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Plato
ION
For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine; had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away reason from poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses the pronouncers of oracles and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves, who utter these priceless words while bereft of reason, but that God himself is the speaker and that through them he is addressing us.
REPUBLIC BOOK III
They (poets) ought not to practice or even imitate anything else; if
they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters
which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy,
free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skillful at imitating
any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest the fruit of imitation should
be reality.
…
We would not have pour guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity,
as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed on many baneful herb
and flower day by day until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption
in their own soul. Let us search for artists who are gifted to discern
the true nature of the beautiful and the graceful; then will our youth
dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the
good in everything; and beauty shall flow into the eye and ear, like a
health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul
from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.
There can be no nobler training than that.
BOOK X
Then the imitator is a long way off the truth, and can reproduce all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image,
…
But the real artist, who had real knowledge of those things which he chose to imitate, would be interested in realities and not in imitations.
…
Thus far we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge
worth mentioning of what he imitates.
…
This imitation is concerned with an object which is thrice removed from the truth.
Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she
lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled if mankind are ever
to increase in happiness and virtue.
ARISTOTLE
POETICS
I
I propose to treat poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever falls within the same inquiry. Following then the order of nature, let us begin with the principles which come first.
IV
Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First the instinct of imitation is implanted in people from childhood and so is the pleasure felt in things imitated.
…
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for “harmony” and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm.
…
Poetry passed thought many changes and then found its natural form, and there it stopped.
VI
Tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions
…
Every tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, song.
IX
It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it isn’t the function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen—what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity.
…
Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.
XIII
As the sequel to what has already been said, we must proceed to consider what the poet should aim at, and what he should avoid, in constructing his plots; and by what means the specific effect of tragedy will be produced.
A perfect tragedy should, as we have see, be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should moreover imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation.
XVIII
Every tragedy falls into two parts—complication and unraveling or dénouement.
XXV
The poet, being an imitator, like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects—things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be.
HORACE
ART OF POETRY
It is not enough the poems have beauty of form; they must also have charm, and draw the hearer’s feelings which they will.
Either follow tradition or, if you invent, see that your invention be in Harmony with itself.
The aim of the poet is either to benefit, or to amuse, or to make his words at once please and give lessons of life. When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. … Fictions intended to please must keep as near as may be to real life.
PLOTINUS
ON THE INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY
We ourselves possess beauty when we are true to our own being; our ugliness is in going over to another order; our self-knowledge, that is to say, is our beauty; in self-ignorance we are ugly.
BOETHIUS
THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
While I was pondering thus in silence and using my pen to set down my fearful complaint, there appeared to me standing overhead a women whose countenance was full of majesty, whose gleaming eyes surpassed in power f insight those of ordinary mortals … she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens. Her clothes were wrought of the finest thread by subtle workmanship into an indissoluble material. These she had woven with her own hands, as I learned afterwards from her own disclosure. … On the border below was woven the symbol , on that above was to be read a .
When she saw that the Muses of poetry were presently by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely as she said: “Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never have they nursed his sorrowings with any remedies, but rather fostered them with poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briar of the passions; they do not free the minds of people from disease but accustom them thereto. … Away with you, sirens, seductive even to perdition, and leave him to my Muses to be cared for and healed.
MARCO VIDA
DE ARTE POETICA
Youth does not yet dare rely on his own powers; it needs outside support
and another's care. For unless a master's steady influence is consistently
present and instills this sweet love of studies, a thousand enticing objects
may divert the youth from the sacred Muses and deceive him with the cheating
image of better pursuits.
AUGUSTINE
ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
... he who receives the precepts we wish to teach will not need another
through which, by itself, is unveiled that which is covered when he finds
any obscurity in books, since he has certain rules like those used in reading
in his understanding. But by following certain traces he may come to the
hidden sense without any error, or at least he will not fall into the absurdity
of wicked meanings.
... circumcise my lips, both my interior and exterior lips from all mistakes and lying. May your Scriptures be my chaste delight. May I never fall into error in my reading of them, May I never deceive others by misuse of them.
... all the teachings of the pagans contain not only the simulated and superstitious imaginings and grave burdens of unnecessary labor, which each one of us leaving the society of pagans under the leadership of Christ ought to abominate and avoid, but also liberal disciplines more suited to the uses of truth, and some most useful precepts concerning morals. ... When a Christian separates himself from their miserable society, he should take this treasure with him for the just use of teaching the gospel. And their clothing, which is made up of human institutions, ... should be seized and held to be converted to Christian uses.
