THE first problem of Renaissance criticism was the justification of imaginative literature. The existence and continuity of the aesthetic consciousness, and perhaps, in a less degree, of the critical faculty, throughout the Middle Ages, can hardly be denied; yet distrust of literature was keenest among the very class of men in whom the critical faculty might be presupposed, and it was as the handmaid of philosophy, and most of all as the vassal of theology, that poetry was chiefly valued. In other words, the criteria by which imaginative literature was judged during the Middle Ages were not literary criteria. Poetry was disregarded or contemned, or was valued if at all for virtues that least belong to it. The Renaissance was thus confronted with the necessity of justifying its appreciation of the vast body of literature which the Revival of Learning had recovered for the modern world; and the function of Renaissance criticism was to reestablish the aesthetic foundations of literature, to reaffirm the eternal lesson of Hellenic culture, and to restore once and for all the element of beauty to its rightful place in human life and in the world of art. I. _Mediaeval Conceptions of Poetry_ The mediaeval distrust of literature was the result of several cooperating causes. Popular literature had fallen into decay, and in its contemporary form was beneath serious consideration. Classical literature was unfortunately pagan, and was moreover but imperfectly known. The mediaeval Church from its earliest stages had regarded pagan culture with suspicion, and had come to look upon the development of popular literature as antagonistic to its own supremacy. But beyond this, the distrust of literature went deeper, and was grounded upon certain theoretical and fundamental objections to all the works of the imagination. These theoretical objections were in nowise new to the Middle Ages. They had been stated in antiquity with much more directness and philosophical efficacy than was possible in the mediaeval period. Plato had tried imaginative literature by the criteria of reality and morality, both of which are unaesthetic criteria, although fundamentally applicable to poetry. In respect to reality, he had shown that poetry is three removes from the truth, being but the imitation, by the artist, of the imitation, in life, of an idea in the mind of God. In respect to morality, he had discovered in Homer, the greatest of poets, deviations from truth, blasphemy against the gods, and obscenity of various sorts. Furthermore, he had found that creative literature excites the emotions more than does actual life, and stirs up ignoble passions which were better restrained.