Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Rhetoric
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727
inventione
(1.1-5)
and De
oratore
(i.8.3off.) celebrating oratory as the power
to influence men, defend liberty and guarantee human civilisation. The
Ciceronian
image
of
the orator as culture-hero, whose power was exercised
in defence of justice and ethics, had an enormous influence on the
Renaissance.
This Isocratean-Ciceronian tradition of properly developed
language
as at once a
proof
of
humanity and a condition
of
social
health can
be found in the earliest stages
of
the revival
of
rhetoric, in the late fourteenth
century. The statutes
of
the University
of
Florence
in
1397,
concerning the
public reading and teaching of rhetoric, are a digest of these Ciceronian
texts:
The
priors with the
colleges,
considering
that
the art of rhetoric is not only the
instrument of persuasion for all the sciences, but also the greatest ornament of
public
life,
and since this faculty embraces the precepts for advocating or opposing
anything we
wish,
and concerns
itself
with
the sure methods
of
the notarial
offices:
lest
so appropriate
a
pursuit for the Florentine Studium decay [a new professor
is
to
be appointed].
32
The
propagator, if not the founder of the new humanist attitudes to
rhetoric and philosophy was Petrarch, for whom language had all the
Ciceronian
connotations of social bonding, humanity and altruism. In a
letter to Tommaso da Messina 'on the study of eloquence', which dates
from
the
1350s,
he defined eloquence as the counterpart to philosophy,
arguing
that
we should 'correct not only our
life
and conduct, which is the
primary concern
of
virtue, but our language usage as
well.
This we
will
do
by
the cultivation of
eloquence.'
Language is the tool by which the mind
can
display its good traits, and convert others to doing good through
conversation or writing. Eloquence is a vital aid to practical ethics, rousing
the
self
and others to a
life
of virtue.
33
The Spanish humanist
Vives
put it
32.
Cited by Struever 1970, p. 105: 'Domini cum
collegiis,
considerantes quod ars rhetorica non solum
omnium scientiarum persuasorium instrumentum est, sed rerum publicarum maximum
ornamentum, quoniam hec facultas suadendi dissuadendique cuncta que volumus precepta
complectitur, et circa dictandi ministerium certis rationibus occupatur; ne
tantum
decus in Studio
florentino
deficiat,
sed continuo reflorescat . . .'.
33.
Petrarch
1975-85,1,
pp. 47-50. For the Latin text see Petrarch
1933-42,1,
pp. 45-7
(1.9):
'exhortorac
moneo ut non vitam
tantum
et mores, quod primum virtutis est opus, sed sermonis etiam nostri
consuetudinem corrigamus, quod artificiose nobis eloquentie cura prestabit . . . Que [sc.
eloquentia] si nobis necessaria non foret et mens, suis viribus nisa bonaque sua in silentio explicans,
verborum suffragiis non egeret, ad ceterorum saltern utilitatem, quibuscum vivimus, laborandum
erat; quorum animos nostris collocutionibus plurimum adiuvari posse non ambigitur. . . .
Veruntamen quantum quoque ad informationem humane vite possit eloquentia, et apud multos
auctores lectum et quotidiana experientia monstrante compertum est. . . . Postremo, si ceterorum
hominum caritas nulla nos cogeret, optimum tamen et nobis ipsis fructuosissimum
arbitrarer
eloquentie studium non in ultimis habere.'
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Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
concisely:
'Your
tongue is the one
instrument
nature
gave to you for doing
good.'
34
In fifteenth-century Italy two centres above all, Florence and Padua, had
a formative influence on the rediscovery
of
rhetoric. In Florence the impact
of
the humanist chancellors -
Coluccio
Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio
Bracciolini
—
associated rhetoric with the vita
activa
and with the struggle for
liberty.
35
Although not free from Florentine self-glorification, their letters,
orations and historical works did prove the effectiveness of rhetoric in
politics.
These chancellors were also scholars: Salutati had a famous library
and was one
of
the first serious humanist textual critics, and his invitation of
Chrysoloras
to Florence was crucial in establishing the study
of
Greek.
