Scaliger's Aristotle's Poetics

Aristotle's poetics was, of course, standard reading on the subject. But scaleger argues that it got things wrong on as basic a question of what poetry is for. To compose literature artfully is, for scaliger, above all, to show good taste. He thinks that virgil's perfection is shown above all by his selectivity. Only fools would want to add anything, only insolent men to change anything. Like the poets of the pleade, Scaliger encourages modern authors to learn from their classical forbears.