ABSTRACT
The Arte of English Poesie appeared anonymously in 1589 but attributed to George Puttenham with reasonable certainty. It consists of three parts, the first a review of the history and purpose of poetry in the process of civilisation, in which Puttenham represents Chaucer as a learned associate and beneficiary of Richard II, scorns Skelton as a satirical clown, and praises Sir Philip Sidney. The second part of the book is concerned with form and metre. What he has to say on the third is drawn from the Latin rhetorical tradition, but he makes some effort to accommodate it to English practice. English was divisible geographically and socially according to technical domain. It was divided up along lines already laid down in the treatment by Latin rhetoric of the subject of verbal choice, where the poet urged to avoid words characteristic of the provinces, the lower classes of Roman society, extreme archaisms, inappropriate domains and genres.