For
the influence of rhetoric on education we must
turn
to
northern
Italy,
where a remarkable succession of teachers revolutionised the subject. Pier
Paolo
Vergerio, professor
of
logic
at the University
of
Padua, published in
1392
his De
ingenuis moribus,
the first treatise to claim a knowledge of
Latin letters as basic to higher learning. Giovanni da Ravenna was the
'artis
rhetoricae professor' at Padua from 1382 to 1405 and was succeeded in
1407
by one of the greatest Latin scholars of the time, Gasparino Barzizza,
who
lectured annually on the De
oratore
and Aristotle's
Rhetoric.
Barzizza
also took
students
as boarders, among them Vittorino da Feltre, Francesco
Filelfo
and George of Trebizond, who all became leading teachers and
scholars of rhetoric. The great humanists of this generation, hired by rival
condottieri
anxious to increase their prestige, were in the forefront of the
reshaping of rhetoric in education. Guarino at Ferrara and Vittorino at
Mantua established school curricula dominated by rhetoric and grammar,
which
implied the intensive study
of
Greek
and Latin literature, history and
philosophy, with a reading list of classical
authors
far ahead of most
universities. The greatest scholars
of
the time, Guarino, Poggio and
Filelfo,
sent their sons to Mantua; other pupils included Lorenzo
Valla,
Niccolo
Perotti and Theodore Gaza.
The
importance of the history of education in this story is
that
it shows
how
rhetoric was not just rediscovered but read and taught in a different
way.
While medieval readers approached an already fragmented rhetorical
tradition (as they did classical antiquity as a whole) as a storehouse
of
verbal
devices
from which items could be removed at
will,
to be applied to other
34.
Vives
1555,1,
p. 154 (De ratione dicendi lib. in, cap. 12): 'Quid enim refert impetas quempiam ferro,
an lingua? nisi quod grauius sermone laedere, quo instrumenti
natura
magis ferebat, ut eo prodesses.'
35.
See Garin
1961,
pp. 3~37'» Ullman 1963; Witt 1983; Cantimori 1937; Herde 1965; and Baron 1966,
subject
to the caveats expressed by Ullman 1963, pp. 33, 47-8 and
Seigel
1966.
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Rhetoric
and poetics
729
purposes, in the new schools of the early fifteenth century we find for the
first time a concept of the study of
literature
as a separate discipline which
could
lead to moral and social improvement. Rhetoric, as the established
authority on the study
of
language,
genre and literary form, became a key
tool in the rediscovery
of
the past. This new sense
of
a coherent purpose led
to a reunification of rhetoric. George
of
Trebizond, who had studied with
and later worked as a teacher for Vittorino, completed in 1433-4 his
Rhetoricorum
libri
V, one
of
the most
important
texts in Renaissance rhetoric.
Where, in the Middle
Ages,
rhetoric had become limited to
inventio
and
status-theory in one tradition, with
elocutio
studied separately, and applied
to several other practical disciplines regardless of its function in a whole
scheme, George decided to
treat
all
five
of
the orator's duties,
thus
reuniting
'the
parts
of classical rhetoric which the various medieval
Artes
had
separated or suppressed'.
36
He also reclaimed for rhetoric the topics, which
the medieval logicians had appropriated, and synthesised Byzantine and
Latin traditions to produce the most systematic treatise on rhetoric yet.
George
was prophetic
of
many Renaissance rhetoric books in his conscious
formulation
of
rhetoric as the central discipline for
civic
life.
In an
Oratio
de
laudibus
eloquentie,
delivered at Venice in the early 1430s, he echoed Cicero
in stating
that
human
nature
consists in reason
(ratio),
yet reason cannot do
men any good unless bodied forth in speech
(oratio).
Language is equated
with
doing good, and since rhetoric
enters
every aspect of public and
private
life
'most rightly do the ancients seem to name it the art of
humanity, "the most
important
part
of
the
civil
science which is the mistress
and lord
of
all
human affairs . . . the most noble
instrument
of
politics"
', an
essential training for public
life
and
civil
leadership.
