History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (Harbinger Books) - Softcover

Spingarn, Joel Elias

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156527790 ISBN 13: 9780156527798

Publisher: Harcourt Publishers Ltd, 1963

Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...of credence. Similar antagonism to the critical doctrines of Aristotle is to be found in passages scattered here and there throughout the works of Giordano Bruno. In the first dialogue of the JUroici ifirori, published at London in 1585, while Bruno was visiting England, he expresses his contempt for the mere pedants who judge pnfifo jjy the rules of Aristotle's Poetics. His contention is that there are as many sorts of poets as there are human sentimRnfo and ideas, and that poets, so far from being subservient ""toT rules, q™ t.hoTt,oWoa ™»g,Hy the authors of all critical jogma,. Those who attack the great poets whose works do not accord with the rules of Aristotle are called by Bruno stupid pedants and beasts. The gist of his argument may be gathered-from the following passage:--" Tans. Thou dost well conclude that poeti-y is not born in rules, or only slightly and accidentally so; the rules are derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets. C1c. How then are the true poets to be known? Taks. By the singing of their verses; in that singing they give delight, or they edify, or they edify and delight together. C1c. To whom then are the rules of Aristotle useful? Tans. To him who, unlike Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and others, could not sing without the rules of Aristotle, and who, having no Muse of his own, would coquette with that of Homer." J A similar antagonism to Aristotle and asir literary Ind1v1dualism are to be found in a much later work by ijenedetto Fioretti. who under the pseudonym of Udeno Nisieli published the five volumes of h1s Proginnasmi Poetici between 1620 and 1639.2 Just before the close of the sixteenth century, however, the Poetics had...

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Product Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER V THE GROWTH OF THE CLASSIC SPIRIT DT ITALIAN CRITICISM The growth of classicism in Renaissance criticism was due to three causes,--humanism, or the imitation of the classics, Aristotelianism, or the influence of Aristotle's Poetics, and rationalism, or the authority of the reason, the result of the growth of the modern spirit in the arts and sciences. These three causes are at the bottom of Italian classicism, as well as of French classicism during the seventeenth century. I. Humanism The progress of humanism may be distinguished by an arbitrary but more or less practical division into four periods. The first period was characterized by the discovery and accumulation of classical literature, and the second period was given up to the arrangement and translation of the works thus discovered. The third period is marked by the formation of academies, in which the classics were studied and humanized, and which as a result produced a special cult of learning. The fourth and last period is marked by the decline of pure erudition, and the beginning of aesthetic and stylistic scholarship.1 The practical result of the revival of learning and the progress of humanism was thus the study and imitation of the classics. To this imitation of classical literature all that humanism gave to the modern world may be ultimately traced. The problem before us, then, is this: What was the result of this imitation of the classics, in so far as it regards the literary criticism of the Renaissance? In the first place, the imitation of the classics resulted in the study and cult of external form. Elegance, polish, clearness of design, became objects of study for themselves; and as a result we have the formation of aesthetic taste, and the growth of a classic purism, to which...

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 1963
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0156527790
• ISBN 13: 9780156527798
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 227