[75]. Etwas über William Shakspere, Böcking, VII. 55.
[76]. See below, p. [134], for a still more noteworthy and yet quite unnoticed change of front made by Schlegel in the article of folksong.
[77]. It must be said for Schlegel that he is here—so, at least, it seems—merely clearing the way for his historical and “genetic” study of the art, and so is bound to have no hampering dogma, no parti pris in the case.
[78]. Notably that division of epopœia, “which imitates by words alone or by verse.” The question is whether Aristotle meant in the first case “words without metre” or “words without music.” See Twining’s fourth note.—It has been pointed out that nowhere in the fragment does Aristotle essay a formal definition of poetry.
[79]. Rhetoric, III. iii. 3.
[80]. Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry, 2d ed., I. 289. This view of Twining is upheld in some highly sensible remarks by Mr. A. O. Prickard in a lecture, Aristotle and the Art of Poetry, London, 1891. What Aristotle clearly meant to say is that “metre is not the most essential characteristic of poetry, yet it would be a misuse of language to call anything a poem which is not metrical in form.” (Italics not in original, p. 60.) Mr. Prickard agrees with Whately, Twining, and many others, that the words of the passage in question, and the instances given, do not make against this view; and “elsewhere, Plato and Aristotle invariably assume that only what is metrical is to be called poetry; nay, that metrical writing and poetry are, for the common purpose of language, convertible terms. ‘In metre, as a poet,’ says Plato, ‘or without metre as a layman.’ ‘A good sentence,’ says Aristotle, ‘should have rhythm but not metre; if it have metre, it will be a poem.’” See the Phædrus, 258, D., and Aristotle’s Rhetoric, III. 8.
[81]. A clear summary of the case as argued in Italy may be found in Quadrio, Della Storia e della Ragione d’ogni Poesia, I. Bologna, 1739; II.-VII. Milan, 1741-1752. See I. 2 ff. Quadrio is outright for the test of verse and for a generous rendering of Aristotle. He gives the names of forgotten pleaders on both sides, and thinks the noes have it against a traditional Aristotelian view; not to quarrel forever, “Basta, che nacque la Poesia col Verso e col Canto: né, propagata fra le nazioni, fu altrimenti mai lavorato che in Verso.”—Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, New York, 1899, pp. 9 ff., points out that Mantuan was for the verse-test, Savonarola, Minturno, Daniello, against it.
[82]. “Censet hoc ipsum ... Caesar Scaliger, qui, quod raro facit, hac parte ab Aristotele recedit,” says Vossius, de art. poet., § 7.
[83]. Iulii Caesaris Scaligeri ... Poetices Libri Septem ... 1561, the first edition, published three years after the author’s death.
[84]. See p. 3ᵇ: “Poetae igitur nomen non a fingendo ... sed initio a faciendo versu ductum est. Simul enim cum ipsa natura humana extitit vis haec numerosa, quibus versus clauditur.”