37
As he put it in his
rhetoric book, it is enough for a man to study the 'causes
of
things. . .
if
he
seeks
nothing else but to know; but
if
he hungers for the glory
of
ruling the
republic, let him devote himself to rhetoric'.
38
36.
Monfasani 1976, p. 269. Another early Renaissance text to reunite the
five
parts
of rhetoric
independently of
George
of
Trebizond
(its main source being the Ad Herennium) was the Hebrew
rhetoric
of
Judah
Messer Leon, Sepher Nopheth SuphTm (Mantua, c.
1475):
see
Judah
Messer Leon
1983.
37.
Monfasani 1976, pp. 259—60: 'Quare mihi rectissime humanitatis hanc artem maiores nominasse
videntur. Aristoteles
vero,
quern in rhetoricis
Cicero
sequitur,
civilis
scientie, que rerum
humanarum omnium magistra et domina est, maximam ac nobilissimam esse partem iudicavit'; pp.
366-7:
'Nec tamen mihi diutius hec cogitanti aut genus politice aut idem omnino ei oratoria facultas
videtur, verum ita unicum, singulare, et nobilissimum instrumentum eius ut vel singulis ipsius
partibus non deserviat, sed imperet.'
38.
Monfasani
1976,
pp. 295-6: 'Quamobrem nobis placet si quis propter etatem utrumque habiturum
non sperat si nil aliud nisi ut sciat querit causis rerum verisque scientiis ei potius elaborandum; sin
reipublice
gloriam appetit, rhetorice incumbendum est.'
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Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
The
importance of rhetoric to the
civil
life
lay in its ability to
translate
ideas into action, through the means
of
persuasion.
All
Renaissance rhetoric,
and much of its poetics, is premised on the superiority of action over
contemplation, and of the necessity of communicating. Petrarch draws on
Ciceronian
tradition in declaring thought and language to be mutually
dependent, and anticipates many later writers in denouncing silence or
withdrawal from society. Man's duty was to take
part
in social
life,
to make
virtue a practical, not a theoretical
attribute.
Salutati was not alone in
equating the study
of
literature
with virtue and
humanitas.
Since, as
Cicero
had said, 'the whole praise of virtue consists in action',
then
the end of
learning must be virtue, not mere erudition, and 'eloquence is essential to
the
studia
humanitatis
because of the necessity of moving the
will
to
action'.
39
Reason, virtue and the social order all depend on the right use of
language.
Elocutio,
far from being a mere
ornament,
was the faculty to
which
Cicero
had devoted the greatest care, rightly so, according to
Quintilian, 'for the verb
eloqui
means the production and communication
to the audience
of
all
that
the speaker has conceived in his mind, and without
this power all the preliminary accomplishments
of
oratory are as useless as a
sword
that
is kept permanently concealed within its sheath'.
40
The
corollary
of
such a belief, repeatedly echoed in Renaissance texts, is
that
the
study
of
eloquence was to be pursued for utility, not
ornament,
and for the
frequently asserted
—
though seldom properly defined
—
motive of the
common good. Poliziano eulogised rhetoric for its political utility:
'there
is
nothing more fertile and useful
than
to persuade one's fellow-citizens by
means
of
words,
so
that
they perform actions advantageous to the
state
and
refrain from those
that
are damaging'.
41
Such formulations, with their
implicit
assumption of a one-party state, or a unanimity of political or
ethical attitudes, were naive, but nonetheless the praise
of
eloquence in these
terms
did much to increase its status.
39.
Struever
1970,
p. 59, citing Salutati
1891-1911,
iv, p. 223:'sediam satis
delogica
dictum sit. . .etad
rethoricam, que cum voluntate congreditur, veniamus.
Ambe
quidem,
licet
diverso tramite, finem
unum intendunt, quamvis una dilucidet intellectum ut animo sciat, altera disponat ut
velit,
et alia
ratione
ilia
probet ut doceat, hec vero persuadeat ut inclinet.' See also
Cicero,
De officiis
1.6.19.
40. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria vm. pr.
