Political Poetics and the Aristotelian Turn

Abstract

If emotion is expressed through the persuasive form of the enthymeme, what are the fields in which we can find this activated? Chapter 6 turns to poetry itself, poetry written in the wake of De regimine principum and arising from the sphere of political thought. It focuses on three texts that can be read in the light of De regimine principum: Dante’s Convivio, with emphasis on tractate IV and its canzone, part IV of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, and Hoccleve’s Prologue to his Regiment of Princes. Two of these, Convivio and Regiment of Princes, engage directly and explicitly with Giles of Rome’s work. Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale carries the accumulated influence of De regimine without directly citing it; Chaucer’s intertext is Dante’s Convivio. While these texts express some of the greater themes of De regimine, their poetic arguments can be read as enthymematic, using a brevity of argument that is emotionally effective. In this way, these poetic texts reflect—via the mediation of Giles’ De regimine—the impact of Aristotle’s rhetoric of emotion.