Source Materials in Germany to 1600

 

The rhetorics and poetics of the fifteenth century had two major goals:4 to make classical knowledge ofthese areas known in a pure form (epistemology), establish Latin-language sources (linguistics) for contemporary scholarship, and bring the pertinent genre and text models up to the sophistication of classical Latinity (textuality); and to establish classical antiquity as the single Standard for all discourses.5 Nearly all German humanists in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries adhered to and promoted this Standard. In Germany after the invention of the printing press, Latin rhetorics and poetics continued to be published regularly, though with somewhat different contents and purposes than before. Latin Rhetorics The classical system of rhetoric concerned the competence and effectiveness of the orator a.nd led to expertise in four component areas: speech situations, stages oftext production, parts ofprose speech, and stylistics, especially rhetorical figures. Humanists dedicated monographs and comprehensive systematic studies alike to these concerns. Primers on stylistics (elocutio) facilitated the acquisition of a Neo-Latin prosc style comparable to that of classical Latinity. This demanded mastcry of elegance, synonyms, vocabulary - Erasmus's De duplici copia verborum ac rerum (The Double Treasury ofWords and Things, 1512) was the standard source book - and sentence construction (compositio). Thc fifty principles of textual stylistics outlined by Albrecht von Eyb (1420-75) in his Praecepta artis rhetoricae (Principles ofthe Art ofRhetoric, 1457) were considered indispensable.6 The Ars oratoria (printed ca. 1485) of Peter Luder (ca. 1415-72),7 adapted and elaborated the three speech situations: judicial speech (genus iudicale), deliberativc political speech (genus deliherativum), and epideictic speech for special occasions (genus demonstrativum); examples accompanied the theoretical presentation of each genre. Systematic officia rhetorics ( officia, "offices") followed, such as the Epithoma rhetorices graphicum (Perfect Summary of Rhetorics, 1496) of Jacob Locher (1471-1528) or the Mat;1Ja1·ita philosophica (Philosophical Pearl, 1503) of Gregor Reisch (ca. 1470-1525), and brought back the classical five-stage scheme of speech production to the center of attention.8 This scheme begins ·with the cognitive operations of the orator: discovcry or invention ( inventio) and arrangement (dispositio); proceeds to the semiotic: manner and style (elocutio); and concludes with the performative: memorization (memoria) and performance (actio). This ancient system remained, with variations, the core of POETICS AND Rl-IETORICS IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY ~ 249 humanistic rhetorics throughout the early modern period, as reflected in the Rhetorica contractae ( Condensed Rhetorics, 1621 ) of Gerhard Johannes Vossius (1577-1649)9 or De arte rhetorica (On the Art ofRhetoric, 1569) of the Jesuit Cyprianus Suarez (1524-93). 10 The theory ofthe parts ofa speech was integrated into this rhetorical system. In 1492 Conrad Celtis (1459-1508) expanded the system to include epistolary theory, modeling his Epitome in utramque Ciceronis rhetoricam (Summary of Both of Cicero 's Rhetorics) 11 on the Hispano-ltalian Jacobus Publicius's recent Oratoriae artis epitoma (Summary ofthe Art ofOratory, 1482).12 Epistolary theory, an offshoot from the tradition of ars dictaminis (art of formulating), became one of thc most significant humanistic entcrprises. 13 Latin rhetorical theory in Germany developed steadily over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and achieved a comprehensive and highly differentiated form in the seventeenth century. 14 To the humanists of the Renaissance, rhetoric always implied writing. Prose writing has special importance in Philipp Melanchthon's (1497-1560) Elementa rhetorices (1531) 15 and occupies a central position in the Praecepta rhetoricae inventionis (1556) of his pupil David Chytraeus (1530-1600). Melanchthon's innovation consisted of placing alongside the political, legal, and demonstrative genres of speech a fourth: the didactic (genus didascalicum or didacticum), which he understood as the scientific or informative genre. He also paid great attention to elocutio, the theory of style and formulation, with its vast corpus of rhctorical figures. 16 The Frenchman Pierre de La. Ramee (Petrus Ramus, 1515-72), indeed, in Rhetoricae distinctiones in Quintilianum ( 1549), 17 reduced the whole system of rhetoric to elocutio ( especially figuration) and performance. The Rhetorica (1548) of his pupil Omer Talon (Audomarus Talaeus, ca. 1510-62) was one of thc most frequently reprinted rhetorics in seventeenth-century Gcrmany;18 Ramist influence lies behind the twofold systems ofthe Institutiones rhetoricae (1613) ofConrad Dieterich (1575-1639) and the Teutsche rhetorica (1634) of Johann Matthäus Meyfart (1590-1642). 