14-17:
'Eloqui enim est omnia, quae mente conceperis promere
atque ad audientes perferre, sine quo supervacua sunt priora et similia gladio condito atque intra
vaginam
suam haerenti.'
41.
Cited
by Garin
1958b,
pp. 83-4 (Oratio super
Fabio
Quintiliano et Statii Sylvis): 'Quid autem
tarn
utile
tamque fructuosum est quam quae tuae Reipublicae carissimisque tibi hominibus utilia
conducibiliaque
inveneris posse
ilia
dicendo persuadere, eosque ipsos a malis inutilibusque
rationibus absterrere?' Cf.
Cicero,
De oratore 1.8.30-3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Rhetoric
and poetics
731
RHETORIC
AND
PHILOSOPHY
Although
rhetoric was often linked with philosophy in the Renaissance, it is
not easy for us to estimate
their
true
relationship, which was neither stable
nor always clearly formulated. Since the humanists were in a sense
grammarians, philologists and rhetoricians, one modern reaction is to
question whether they were philosophers at
all.
Certainly some rhetoricians
claimed
that
they were doing philosophy, and the more aggressive among
them believed they could do it
better
than
the philosophers. To evaluate
their
work, paradoxical though it may seem at first, it is
better
to be a
rhetorician
than
a philosopher. The charge so often brought against
Renaissance philosophy,
that
it merely synthesised already existing schools
of
thought without producing a system of its own
—
unlike the ages
immediately before and after it — undoubtedly applies to rhetorical
philosophy, which is largely based on Stoicism, with an opportunistic use of
Plato and Aristotle. To approach it,
then,
in the expectation of systematic
thought is to arrive at the position
of
J. E.
Seigel,
who amasses evidence of
'contradictions' in Petrarch and Salutati on such issues as the excellence of
the active or contemplative
lives.
42
Yet these were topics on which it was
possible
to be of two minds, the determining factor being the context.
Rhetoric taught
that
discourse was to be adapted to the situation and
audience (Aristotle,
Rhetoric
11.13,
I390
a
25ff.).
The question of whether to
choose
the monastic
life
should be evaluated according to the age, education
and expectations
of
the person making
that
choice. It was a relative, not an
absolute issue.
The
relativity of rhetorical discourse, the fact
that
its whole activity,
forensic,
deliberative or demonstrative, concerns the field
of
human
action
and
human
choice, made it suspicious to those philosophers with an
absolute concept of
truth
or
justice.
The conflict between philosophy and
rhetoric, a
running
battle from Plato to Kant and
Croce,
has usually derived
from
a philosopher's dissatisfaction with rhetoric. The charges made by
Plato in the
Gorgias,
that
rhetoric deals with the
arts
of appearance, has no
real knowledge
(emcrr^??)
but merely opinions
(So^at),
no
inherent
subject-matter and no access to the
truth
(Gorgias,
452-66), were certainly
known
to some Renaissance rhetoricians, for the dialogue had been
translated
by Leonardo Bruni. In answering them they could draw on the
42.
Seigel
1968, pp. 49-52, 70-4.
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732
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
reasoned defence made by Aristotle at the opening of his
Rhetoric:
that
rhetoric is the counterpart
of
dialectic,
sharing its universality
of
range;
that
it is essential to human society, from law and politics to everyday
life,
especially
useful in self-defence (since 'the use of rational speech is more
distinctive of a human being
than
the use of his limbs');
that
if it can be
abused so can 'all good things except virtue', particularly those
that
are most
useful;
that
it is an art or
rex^rj
whose use needs to be understood and
improved
(13
54
a
—13
55
b
).
Renaissance defenders
of
rhetoric could also draw
on the more aggressive counters
of
the Roman rhetoricians, such as Cicero's
assertion
that
'to us orators belong the broad estates
of
wisdom
and learning,
which
have been allowed to lapse and become derelict through our
absorption in affairs, have been invaded by persons too generously supplied
with
leisure, persons who actually . . .
banter
and ridicule the orator after
the
manner
of Socrates in Plato's
Gorgias
. . .'.
