Influence
Popularity of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's didactic treatises has raised the question of possible influence on the later English poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1342-1400), Thomas Usk (d. 1388), and John Gower (ca. 1330-1408). Chaucer's parody in the Nun's Priest's Tale of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's use of apostrophe seems to ridicule the instruction provided in the Poetria nova, and has therefore been interpreted as Chaucer's contempt for Geoffrey of Vinsauf's doctrine. A more profound examination of Chaucer's principles of composition, however, reveals that the essential scheme of the Wife of Bath's Prologue (specifically, lines 193-828) conforms to the doctrine promulgated by Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Documentum. The integration of the Poetria nova precepts into Troilus and Criseyde I, 1065-71 reflects Chaucer's interest in rhetorical doctrine in general, and in Geoffrey of Vinsauf's in particular.
The contribution of Geoffrey of Vinsauf to the artes poetriae is acknowledged by such distinguished rhetoricians, as John of Garland (ca. 1180 - ca. 1258), a teacher of grammar and literature at the University of Paris, in the Parisiana poetria (known also as De arte prosayca, metrica, et rithmica, written and revised probably between 1220 and 1235), and Eberhard the German in the Laborintus. Geoffrey of Vinsauf is praised by Gervais of Melkley and Desiderius Erasmus (1469–1536). Kelly asserts that understanding and appreciation of the writings of the great medieval poets, such as Chaucer, Dante, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Chrétien de Troyes, can only be fully achieved if studied in the light of the instruction contained in treatises like Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria nova and Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi.
Read more about this topic: Geoffrey Of Vinsauf
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)