Aristotle in the Renaissance (A Context for Spenser's Ethics And Poetics)

Some notes compiled from a variety of sources for a presentation on Renaissance Aristotelianism, in the context of a course on the classical tradition of epic poetry and Spenser's Faerie Queene. (Brown University, 1988).

  

Aristotle in the Renaissance

(A context for Spenser's ethics and poetics)
 

José Angel García Landa
Brown University, 1988

Aristotle is not a newcomer in the Renaissance. Instead, there is a long
tradition of medieval Aristotelianism which will be the background against
which the new knowledge will develop: "It was (...) the reference frame
against which changes in attitudes towards Platonism, Scepticism, or
Stoicism are to be viewed" (Schmitt, Survey 28). Renaissance
Aristotelianism has often been presented as backward looking, a strain of
medieval thought which lingers on during the sixteenth and early
seventeenth centuries. But in fact there is no such thing as a Renaissance
Aristotelianism: there are many different sects which agree only in the barest
essentials.

Aristotle had become known to the West first through Christian adaptations
(St. Albert, St. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scot, William of Ockham), some of
them indebted to Averroes (John of Jandun, Siger of Brabant). In the
Renaissance there is a continuation of these traditions, as well as a return to
classical commentators (Alexander of Aphrodisias) and to Aristotle's
original texts. All these lines of thought are influenced by each other and by
contemporary revivals of the Platonic and Stoic philosophies, to such an
extent that one can barely speak even of a variety of Aristotelian schools in
the Renaissance: instead, there are loosely Aristotelian thinkers who
combine in various ways the influence of these old schools. And indeed
"[s]ome thinkers, while believing that they were being very anti-Aristotelian,
were actually emphasizing an equally Aristotelian doctrine to overthrow
another one of which they particularly disapproved" (Schmitt 46).
The Aristotelianism of the Renaissance has often been assumed to be
stagnant and dogmatic. But modern scholars emphasize its continual evolution and adaptations to the new cultural atmosphere of which it was an
important part. It has been argued (Randall) that it was one of the influences
that shaped the new scientific method. The development of science can
therefore be said to stem gradually from the Middle Ages and the
introduction of Aristotle in the West, rather than a sudden outgrowth around
the end of the sixteenth century. Most scholars, however, refuse to accept
this and stress indeed Galileo's rejection of Aristotelianism in favour of a
mathematical basis for science. However, the Aristotelianism of William
Harvey is widely recognized: Aristotelian biology was more successful and
lasting than Aristotelian physics. Francis Bacon, too, thought he was a
radical anti-Aristotelian, but he is now considered to be a late Aristotelian.
In his study of the editions of Aristotle's work in the sixteenth century, Cranz
notes a steady increase from the previous century until a small peak is
reached around 1510. There is then a decline for about twenty years, which
is at the same time a sign of evaluation and crisis in the interpretive tradition.
In this first phase it was mainly the texts and commentaries from the
medieval tradition which were being used; the humanist commentaries are
still a small part of the whole. From the late thirties on the number of
editions soars up again, this time with a majority of texts which are either in
the original Greek or Latin translations by contemporary humanists; around
the middle of the century there were about 25 Aristotelian editions per year.
There is slow decline in the number of editions during the second half of the
16th century and the 17th century.

Paradoxically, the decline of Aristotelian thought is linked to a better
knowledge and diffusion of the original Greek texts; this helped "to see the
serious shortcomings and inconsistencies of the Aristotelian system"
(Schmitt 34). The influence of Aristotle did not die out simultaneously in all
disciplines. It was pervasive in the sixteenth century; in the seventeenth
century his natural philosophy was overthrown by the rise of experimental
science (Galileo is the standard example), but Aristotelian logic and ethics
were still doing fine, "and indeed, the influence of his Poetics was reaching
its apogee" (Schmitt, Survey 32).