43
Quintilian devotes less
space to philosophy, but in equally aggressive vein proclaims
that
under
his
leadership rhetoric
will
approach the philosophers who 'usurped the
better
part
of
the art
of
oratory',
that
is, 'the principles
of
upright and honourable
living',
and 'demand back what is ours by right'.
44
One way of handling Plato's attack on rhetoric was to
turn
it around
against him, as
Cicero
did with the comment
that
'it was when making fun
of
orators
that
he himself seemed to be the consummate
orator'.
45
So
Theodore
Gaza,
in the recently discovered lectures he gave on taking up the
chair of Greek and eloquence at Ferrara in 1446, said
that
although the
Gorgias
was intended to dissuade
students
from the rhetoric
of
the sophists,
'in eloquently arguing his case, Plato proves the great power and worth of
rhetoric'.
46
Such a light, ironic tone was seldom used in Renaissance
disputes between rhetoric and philosophy. More characteristic is the attack
made by Lorenzo
Valla
in De
voluptate
(1431;
revised
1433),
based on
Quintilian but exceeding him in violence.
Valla's
dialogue is notoriously difficult to
interpret,
and since some
of
the
opinions are
uttered
by
personae
for the two main philosophical schools,
43.
De oratore
m.31.122:
'nostra est, inquam, omnis ista prudentiae doctrinaeque possessio, in quam
homines quasi caducam atque vacuam abundantes otio nobis occupatis involaverunt, atque etiam
.
. . irridentes oratorem ut
ille
in
Gorgia
Socrates cavillantur . . .'
44.
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 1, pr. 10: 'Neque enim hoc concesserim, rationem rectae honestaeque
vitae
(ut quidam putaverunt) ad philosophos relegandam'; ibid., 17: 'Nunc necesse est ad eos
aliquando auctores recurrere, qui desertam, ut
dixi,
partem oratoriae artis, meliorem praesertim,
occupaverunt, et velut nostrum reposcere.'
45.
De oratore
1.11.47:
'quo in libro [sc. Gorgias] in hoc maxime admirabar Platonem, quod mihi in
oratoribus irridendis ipse esse orator summus videbatur'.
46.
Renaissance Eloquence 1983, p. 180 (Monfasani).
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Rhetoric
and poetics
733
Stoics
and Epicureans, who are demolished in
turn
in favour
of
Christianity,
perhaps
Valla
may not be identified with them. However, in this exposure
of
the deficiencies of ancient philosophy
there
does seem to be a consistent
thread
asserting the superiority of rhetoric. In the
prooemium
Valla
announces
that
he intends to use 'the sword
that
is the word
of
God',
and by
drawing on faith and God's word 'destroy our enemies -
that
is, the
philosophers - partly with their own swords, partly by inciting them to
civil
war and mutual destruction'.
47
In book i
Vegio,
the exponent of
Epicureanism, dismisses philosophy as 'a soldier or lower officer at the
orders of Oratory, his commander and (as a great writer of tragedies calls
her) his queen'.
48
He laments
that
Cicero had not exercised his right to
reclaim from philosophers the
parts
of
rhetoric they had stolen, and wishes
he had 'raised against those sneak thieves
of
philosophers the sword he had
received
from Eloquence, queen of all, and to punish them as criminals.
Truly
how much more clearly, solemnly, and magnificently the same
subjects are dealt with by the orators
than
by the obscure, squalid and
anaemic philosophers!'
Vegio
announces
that
he
will
dispute on this topic
violently,
according to the usage
of
the orators, who have always addressed
the most
important
topics while philosophers chattered in their nooks and
crannies. Orators are the
true
leaders of men.
49
In book in, Antonio,
defender of Christianity, rebukes Boethius for being more friendly to the
dialecticians
than
the rhetoricians: 'How much
better
it would have been
for
him to speak oratorically
rather
than
dialectically!
What is more absurd
than
the procedure
of
the philosophers?
If
one word goes wrong, the whole
argument is imperilled', whereas the orator has many resources.
50
What
was
a
vice
of rhetoric for Plato becomes in
Valla's
hands
a virtue.
