Benedetto Croce’s “Poesia popolare e poesia d’arte” represents one of his most significant contributions to aesthetic theory and literary criticism, examining the fundamental distinction between folk or popular poetry and learned or artistic poetry. Published as an essay in the early twentieth century, this work exemplifies Croce’s systematic approach to aesthetic questions and his effort to clarify conceptual distinctions that had long troubled literary theory and criticism.
The Central Thesis and Theoretical Framework
Croce’s fundamental argument in this work challenges the conventional separation between popular poetry and art poetry that had dominated nineteenth-century literary discourse. Rather than accepting these as two distinct species of poetry with different essential natures, Croce argues that the distinction is not one of kind but of degree, and more importantly, that it rests on extrinsic rather than intrinsic aesthetic grounds.
The essay begins by examining how the terms “popular poetry” and “art poetry” had been employed in literary criticism and folklore studies. Croce notes that popular poetry was typically characterized as spontaneous, collective, anonymous, traditional, simple, and arising directly from the folk spirit or national consciousness. Art poetry, by contrast, was seen as individual, conscious, complex, learned, and the product of deliberate artistic craft. This dichotomy had been reinforced by the Romantic movement’s idealization of folk culture and by the development of folklore studies as a discipline.
Croce systematically dismantles this opposition by applying his general aesthetic theory, which holds that all genuine poetry is fundamentally the same in its essential nature as aesthetic expression. According to Croce’s idealist aesthetics, poetry is successful lyrical intuition-expression, and this quality does not admit of categorical divisions based on the poet’s education, social class, or the mode of transmission. A poem is either successful as aesthetic expression or it is not; there is no separate aesthetic standard for “popular” versus “artistic” creation.
The Critique of Romantic and Folkloric Conceptions
A substantial portion of the essay is devoted to critiquing the Romantic and folkloric traditions that had elevated popular poetry to a special status. Croce examines how scholars and critics had attributed to popular poetry qualities of authenticity, naturalness, and collective genius that supposedly distinguished it from the artificial, individual character of learned poetry. He traces this tendency to the Romantic reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and neoclassical formalism, showing how thinkers sought in folk poetry an alternative to what they perceived as the exhausted conventions of literary tradition.
Croce argues that this idealization rests on conceptual confusion. The notion of collective creation, for instance, is shown to be incoherent when examined closely. Every poem, every genuine aesthetic expression, must originate in an individual consciousness. The fact that a poem’s author is unknown or that it has been transmitted orally through generations does not mean it was created collectively. Rather, it means we lack historical information about its individual creator. The collective may preserve, transmit, and modify a poem, but the original creative act of aesthetic intuition-expression is necessarily individual.
Similarly, Croce challenges the idea that popular poetry is more “spontaneous” or “natural” than art poetry. All successful poetry, he argues, involves the same fundamental process of intuition-expression, which is always in one sense spontaneous (as genuine aesthetic creation) and always in another sense achieved (as successful form). The distinction between spontaneity and craft is not one that separates popular from artistic poetry but rather one that separates successful from unsuccessful poetry of any kind.
The Question of Aesthetic Value
One of Croce’s most important moves in this essay is to address directly the question of aesthetic value. He rejects the notion that popular poetry as a category is either superior or inferior to art poetry as a category. Instead, he insists that aesthetic judgment must be applied to individual works, not to classes of works defined by extrinsic criteria.
Croce acknowledges that much of what is called popular poetry is aesthetically mediocre or poor. Folk songs, ballads, and traditional verses often rely on conventional formulas, stock phrases, and mechanical repetition. But this is not because they are “popular” in origin; it is simply because they are aesthetically unsuccessful. Conversely, when a piece of popular poetry achieves genuine aesthetic success—when it realizes a vivid and coherent intuition-expression—it does so by the same aesthetic principles that govern any successful poetry.
The essay examines various examples to illustrate this point. Croce considers folk ballads, work songs, children’s rhymes, and other forms traditionally classified as popular poetry. In each case, he demonstrates that aesthetic judgment depends on whether the particular work achieves genuine expressive unity and lyrical intensity, not on its social origins or mode of transmission. A folk ballad that successfully expresses a powerful intuition is aesthetically equivalent to a learned sonnet that does the same; both are genuine poetry. A folk song that merely repeats conventional formulas without achieving expressive unity is aesthetically deficient, just as a learned poem that fails to achieve genuine expression is deficient.
The Historical and Philological Dimensions
While Croce’s primary concern is aesthetic and philosophical, he also addresses the historical and philological dimensions of the popular/art poetry distinction. He recognizes that the categories have legitimate uses in historical and sociological inquiry, even if they do not mark a fundamental aesthetic division.
