Note 88 — Chapter II · RHYTHM AS THE ESSENTIAL FACT OF POETRY

Isaaci Casauboni de Satyrica Graecorum Poesi & Romanorum Satira Libri duo, Parisiis, MDCV, pp. 352 f. “Certum heic discrimen statuitur inter eam orationem quae poema dici potest, & quae non potest, discrimen illud est metrum.... Omnem metro astrictam orationem & posse & debere poema dici.” The rest is instructive. Borinski, to be sure, Poetik d. Renaissance, p. 66, says that Casaubon wished to call Herodotus a poet; but a detached phrase of this sort—compare Scaliger’s epic in prose—goes for little when it fails to force the barrier and break down the writer’s definition. Dryden, on the other hand, making “invention” the sole test of poetry, clashes badly with his opinion (Essay on Satire) that “versification and numbers are the greatest pleasures of poetry.”