Modern commentators on
Valla
agree
that
he wished to subordinate
philosophy to rhetoric, and
thus
'accomplish
that
revenge on behalf of
oratory' which he criticised Cicero for not having carried far enough.
51
One can doubt whether 'revenge' is the proper spirit in which to
pursue
this
47.
L.
Valla
1977, p. 50: 'gladio, quod est verbum Dei . . . ita nos bene speremus putemusque fore ut
allophilos,
id est philosophos, partim suo mucrone iugulemus, partim in domesticum bellum ac
mutuam perniciem concitemus'.
48.
Ibid., p. 74: 'Siquidem philosophia velut miles est aut tribunus sub imperatrice oratione et ut magnus
quidam tragicus appellat regina.' Cf. Euripides, Hecuba
816-18.
49.
Ibid., pp. 74-6: 'Sed tamen mallem ut. . .si qui repugnassent, gladium ilium quern a regina rerum
eloquentia acceperat in latrunculos philosophos strinxisset et male meritos male mulctasset. Quanto
enim evidentius, gravius, magnificentius ab oratoribus ilia disseruntur quam a philosophis obscuris,
squalidis,
et exanguibus disputantur.'
50.
Ibid., p. 272: 'At quanto satius erat oratorie quam dialectice loqui! Quid enim ineptius
philosophorum more ut si uno verbo sit erratum tota causa periclitemur?'
51.
Seigel
1968, pp.
137-69;
Gerl 1974;
Vickers
1986.
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734
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
discussion.
Valla's
extremism may in the end rebound on him. Mario
Nizolio
was just as extreme, wanting to 'throw out all dialecticians and
rhetoricians', rejecting the logical works of Aristotle as
Vicious'.
In their
place rhetoric would become the truly universal art, its subject being
everything in human knowledge.
52
Rather like
Valla's
Totalitatsanspruch,
53
this position comes dangerously close to the megalomaniac claim
that
Plato
maliciously
put into the mouth
of
Gorgias,
that
rhetoric 'includes practically
all
other faculties
under
her control'
(456B).
Disputes such as these generate much heat but little light. A sounder idea
of
the relation between rhetoric and philosophy in the Renaissance can be
gained from other passages in Cicero and Quintilian, such as the distinction
in De
oratore
that
of
the
three
divisions
of
philosophy, physics, dialectic and
ethics, the orator's province is the
third,
the moral science
of
human
nature,
vita
et
mores
(1.15.66—9).
In the
Institutio
Quintilian agreed
that
orators must
concern themselves with the actual practice and experience
of
life
(xii.2.6—
20). This large area, including ethics and psychology
—
dealt with in
inter-
related
terms
by Aristotle in his
Ethics
and
Rhetoric
—
became the focus for
much Renaissance rhetoric. Moral philosophy provided the materials or
subject-matter for rhetoric, but was also its goal.
Rhetoric drew on the philosophers for its definition of the virtues and
vices
(Soarez even went back to
Cicero:
De
arte
rhetorica
1.43—8), without
making any original contribution to ethics in theory or terminology. But
Renaissance writers were eager to claim
that
the practical application of
ethics was made by poetry and rhetoric. In
1562
Antonio Posio pronounced
rhetoric 'the
instrument
of the moral philosopher', being applied to law,
politics
and affairs
of
state, while 'to it indeed is added poetics, which must
not be rejected from a perfect state'.
54
Annotating the
Poetics
in 1575,
Alessandro Piccolomini related poetry to 'the practical intellect',
that
is, to
the 'architectonic' science of
civil
prudence or politics, an identification
made frequently in the later years
of
the century, most notably in Sidney's
Apology for Poetry.
55
52.
Breen 1968;
McKeon
1972, pp.
217-19.
53. Gerl 1974, p. 78.
54.
Posio
1562,
sig*
5
V
: 'Rhetorica enim est instrumentum moralis philosophi, quo bonae proponuntur
leges
. . .
Accedit
vero Poetica, quae ab optima Repub[lica] non est abiicenda.' Cited by Weinberg
1961,
1, p. 17; see also pp. 26-7, 486.
