Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance / A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism

by Donald Lemen Clark

Strabo in a famous passage records an exceptional hedonism in Greek thought and goes on to expound the conventional belief.

Eratosthenes says that the poet directs his whole attention to the amusement of the mind, and not at all to its instruction. In opposition to this idea, the ancients define poesy as a primitive philosophy, guiding our life from infancy, and pleasantly regulating our morals, our tastes, and our actions. The Stoics of our day affirm that the only wise man is the poet. On this account the earliest lessons which the citizens of Greece convey to their children are from the poets; certainly not for the purpose of amusing their minds, but for their instruction.[[289]]

This same moral and educational view of poetry so permeates Plutarch's essay On the Study of Poetry that it is difficult to quote from him without reproducing the whole treatise. The young man who is being taught poetry, Plutarch believes, should be made "to indulge in pleasure merely as a relish, and to seek for the useful and the wholesome,"[[290]] in his reading. Some believe that, because some of the pleasures of poetry are pernicious, young men should not be allowed to read. This, Plutarch believes, would be every whit as foolish as to cut down the vineyards because some people are addicted to drunkenness. Young men should be taught to use poetry intelligently. "Poetry is not to be scrupulously avoided by those who intend to be philosophers, but they are to make poetry a fitting school for philosophers, by forming the habit of seeking and gaining the profitable in the pleasant."[[291]] The profit of poetry he believes to come from two sources: maxims and examples. He praises very highly such sententiae as "Virtue keeps its luster untarnished," and "know thyself."[[292]] Indeed, the moral value of such precepts weighed so heavily with Plutarch that he advocated emending the poets to bring them in more strict accord with the ethics of the Stoic philosophy. For instance:

Thus, why not change such a passage as this, "That man is to be envied who so aims as to hit his wish," to read, "who so aims as to hit his advantage"? for to get and have things wrongly desired merits pity, not envy.[[293]]

But greater than the moral value of maxims in the poets is that of example. "Philosophers employ examples from history for our correction and instruction, and the poets differ from them only by inventing and presenting fictitious narratives."[[294]] For instance, according to Plutarch, Homer introduces the story of Hera's vain endeavor to gain her ends from Zeus by means of wine and the girdle of Aphrodite to show that such conduct is not only immoral, but useless. Again we may conclude that frequenting women in the day time is a shame and a reproach because the only man who does such a thing in the Iliad is that lascivious and adulterous fellow Paris.[[295]] It is interesting that this essay of Plutarch's, which gives probably the most complete classical exposition of the moral use of poetry, should have been well known in the renaissance and translated into English by Philemon Holland in 1603.

The Romans had very much the same feeling about the moral value in poetry as had the Greeks. The only fundamental difference lay in that the Roman was less philosophical and more practical. This practical element in Roman criticism is well illustrated by Horace, whose statements have sometimes been made to support opinions which Horace did not hold. Let it be noted, for one thing, that Horace is talking not about the purpose of poetry, but about the purpose of the poet.

Poets desire either to profit or to delight, or to tell things which are at once pleasant and profitable.

His reason for favoring the third view is important.

Old men reject poems which are void of instruction; the knights neglect austere poems: he who mixes the useful with the sweet wins the approval of all by delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This book makes money for the book-sellers, and passes over the sea, and prolongs the reputation of the well-known author.[[296]]

But aside from the desirability of mingling pleasure with profit in his poetry in order to gain the greatest popularity, the poet does have an educational value in the training of youths by presenting in an attractive manner examples of noble conduct which the young people may desire to emulate.