Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636-1711), a famous French poet, esthetician, and literary theorist, is known as the legislator and spokesperson of classicism. The most important literary theory monograph is "The Art of Poetry" published in 1674. The work discusses the characteristics of various literary genres in the form of poetry, laying the theoretical foundation for classical literature and influencing the literary creation and poetic research of the people of the time. had a great impact. This work concentratedly expresses his philosophical and aesthetic thoughts, and is known as the code of classicism. It clearly and steadily states the requirements and aesthetic tastes of the new era more thoroughly and clearly.
Most of the content of "The Art of Poetry" is the basic concepts of Horace and critics since the Renaissance, but Boileau restates these concepts according to the scale of reason. The first chapter begins with a clear statement: First of all, you must love reason: May all your articles always gain value and shine based solely on reason.
Boileau's "The Art of Poetry" is an important work on classical literary theory. It regards rationality as the highest rational standard for creation and criticism, and comprehensively and systematically expounds the aesthetic views and creative principles of classicalism. , the whole book is written in Alexandrian verse and is divided into four parts. The first chapter is an introduction, describing the aesthetic principles of classicism. The second chapter discusses the secondary poetry categories, such as pastoral, ode, elegy, etc. The third chapter discusses the main poetic styles, such as tragedy, historical drama, etc. The fourth chapter gives some moral advice to writers.
In the book, he believes that rationality is the highest value of art, and he regards imitating nature as the basic task of literature and art. Nature here refers to natural human nature. According to the concept of feudal hierarchy, he divided literary genres into grades, affirming that epics and tragedies were high-level, while comedy was considered low-level, and folk genres such as fables and farces were excluded.
He strongly advocated imitating the literary works of ancient Greece and Rome. He believed that ancient works had reached perfection and imitating the ancients was a shortcut to success. This work has far-reaching influence and has become an important work in the history of European literary and artistic theory. His "The Art of Poetry" is regarded as the theoretical code of French classicism.
"The Art of Poetry" summarizes the aesthetic principles and creative experience of French classicism in the 17th century. ” had a great influence on that time and later generations. Boileau thus earned the title of “Classicist Legislator”.
The representative of classical literary theory is Boileau, whose "The Art of Poetry" ” was called the Koran of classicism by Pushkin. In terms of literary and artistic theory, Boileau inherited the traditions of Aristotle and Horace, and many of the principles of classicism in “The Art of Poetry”. The opinions can be elaborated in a concentrated way. Boileau used Aristotle's "Poetics" and Horace's "Poetry" as the authority to re-elaborate a set of literary principles, and classicism. The rigidity, excessive intellectualization, didactic taste, etc. have been fully criticized by Romanticism. However, without Boileau's work, it is doubtful whether modern aesthetics can be established. There was no aesthetics in the Renaissance before him. After him, there is no important person or thought that has nothing to do with him.
Boileau's "Poetry" said: Only truth is beautiful, only truth is lovely. Reason is truth and beauty. That is human nature, so literature and art must be reasonable. Reason is nature, so obeying reason is consistent with imitating nature, but his nature is not external things and objects, but this kind of human nature is not human. It is the natural sensibility, but the transcendental conscience, that is, rationality.
Reason is conscience and universal human nature. Classical is rational, and imitating classical is to use the best means that people have ever discovered to express universality. Human nature. Rationality means standardization, propriety, harmony and elegance. Boileau opposes vulgarity, artificiality and acrimony, and advocates abandoning individualism that falls into extreme and low-level tastes, and builds a new literary era of rigorous order.
Boileau always uses the most perfect ideal standard in poetry to evaluate his works. Boileau's famous saying: The reason why a beautiful sentence is beautiful is that it says something that everyone has thought of, and what it says is The way of speaking is vivid, exquisite and novel.