Chapter XVII: Book III: , Ornament, is a long and elaborate classification of

figures of speech.[60] It ends conventionally with typical
faults, with decorum, and, in tardy caution, with Horace’s _ars
celare artem_.

At the end of the sixteenth century, then, these Englishmen could still assume, with Ascham fifty years earlier, that English poetry had no valid tradition of its own, still seek to revive it by classicism. That classicism should be not only revival of ancient stanza and imitation of ancient style, as with the Pléiade, but even conformity to ancient metric might rather have been proposed in France or Italy, where vernacular verse had kept much of the Latin rhythmical habit. In England, where the vernacular tradition determined the verse pattern by the Germanic habit of stress, the proposal was foredoomed as futile. The insistence of the classical cult nevertheless lingers in serious discussion. The correspondence of Gabriel Harvey with Spenser on this point may be playful, or even partly satirical; but Harvey was a fanatic, and even Spenser sometimes read Chaucer’s verse strangely, sometimes in his poetical youth made strange experiments. The item that lingered longest in discussion, perhaps because it was common to both verse traditions, is rhyme. Thomas Campion’s _Arte of English Poesie_ (1602)[61] attacked this specifically and with more understanding of English rhythms than Webbe had or Puttenham. Samuel Daniel replied with a correct but feeble _Defence of Ryme_ (1603).[62] Classicism could attempt to deviate English verse the more easily when even poets and men of some learning did not understand the linguistic development of their own vernacular.

13. PATRIZZI

Patrizzi’s poetic (_Della poetica di Francesco Patrici la deca disputata ..._ Ferrara, 1586) renews the quarrel with Aristotle begun in his rhetoric.

The sub-title goes on: “in which by history, by arguments,
and by authority of the great ancients is shown the falsity
of the opinions most accepted in our times concerning poetic.
There is added the _Trimerone_ of the same author in reply to
the objections raised by Signor Torquato Tasso[63] against his
defence of Ariosto.” The ten sections severally inquire: I
concerning poetic inspiration (_furore poetico_), II whether
poetry originated in the causes assigned by Aristotle, III
whether poetry is imitation, IV whether the poet is an
imitator, V whether poetry can be written in prose, VI whether
plot (_favola_) is rather distinctive of the poet than verse,
VII whether Empedocles as a poet was inferior to Homer, VIII
whether poetry can be made from history, IX whether ancient
poems imitated by harmony and rhythm, X whether the modes of
imitation are three.

The divisions obviously overlap, and there is confusion in VII (152) between the origin of poetry and its essential character, in VIII (168) between historical material and history. Section VIII also misses the point of Aristotle’s creative characterization for poetic consistency. These misinterpretations, common enough at the time, are due with Patrizzi to his missing Aristotle’s idea of imitation as the distinctive poetic form of composition. Aristotle thinking of composition remains dark or wrong to Patrizzi thinking of style.[64] Thus he is typical of that general Renaissance difficulty with Aristotle which came from looking the other way. Even after Tasso and Castelvetro, Renaissance poetic kept its preoccupation with style.

14. DENORES

Jason Denores, on the contrary, made his _Poetica_ a digest of Aristotle with a tabular view at the end of each section (_Poetica di Iason Denores, nella qual per via di definitione & divisione si tratta secondo l’opinion d’Aristotele della tragedia, del poema heroico, & della comedia ..._ Padua, 1588). The book has no critical grasp.