Poetry an and reduced into a method of rules. THE RULES THEN as there was no art in the world till by experience art fashioned found out, so if poesy be now an art, and of all antiquity hath been among the Greeks and Latins, and yet were none until by studious persons fashioned and reduced into a method of rules and precepts, then no doubt may there be the like with us. And if the art of poesy be but a skill appertaining to utterance, why may not the same be with us as well as with them, our language being no less copious, pithy, and significative than theirs, our conceits the same, and our wits no less apt to devise and imitate than theirs were? If again art be but a certain order of rules prescribed by reason, and gathered by experience, why should not poesy be a vulgar art with us as well as gathered by with the Greeks and Latins, our language admitting no fewer rules and nice diversities than theirs. . Poesy therefore may be an art in our vulgar, and that very methodical and commendable. Rules prescribed by reason and experience. Truth lies open to all. A poet's liberty not to G. PUTTENHAM, Art of English Poesy, 1589. [T]o all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience. . . . It is true they opened the gates, and made the way, that went before us; but as guides, not commanders: non domini nostri, sed duces fuere. Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. B. JONSON, Discoveries, 1620-1635. I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet's liberty be concluded within the narrow limits of laws which either the grammarians or philosophers prescribe. within the narrow limits For before they found and philo sophers. out those laws, there were many excellent poets that of laws prescribed by fulfilled them: amongst whom none more perfect than grammarians Sophocles, who lived a little before Aristotle. Which of the Greeklings durst ever give precepts to Demosthenes ? or to Pericles, whom the age surnamed heavenly, because he seemed to thunder and lighten with his language? or to Alcibiades, who had rather nature for his guide than art for his master? nature dic tated to the most happy Aristotle But whatsoever nature at any time dictated to the most Whatsoever happy, or long exercise to the most laborious, that the wisdom and learning of Aristotle hath brought into an art, because he understood the causes of things; and what hath brought other men did by chance or custom he doth by reason; and not only found out the way not to err, but the short way we should take not to err. Ib. into an art. lous to The damage Let Aristotle author a make farther dictator. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a It is ridicudictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. make an is infinite knowledge receives by it. . . . and others have their dues; but if we can discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied ? Ib. transgression [W]hether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to To follow be kept, or nature to be followed, which, in them that nature no know art and use judgment, is no transgression, but an but an enriching of art. enriching of art. answerable J. MILTON, Reason of Church Government, 1641. [A] poet, who hath wrought with his own instruments A poet not at a new design, is no more answerable for disobedience for disobedito predecessors, than law-makers are liable to those old ence to prelaws which themselves have repealed. Sir W. DAVENANT, Preface to Gondibert, 1650. Poetry and painting as they are arts . . . must have rules, which may direct them to their common end. J. DRYDEN, A Parallel of Poetry and Painting, 1695. decessors. Poetry must have rules. A rule for imitating nature rightly. From the practice of the rules have been drawn. [I]f nature be to be imitated, then there is a rule for imitating nature rightly; otherwise there may be an end, and no means conducing to it. J. DRYDEN, Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 1668. [T]he way to please being to imitate nature, both the the ancients poets and the painters in ancient times, and in the best ages, have studied her; and from the practice of both these arts the rules have been drawn by which we are instructed how to please, and to compass that end which they obtained, by following their example. For nature is still the same in all ages, and can never be contrary to herself. Thus, from the practice of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Aristotle drew his rules for tragedy, and Philostratus for painting. Thus, amongst the moderns, the Italian and French critics, by studying the precepts of Aristotle and Horace, and having the example of the Grecian poets before their eyes, have given us the rules of modern tragedy; and thus the critics of the same countries in the art of painting have given the precepts of perfecting that art. J. DRYDEN, A Parallel of Poetry and Painting, 1695. [I]t requires philosophy, as well as poetry, to sound the depth of all the passions; what they are in themselves, and how they are to be provoked: and in this science the best poets have excelled. Aristotle raised the fabric of his Poetry from observation of those things in which Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus pleased: he considered how they raised the passions, and thence has drawn rules for our imitation. . . .Thus I grant you that the knowledge of nature was the original rule; and that all poets ought to study her, as well as Aristotle and Horace, her interpreters. J. DRYDEN, The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry, etc., 1677. I will conclude with the words of Rapin, in his Reflections on Aristotle's work Of Poetry: "If the rules be well considered, we shall find them to be made only to reduce upon reason reduce nature into method, to trace her step by step, and The rules not to suffer the least mark of her to escape us: 'tis only nature into by these that probability in fiction is maintained, which is method, the soul of poetry. They are founded upon good sense founded and sound reason, rather than on authority; for though rather than Aristotle and Horace are produced, yet no man must on authority. argue, that what they write is true, because they writ it; but 'tis evident, by the ridiculous mistakes and gross absurdities which have been made by those poets who have taken their fancy only for their guide, that if this fancy be not regulated, it is a mere caprice, and utterly incapable to produce a reasonable and judicious poem." J. DRYDEN, Preface to Troilus and Cressida, 1679. It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind. J. DRYDEN, Heads of an Answer to Rymer, c. 1678. Not enough totle has that Aris said so. I will allege Corneille's words, as I find them in the end of his Discourse of the Three Unities :-Il est facile aux spéculatifs d'être sévères, etc. 'Tis easy for speculative persons to judge severely; but if they would produce to public view ten or twelve pieces of this nature, they would perhaps give more latitude to the rules than I have The rules done, when, by experience, they had known how much we beauties are bound up and constrained by them, and how many from the beauties of the stage they banished from it.” J. DRYDEN, Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 1668. Virgil... might make this anachronism, by superseding the mechanic rules of poetry, for the same reason that a monarch may dispense with or suspend his own laws, when he finds it necessary so to do, especially if those laws are not altogether fundamental. Nothing is to be called a fault in poetry, says Aristotle, but what is against the art; therefore a man may be an admirable poet without being an exact chronologer. J. DRYDEN, Dedication of the Aeneis, 1697. banish many stage. The me chanic rules of poetry may be superseded. Mechanic rules. Genius of poetry too libertine to to many rules. [B]etter a mechanic rule were stretched or broken than a great beauty were omitted. Ib. The modern French wits (or pretenders) have been very severe in their censures and exact in their rules, I think to very little purpose; for I know not why they might not have contented themselves with those given by Aristotle and Horace, and have translated them rather than commented upon them, for all they have done has been no more, so as they seem, by their writings of this kind, rather to have valued themselves than improved any body The truth is, there is something in the genius of poetry too libertine to be confined to so many rules; and be confined whoever goes about to subject it to such constraints loses both its spirit and grace, which are ever native, and never learnt, even of the best masters. 'Tis as if, to make excellent honey, you should cut off the wings of your bees, confine them to their hive or their stands, and lay flowers before them, such as you think the sweetest and like to yield the finest extraction; you had as good pull out their stings, and make arrant drones of them. They must range through fields as well as gardens, choose such flowers as they please, and by proprieties and scents they only know and distinguish. They must work up their cells with admirable art, extract their honey with infinite labour, and sever it from the wax with such distinction and choice as belongs to none but themselves to perform or to judge. After all, the utmost that can be achieved or, I think, pretended by any rules in this art is but to hinder some men from being very ill poets, but not to make any man a very good one. To judge who is so, we need go no further for instruction than three lines of Horace : Ille meum qui pectus inaniter angit, Ut magus, et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis. |