Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/304

 246 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.vm. MARCH 20, 1921. mentioned by Pliny that bayed and reared up at the sight of dogs and horses as vividly rendered in paint as to seem alive. And yet the painted figures, even if considered as painted, excite ^acutely the emotions."* The realistic painting, the living effect of artistic representation comes to percep- tion and causes a pleasure of its own, little -related to the thought of the living figures represented in paint and to the comparison between art and life. The ut pictura poesis theory has been modi- fied to conform to the ideal of emo- tional and even aesthetic pleasure. One chapter of the ' Trattato dello stile ' ' The Essence and Function of Poetical Imitation ' ishows a curious uncertainty in this doc- trine : Pallavicino inclines to ethical plea- sure, knowledge gained from contempla- tion ; but contemplation of poetical imita- tion leads to pleasure in our perception rather than in the imitation and hence to ^aesthetic pleasure: "I certainly do not mean that the imitator teaches us to imitate and that the spectator learns from him the art -of imitating." Poetry is the queen of the imitative arts, chiefly through the greater vivacity of its imitation : and, in this way, although aesthetic pleasure should be the aim of the poet and the delineation of the fictitious and imagined may be more pro- ductive of delight than delineation of the real since it comes from the genius of the poet,f the "more exquisite and more fruit- ful function of poetry is to illumine our mind in the noble exercise of judgment, and thus become the nurse of philosophy giving it
 * a sweeter milk." The contradiction between

poetical imitative realism and idealism is -evident : in one passage he states that " poetry represents each action as similar to ^that which happens or should happen in Teality " and in a following passage that the l>eauty of poetry lies in the marvellous - " since to learn the marvellous is to learn what was entirely contrary to our belief and is therefore a more precious gain than learn- ing the convnonplaae " ; J and again, that the real should not be a rigid criterion, the fabulous, like winged horses, ships changed into nymphs or similar creations of the imagination, being itself a source of pleasure provided that the artistic representation ' bring? conviction and preserves consistency, '"The Rsnaissanca creed of the poetica t ' Trattato dello stile,' chap. xvii. J Ibid., ch^p. xxx. miversal finds expression in the ' Trattato dello stile,' with a difference however in that >bservation is awakened by poetry : " Poetry forms its theme by observing the universal not what occurs in a single event but vhat usually occurs in similar events. Then very universal contains in itself an infinite lumber of single things, infinite truths and truths not dependent on chance but on the order of lature and hence is the object of science. Thus n poetical descriptions the slightest circumstances appear most beautiful because they teach those universal truths which appeal most to the writer's )bservation and are less noticed by the reader, o subtle as to escape his eye."* Poetry is ' much more suited to move than to teach ; the mmediate aim of poetry in weaving tales is not nstruction by means of allegorically implied nysteries since each art must use the methods >est proportioned to its intention and allegory does not instruct." The poet is superior to the philosopher in this popular appeal and his duty is to ppeal to the common people, according to Pallavicino ; since the philosopher pre- supposes interest and wonder in his readers regarding the unknown causes of effects, and Logically clears away that ignorance, while the poet excites interest and wonder before, giving instruction. Instead of being, as the Renaissance critics believed, the daughter of philosophy, poetry rises to a more exalted level and the great poets may be termed divine : poetry is raised above the entire theory of knowledge. The ethical, hedon- istic, didascalic, scientific, aesthetic elements become merged and confused until it is difficult to know what Pallavicino really desires ; but in his discussion of the differ- ence between poetry and history he attains almost an aesthetic point of view. Contrary to the classical tradition, he insists on the independence of poetry as art. One sentence in the ' Letters ' has a peculiar value in this respect : " In art there is no place for that which several feel in nature It is a boast of great Artists that they can render more worthy of esteem a log, a stone, a candle than an equal mass of fine gold and God, who is the greatest Artist, took for material no thing, "t The ' Parnassaesis ' added nothing to this theory. Purity in art remains the clesi- doratum : the development of this thought would lead inevitably to independence of the poet as a craftsman and not as a social or ethical teacher. HUGH QUIGI/EY. f ' Lettere,' p ? 70.
 * ' Del Bene,' p. 456, et seq.
 * Ibid., chap, xxx.