55.
A. Piccolomini
1575,
sig.
f f
6
V
states
that
all
arts
aim at 'qualche honesto giouamento, et commodo
dell'humana vita . . . essendo la poesia anch'ella un'habito dell'intelletto prattico intorno a cose
fattibili;
et per conseguente potendosi chiamar'arte; et essendo tra
tutti
gli altri cosi fatti habiti
honoratissima, et in nobilita alia
civil
prudentia, architetonica di
tutte
l'arti, vicinissima'. Cited by
Weinberg
1961,
i,pp.
10-11:
see index, s.v.
Poetics,
11,
p.
1160,
for other linkings
of
poetry with the
'architectonic' science; also Sidney 1965, pp. 104,
167-8.
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Rhetoric
and poetics
735
The
main claim made for the twin
arts
of rhetoric and poetry was
that
they could instil virtue in our breasts and remove
vice,
or alternatively make
us
follow
the one and flee the other. In the first formulation Scipione
Ammirato wrote in 1560
that
'the end
of
poetics is to introduce virtue into
the soul by driving
vice
out of it'.
56
In the second version, the
flee/follow
opposition, which derives from classical rhetoric and philosophy, Giacopo
Grifoli
declared
that
whoever reads the poets
'will
not only know with the
greatest clarity what things are to be done and what ones avoided', but
will
also be filled with pleasure.
57
This whole ethical tradition clearly derives
from epideictic rhetoric, where the incentive to virtue and
deterrent
from
vice
are achieved by praise or blame.
As
Piccolo
mini put it in his vernacular
commentary on the
Poetics,
'through the imitation
of
virtuous men and the
expression
of
their praise, we come to be aroused and excited to virtue . . .
On
the other
hand,
if we hear
vices
and wicked actions expressed through
poetic imitation and, as they are expressed, reviled and vituperated we
immediately begin to dispose ourselves to flee and to
hate
vicious actions
.
. ,'
58
In this mode, perhaps the most popular of all the links between
rhetoric, poetics and moral philosophy in the Renaissance, writers could cite
the authority of
Aristotle,
who had linked praise with the celebration of
a
man's good qualities, blame with the response to
vice
(Rhetoric
1.9; cf.
Nicomachean
Ethics
1.12,
11.3,
III.I).
Aristotle was also cited in the Averroes
version
of
the
Poetics,
which begins: 'Every poem and all poetic discourse is
blame or praise.' Poems 'concern
matters
of
will
—
the honourable or the
base', and poets 'impel' men to virtue and 'repel' them from
vice.
59
The
moral-rhetorical basis
of
such a conception
of
poetry was wholly acceptable
to the Renaissance, as we can see from Salutati's definition of the poet
—
fusing
Quintilian with Averroes
—
as 'a perfect man skilled in praise and
blame'.
60
56.
Ammirato
1642,HI,p.
386(//dedalioneoverodelpoetadialogo): 'il fine della poetica e indur neH'anima
la
virtu discacciandone il
vizio'.
Cited by Weinberg
1961,1,
p. 280; see also pp. 136, 143, 315, 320.
57.
Grifoli
1557, pp. 62—3 (Oratio de laudibus poetarum): 'non modo quae sequenda, quaeque fugienda
sint appertissime cognoscat, sed iucundissima quoque voluptate capiatur'. Cited by Weinberg
1961,
1,
p. 277.
58.
A. Piccolomini
1575,
sig. ff
j
T
:
'con l'imitation degli huomini virtuosi; et con la spressione delle lodi
loro,
veniamo ad infiammarci, et ad escitarci alia virtu . . . se i
vitij,
et le
scelleratezze
dall'altra banda
sentiamo con poetica imitation' esprimere et esprimendo vilipendere, et vituperare; subito
cominciamo
a disporsi alia fuga, et all'odio delle vitiose attioni . . .'. Cited by Weinberg 1961, 1,
PP-
544-5; see also pp. 9, 90,
191,
212, 268-9, 277, 317, 429,
536,11,
pp. 653, 748, 753, 792, 902-3,
1046.
59.
