PETRARCH THE CRITIC AND READER 



ture." It is evident that Petrarch regards eloquence 

 as synonymous with beautiful style. 



Again, if he saw how absurd it was to regard Virgil 

 as a magician, he was still medieval enough to look upon 

 the Latin poet as a great teacher, and to beheve that 

 what we regard as a straightforward narrative is really 

 a veil of allegory. He actually dazed Robert of Naples 

 by his exposition of Virgil, revealing recondite mean- 

 ings which that monarch had never suspected. A fine 

 debauch of this kind is found in a letter to Federico 

 Aretino {Sen., TV, 5), in which Petrarch explains the 

 true significance of Virgil. It is hardly better than the 

 earlier medieval incursions into this field — those of 

 Fulgentius, Bernard of Chartres, and John of Salis- 

 bury. If he had such archaic ideas about the Mneid, he 

 held equally strange ones about the nature of poetry in 

 general. Apparently he had not progressed beyond the 

 stage of Mussato. '^ The fact is, poetry is very far 

 from being opposed to theology. Does that surprise 

 you ? One may almost say that theology actually is 

 poetry, poetry concerning God. To call Christ now a 

 lion, now a lamb, now a worm — what, pray, is that if 

 not poetical ? What are the parables of our Lord 

 except allegories ? Allegory is the very warp and woof 

 of all poetry. Now we can see how Aristotle came to 

 say that the first poets were the first theologians.'' As 

 Vossler remarks, it never occurred to Mussato and to 

 Petrarch that Aristotle was really casting discredit upon 

 the theologians by implying that their teaching should 



95 



