ABSTRACT
Dispositio is the second and most important of the three classical rhetorical faculties still current in the Renaissance. According to Torquato Tasso and other Renaissance theorists, it is in dispositio that the inventiveness of the epic poet is to be exercised. Epic poetry is similarly driven by action: 'Epic poetry agrees with tragedy to the extent that it is a representation, in dignified verse, of serious actions'. Tasso's discussion of dispositio in the Discorsi dell'arte poetica is of particular interest because it displays a striking affinity with theories on literature put forward four centuries later by the Russian Formalists. This affinity manifests itself in Tasso's interpretation of general rhetorical and particular Aristotelian ideas on composition. This chapter traces the development of the particular type of distinction represented by the materia /fabula-favola /sjuzet differentiation, with the aim of providing the background against which its formulation by both Tasso and the Formalists can be set.
