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which does nothing more than add force to the words by the beauty of
its tones and melodies (Pure, p. 269).
The poet, however, has a responsibility towards the musician,
and Pure repeats the ideas of the Academy of Ba'if by saying that poetry
needs the help of music, and that to be a poet without knowing music
is to be only half a poet (Pure, p. 258).
Pure concludes by saying that it is a strange phenomenon that
words should have entered into the ballet, and that at first the words
had little value; but that now, a ballet succeeds or fails not by the
qualities of its music or dance, but by the qualities of its poetry.
In 1682, Father Claude-Francois Menestrier published what
was the most complete and definitive ars poetica of the ballet. Full of
enthusiasm for the new genre and praising it almost to an extreme, he
gives his work a verve and energy that makes it amusing and interest­
ing to read. Menestrier also saw the defects of the ballet as it existed
at the time and tried, in Des Ballets anciens et modernes selon des
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regies du theatre, to formulate literary rules to guide future authors.
He traces its origins in antiquity, defending ballet as a truly classical
form, an idea which was to continue throughout the century in the lit­
erary quarrels about opera. He also listed the titles of all the ballets
presented at court from 1581 to 1682.
16. Claude-FranQois Menestrier, Des Ballets anciens et
modernes selon des regies du theatre (Paris: R. Guignard, 1682).
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