Medieval Latin Arts of Poetry and Prose

Abstract

Modern scholarship on the medieval Latin arts of poetry and prose has focused on a number of treatises written in the 12th and 13th centuries: Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars versificatoria; Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria nova, Documentum, and Summa de coloribus; Gervase of Melkley’s Ars versificaria or poetica; John of Garland’s Parisiana Poetria; and Eberhard the German’s Laborintus. Other documents have received attention as well, notably commentaries and glosses. The art of composition in both verse and prose also evolved as new conceptions of the art emerged. In the 13th century, Latin translations and commentaries on Aristotle’s Poetics led to revisions of the Horatian art in the 14th century; treatises that reflect this development begin with the anonymous Long Documentum, renamed Tria sunt, and Mathias of Linköping’s Poetria, based on instruction Mathias received while studying at the University of Paris. The traditional conception of the art of poetry was derived from rhetorical treatises attributed to Cicero, notably the De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium. The medieval treatises adapted a traditional order of parts in rhetoric: topical invention, disposition based on natural chronological order or artificial rearrangement of the chronological order, amplification and abbreviation using figures and tropes common in ornamentation, and eventually Aristotelian notions of imagination as a poetic faculty. Inclusion of these parts indicates the scope and level of instruction in the treatises. Accordingly, the study and practice of poetic composition in classrooms progressed from elementary composition and study to imitation of exemplary masterpieces. Such instruction fit well into the stages in medieval pedagogy from grammar, rhetoric, and logic on to arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, and beyond to philosophy and theology. The scope of the art on these virtually graded levels of instruction led to study, interpretation, imitation, and, ultimately, emulation of perceived ancient and medieval masterpieces like Virgil’s Aeneid, Horace’s lyrics, Bernardus Silvestris’s Cosmographia, and Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus and De planctu Naturae, among others. Introductions to specific works (accessus ad auctores) include model works that exemplify the art’s evolution from Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages. Classbooks and other anthologies collected poems and passages for study and imitation on the student level. Finally, the Latin art found its way into some treatises written for vernacular languages. These diverse documents—commentaries, model works, accessus, classbooks and anthologies, authorial statements inserted into their own writings, vernacular treatises, and other documents—enhance our understanding of medieval poetics.