The Arte of English Poesie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 355 pages of information about The Arte of English Poesie.

The Arte of English Poesie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 355 pages of information about The Arte of English Poesie.

And this spoken in common Prouerbe.
  An ape wilbe an ape, by kinde as they say,
  Though that ye clad him all in purple array.

Or as we once sported vpon a fellowes name who was called Woodcock, and
for an ill part he had plaid entreated fauour by his friend.
  I praie you intreate no more for the man,
  Woodcocke wilbe a woodcocke do what ye can.

Now also be there many other sortes of repetition if a man would vse them,
but are nothing commendable, and therefore are not obserued in good
poesie, as a vulgar rimer who doubled one word in the end of euery verse,
thus: 
  adieu, adieu
  my face, my face
.

And an other that did the like in the beginning of his verse, thus: 
  To loue him and loue him, as sinners should doo.

These repetitions be not figuratiue but phantastical, for a figure is euer vsed to a purpose, either of beautie or of efficacie:  and these last recited be to no purpose, for neither can ye say that it vrges affection, nor that it beautifieth or enforceth the sence, nor hath any other subtilitie in it, and therfore is a very foolish impertinency of speech, and not a figure.

[Sidenote:  Prosonomasia, or the Nicknamer.] Ye haue a figure by which ye play with a couple of words or names much resembling, and because the one seemes to answere th’other by manner of illusion, and doth, as it were, nick him, I call him the Nicknamer.  If any other man can geue him a fitter English name, I will not be angrie, but I am sure mine is very neere the origninall sense of the Prosonomasia, and is rather a by-name geuen in sport, than a surname geuen of any earnest purpose.  As, Tiberius the Emperor, because he was a great drinker of wine, they called him by way of derision to his owne name Caldius Biberius Mero, in steade of Claudius Tiberius Nero:  and so a iesting frier that wrate against Erasmus, called him by resemblance to his own Errans mus, and are mainteined by this figure Prosonomasia, or the Nicknamer.  But euery name geuen in iest or by way of a surname, if it do not resemble the true, is not by this figure, as, the Emperor of Greece, who was surnamed Constantinus Cepronimus, because he beshit the foont at the time he was christened:  and so ye may see the difference betwixt the figures Antonomasia & Prosonomatia.  Now when such resemblance happens betweene words of another nature and not vpon mens names, yet doeth the Poet or maker finde prety sport to play with them in his verse, specially the Comicall Poet and the Epigrammatist.  Sir Philip Sidney in a dittie plaide very pretily with these two words, Loue and liue, thus.
  And all my life I will confesse,
  The lesse I loue, I liue the lesse.

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The Arte of English Poesie from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.