Abstract

Lyric poets of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, aware of the value accorded wonder in rhetoric, theology, philosophy, and political thought, adapted to their genres Aristotle's specification of wonder as the goal of epic and tragedy. The dissertation examines the shift from sonnet and pastoral to satire and epigram in light of this prestige of wonder or admiration in Renaissance culture. It traces the connection between wit and wonder made by Demetrius, Cicero, and Castiglione, and considers the political value of astonishing through wit. ;Unable by the nature of lyric to employ the marvelous scenes of recognition and reversal of tragedy or the fabulous incidents of epic, lyric poets of the seventeenth century sought comparable frustration of the audience's expectations in qualities of style, especially rough, obscure brevity and far-fetched metaphors. The dissertation thus argues that the two most often noted features of this poetry--strong lines and extravagant conceits--were coordinate in purpose. Both unexpected comparisons and departures from rhythmic and syntactic norms were treated, especially by Aristotle and the later Greek rhetorical tradition, as sources of wonder. In this tradition, unlike the Roman tradition of Cicero and Quintilian, rough and forceful style was equated with the height of eloquence rather than with plainness. But Greek rhetoric recognized at least two kinds of astonishing style or deinotes: the rough, obscure grand style and the elaborate, clever style of the Sophists. These kinds of deinotes became confused during the Renaissance, leading to the hybrid features of seventeenth-century poetry: obscure brevity and wit. Defenders of such style justified its lack of pictorial vividness, or its use of comparisons that defied visualization, by implicit adoption of Neoplatonic epistemology. Like Proclus earlier and Coleridge later, they considered the imagination creative rather than imitative, comparable to a lamp rather than a mirror, and preferred arbitrary symbols to images that attempted to convey as well as possible the qualities of the object being rendered. Neoclassical critics rejected the new view of the imagination and viewed admirable style as scholastic and sophistic rather than grand or astonishing