Читать книгу The Arte of English Poesie - George Puttenham - Страница 11

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How Poesie should not be imployed vpon vayne conceits or vicious or infamous.

Wherefore the Nobilitie and dignitie of the Art considered aswell by vniuersalitie as antiquitie and the naturall excellence of it selfe, Poesie ought not to be abased and imployed vpon any vnworthy matter & subject, nor vsed to vaine purposes, which neuerthelesse is dayly seene, and that is to vtter contents infamous & vicious or ridiculous and foolish, or of no good example & doctrine. Albeit in merry matters (not vnhonest) being vsed for mans solace and recreation it may well be allowed, for as I said before, Poesie is a pleasant maner of vtterance varying from the ordinarie of purpose to refresh the mynde by the eares delight. Poesie also is not onely laudable, because I said it was a metricall speach vsed by the first men, but because it is a metricall speech corrected and reformed by discreet iudgements, and with no lesse cunning and curiositie than the Greeke and Latine Poesie, and by Art bewtified & adorned, & brought far from the primitiue rudenesse of the first inuentors, otherwise it might be sayd to me that Adam and Eues apernes were the gayest garmentes, because they were the first, and the shepheardes tente or pauillion, the best housing, because it was the most auncient & most vniversall: which I would not haue so taken, for it is not my meaning but that Art & cunning concurring with nature, antiquitie & vniuersalitie, in things indifferent, and not euill, doe make them more laudable. And right so our vulgar riming Poesie, being by good wittes brought to that perfection we see, is worthily to be preferred before any other matter of vtterance in prose, for such vse and to such purpose as it is ordained, and shall hereafter be set downe more particularly.