A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance / With special reference to the influence of Italy in the formation and development of modern classicism

by Joel Elias Spingarn

The influence of Aristotle's Poetics is first visible in the dramatic literature of the early sixteenth century. Trissino's Sofonisba (1515), usually accounted the first regular modern tragedy, Rucellai's Rosmunda (1516), and innumerable other tragedies of this period, were in reality little more than mere attempts at putting the Aristotelian theory of tragedy into practice. The Aristotelian influence is evident in many of the prefaces of these plays, and in a few contemporary works of scholarship, such as the Antiquæ Lectiones (1516) of Cælius Rhodiginus, whom Scaliger called omnium doctissimus præceptor noster. At the same time, the Poetics did not immediately play an important part in the critical literature of Italy. From the time of Petrarch, Aristotle, identified in the minds of the humanists with the mediæval scholasticism so obnoxious to them, had lost somewhat of his supremacy; and the strong Platonic tendencies of the Renaissance had further contributed to lower the prestige of Aristotelianism among the humanists. At no time of the Renaissance, however, did Aristotle lack ardent defenders, and Filelfo, for example, wrote in 1439, "To defend Aristotle and the truth seems to me one and the same thing."[265] In the domain of philosophy the influence of Aristotle was temporarily sustained by the liberal Peripateticism of Pomponazzi; and numerous others, among them Scaliger himself, continued the traditions of a modernized Aristotelianism. From this time, however, Aristotle's position as the supreme philosopher was challenged more and more; and he was regarded by the advanced thinkers of the Renaissance as the representative of the mediæval obscurantism that opposed the progress of modern scientific investigation.

But whatever of Aristotle's authority was lost in the domain of philosophy was more than regained in the domain of literature. The beginning of the Aristotelian influence on modern literary theory may be said to date from the year 1536, in which year Trincaveli published a Greek text of the Poetics, Pazzi his edition and Latin version, and Daniello his own Poetica. Pazzi's son, in dedicating his father's posthumous work, said that in the Poetics "the precepts of poetic art are treated by Aristotle as divinely as he has treated every other form of knowledge." In the very year that this was said, Ramus gained his Master's degree at the University of Paris by defending victoriously the thesis that Aristotle's doctrines without exception are all false.[266] The year 1536 may therefore be regarded as a turning-point in the history of Aristotle's influence. It marks the beginning of his supremacy in literature, and the decline of his dictatorial authority in philosophy.

Between the year 1536 and the middle of the century the lessons of Aristotle's Poetics were being gradually learned by the Italian critics and poets. By 1550 the whole of the Poetics had been incorporated in the critical literature of Italy, and Fracastoro could say that "Aristotle has received no less fame from the survival of his Poetics than from his philosophical remains."[267] According to Bartolommeo Ricci, in a letter to Prince Alfonso, son of Hercules II., Duke of Ferrara, Maggi was the first person to interpret Aristotle's Poetics in public.[268] These lectures were delivered some time before April, 1549. As early as 1540, Bartolommeo Lombardi, the collaborator of Maggi in his commentary on the Poetics, had intended to deliver public lectures on the Poetics before a Paduan academy, but died before accomplishing his purpose.[269] Numerous public readings on the subject of Aristotle and Horace followed those of Maggi,—among them those by Varchi, Giraldi Cintio, Luisino, and Trifone Gabrielli; and the number of public readings on topics connected with literary criticism, and on the poetry of Dante and Petrarch, increased greatly from this time.

The number of commentaries on the Poetics itself, published during the sixteenth century, is really remarkable. The value of these commentaries in general is not so much that they add anything to the literary criticism of the Renaissance, but that their explanations of Aristotle's meaning were accepted by contemporary critics, and became in a way the source of all the literary arguments of the sixteenth century. Nor was their influence restricted merely to this particular period. They were, one might almost say, living things to the critics and poets of the classical period in France. Racine, Corneille, and other distinguished writers possessed copies of these commentaries, studied them carefully, cited them in their prefaces and critical writings, and even annotated their own copies of the commentaries with marginal notes, of which some may be seen in the modern editions of their works. In the preface to Rapin's Réflexions sur l'Art Poétique (1674) there is a history of literary criticism, which is almost entirely devoted to these Italian commentators; and writers like Chapelain and Balzac eagerly argued and discussed their relative merits.

