[12] _Ibid._ p. 175. [13] _Etymologiae_, viii. 7, 5. [14] _Policraticus_, i. 8. [15] Moore, _Dante and his Early Biographers_, London, 1890, pp. 173, 174. [16] _Ars Poet._ 391 (Roscommon). [17] _Frogs_, 1030 _sq._ [18] _Defence of Poetry_, ed. Cook, p. 5. [19] Woodberry, "A New Defence of Poetry," in _Heart of Man_, New York, 1899, p. 76. [20] Woodward, p. 182 _sq._ [21] _Ibid._ p. 131. [22] _Ibid._ p. 150. [23] Pope, _Selecta Poemata_, ii. 108; _cf._ _Ars Poet._ 398. [24] _Cf._ Gaspary, ii. 220. [25] Villari, p. 501 _sq._, and Perrens, ii. 328 _sq._ [26] _Cf._ Cartier, _L'Esthetique de Savonarole_, in Didron's _Annales Archeologiques_, 1847, vii. 255 _sq._ [27] Egger, 209 _sq._ [28] _Ibid._ 555 _sq._ [29] Segni, p. 160. [30] B. Tasso, _Lettere_, ii. 525. So also, Robortelli, 1548, "Jacuit liber hic neglectus, ad nostra fere haec usque tempora." [31] _Poet._ ix. [32] Plato, _Rep._ x. 660. [33] _Poet._ vi. 2; _Pol._ viii. 7. [34] Daniello, p. 10 _sq._ [35] _De Poeta_, p. 13 _sq._ [36] _Lettere_, ii. 526. [37] _Poetica_, p. 14 _sq._ [38] _De Poeta_, p. 30 _sq._ [39] _Opera_, i. 361 _sq._ CHAPTER II THE GENERAL THEORY OF POETRY IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN the first book of his _Geography_ Strabo defines poetry as "a kind of elementary philosophy, which introduces us early to life, and gives us pleasurable instruction in reference to character, emotion, action." This passage sounds the keynote of the Renaissance theory of poetry. Poetry is therein stated to be a form of philosophy, and, moreover, a philosophy whose subject is life, and its object is said to be pleasurable instruction. I. _Poetry as a Form of Scholastic Philosophy_ In the first place, poetry is a form of philosophy. Savonarola had classed poetry with logic and grammar, and had asserted that a knowledge of logic is essential to the composing of poetry. The division of the sciences and the relative importance of each were a source of infinite scholastic discussion during the Middle Ages. Aristotle had first placed dialectic or logic, rhetoric, and poetics in the same category of efficient philosophy. But Averroes was probably the first to confuse the function of poetics with that of logic, and to make the former a subdivision, or form, of the latter; and this classification appears to have been accepted by the scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages.