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Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance

A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism

By

Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English in Columbia University

1922




To my Father and Mother




Preface



In this essay I undertake to trace the influence of classical rhetoric on
the criticisms of poetry published in England between 1553 and 1641. This
influence is most readily recognized in the use by English renaissance
writers on literary criticism of the terminology of classical rhetoric.
But the rhetorical terminology in most cases carried with it rhetorical
thinking, traces of whose influence persist in criticism of poetry to the
present day.

The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of
rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part
Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose