goes no further, then the only difference between the poet and the orator
lies in the Ciceronian dictum that the poet was more restricted in his use
of meter. Consequently, when Aristotle's theory that poems could be
written in either prose or verse was accepted, there remained no stylistic
difference at all. In fact, there is very little. But throughout the
middle ages this common focus on style had led to undue consideration of
style as ornament. In the renaissance this same tendency appears in
Guevara, for instance, and in Lyly. The Euphuistic style, as Morris Croll
has pointed out, is more largely than was formerly supposed to be the
case, derived from mediaeval rhetoric.[183]

In the theoretical treatises on poetry produced on the continent there is
frequent use of rhetorical terms. It was to be expected that scholars
whose education had been largely rhetorical should carry over the
vocabulary of rhetoric into what was on the rediscovery of the _Poetics_
practically a new science. The rhetorical influence is readily recognized
in Vida's preoccupation with the mechanics of poetry and in Scaliger's
over-analysis and extensive treatment of the rhetorical figures, the high,
low, and mean styles, the three elements (material, form, and execution)
of poetry. Lombardus makes poetry include oratory.[184] Maggi[185] and
Tifernas[186] echo Cicero that the poet and the orator are the nearest
neighbors, differing only in that the poet is slightly more restricted by
meter. J. Pontanus insists that epideictic prose and poetry have the same
material,[187] that poets should learn from the precepts of rhetoric to
discriminate in their choice of words.[188]

As an interpretation of classical doctrine this is not illegitimate; but
Pontanus runs into confusion by applying to the narrative of epic the
_narratio_ of classical rhetoric, which meant the lawyer's statement of
facts. Confusing the _narratio_ of oratory with narrative, Pontanus says: