Ronsard refers early to the relation of lyric to music. Except for a few such references, he has been content to gather commonplaces on style. The only importance of the treatise is in showing one of the foremost sixteenth-century poets driven, when asked for theory, as it were inevitably to rhetoric.
Tasso’s poetic, on the other hand, is the most serious, concise, and penetrative of the Renaissance. Composed in 1568 and 1570 to be read before the Ferrara Academy, the Discorsi dell’arte poetica ed in particolare sopra il poema eroico were later amplified, in Poema eroico c. 1590 and Discorsi dell’arte poetica, 1587, for Tasso’s theory was no less studious than his practice. Though he too uses the headings of rhetoric inventio and dispositio, he applies them to distinctively poetic conception and poetic movement. For he discusses poetic specifically and consistently as movement and as poetic movement. The inspiration is the Poetic of Aristotle. Working independently, Tasso grasped Aristotle’s animating ideas at about the same time as Castelvetro in his illuminating commentary (1570).[58] The following references are to Solerti’s edition of the Discorsi (1901).
The epic poet should move in his own Christian faith and history, not among pagan deities and rites (12). His field must not be too large (23-25); his narrative scheme (favola), as Aristotle says, must be entire, of manageable scope, and single (28). For unity (33), in spite of critical disputes, in spite of Ariosto’s success without it and of Trissino’s failure with it, is vital. Ariosto prevails (46) not through lack of unity, but because of his excellence in other directions. Variety (47) is desirable only if it does not risk confusion; and, properly considered, it is compatible with unity. [A clear and just rebuttal; there is no value in variety unless there is something from which to vary.]
Part III (Style), opening with the rhetorical tradition of the “three styles,” finds the third, magnifico (the Latin grande), appropriate to epic (52). [Tasso’s own practice of magnifico is neither florid nor dilated.] Ariosto’s style is medium; Trissino’s, tenue. Tragedy (53), relying oftener on specific words (proprio), is less magnifico; lyric is more flowered and adorned; epic, though ranging between the two, is normally magnifico.
Adding (55-60) a summary of the rhetoric of style, including figures, Tasso finds Boccaccio’s prose over-rhythmical. His appreciation of the force of exact words in Dante is refreshing after the earlier disparagement. He closes with an illuminating comparison (63) of epic style in Vergil with lyric in Petrarch.
Even contributions so distinctive as these are less important than the work as a whole. Tasso’s treatise is so consecutive and so well knit as to be worth more than the sum of its parts. Alike in his order and in his sentences he is firmer and more severe than his time. These Discorsi are carefully planned and adjusted for teaching. They seek neither the conversational ease of Castiglione nor the seriatim analysis of Macchiavelli; and they are far removed from the discursive suggestions of Montaigne. They constitute a reasoned, consecutive poetic.
11. SIDNEY
Sidney’s Defense of Poesy (about 1583; edited by Albert S. Cook, Boston, 1890) exhibits its moral function from mere moralizing, through winsome teaching, to incitement toward higher living.
The reminiscences of rhetoric are not accidental. Sidney makes the usual Renaissance transfer to poetry of the traditional threefold function of oratory: to teach, to delight, to move (9, 11, 13, 22, 26). Toward the end (55) he apologizes. “But what! methinks I deserve to be pounded [imprisoned] for straying from poetry to oratory. But both have such an affinity in the wordish consideration ...” [i.e., in diction; but the main defect of the treatise is in leaving vague the distinctive character of poetic composition].