19 Latin Poetics Rhetorics and poetics represent a theoretical division of labor, reflecting the premise that all varieties oftexts are heteronomous (functional, not autonomous) and that they have communicative goals. Their ancient theoretical sources were largely identical in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Whether they were writers of rhetorics or poetics, all relied on Quintilian's authority. Joachim von Watt (Vadianus, 1484-1551), the author of De poetica et carminis ratione (Of Poetics and the Strucnire of Poetry, 1518), is one notable example.20 The theory of rhetoric specifically focuses on communicative cases calling for practical prose texts, and it elucidates the stages of production and performance (including prose style, figuration, and syntax). The regular appearance of chapters on metrics ( numerus) in the compositio part owes to the relatedness of metrics to prose rhythm and clauses, as described in part two of Vossius's Commentaria rhetorica (1630). Metrics falls under stylistics and figuration (elocutio), which constitute an intersection between rhetorics and poetics. 250 ~ . EARLY MODERN GERMAN LITERATURE 1350-1700 The theory of poetics concentrates specifically on aesthetically constructed texts that may be subsumed essentially under the forms known today as epic, drama, and lyric.21 The following groupings of Latin poetics produced in Germany can be distinguished down to the end of the sixteenth century according to general content: 1. Metrics, in which the prosody and structure of Latin verses and other poetic forms are presented and sometimes supplemented with stylistic illustrations and references: Luder's lectures of 1462 on meter; Jakob Wimpfeling's De arte metrificandi (1484); Celtis's Ars versificandi et carminum (The Art of Versification and of Poems, 1486); Laurentius Corvinus's Structura carminum (1496); Jacob Magdalius's Stichologia (The Art of Making Verses, 1503); Heinrich Bebel's Ars versificandi (1506); Ulrich von Hutten's De arte versificatoria (1511); Johannes Murmellius's Versificatorie artis rudimenta (ca. 1511); Eobanus Hessus's Scribendorum versuum ratio (Method of Writing Verse, 1526); Jacobus Micyllus's De re metrica (1539); and Johannes Claius's Prosodiae libri tres (1570) and Grammaticagermanicae linguae (1578). 22 2. Poetic elegantiae, in which elegant text passages and compositional models are collected: Eyb's Mar,qarita poetica (Poetic Pearl, 1472); Hermannus Torrentinus's Elucidarius carminum (Explanation of Poems, 1501); Georg Fabricius's Elegantiae poeticae ex Ovidio, Tibullo, Propertio elegiacis (Elegant Expressions from the Elegiacists Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius, 1549); Elegantiarum ex Plauto et Terentio libri ii (Two Books of Elegant Expressions by Plautus and Terence, 1554); Elegantiarum puerilium ex Ciceronis epistolis libri tres (Three Books of Elegant Expressions for the Youth from Cicero's Letters, 1554); and Johann Buchler's Officina poetica (Poetic Laboratory, 1605).23 Torrentinus says in his Praefatio that he means to provide the essential elements for the kind of elegant poetry being demanded today. He also includes in his editorial apparatus a glossary of definitions relating to mythology, such as who Apollo was, or Antigone. 3. Genre poetics and drama commentaries: Joachim Camerarius's Commentatio explicationum omnium tragoediarum Sophoclis (Preparation for the Explications of All the Tragedies of Sophocles, 1556); Melanchthon's Epistola de legendis trago::diis et comoediis (Letter on Reading Tragedies and Comedies, 1545); Micyllus's De tragoedia et eius partibus (On Tragedy and its Parts, 1562); and Daniel Heinsius's De tragoediae constitutione (On the Structure ofTragedy, 1611). 4. Commentaries on the poetics of Aristotle and Horace: Jodocus Willich's Commentaria in artem poeticam Horatii ( Commentaries on the Poetic Art ofHorace, 1545); Veit Amerbach's Commentaria in artem poeticam Horatii (1547); Johannes Sturm's Commentarii in artem poeticam Horatii (1576); Johannes Schosser's Disputatio de tragoedia ex primo libro Aristotelis (Disputation on Tragedy from the First Book of Aristotle, 1569); and Heinsius's De tragoediae constitutione. POETICS AND RHETORICS IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY 'i' 251 5. Apologies for poetry: Thomas Murner's De augustiniana hieronymianaque reformatione poetarum (About thc Reform of Poctry according to Augustine and Jerome, 1509); Bonifacius Helfricht's Declamatio in laudem poeticae (Declamation in Praise of Poetry, 1548); Zacharias Orth's Oratio de arte poetica (1558); Johannes Caselius's Pro arte poetarum oratio (1569);24 and Gregor Bersmann's De dignitate atque praestantia poetices (On the Dignity and Nobility of Poetry, 1575). 6. Universal poetics deal in a summary fashion with authors, genrcs, thcmes, and forms, as weil as with thc role ofpoetry in society: Vadianus's De poetica;25 Fabricius's De re poetica libri iiii (1556