Hardison 1962, p. 35.
60. Salutati
1951,1,
p. 68
(1.13):
'vir optimus . . . laudandi vituperandique peritus'; cited by Hardison
1962,
p. 36; see also Ullman
1963,
pp. 25, 95. For the survival
of
Averroes'
definition up to the 1580s
see
Weinberg 1961, 1, p. 209,
11,
pp. 751,
764-5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
736
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
In this ethical role of poetry two other rhetorical concepts were
important,
flectere
and
movere,
both of which derive from Cicero's
definition
of
the role
of
the orator
(Orator
21.69;
Brutus
185).
The persuasive
powers of rhetoric were endlessly celebrated in the Renaissance, and given
iconographical expression in the 'Hercules gallicus', who is shown leading
men around by chains which emerge from his mouth to their ears. The
crucial
intermediary between hearing and doing is
willing,
and it is no
accident
that
a new stress on the
will
and voluntaristic psychology
accompanied the revival
of
rhetoric.
61
As Francis Bacon put it in 1605: 'The
duty and
office
of
Rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imagination for the
better
moving
of the
will.'
62
Any power ascribed to rhetoric was automatically
transferred to poetry, whose excellence for many Renaissance theorists lay
precisely
in its power to arouse the passions and to move its audience to
virtue.
So
Pontano,
in his
dialogue
Actius de
numeris
poeticis et
lege
historiae
(dating from the 1490s) wrote
that
'the end of both orator and poet is to
move
and carry away the listener'.
63
For Scaliger all human communica-
tion in language has one end only, whether in philosophy, rhetoric or
literature, namely persuasion. The 'soul of persuasion is
truth,
truth
either
fixed
and absolute, or susceptible of question. Its end is to convince, or to
secure the doing of something.'
64
The goal of oratory is not elegant
speaking but persuasion to action. It was the promise
of
power
over men's
minds and deeds
that
gave persuasion such a remarkably high
status
in
Renaissance rhetoric. Poets not only teach things, as the philosophers do,
but do so more powerfully, Bartolomeo Maranta wrote, because 'they
move
the passions and display the habits' so
vividly
that
their discourse
becomes
living,
not abstract.
65
This concept
of
poetry as a super-rhetorical
force
was memorably expressed by Sir Philip Sidney, celebrating the poet's
61.
Garin
1958b,
pp. 34-8; Struever 1970, pp. 58-9, 74.
62.
F.
Bacon
1857-74,
HI,
P- 409 {The Advancement of Learning
11).
63.
Cited by Weinberg 1961, 1, pp. 87-8, from Pontano 1943, p. 233: 'Utriusque etiam, oratoris ac
poetae
officium
est movere et flectere auditorem'.
64.
J. C.
Scaliger
1561,
p. 2 (lib. 1, cap. 1): 'An vero omnibus his, Philosophicae,
Civili,
Theatrali, unus
.
. . finis propositus sit? ita sane est. Unus enim idemque omnium
finis,
persuasio. . . . Forma
persuasionis,
Veritas:
sive
certa,
sive
ambigua. Finis, opus vel intellectionis, vel actionis.' There seems
little substance to the claims
that
in the Renaissance 'the emphasis in rhetoric had shifted from
persuasion to style and imitation', so
that
rhetoric and poetics declined to the cultivation of fine
language
with no ethical or political import: Kristeller
1979,
p.
251.
Weinberg's survey
of
sixteenth-
century poetics abounds with statements on the function of rhetoric and poetics in persuading to
virtue,
and he discovers, as the century progresses, an increasing emphasis on politics: Weinberg
1961,
1, p. 346.
65.
Maranta
1561,
f. I26
v
: 'cum non solum res doceant ut
illi
sed exemplis corroborent. Melius etiam
quia significantius cum in movendis affectibus explicandisque habitibus poetae res ipsas ita ob oculos
ponant ut intueri ac tractare illas videamur'; cited by Weinberg 1961, 1, p. 487. For similar
statements, none of them, however, making this connection with ivapyeia, see Weinberg
1961,1,
pp.
213, 544.
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