David's post is very timely for me, as I'm about to start in on a review
essay for undergraduates on early modern defenses of poetry. While I had
intended to restrict myself to the standard works (Sidney, Puttenham,
Gascoigne, etc.), I wonder if there are more treatises out there like
Scott's? Is there a list somewhere of unpublished writings on poetry? Has
anyone done a dissertation on them, if they exist?
Just wondering,
Peter C. Herman
At 05:49 PM 10/5/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Stanley Wells, "By the Placing of His Words," TLS 5243 (26 Sept. 2003): 14-15.
>
>Wells describes a manuscript treatise by William Scott entitled "The Model
>of Poesy or the Art of Poesy drawn into a short or summary discourse" (c.
>1600). "Perhaps of greatest interest to modern readers are a number of
>previously unrecorded allusions to the drama, and especially to
>Shakespeare." The document is in private and anonymous hands, but Wells
>quotes from bits and pieces. The important bit, for our purposes, is the
>following. Spenser's SC, says Scott, is a species of "low comedy" and
>"imitates the ancients so well that I know not if he comes behind for any
>apt invention; only for his affecting old words and phrases" (qtd. on p.
>14; spelling is modernized).
>
>This was Sidney's complaint, and Scott may have picked it up from the
>Apologie (which he quotes "frequently"). So, in one sense, there's nothing
>new here. On the other hand, electrons are cheap, and it's a complaint that
>one hears with increasing frequency as the century unfolds.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
>East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|