Oldal 54 [54]
SHAKESPEARE’S ART OF POESY IN KING LEAR
seruice chiefly deuised, in which case to make any other person her highnes
partener in the honour of his guifts it could not städ with my dutie, nor be
without some preiudice to her Maiesties interest and his merrite.”?%
Quite naturally, the question arises as to what makes this particular book so
different from other Renaissance works on rhetoric, such as Thomas Wilson’s
Arte of Rhetorique (1553), Henry Peacham’s Garden of Eloquence (1577), or
Sir Philip Sidney’s Defense of Poesy (1595). Moreover, since these books were
ultimately modeled on the works of one Roman author, Quintillian, and one
Renaissance author, Erasmus, one might even suspect that their discussion
and handling of the subject matter cannot be substantively different.
Nevertheless, Puttenham’s book is outstanding among the works of its kind
for his familiarity and commitment to the vernacular literature of his own
age, a feature that explains the author’s choice of title*® and manifests itself
in the numerous examples that he cites from English poets instead of quoting
classical authors. As far as the immediate source of his rhetorical terminology
is concerned, Puttenham relies mostly on Joannes Susenbrotus’ handbook the
Epitome troporum ac schematum (An Epitome of Tropes and Schemes), which
achieved enormous success throughout Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
century.”°° Out of one hundred and twenty-one figures that Puttenham
names, one hundred and fifteen correspond exactly to Susenbrotus’ terms.””
Yet Puttenham’s originality lies in the fact that he tried to establish an
English vocabulary for these figures instead of merely listing the Greek or
Latin counterparts. In addition to the historic significance of the creation
of a vernacular body of the terminology, this unique feature also reflects
Puttenham’s stand in the contemporaneous debate concerning whether art
should be limited to the Classical languages or whether real poetry can also
be written in vernacular tongues like English. To cite one of his answers
articulated in the form of a rhetorical question: “If againe Art be but a certaine
order of rules prescribed by reason, and gathered by experience, why should
not Poesie be a vulgar Art with vs aswell as with the Greeks and Latines, our
language admitting no fewer rules and nice diuersities then theirs?””
As for the structure of Puttenham’s work, it consists of three books. The
first, entitled “Of Poets and Poesie,” discusses theoretical and generic issues
and emphasizes that the social and political functions of poets and their art
204 Puttenham: The Arte, npn.
Willcock — Walker: Introduction, |xiii.
Wayne A. Rebhorn: “His tail at commandment:” George Puttenham and the Carnivalization
of Rhetoric, in Walter Jost-Wendy Olmsted (eds.): A Companion to Rhetoric and Rhetorical
Criticism, Oxford, Blackwell, 2004, 99.
207 Tbid., 100.
208 Puttenham: The Arte, 3.
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