Jacopo Mazzoni - Theory

Theory

One of Mazzoni’s more interesting contributions to criticism is his discussion of mimesis in poetry. Mazzoni departs from his predecessors in that he conceives poetic imitation as not the recreation of an actual object, but of the recreation of an ideal. This idea, which has been compared to Baudrillard’s simulacrum, Mazzoni calls the “idol” – a concept constructed by human artifice to which poetic imitations are compared in order to determine their believability. Mazzoni discusses believability or credibility, rather than truth – he defines poetry as a sophistic activity, the purpose of which is not to recreate truth, but rather to mimic that which will have the proper effect on the audience. As Mazzoni says, “if it should happen that two things should appear before the poet, one of them false but credible and the other true but incredible or at least not very credible, then the poet must leave the true and follow the credible.”

Mazzoni resurrects the ancient tradition of linking poetry to rhetoric, which also has the credible, rather than the true, as its object. Interestingly, he also gives great importance to poetry’s effect on the audience as a determinant of quality – though he admits that much of the exercise of poetry involves attempting faithful imitation (albeit of human constructs or “categories”, not ones that are necessarily “true”), success in poetry is ultimately determined by persuasion, not truth and objectivity. For him, successful poetry is something that occurs in and of the audience, not outside and independent of it. For Mazzoni, even “poetry” is a meaningless category – it is our classifications that constitute criticism, not our ability to form a relationship with some reified thing called “The Poem”.

Like Plato, Mazzoni was very concerned with determining the purpose of poetry (Weinberg, 324). For him, its purpose is to “move the reader to pleasure and delight in the perception of the believable images.” Essentially, for Mazzoni, the purpose of poetry is recreation and pleasure; however, he also attaches a concept he calls “civil faculty.” In part, this has to do with the idea that taking a break from serious business (i.e., by creating or consuming poetry) allows one to return to that business afterwards with renewed enthusiasm. Mazzoni also says, however, that there is a distinct pleasure in poetry which, in addition to its ability to delight, carries with it a concealed lesson, moral, or other element that allows it to contribute to the improvement of society.

Mazzoni’s work is characterized by his methodical attempts to draw distinctions between similar phenomena. In proceeding along this course, he makes some compelling definitions and distinctions, such as that between poetry and poetics, the former being concerned with the formation of poetry (considerations for rhyme or meter for example) and the latter with a poem’s relationship to the “civil faculty.”

The distinction between icastic and phantastic imitation, concepts borrowed from Plato, is also important in Mazzoni’s work. Icastic imitation refers to the recreation of something based in reality – a simulation of a real person or the creation of a character based on a real person is icastic imitation. Phantastic imitation is the imitation of something completely the artist’s imagination. This distinction would play an important role in Mazzoni’s On the Defense of the Comedy of Dante, in which he would argue that the work, being allegorical and based in a divine vision, was icastic mimesis because it imitates something “real.” This was meant to counter arguments by writers such as Castravilla who dismissed Dante’s work as lacking in verisimilitude and even claimed that the comedy was not poetry at all, as it was simply the recounting of a vision. Under Mazzoni’s definitions, these were not valid criticisms, as poetry was essentially mimesis made “persuasive” by the use of craft or art.