CHAPTER IV THE THEORY OF EPIC POETRY EPIC poetry was held in the highest esteem during the Renaissance and indeed throughout the period of classicism. It was regarded by Vida as the highest form of poetry,' and a century later, despite the success of tragedy in France, Rapin still held the same opinion. The reverence for the epic throughout the Renaissance may be ascribed in part to the medieval veneration of Virgil as a poet, and his popular apotheosis as prophet and magician, and also in part to the decay into which dramatic literature had fallen during the Middle Ages in the hands of the wandering players, the histriones and the vagantes. Aristotle indeed had regarded tragedy as the highest form of poetry; and as a result, the traditional reverence for Virgil and Homer, and the Renaissance subservience to Aristotle, were distinctly at variance. Trissino (1561) paraphrases Aristotle's argument in favor of tragedy, but points out, notwithstanding this, that the whole world is unanimous in considering Virgil and Homer greater than any tragic poet before or after them. Placed in 4 4 Trissino, ii. 118 sq. this quandary, he concludes by leaving the reader to judge for himself whether epic or tragedy be the nobler form. I. The Theory of the Epic Poem Vida's Ars Poetica, written before 1520, although no edition prior to that of 1527 is extant, is the earliest example in modern times of that class of critical poems to which belong Horace's Ars Poetica, Boileau's Art Poétique, and Pope's Essay on Criticism. Vida's poem is entirely based on that of Horace; but he substitutes epic for Horace's dramatic studies, and employs the Eneid as the model of an epic poem. The incompleteness of the treatment accorded to epic poetry in Aristotle's Poetics led the Renaissance to deduce the laws of heroic poetry and of poetic artifice in general from the practice of Virgil; and it is to this point of view that the critical works on the Eneid by Regolo (1563), Maranta (1564), and Toscanella (1566) owe their origin. The obvious and even accidental qualities of Virgil's poem are enunciated by Vida as fundamental laws of epic poetry. The precepts thus given are purely rhetorical and pedagogic in character, and deal almost exclusively with questions of poetic invention, disposition, polish, and style. Beyond this Vida does not attempt to go. There is in his poem no definition of the epic, no theory of its function, no analysis of the essentials of narrative structure. In fact, no theory of poetry any real sense is to be found in Vida's treatise. in Daniello (1536) deals only very cursorily with epic poetry, but his definition of it strikes the keynote of the Renaissance conception. Heroic poetry is for him an imitation of the illustrious deeds of emperors and other men magnanimous and valorous in arms, a conception that goes back to Horace's "Res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella." 2 Trissino (1563) first introduced the Aristotelian theory of the epic into modern literary criticism; and the sixth section of his Poetica is given up almost exclusively to the treatment of heroic poetry. The epic agrees with tragedy in dealing with illustrious men and illustrious actions. Like tragedy it must have a single action, but it differs from tragedy in not having the time of the action limited or determined. While unity of action is essential to the epic, and is indeed what distinguishes it from narrative poems that are not really epics, the Renaissance conceived of vastness of design and largeness of detail as necessary to the grandiose character of the epic poem. Thus Muzio says: "Il poema sovrano è una pittura De l'universo, e però in sè comprende Trissino regards versi sciolti as the proper metre for an heroic poem, since the stanzaic form impedes the continuity of the narrative. In this point he finds fault with Boccaccio, Boiardo, and Ariosto, whose romantic poems, moreover, he does not regard as epics, because they do not obey Aristotle's invio 1 Daniello, p. 34. 2 Ars Poet. 73. 8 Trissino, ii. 112 sq. lable law of the single action. He also finds fault with the romantic poets for describing the improbable, since Aristotle expressly prefers an impossible probability to an improbable possibility. Minturno's definition of epic poetry is merely a modification or paraphrase of Aristotle's definition of tragedy. Epic poetry is an imitation of a grave and noble deed, perfect, complete, and of proper magnitude, with embellished language, but without music or dancing; at times simply narrating and at other times introducing persons in words and actions; in order that, through pity and fear of the things imitated, such passions may be purged from the mind with both pleasure and profit.1 Here Minturno, like Giraldi Cintio, ascribes to epic poetry the same purgation of pity and fear effected by tragedy. Epic poetry he rates above tragedy, since the epic poet, more than any other, arouses that admiration of great heroes which it is the peculiar function of the poet to excite, and therefore attains the end of poetry more completely than any other poet. This, however, is true only in the highest form of narrative poetry; for Minturno distinguishes three classes of narrative poets, the lowest, or bucolici, the mediocre, or epici, who have nothing beyond verse, and the highest, or heroici, who imitate the life of a single hero in noble verse.2 Minturno insists fundamentally on the unity of the epic action; and directly against Aristotle's statement, as we have seen, he restricts the duration of the action to one year. The license and prolixity 2 De Poeta, pp. 105, 106. 1 Arte Poetica, p. 9. of the romanzi led the defenders of the classical epic to this extreme of rigid circumspection. According to Scaliger, the epic, which is the norm by which all other poems may be judged and the chief of all poems, describes heroum genus, vita, gesta.1 This is the Horatian conception of the epic, and there is in Scaliger little or no trace of the Aristotelian doctrine. He also follows Horace closely in forbidding the narrative poet to begin his poem from the very beginning of his story (ab ovo), and in various other details. Castelvetro (1570) differs from Aristotle in regard to the unity of the epic fable, on the ground that poetry is merely imaginative history, and can therefore do anything that history can do. Poetry follows the footsteps of history, differing merely in that history narrates what has happened, while poetry narrates what has never happened but yet may possibly happen; and therefore, since history recounts the whole life of a single hero, without regard to its unity, there is no reason why poetry should not do likewise. The epic may in fact deal with many actions of one person, one action of a whole race, or many actions of many people; it need not necessarily deal with one action of one person, as Aristotle enjoins, but if it does so it is simply to show the ingenuity and excellence of the poet.2 1 Poet. iii. 95. 2 Castelvetro, Poetica, p. 178 sq. |