present day.

The essay is divided into two parts. Part First treats of the influence of
rhetoric on the general theory of poetry within the period, and Part
Second of its influence on the renaissance formulation of the purpose of
poetry. This division is called for not by the logic of the material, but
by history and convenience. A third phase of the influence of rhetorical
terminology I have already touched on in an article on _The Requirements
of a Poet[1]_, where I have shown that historically the renaissance ideal
of the nature and education of a poet is in part derived from classical
rhetoric.

No writer today, who would treat of the criticism of the renaissance, can
escape his deep indebtedness to Dr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose _Literary
Criticism in the Renaissance_ has so carefully traced the debt of English
criticism to the Italians. In going over the ground surveyed by him and by
many other scholars I have been able to add but slight gleanings of my
own. In this field it is my privilege only to review and to supplement
what has already been discovered. But whereas others have called attention
to the classical and Italian sources for English critical ideas, I am
able to show that in addition to these sources, the English critics were
profoundly influenced by English mediaeval traditions. That these
mediaeval traditions derived ultimately from post-classical rhetoric and
that they were for the most part later discarded as less enlightened and
less sound than the critical ideas of the Italian Aristotelians does not
lessen their importance in the history of English literary criticism.

In so far as the text of quoted classical writers is readily accessible in
modern editions, I offer my readers only an English translation. For
quotations difficult of access I add the Latin in a footnote. In the case