Thus Sidney's Defense of Poesie, by domesticating in England the Aristotelian theories of the Italian critics, went far in displacing mediaeval tradition by sounder classical criticism. To object that Sidney's criticism contains elements which derive from the middle ages and from the classical rhetorics would be captious. It is asking too much to expect that a man can shake off at once the traditional habits of thought which are part of the air he breathes. The important thing is that Sidney instituted a tendency toward classicism which during the next fifty years established itself in criticism. That this classicism tended in some cases toward over-emphasis does not alter the fact that English criticism profited greatly by the return to classical poetical theory. It is interesting, however, that Sidney's influence did not at once dislodge the mediaeval tradition. Although the manuals of Webbe and Puttenham do show classical influence, their theories of poetry still show a notable residuum of theory characteristically mediaeval.
4. Manuals for Poets
Before William Webbe wrote his Discourse of English Poetry (1586) there had been no attempt in England to compose a systematic and comprehensive study of the art. The rhetorical studies of Ascham and Wilson merely glanced at poetry as something related to rhetoric. Gascoigne and James attempted no more than manuals of prosody. Lodge and Harington were primarily interested in justifying poetry on moral grounds against the Puritan attack; and Sidney, though he goes beyond this, still keeps it as a main object. In his Discourse Webbe modestly asserts that his purpose in writing is primarily to stir up some one better than he to write on English poetry so that proper criteria of judgment may be established to discern between good writers and bad, and that the poets may thereby be aided in the right practice and orderly course of true poetry. If as much attention were devoted in England to poetry as to oratory, he thinks, poetry would be in as good state as her sister "Rhetoricall Eloquution, as they were by byrth Twyns, by kinde the same, by original of one descent."[[228]] As an example of the high degree of excellence attained by eloquence, he cites Lyly's Euphues.
Whose workes surely in respecte of his singuler eloquence and brave composition of apt words and sentences, let the learned examine and make tryall thereof through all the partes of Rethoricke, in fitte phrases, in pithy sentences, in gallant tropes, in flowing speech, in plaine sence.[[229]]
Thus rhetoric is considered merely as style; and the implication seems to be that the poets who would improve their style might well imitate Lyly. Webbe evidently means what he says in identifying poetry and rhetoric in style. He adds:
Thus it appeareth both Eloquence and Poetrie to have had their beginning and original from these exercises, beeing framed in such sweete measure of sentences and pleasant harmonie called ῥυθμός which is an apt composition of wordes or clauses, drawing as it were by force the hearers eares even whether soever it lysteth, that Plato affirmeth therein to be contained γοητεία, an inchantment, as it were to persuade.[[230]]
The confusion thus is carried pretty far by Webbe, who makes poetry and rhetoric the same in style, both aiming at persuasion. Not only have poetic and rhetoric for him a common ground in diction, but the ideal of diction is the same for both. The diction of poetry is the same as the diction of oratory. The only difference to him is that poetry is in verse and oratory in prose.
Poetry, therefore, is where any worke is learnedly compiled in measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity--commonly called verse, as by the skylfull handling of the matter.[[231]]
Webbe organizes his treatise in good rhetorical fashion. First come seventeen pages of history, mentioning with perfunctory comment the best known poets of classical antiquity and of England. The remainder of the Discourse is devoted to the theory of poetry, which he divides into matter and form. Matter, which receives nineteen pages, is the mediæval doctrina, for the whole gist of this section is that moral lessons are derivable from the poets. By form he means verse, making no mention of the figures of speech. English rimes receive half of this space, and classical meters the remainder. Webbe's fund of critical opinion is not opulent. His treatise is based on traditional English opinion of the middle ages, with an increment of Horace, of whom he thinks so highly as to append to his treatise an English translation of the "Cannons or generall cautions of poetry," which Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis (1560) had digested from the Ars Poetica, and the Epistles.
Perhaps the author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589), generally supposed to be Puttenham, had in mind to be the some-one-better-than-Webbe, whom that worthy tutor hoped to stir up to write a treatise for the benefit of poetry in England. At any rate, Puttenham is primarily concerned with teaching his contemporaries how to write verses. Like classical authors of text-books, he calls his treatise an "Arte." Furthermore, as a courtier himself writing for courtiers, Puttenham does not lay down rules for the drama or the epic, but devotes most of his attention to occasional verse: lyrics, elegies, epigrams, and satires. His structure is significant. The first book, 58 pages in the Arber reprint, deals with definition, purpose and subject matter of poetry. The poet, he says, is a maker who creates new forms out of his inner consciousness, and at the same time an imitator. Thus he reconciles Aristotle and Horace.[[232]] Moreover, Puttenham calls attention to the importance of the imagination in the composition of poetry as well as in war, engineering and politics.[[234]] That the art of poetry is eminently teachable, Puttenham is entirely convinced, for he defines it as a skill appertaining to utterance, or as a certain order of rules prescribed by reason and gathered by experience.[[233]] It is verse, according to Puttenham, not imitation, which is the characteristic mark of poetry. This makes poetry a nobler form, for verse is "a manner of utterance more eloquent and rethorical then the ordinarie prose, because it is decked and set out with all manner of fresh colours and figures, which maketh that it sooner invegleth the judgment of man." It is because poetry is thus so beautiful, he says, that "the Poets were also from the beginning the best persuaders, and their eloquence the first Rethoricke of the world."[[235]] Rhetoric to Puttenham is beauty of speech: and because poetry is more beautiful than prose, as being in this sense more rhetorical, it is better able to persuade. The remainder of the book explains the nature and history of the various poetical forms, as lyric, epic, tragedy, pastoral, and so on. The second book, Of Proportion, 70 pages, is a treatise on metrics. The first half, like the section in Webbe, is devoted to English versing, dealing with stanza forms, meters, rime, and conceited figures such as anagrams and verses in the form of eggs. The second half is devoted to classical meters. In his third book, Of Ornament, 165 pages, Puttenham gives an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the figures of speech. Of the 121 figures which Puttenham defines and illustrates, Professor Van Hook has traced 107 to Quintilian's rhetoric[[236]]. Professor Schelling refuses to treat this third book in his Poetic and Verse Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth, because, he says, it does not fall within the scope of his purpose, being made up of matters rhetorical, as applicable to prose as to verse[[237]]. That Puttenham did include it, however, is most significant evidence that both the author and his reading public considered these adornments an essential part of poetry. As the ladies of the court, be they ever so beautiful, should be ashamed to be seen without their courtly habiliments of silks, and tissues, and costly embroideries, even so poetry cannot be seen if any limb be left naked and bare and not clad in gay clothes and colors, says Puttenham.