SOURCE: Jack, Ronald D. S. “James VI and Renaissance Poetic Theory.” English 16, no. 96 (autumn 1967): 208-11.

In the following essay, Jack perceives Some Reulis and Cautelis to Be Observit and Eschewit in Scottish Poesie to be a valuable contribution to Renaissance poetic theory.

During the Renaissance many critical treatises appeared in Europe. Scholars turned to a more minute study of classical authors and discovered that many of the metrical and theoretical principles underlying classical verse could not be applied to works in the vernacular. As a result it became clear that the critical manuals of Cicero and Quintilian were inadequate for evaluating art written in the vulgar tongue. In Italy, Trissino had suggested that Italian verse worked on a different idea of rhythm than Latin or Greek. For Trissino the Italian innovation was intimately connected with dancing:

Rithmo e anchora quello, che risulta dal danzare con ragione, e dal...