Boccaccio--Life
of Dante & Genealogy of the Gentile Gods
Three charges against poetry:
1) Poets are liars and poetry is lies.
2) Poetry is not theology (not a spiritual pursuit) and is
therefore worthless.
3) Poets are merely apes of philosophers.
Three responses:
1) Twofold definition of liars: 1) "those who knowingly and
willfully lie . . . willful deceivers"; and 2) "those
who have told a falsehood without knowing it."
2) "Theology and poetry can be considered as almost one and
the same thing when their subject is the same." Theology
(words about God) is similar to poetry in that both are written
in figures (metaphors, similes, etc.)
3) Philosophers work "by a process of syllogizing."
Poets work "wholly without the help of syllogism.'
Philosophers use "an unadorned prose style, with something
of scorn for literary embellishment." A poet "writes
in meter, with an artist's most scrupulous care."
Boccaccio
acerbically takes on the moralistic critics of poetry by listing
poetry's supposed faults and then refuting the validity of the
charges one by one. He refers to these critics as "lackwits
[who] rise up against the poets, saying that they have composed
evil and indecent fables not consonant with the truth."
The first
charge is that poets are liars and poetry is lies. Boccaccio
respond to this by giving a twofold definition of liars: 1)
"those who knowingly and willfully lie . . . willful
deceivers"; and 2) "those who have told a falsehood
without knowing it." This second category of liars has
two subcategories: 1) those whose ignorance is inexcusable
because they had reasonable opportunity to acquire required
knowledge; and 2) those whose ignorance is excusable because of
an incapacity for the required learning or a lack of reasonable
opportunity to acquire the needed knowledge.
The
second charge is that poetry is not theology (not a spiritual
pursuit) and is therefore worthless. Boccaccio asserts that
"theology and poetry can be considered as almost one and
the same thing when their subject is the same.' He goes on
to point out that theology (words about God) is similar to
poetry in that both are written in figures (metaphors, similes,
etc.).
The
third charge, that poets are merely apes of philosophers, he
refutes by comparing the dissimilar methods of each profession.
Philosophers work "by a process of syllogizing." Poets
work "wholly without the help of syllogism.' Philosophers
(in the days before Nietzsche, at any rate) use "an
unadorned prose style, with something of scorn for literary
embellishment." A poet "writes in meter, with an
artist's most scrupulous care."
Boccaccio
divides fiction into four types:
1) Stories which superficially lack the appearance of
truth--such as tales in which animals or inanimate objects
speak;
2) Stories which mingle fiction with truth--such as mythical
stories of gods/goddesses;
3) Stories which are more like history than fiction--such as
Virgil's description of Aeneas; and
4) Stories with no truth at all--old wives' tales. |
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