Several of these Italian commentators have been alluded to already.[270] The first critical edition of the Poetics was that of Robortelli (1548), and this was followed by those of Maggi (1550) and Vettori (1560), both written in Latin, and both exhibiting great learning and acumen. The first translation of the Poetics into the vernacular was that by Segni (1549), and this was followed by the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro (1570) and Piccolomini (1575). Tasso, after comparing the works of these two commentators, concluded that while Castelvetro had greater erudition and invention, Piccolomini had greater maturity of judgment, more learning, perhaps, with less erudition, and certainly learning more Aristotelian and more suited to the interpretation of the Poetics.[271] The two last sections of Trissino's Poetica, published in 1563, are little more than a paraphrase and transposition of Aristotle's treatise. But the curious excesses into which admiration of Aristotle led the Italian scholars may be gathered from a work published at Milan in 1576, an edition of the Poetics expounded in verse, Baldini's Ars Poetica Aristotelis versibus exposita. The Poetics was also adapted for use as a practical manual for poets and playwrights in such works as Riccoboni's brief Compendium Artis Poeticæ Aristotelis ad usum conficiendorum poematum (1591). The last of the great Italian commentaries on the Poetics to have a general European influence was perhaps Beni's, published in 1613; but this carries us beyond the confines of the century. Besides the published editions, translations, and commentaries, many others were written which may still be found in Ms. in the libraries of Italy. Reference has already been made to Salviati's (1586). There are also two anonymous commentaries dating from this period in Ms. at Florence,—one in the Magliabechiana and the other in the Riccardiana. The last work which may be mentioned here is Buonamici's Discorsi Poetici in difesa d' Aristotele, in which Aristotle is ardently defended against the attacks of his detractors.

It was in Italy during this period that the literary dictatorship of Aristotle first developed, and it was Scaliger to whom the modern world owes the formulation of the supreme authority of Aristotle as a critical theorist. Fracastoro had likened the importance of Aristotle's Poetics to that of his philosophical treatises. Trissino had followed Aristotle verbally and almost literally. Varchi had spoken of years of Aristotelian study as an essential prerequisite for every one who entered the field of literary criticism. Partenio, a year before the publication of Scaliger's Poetics, had asserted that everything relating to tragedy and epic poetry had been settled by Aristotle and Horace. But Scaliger went farther still. He was the first to regard Aristotle as the perpetual lawgiver of poetry. He was the first to assume that the duty of the poet is first to find out what Aristotle says, and then to obey these precepts without question. He distinctly calls Aristotle the perpetual dictator of all the arts: "Aristoteles imperator noster, omnium bonarum artium dictator perpetuus."[272] This is perhaps the first occasion in modern literature in which Aristotle is definitely regarded as a literary dictator, and the dictatorship of Aristotle in literature may, therefore, be dated from the year 1561.

But Scaliger did more than this. He was the first apparently to attempt to reconcile Aristotle's Poetics, not only with the precepts of Horace and the definitions of the Latin grammarians, but with the whole practice of Latin tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry. It was in the light of this reconciliation, or concord of Aristotelianism with the Latin spirit, that Aristotle became for Scaliger a literary dictator. It was not Aristotle that primarily interested him, but an ideal created by himself, and founded on such parts of the doctrine of Aristotle as received confirmation from the theory or practice of Roman literature; and this new ideal, harmonizing with the Latin spirit of the Renaissance, became in the course of time one of the foundations of classicism. The influence of Aristotelianism was further augmented by the Council of Trent, which gave to Aristotle's doctrine the same degree of authority as Catholic dogma.

All these circumstances tended to favor the importance of Aristotle in Italy during the sixteenth century, and as a result the literary dictatorship of Aristotle was by the Italians foisted on Europe for two centuries to come. From 1560 to 1780 Aristotle was regarded as the supreme authority in letters throughout Europe. At no time, even in England, during and after that period, was there a break in the Aristotelian tradition, and the influence of the Poetics may be found in Sidney and Ben Jonson, in Milton and Dryden, as well as in Shelley and Coleridge. Lessing, even in breaking away from the classical practice of the French stage, defended his innovations on the authority of Aristotle, and said of the Poetics, "I do not hesitate to acknowledge, even if I should therefore be held up to scorn in these enlightened times, that I consider the work as infallible as the Elements of Euclid."[273] In 1756, a dozen years before Lessing, one of the precursors of the romantic movement in England, Joseph Warton, had also said of the Poetics, "To attempt to understand poetry without having diligently digested this treatise would be as absurd and impossible as to pretend to a skill in geometry without having studied Euclid."[274]