Renaissance literary theory and practice

by Charles Sears Baldwin

Since my object is to write something useful to him who understands it, I have thought it more fitting to follow rather the effectual truth of the thing itself than its concept [immaginazione] (Opening of xv).

His name soon became a byword; for Englishmen and Frenchmen found it easier to denounce Italian statecraft than to explain wherein their own was different. Formulated for Italian despots, his doctrine that the safety and independence of the state are paramount over any consideration of justice or mercy became more and more sinister in terms of the rising new national monarchs beyond his ken. In the composition of the whole Macchiavelli was still young. He had not yet achieved the sure control felt in his Istorie fiorentine. Masterly already in expository analysis, eloquent in its close, the Principe has not a compelling logical sequence.

In sequence and in detail the Cortegiano is more mature than Macchiavelli’s Principe. Castiglione kept it by him ten years. The final revision (Codex Laurentianus, Rome, 1524) was published at Florence in 1528. All this care left the diction unpretentious. Scholarly without pedantry, Castiglione even forestalls the Tuscans by openly proclaiming his right to Lombard words. “I have written in my own tongue, and as I speak, and to those who speak as I do.” Thinking often of rhetoric, feeling the Latin period and attentive to clausula, he applies his lore to Italian sentences without stiffness or formality, happily reconciling gravity with ease. Encomium, inevitable in his subject and his time, is oftener implied than dilated. The plan of the dialogue is taken from Cicero’s De oratore. Reminiscence in detail is negligible. Castiglione’s imitation is not the common Renaissance borrowing of passages; it is the adaptation of Cicero’s plan for presenting the typical Roman statesman to survey of the typical Italian. Thus the dialogue is Ciceronian in proceeding logically from point to point. Within the frame of Cicero the conduct of the book expands the dialogue toward conversation. This is not dramatic dialogue; nor is it imitation of the Platonic quest. Rather Castiglione’s intention was to realize the human scene, to flavor the point with the speaker; and his achievement in suggesting the gracious interchange of the court of Urbino has been found quite as significant as the conclusions of his debates.

For the Cortegiano is one of the few Renaissance books that have endured the test of time. Details of place and time have been made to carry so much larger human suggestion that it has been reprinted again and again; it has been widely translated; it has today an audience not only of special students, but of the many more who love literature. Though the very term “courtier” is obsolete, though the particular social function soon faded, the book endures. It is not only the best of Renaissance dialogues; it is a classic.

The Utopia (1516) of Sir Thomas More, beginning as a dialogue on certain social evils in England, passes to descriptive exposition of a state organized and operated solely for the common weal. Though the name Utopia means “nowhere,” this polity is described as the actual experience of a returned traveler. The literary form is thus reminiscent of Lucian, whom More ten years before had translated with Erasmus. It is reminiscent also of Plato, of the travelers’ tales popular in that age of discovery and explanation, and more faintly of those distant or fortunate isles (îles lointaines) which had often been posed as abodes of idealized communities. But though these hints were doubtless intended, they are incidental. They fade as we read on.

Unfortunately for More’s literary reputation, most of us read his best-known book only in a pedestrian translation (Ralph Robinson, 1551; second edition, 1556). Keeping much of the vivacity of the diction, this is quite unequal to More’s flexible Latin rhythms.[84] For More, as for Poliziano and Leonardo Aretino, Erasmus and Buchanan, Latin was a primary language. But whereas Erasmus had, so to speak, no effective vernacular, More’s literary achievement in English is both distinguished in itself and ahead of his time. In spite of some uncertain ascriptions, we may be fairly sure that the English version of his Richard III,[85] as well as the Latin, is his own.

Continued discussion of the prince and the state moved Sir Thomas Elyot (1490?-1546) to make an English compilation for the widening circle of readers, The Governour (1531, ed. H. S. Croft, London, 1883, 2 vols.). “I have nowe enterprised,” he says in a proem to Henry VIII, “to describe in our vulgare tunge the fourme of a juste publike weale, whiche mater I have gathered as well of the sayenges of moste noble autours (grekes and latynes) as by myne owne experience.” But the “governour” and the “juste publike weale” receive no consistent discussion.

The opening chapters, postulating order, proceed thence to honour (i.e., rank), and so to one sovereign. Their review of history is very slight; and from Chapter iv Book I is occupied rather with the education of a gentleman. Book II is composed mainly of exempla to illustrate the virtues appropriate to high position; and Book III adds little more than further classified aggregation.