The Art of Poetry: Vida to Pope

• Published in: The Augustan Art of Poetry
• Main Author: Sowerby, Robin
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 26.01.2006
• Subjects: figures of rhetoric; decorum; imitative harmony; example of Virgil; artistic unity; clarity; Homer; classical standard; poetic diction; Roman Augustan aesthetic
• ISBN: 0199286124; 9780199286126
• DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286126.003.0002

The centrality of Virgil as classical standard and example is demonstrated by systematic analysis of the De Arte Poetica of the Renaissance neo-Latinist Marcus Hieronymus Vida who mediates the Roman Augustan aesthetic in his three book verse treatise, attractively embodying in his method and style the precepts drawn from Virgil's example that he advocates. For Vida, the various rules of art are illustrated and illuminated by the example of Virgil superior in this respect to Homer to whom he is compared; his poetry is the ideal context for the proper understanding of such classical principles as the requirement for decorum, clarity, and artistic unity, while also expressing the variety of Nature. Virgil is exemplary too in his use of the figures of rhetoric, in his poetic diction and in his representation of imitative harmony, that is, the use the sound of words to express sense and meaning.