Lodovico castelvetro biography samples

By NASRULLAH MAMBROLon •

Lodovico Castelvetro (–) is best known for his stringent reformulation of Aristotle’s unities of time and place in drama, his rigid approach being subsequently endorsed by neoclassical writers.

Also important in his writings, however, are his treatment of imitation, plot, the distinction between poetry and history, and his views of the purpose and audience of poetry. Indeed, many of his views went against the grain of contemporary critical orthodoxy.

Relevant books, articles, theses on the topic 'Lodovico Castelvetro.' Scholarly sources with full text pdf download.

Lodovico Castelvetro was a prominent figure in Renaissance literature.

Nobly born, Castelvetro was a law student in Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, then began studies of literature in Siena.

Castelvetro, known in his time for the breadth of his learning, wrote a commentary on Aristotle that remained the best known and most influential until the end.

Castelvetro contributes a rather confusing chapter to the history of the distinction between poetry and history.

As against a long critical tradition, deriving in part from Horace, that the function of poetry was to be “useful” as well as to entertain, Castelvetro insisted, in a strikingly modern pose, that the sole end of poetry was to yield pleasure.

He also dismissed the long-held notion, arising most influentially with Plato, of poetry as somehow divinely inspired and the poet as possessed by a divine furor or madness. The poet, he insisted, is made, not born: h