THEORY OF POETIC CREATION invention. THE first and most necessary point that ever I found meet The rule of to be considered in making of a delectable poem is this, to ground it upon some fine invention. For it is not enough to roll in pleasant words, nor yet to thunder in rym, ram, ruff, by letter (quoth my master, Chaucer), nor yet to abound in apt vocables, or epithets, unless the invention have in it also aliquid salis. By this aliquid salis, I mean some good and fine device, showing the quick capacity of a writer: and where I say some good and fine invention, I mean that I would have it both fine and good. For many inventions are so superfine that they are vix good. And again many inventions are good, and yet not finely handled. And for a general forewarning: what theme soever you do take in hand, if you do handle it but tanquam in oratione perpetua, and never study for some depth of device in the invention, and some figures also in the handling thereof: it will appear to the skilful reader but a tale of a tub. To deliver unto you general examples, it were almost impossible, sithence the occasions of inventions are (as it were) infinite: nevertheless, take in worth mine opinion, and perceive my further meaning in these few points. If I should undertake to write in praise of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise her crystal eye, nor her cherry lip, etc. For these things are trita et obvia. But I would either find some supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superlative degree, or else I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that she hath, and thereupon raise the praise of her commendation. E B Inspiration. Poeta nascitur. Likewise if I should disclose my pretence in love, I would either make a strange discourse of some intolerable passion, or find occasion to plead by the example of some history, or discover my disquiet in shadows per allegoriam, or use the covertest mean that I could to avoid the uncomely customs of common writers. Thus much . . . upon the rule of invention, which of all other rules is most to be marked, and hardest to be prescribed in certain and infallible rules, nevertheless to conclude therein, I would have you stand most upon the excellency of your invention, and stick not to study deeply for some fine device. For that being found, pleasant words will follow well enough and fast enough. Your invention being once devised, take heed that neither pleasure of rhyme, nor variety of device, do carry you from it. G. GASCOIGNE, Certain Notes of Instruction, 1575 Who doth not wonder at poetry? who thinketh not that it proceedeth from above? . . . It is a pretty sentence, yet not so pretty as pithy, poeta nascitur, orator fit: as who should say, poetry cometh from above, from a heavenly seat of a glorious God, unto an excellent creature man; an orator is but made by exercise. For, if we examine well what befell Ennius among the Romans, and Hesiodus among his countrymen, the Grecians, how they came by their knowledge, whence they received their heavenly fury, the first will tell us that, sleeping on the Mount of Parnassus, he dreamed that he received the soul of Homer into him, after the which he became a poet; the next will assure you that it cometh not by labour, neither that night-watchings bringeth it, but that we must have it thence whence he fetched it, which was (he saith) from a well of the Muses which Persius calleth Caballinus, a draught whereof drew him to his perfection; so of a shepherd he became an eloquent poet. Well then you see that From nature it cometh not by exercise of play-making, neither insertion of gauds, but from nature and from above. . . . Persius and from above. was made a poet divino furore percitus; and whereas the poets were said to call for the Muses' help, their meaning was no other . . . but to call for heavenly inspiration from above to direct their endeavours. Sibylla in her answers to Aeneas against her will, as the poet telleth us, was possessed with this fury; yea, weigh considerately but of the writing of poets, and you shall see that when their matter is most heavenly their style is most lofty, a strange token of the wonderful efficacy of the same. Poesy . T. LODGE, Defence of Poetry, 1579. must be gently led, or rather it must lead. Which was partly the cause that made the ancient-learned affirm it was a divine gift, and no human skill: sith all Adivine gift. other knowledges lie ready for any that hath strength of : wit a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried unto it: and therefore is it an old proverb, orator fit, poeta nascitur. Yet confess I always that as the fertilest ground must be manured, so must the highest flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him. That Daedalus, they say, both in this and in other, hath three wings to bear itself up into the air of due commendation: that is, Art, imitaart, imitation, and exercise. But these, neither artificial tion, exerrules nor imitative patterns, we much cumber ourselves withal. Sir P. SIDNEY, Apology for Poetry, c. 1583. cise. its perfec [T]his science [Poesy] in his perfection cannot grow Poetry in but by some divine instinct-the Platonics call it furor; tion. or by excellency of nature and complexion; or by great Divine subtility of the spirits and wit; or by much experience Excellency and observation of the world and course of kind; or, peradventure, by all or most part of them. G. PUTTENHAM, Art of English Poesy, 1589. of nature. Subtility of wit. Experience. [A]s the evil and vicious disposition of the brain hinders The fantasy. the sound judgment and discourse of man with busy and disordered fantasies, for which cause the Greeks call him pavTaσTIKós, so is that part, being well affected, not only A mirror of beautiful visions. The inventive part of the mind. nothing disorderly or confused with any monstrous imaginations or conceits, but very formal, and in his much multiformity uniform, that is well proportioned, and so passing clear, that by it, as by a glass or mirror, are represented unto the soul all manner of beautiful visions, whereby the inventive part of the mind is so much holpen as without it no man could devise any new or rare thing And this fantasy may be resembled to a glass, as hath been said, whereof there be many tempers and manner of makings, as the perspectives do acknowledge, for some be false glasses and show things otherwise than they be in deed, and others right as they be in deed, neither fairer nor fouler, nor greater nor smaller. There be again of these glasses that show things exceeding fair and comely; others that show figures very monstrous and ill-favoured. Even so is the fantastical part of man (if it be not disordered) a representer of the best, most comely, and beautiful images or appearances of things to the soul and according to the very truth. If otherwise, then doth it breed chimeras and monsters in man's imaginations, and not only in his imaginations, but also in all his ordinary actions and life which ensues. Wherefore such persons as be illuminated with the brightest irradiations of knowledge and of the verity and due proportion of things, they are Euphantas called by the learned man not phantastici but euphantasioti and of this sort of fantasy are all good poets. ioti. Imagination. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Ib. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman; the lover, all as frantic, The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; |