The doubtful things interpret in such a way that they may not be out of harmony. But those things that are obscure, elucidate if you can. But if you cannot penetrate to an understanding of them, pass over them so that you may not run into danger of error by presuming to attempt in what you are not equal to doing. Do not be contemptuous of such things, but rather be reverent toward them, for you have heard that it is written: "He made darkness his hiding place."
Whatever appears in the divine Word that does not literally pertain to virtuous behavior or to the truth of faith you must take to be figurative.
SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS
WHETHER HOLY SCRIPTURE SHOULD USE METAPHORS?
As Dionysus says, it is more fitting that divine truths should be expounded under the figure of less noble than of nobler bodies; and this for three reasons. First, because thereby people’s minds are the better freed from error. For then it is clear that these things are not literal descriptions of divine truths, which might have been open to doubt had they been expressed under the figure of nobler bodies, especially in the case of those who could think of nothing nobler than bodies. Second, because this is more befitting the knowledge of God that we have in this life. For what he is not is clearer to us than what he is. Therefore similitudes drawn from things farthest away from God form within us a truer estimate that God is above whatsoever we may say or think of him. Third, because thereby divine truths are the better hidden from the unworthy.
DANTE
THE BANQUET
Writings can be understood and ought to be expounded chiefly in four senses. The first is called literal, and this is that sense which does not go beyond the strict limits of the letter; the second is called allegorical, and this is disguised under the cloak of such stories, and is a truth hidden under a beautiful fiction. … The third sense is called moral; and this sense is that for which teachers ought to say they go through the writings intently to watch for their own profit and that of their hearers. … The fourth sense is anagogic, that is, above the senses, and this occurs when a writing is spiritually expounded which even in the literal sense by the things signified likewise gives intimation of higher matter belonging to the eternal glory.
LETTER TO CAN GRANDE SCALA
The end of the whole and of the part (of poetry) may be manifold, to wit, the proximate and the ultimate, but dropping all subtle investigation, we may say briefly that the end of the whole and the part is to remove those living In this life from the state of misery and lead them to a state of felicity.
BOCCACCIO
LIFE OF DANTE
IX: DIGRESSION CONCERNING POETRY
If we apply our minds, and examine it by reason, I think we can easily discover that the ancient poets have followed so far as is possible for the human mind, the steps of the Holy Spirit, which, as we see in Holy Scripture, revealed to future generations its highest secrets by the mouths of the many, making them utter under a veil that which in due time it intended to make known openly through works
X
I assert that theology is simply the poetry of God.
GENEOLOGY OF THE GENTILE GODS
XIV:vii: The definition of poetry
Poetry proceeds from the bosom of God … This fervor of poesy is sublime
in its effects; it impels the soul to a longing for utterance… It arranges
these meditations in a fixed order, adorns the whole composition with unusual
interweavings of words and thoughts; and thus it veils truth in a fair
and fitting garment of fiction.
Sir Philip Sidney
An APOLOGY FOR POETRY
Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, … so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge.
But let us see how the Greeks named it, and how they deemed of it. The Greeks called him “a poet”, which name ha, as most excellent gone through other languages. It cometh of this word poien, which is “to make”.
Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature, in making things either better nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature…
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done—neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen; the poets only deliver a golden.
Poetry is too teach and delight.
Now therein of all sciences is our poet the monarch. For he doth not
only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will
entice any man to enter into it.
Samuel Johnson
RASSELAS
The business of a poet is to examine not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip… But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted with all modes of life. … he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same…
William Wordsworth
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE LYRICAL BALLADS
The principal object, then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by people, and, at the same time, throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them the primary laws of our nature…
For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
What is meant by the word poet? What is a poet? To whom does he address
himself? And what language is to be exp3ected from him?—He is a person
speaking to people: a person endowed with more lively sensibility, more
enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature
and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind….
The poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human being poss4essed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, or a natural philosopher, but as a human being.
Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of humanity.
He is the rock of defense for human nature; an upholder and preserver, carrying everywhere with him relationship and love.
John Keats
LETTER TO GEORGE KEATS
The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.
[This ability to suspend tension I call] – I mean negative capability,
that is when a person is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries,
doubts, without any irritable reacting after fact and reason…
LETTER TO JOHN TAYLOR
If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A DEFENSE OF POETRY
A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.
Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of humanity…
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
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