Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c87.10

v2.c87.10

⁶ The growth of artificial poetry, we have seen, made the technical analysis of rhetoric, and instruction of it, a necessity : but rhetoric involves (and sometimes becomes identical with) criticism ; and it is almost impossible for Ālaṃkārikas, who also theorised on principles, not to busy themselves with the forms and general phenomena of literature. Thus most works, whether on general poetics or on rhetoric, did involve some amount of criticism which could not be avoided. It must also be borne in mind that our modern ideas of Aesthetics, Poetics or Rhetoric are not sharply distinguished in these old authors, nor was there any well-defined notion of the respective spheres of these