Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism by Donald Lemen Clark

Author:Donald Lemen Clark [Clark, Donald Lemen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Renaissance, Poetry -- History and criticism, Rhetoric -- Terminology, English language -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Terms and phrases, Criticism -- Great Britain -- History -- 16th century, Criticism -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century
Published: 2003-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

Part Two

The Purpose of Poetry

Chapter I

The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry

1. General

To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of the second assertion for the first.

As has been shown,[263] the classical critics were in substantial agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's definition of tragedy from the Poetics[264] with his definition of rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as

a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy lives.[265]

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