This obvious rhetorical discussion of the use of poetical illustrations by orators leads him to express his conviction of the moral value of poetry. That poetry did have this improving effect he is quite sure.
For undoubtedly there is no one tale among all the Poetes, but under the same is comprehended something that parteineth, either to the amendment of maners, to the knowledge of the trueth to the setting forth of Nature's work, or els the understanding of some notable thing done.... As Plutarch saieth: and likewise Basilius Magnus:[[361]] In the Iliades are described strength, and valiantnesse of the bodie: In the Odissea is set forth a lively paterne of the minde. The Poetes were wisemen, and wished in hart the redresse of things, the which when for feare, they durst not openly rebuke, they did in colours painte them out, and tolde men by shadowes what they should doe in good sooth, or els because the wicked were unworthy to heare the trueth, they spake so that none might understand but those unto whom they please to utter their meaning.[[362]]
Wilson seems to mean not only that poetry has a moral effect, but that the moral value is the main intention. He then proceeds to elucidate the story of Danae as signifying that women have been and will be overcome by money. The story of Io's seduction by the bull shows that beauty may overcome the best of women. From Icarus we should learn that every man should not meddle with things above his compass, and from Midas, to avoid covetousness. As a Protestant he explains St. Christopher and St. George in like manner allegorically.
But Wilson is a rhetorician, not a theorist of poetry; he is not concerned with the moral example as the purpose of poetry. In his section on example as a rhetorical argument he shows how stories and fables may enliven and enforce a point. He illustrates by Pliny's story of the grateful dragon, and by Appian's story of the grateful lion, how a speaker may enlarge on the duty of gratitude among men. But though he does not postulate pleasurable instruction as the aim of poetry, he clearly implies it in his comment on the use of stories in argument.
Nor does Roger Ascham in his Scholemaster, written between 1563-1568 and published posthumously in 1570, concern himself with the purpose of poetry. His interest in poetry seems to be confined to prosody. As a school-master himself he is interested in guiding grammar-school boys in their mastery of Latin prose. "I purpose to teach a yong scholer, to go, not to dance: to speake, not to sing."[[363]] That he is not blind to the fact that poetry does influence the character of a reader, whether that be its purpose or not in the mind of God, he shows by his comment on Plautus. The language, Ascham says, is good and worthy of imitation; but the master must choose only such passages as contain honest matter.[[364]] And the same fear of the possible evil moral influence of fiction is evinced in his famous condemnation of the Morte Darthur "the whole pleasure of which booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold bawdrye,"[[365]] and in his attacks on English translations of Italian poems and stories. In this his position is substantially that of Savonarola, Loyola and Vives.[[366]] Nowhere does Ascham advance the claims of allegory as cloaking moral truth under the guise of fiction. He is too good a classicist and Ciceronian. What he fears from poetry is evil example. If he believed that the purpose of poetry was to teach truth by example pleasantly, at least he does not say so. Ascham represents the advance guard in England against allegory. But since he was not writing on the theory of poetry primarily, he did not endeavor to establish that the function of poetry is to teach by example.
2. Allegory and the Rhetorical Example in Poetic
Thus far we have had to draw inferences from the asides of rhetorician and school-master. But in 1575, five years after the publication of Ascham's treatise, George Gascoigne, a poet, published his Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme.[[367]] The title is not misleading. Gascoigne is concerned with the style of poetry, not with its philosophy. His only reference to either example or allegory is in a passage where he recommends methods of avoiding triteness in the praise of his mistress.
If I should disclose my pretence in love, I would eyther make a strange discourse of some intollerable passion, or finde occasion to pleade by the example of some historie, or discover my disquiet in shadowes per Allegoriam.[[368]]
Slight as this is, it hints at the rhetoric of Ovid and the declamation schools. The poet is "to pleade by example." He is making a speech to his mistress trying to prove to her his undying passion that she may grant him the ultimate favor. The genre is the same that includes the Epistles of Ovid and the Love Letters of Aristenetus. It is the genre of versified speech-making. Wilson recommended the Proverbs of Heywood as furnishing "allegories" useful in the amplification of a point in a speech. In his Euphues Lyly did use such "allegories" in what his contemporaries generally considered a poem. Lyly drew examples, anecdotes, and fables which he used as Gascoigne suggested, not only from Heywood, but from the Similia and Adagia, of Erasmus, and from the Emblems of Alciati.[[369]]
So far the moral example is counseled or practised only as a recognized device of rhetoric. It is not transferred to poetic until George Whetstone's Dedication to his Promos and Cassandra. For Whetstone asserts that in his comedy he has intermingled all actions "in such sorte as the grave matter may instruct, and the pleasant delight ... and the conclusion showes the confusion of Vice and the cherising of Vertue."[[370]] That the philosophy of this moral improvement resides in the extreme application of poetic justice he shows as follows: "For by the reward of the good the good are encouraged in wel doinge: and with the scowrge of the lewde the lewde are feared from evill attempts." Whetstone's Dedication was published in 1578, one year before Gosson launched his attack against poetry and poets in his School of Abuse, which was answered by Lodge and Sidney in their Apologies. In this controversy, in which Whetstone later took sides with the anti-stage party in his Touchstone for Time (1584), the age-long conflict between the poets and the philosophers was renewed with vigor and acrimony. But both the attackers and the defenders argued from the same premise, that the purpose of poetry was to afford pleasant moral instruction. Gosson and the Puritans objected that current poetry and plays failed to afford this moral instruction and should consequently be condemned. Lodge, Sidney and the other defenders of poetry retorted that poetry had a noble function--the teaching of morality, and that an occasional poem which did not serve this purpose did not invalidate the claims of poetry as a whole.