Aristotle's Poetics had been available in the Middle Ages through a Latin
translation of Averroes' commentary, and had not enjoyed the critical
attention given to the rest of Aristotle's work. The actual work was
recovered and assimilated during the Renaissance: it was at the heart of the
critical polemics of the late Renaissance in Italy ("the age of criticism" for Baxter Hathaway). According to Bernard Weinberg, "there is no doubt that
the signal event in the history of literary criticism in the Italian Renaissance
was the discovery of Aristotle's Poetics and its incorporation into the critical
tradition" (349). The poetics of the renaissance can be said to be basically
Aristotelian, and the standard theoretical work of the age is a commentary or
an annotated edition of Aristotle's Poetics (Robortello, Maggi, Pigna,
Speroni). But some of Aristotle's commentators, like Castelvetro and
Scaliger, are constantly opposing their points of view on specific issues to
those of Aristotle. Most of the theorists start from the basic Aristotelian idea
of poetry as imitation, but then they often go on to debate this idea, f.i.
Patrizzi (La deca disputata), who developed a theory of poetry as creation,
invention or expression, or Beni and Scaliger, who found inconsistencies in
the Aristotelian concept of imitation. Even Castelvetro, the main
commentator of Aristotle's Poetics, is all the time pointing out the
insufficiencies of his system and further developing it. We must remember
that Aristotelian imitation did not mean a photographic copy of reality, but
rather an universalization; history deals with particulars, but poetry is more
philosophical than history and points to the universal behind the particular.
The critics of the Renaissance often raise important questions: is any kind of
narrative an imitation? Is lyrical poetry, which does not contain narrative, an
imitation too? Is such thing as a prose poem possible? What is it that makes
possible to find the universal in the particular? And so on. Each
commentator stresses the aspect of Aristotelian doctrine which is more
convenient for his own aims: Tasso, for instance, went on to interpret
Aristotelian universalization in the direction of allegory and idealization of
character. There are three main influences which bear on the Renaissance
readings of the Poetics: the influence of Horace's Ars poetica, which is
itself a kind of commentary on the Poetics, the influence of Neoplatonic
esthetics and theories of poetic creation (the poet as divine madman, and so
on) and the current alliance of poetry and rhetoric. The poetics of the
Renaissance is a rhetorical poetics, that is, there is a constant concern for the
practical, moral effects of poetry on the reader.

The Greek text of the Poetics had 15 editions during this century, and four
different Latin translations, with a total of 40 editions; that by Pazzi was the
most widespread (19 editions). There are three translations into Italian, and
several commentaries. It may be significant that the most important of these
commentarie's, Castelvetro's Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposta went
through two editions, while the traditional commentary by Averroes was reprinted five times.

There was no English translation of either Aristotle's Poetics or the work of
the Italian commentators. Sir Philip Sidney wrote the best known of the
English poetic treatises, An Apology for Poetry, which follows their line of
poetry as a useful discipline, and shows an acquaintance both with Aristotle
and maybe with some of his modern commentators, at least with Scaliger,
where we can find the original of Sidney's idea of poetry opposing a golden 

world to the brazen world of nature. 

"Aristotelian writings on moral and political philosophy were still
much read during the Renaissance and into the seventeenth century,
though this is hardly reflected in modern scholarly studies. There
were an enormous number of new commentaries written and
medieval ones, e.g. Buridan's commentary on the Ethica
Nicomachea, continued to be reprinted frequently. Still, little of
value has been contributed in this area by modern scholars other than
some rather vague statements pointing out the humanists' interest in
Aristotle's moral philosophy." (Schmitt).

Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics went through 55 different editions in Greek,
Latin or commentaries; the Nicomachean Ethics had more than three
hundred different editions, translations or commentaries. Twenty-two of
them were in Greek, but the best known was the Latin translation by
Johannes Argyropylus, which had 65 editions, the vast majority of them in
Italy and France. There was only one edition of the English translation by
John Wilkinson from the compendium by Brunetto Latini: The ethiques of
Aristotle, that is to saye, preceptes of good behauoure and perfighte
honestie, now newly translated into English (1547).

Spenser is generally acknowledged to derive some of his moral ideas form
Aristotle: the idea of the golden mean as constituting a virtue between two
vices is the organizing principle of the Nicomachean Ethics. But no direct
connection need be established, as these ideas were very widespread in this
century. According to Davis (Edmund Spenser 213), "Probably Spenser
owed most of his knowledge of Plato and Aristotle to recent Italian
commentators" and not to the direct sources, and even that was admired as a
rare accomplishment in Dublin. Roche (Yale ed. of The Faerie Queene,
1108) and Renwick (Edmund Spenser) refer to the Nicomachean Ethics as a
possible source with similar qualifications. The passages on temperance in the Nicomachean Ethics (49, 79) make clear that Aristotle's golden mean is
not a mean at all: it leans more or less to one of the poles: "In some cases it
is the deficiency and in others the excess that is more opposed to the median.
For example, it is not the excess, recklessness, which is more opposed to
courage, but the deficiency, cowardice; while in the case of self-control
[temperance] it is not the defect, insensitivity, but the excess, self-indulgence
which is the more opposite" (49).

 Aristotle's moral philosophy was never completely discarded; instead, it
influenced the ethical systems developed by the new philosophy of the
seventeenth century, e.g. by Leibniz.

—oOo—

Aristotle in the Renaissance : Bibliography

Bibliographies

Cranz, F. E. A Bibliography of Aristotle Editions 1501-1600. Baden-Baden: Koerner,
1984.
Lohr, C. H. "Renaissance Latin Aristotle Commentaries". Renaissance Quarterly XXX
(1977) 681-741, XXXI (1978) 532-603, XXXXII (1979) 529-580, XXXIII (1980)
623-734, XXXV (1982) 164-256.
____. "Aristotelica Britannica" (pre-1650). Theologie Und Philosophie LIII (1978) 79-
101.
Organ, Troy Wilson. An Index to Aristotle in English Translation. Princeton UP, 1949.
Schmitt, Charles B. A Critical Survey and Bibliography of Studies on Renaissance
Aristotelianism 1958-1969. Padova: Antenore, 1971.

