Renaissance literary theory and practice

by Charles Sears Baldwin

Copyright, 1939
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Reprinted, 1959
By Permission of
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

BEATO THOMAE MORO
JVDICI
CVI STILVM ANGLICVM
LATINE REGENTI
PERSTABAT IN REGIA
QVAESTIONE PAX ROMANA

INTRODUCTION

When he died in 1936 Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition at Columbia University, left the unpublished manuscript which here appears in print. At the request of his family, I undertook to prepare the manuscript for publication and see it through the press. As a devoted student, colleague, and friend I have been happy to do so.

Baldwin’s Renaissance Literary Theory and Practice takes its place as the continuation of his previously published studies: Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic (1924) and Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (1928), both published by the Macmillan Company. It takes up the story where Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic left off in 1400 and carries it on to 1600.

The first sentences of his preface to the first study suggest that Baldwin had the present study in mind before 1924. “To interpret ancient rhetoric and poetic afresh from typical theory and practice is the first step toward interpreting those traditions of criticism which were most influential in the Middle Age. Medieval rhetoric and poetic, in turn, prepare for a clearer comprehension of the Renaissance renewal of allegiance to antiquity.”