What is Poetry? It is fictio rhetorica in musica posita. |Definition of Poetry.| This is so important that no passing criticism of it will do, and we must postpone the discussion.

But here comes in the curious mediæval humility which made a poet like Dante regard himself as inferior to Ovid, and |Its styles and the constituents of the grand style.| Lucan, and Statius. Our poets differ from the “great” poets, the “regular” ones; but they ought to approach them as nearly as possible, and, as Magister noster Horatius teaches, take a suitable subject. And then they must decide what style to write in. If in the Tragic or Higher style, the Illustrious Vernacular will be suitable; if in the comic, a mixed or intermediate style; if in Elegy, the lower. But these two latter are again relegated to the lost, or never written, Fourth Book. Canzoni must be written in the Tragic style, and the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue. This is to be attained when, with the gravity of the meaning, not merely the pride of the verse, but the loftiness of the phrasing and the excellence of the words, agrees. It is no light matter to compose in this way; the most strenuous efforts are necessary. And, therefore, let the folly of those be confessed who, guiltless of art and science, and trusting to their wits alone, break out into the highest song on the highest subjects.

So the considerations are marked out, the Gravitas Sententiæ having been already distributed between War, Love, and Virtue.

Beginning with metric, Dante, like a sensible man, confines himself here to the teachings of experience, eschewing all |Superbia Carminum.| argument in the vague. What lines have actually given the best results in the Illustrious Vernacular? He looks them over, and finds that lines have varied from three syllables to eleven, that those of five, seven, and eleven are best of all, and that that of eleven (in which he rightly includes the French decasyllable with its weak ending) is the best of these best. Seven comes next; then five, then three. Nine is not good, because divisible into three threes. Even lines are “rude,” by which he means (as is undoubtedly true) that they do not suit the structure of Italian. The hendecasyllable is that superbissimum carmen that we sought.

Next for the phrase or construction. Here Dante becomes a little difficult, chiefly because he uses peculiar words, which have |Constructionis elatio.| not been always judiciously translated. He says that there is first the “insipid” style, that without flavour (sapor) or individual character, which merely states a fact, his example being Petrus amat multum dominam Bertam.

Next there is the purely “sapid” or tasteful, described oddly as that of “rigid scholars or masters”; the sapidus et venustus, which is of those who have drunk superficial draughts of rhetoric; and the sapid, venust, and also lofty, which is the best of all. The examples of these shall be given below[[567]], but they are hard to follow in detail, though the classes are clear enough, corresponding to (1) sheer prose, (2) efforts at style, (3) ornate prose without much distinction, (4) style achieved.

This last, of course, is what the poet must aim at, and again examples of hitting it are given. But the chapter ends with a valuable catalogue of the “great,” the “regular” poets: Virgil, Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Statius, and Lucan, with, in prose, Cicero, Livy, Pliny, Frontinus, and (O ye groves of Blarney!) Paulus Orosius. Let people read these, and not talk about Guido of Arezzo.

Lastly the words.

|Excellentia Verborum.|