RENAISSANCE LITERARY THEORY AND PRACTICE RENAISSANCE LITERARY THEORY AND PRACTICE Classicism in the Rhetoric and Poetic Of Italy, France, and England 1400-1600 _By_ CHARLES SEARS BALDWIN _Edited with Introduction by_ DONALD LEMEN CLARK GLOUCESTER, MASS. PETER SMITH 1959 COPYRIGHT, 1939 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS REPRINTED, 1959 BY PERMISSION OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS BEATO THOMAE MORO JVDICI CVI STILVM ANGLICVM LATINE REGENTI PERSTABAT IN REGIA QVAESTIONE PAX ROMANA INTRODUCTION When he died in 1936 Charles Sears Baldwin, Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition at Columbia University, left the unpublished manuscript which here appears in print. At the request of his family, I undertook to prepare the manuscript for publication and see it through the press. As a devoted student, colleague, and friend I have been happy to do so. Baldwin’s _Renaissance Literary Theory and Practice_ takes its place as the continuation of his previously published studies: _Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic_ (1924) and _Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic_ (1928), both published by the Macmillan Company. It takes up the story where _Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic_ left off in 1400 and carries it on to 1600. The first sentences of his preface to the first study suggest that Baldwin had the present study in mind before 1924. “To interpret ancient rhetoric and poetic afresh from typical theory and practice is the first step toward interpreting those traditions of criticism which were most influential in the Middle Age. Medieval rhetoric and poetic, in turn, prepare for a clearer comprehension of the Renaissance renewal of allegiance to antiquity.” Like the two earlier studies, it is firmly based on the Aristotelian philosophy of composition embodied in the _Rhetoric_ and the _Poetic_. Baldwin adheres to the sound rhetoric which aims at enhancing the subject and repudiates the sophistic rhetoric which aims at enhancing the speaker. Rhetoric and poetic are different in aim and different in their modes of composition. Consequently he considers poetic deviated when it becomes confused with rhetoric and perverted when controlled by sophistic.