Renaissance Aristotelianism : Short and not so short overviews:

Gilbert, N. W. "Renaissance Aristotelianism and Its Fate : Some Observations and
Problems". In Naturalism and Historical Understanding. Buffalo, 1967.
Kristeller, P. O. "Renaissance Aristotelianism". Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies VI
(1965) 157-164.
Randall, J. H. The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science.
Padova, 1961.
Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance. Cambridge (Mass.) : Harvard
University Press, 1983.
Vasoli, C. "La cultura dei secoli XIV-XVI". In C. Maccagni (ed.), Atti del Primo
convegno internazionale di ricognizione delle fonti per la storia della scienza
italiana: i sicoli XIV-XVI (Firenze, 1967) 31-105.

The text of the Poetics and its transmission:

Bogen, W. F. "Aristotle's Poetics in the Fourteenth Century". Studies in Philology LXVII
(1970) 278-294.
Freire, A. "De Aristotelis Poeticae Textu". Vita Latina LXVII (1977) 7-10.
Garin, E. "La diffusione della Poetica di Aristotele dal secolo XV in poi". Rivista Critica
di Storia della Filosofia XXVIII (1973) 447-451.
Halliwell, Stephen. Aristotle's Poetics. London : Duckworth, 1986.
Tigerstedt, E. N. "Observations on the Reception of the Aristotelian Poetics in the Latin
West". Studies in the Renaissance XV (1968) 7-24.

The Poetics and Aristotelian critical issues, mainly in Italy:

Breitenbuerger, G. Metaphora: Die Rezeption des aristotelischen Begriffs in den
Poetiken des Cinquecento. V. Kronberg Scriptor Verlag, 1975.
Castelvetro on the Art of Poetry. An Abridged Translation of Ludovico Castelvetro's
Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposta, with introduction and notes by A.
Bongiorno. Binghampton, New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Studies, 1984.
Chamberlain, C. T. The Meaning of the Word Ethos in Aristotle's Poetics and Its
Interpretation in three Renaissance Commentators on the Poetics. Diss. Univ. of
California, Berkeley 1979. Summary in DA XLI (1980) 235 A - 236 A.
García Berrio, Antonio. "La contaminación de autores y técnica de comentario
humanístico: Examen de la penetración horaciana en los seis grandes
comentarios italianos del siglo XVI a la Poética de Aristételes". Analecta
Malacitana I (1978) 225-253.
Gellrich, M. Tragedy and Theory: The Problem of Conflict Since Aristotle. Princeton
University Press, 1988.
Hardison, O. B. "Catharsis in Samson Agonistes". The Classical Journal LXIX (1974)
322- 327.
Hathaway, Baxter. The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy. Ithaca (N.Y.) :
Cornell University Press, 1962.
Keesey, D. "On Some Recent Interpretations of Catharsis". The Classical World LXXII
(1978-79) 192-205.
Ryan, E. E. "Robortello and Maggi on Aristotle's Theory of Catharsis". Rinascimento
XXII (1982) 263-273.
Weinberg, B. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. (2 vols.)
Chicago University Press, 1961.

Aristotelian influence on English philosophers:

Chronis, N. "Francis Bacon's Adoption of Aristotelian Terminology" (in Greek; English
summary). Platon XXXII-XXXIII (1980-1981) 136-145.
Schmitt, C. B. John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England. Kingston (Ont.) :
McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983.
Stephens, J. "Bacon's New English Rhetoric and the Debt to Aristotle". Speech
Monographs XXXIX (1972) 248-259.
White, T. I. A Study of the Influence of Plato and Aristotle on Thomas More's Utopia.
Diss. Columbia U. , N.Y. 1974.

Aristotelian influence on English poetics:

Hayden, J. O. Polestar of the Ancients: The Aristotelian Tradition in Classical and
English Literary Criticism. London : Associated University Presses, 1979.
Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry . Edited by Geoffrey Shepherd. Manchester :
Manchester University Press, 1966.

General:

Kretzmann, Norman et al. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy :
from the rediscovery of Aristotle to the disintegration of scholasticism 1100-
1600. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Platon et Aristote à la Renaissance. Publications du Centre d'Études Supérieures de la
Renaissance (Tours). Paris: Vrin, 1976.
Schmitt, Charles B. Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science. London : Variorum
Reprints, 1981.
_____. The Aristotelian Tradition and Renaissance Universities. London: Variorum
Reprints, 1984.
Steenberghen, Fernand Von. Aristotle in the West: The Origins of Latin Aristotelianism.
Louvain : E. Nauwelaerts, 1955.