the modifications which these terms underwent in post-classical times, in
the middle ages, and in the renaissance, in order better to show that in
the literary criticism of the English renaissance the theory of poetry
contained many elements which historically derive from classical and
mediaeval rhetoric.

Literature--the spoken and the written word--was divided by the classical
critics into philosophy, history, oratory, and poetry. Thus Aristotle, in
addition to treating the theory of poetry and the theory of oratory in
separate books, asserts that even though the works of philosophy and of
history were composed in verse, they would still be something different
from poetry.[2] Lucian severely criticises the historians whose writings
are like those of the poets.[3] Quintilian advises students of rhetoric
against imitating the style of the historians because it is too much like
that of the poets.[4] Clearly these critical writers are insisting on some
fundamental difference between the forms of communication in language--a
difference which they thought their contemporaries were in some danger of
ignoring.

If the number of critical writings devoted to these different forms of
communication is taken as a criterion, rhetoric ranks first, poetry
second, and history third. This preponderance of rhetoric may be one
reason for the tendency of the critics who wrote on the theory of poetry
to use much of the terminology of rhetoric, and for the ease with which a
modern student can formulate the classical theory of rhetoric, as compared
with the difficulty he has in formulating the theory of poetry.

To the Greeks and Romans rhetoric meant the theory of oratory. As a
pedagogical mechanism it endeavored to teach students to persuade an
audience. The content of rhetoric included all that the ancients had