summa theol. I. 1. xxxix. 8; I. 11. xxvii. I (ed. Migne, i. cols. 794-795; ii. col. 219).