From a historical perspective, the distinction between popular and art poetry can indicate different social contexts of production and reception, different modes of transmission, and different relationships to literary tradition and education. These are valid objects of historical study. A scholar might legitimately investigate how oral transmission affects the evolution of poetic texts, or how literacy and education influence poetic practice, or how different social classes have developed different poetic traditions. But these historical and sociological investigations, Croce insists, must not be confused with aesthetic judgment.
The philological study of popular poetry—collecting variants, tracing transmission, reconstructing original forms—is also a legitimate scholarly enterprise. But again, philology is not aesthetics. The fact that a text exists in multiple oral variants, or that it has been transmitted anonymously, or that it shows signs of collective modification, tells us nothing about its aesthetic value. These are facts about the text’s history, not about its success or failure as poetry.
Croce thus seeks to clarify the proper domains of different kinds of inquiry. Aesthetic criticism judges individual works as successful or unsuccessful intuition-expressions. Historical scholarship investigates the social, cultural, and material conditions of poetic production and reception. Philology studies the textual transmission and variation of poetic works. Each discipline has its proper methods and objects, and confusion arises when the criteria of one are applied inappropriately to the questions of another.
Implications for Literary Criticism and Theory
The implications of Croce’s argument extend well beyond the specific question of popular versus art poetry. His essay represents a broader intervention in literary theory, asserting the autonomy of aesthetic judgment against various forms of reductionism.
By denying that social origin, mode of transmission, or authorial education can determine aesthetic value, Croce defends the independence of aesthetic criticism from sociology, anthropology, and biography. The critic’s task is to judge whether a work achieves successful aesthetic expression, and this judgment cannot be derived from facts about the work’s social context or the author’s circumstances. A poem by an illiterate peasant and a poem by a university-educated intellectual must be judged by the same aesthetic standard: does each successfully realize a coherent and vivid intuition-expression?
This position has both egalitarian and elitist dimensions. It is egalitarian in refusing to privilege learned over popular poetry on principle, in insisting that aesthetic genius can appear anywhere, and in rejecting the notion that education or social class determines poetic capacity. But it is also elitist in maintaining rigorous aesthetic standards and in refusing to grant aesthetic value to works simply because they are “authentic” expressions of folk culture or popular sentiment. Authenticity, sincerity, and cultural representativeness are not aesthetic categories for Croce; they may be historically or sociologically interesting, but they do not constitute aesthetic success.
The Broader Context of Croce’s Aesthetics
To understand “Poesia popolare e poesia d’arte” fully, it must be situated within Croce’s broader aesthetic theory as developed in his major work “Estetica come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale” (Aesthetics as Science of Expression and General Linguistic). In that systematic treatise, Croce argues that aesthetic activity is one of the fundamental forms of spirit, specifically the form of intuitive knowledge as opposed to logical or conceptual knowledge.
For Croce, aesthetic intuition is not passive reception but active synthesis—the mind’s creation of unified images or expressions. Poetry, as the paradigmatic aesthetic activity, is successful lyrical intuition-expression: the achievement of a coherent, vivid, and emotionally charged image. This achievement is its own end; poetry is not a means to moral instruction, philosophical truth, or political action, though it may have such effects. The aesthetic dimension is autonomous, with its own criteria of success and failure.
The essay on popular and art poetry applies this general theory to a specific problem. If all genuine poetry is successful intuition-expression, then the popular/art distinction cannot mark a fundamental aesthetic division. It may mark historical, sociological, or philological differences, but aesthetically, there is only one kind of poetry: successful lyrical expression. Everything else is either failed poetry or not poetry at all.
This position also connects to Croce’s broader critique of genre theory and literary classification. Just as he rejects the popular/art distinction as aesthetically fundamental, he also rejects traditional genre categories (epic, lyric, dramatic, etc.) as aesthetic essences. For Croce, every successful poem is unique, a particular intuition-expression that cannot be subsumed under general rules or categories. Genres, like the popular/art distinction, may be useful for historical or pedagogical purposes, but they do not capture aesthetic essences.
Reception and Influence
Croce’s essay on popular and art poetry had significant influence on Italian literary criticism and on broader debates about folklore, popular culture, and aesthetic value. His intervention helped to shift Italian criticism away from the Romantic idealization of folk poetry and toward more rigorous aesthetic analysis.
However, the essay also provoked criticism and resistance. Scholars committed to folklore studies and to the Romantic tradition objected to what they saw as Croce’s dismissal of the distinctive qualities of popular poetry. They argued that he failed to appreciate the collective dimensions of folk culture and the special aesthetic qualities that arise from oral transmission and communal participation.
Marxist critics, particularly Antonio Gramsci, engaged critically with Croce’s position. While respecting Croce’s philosophical rigor, Gramsci argued that the essay underestimated the importance of social and class factors in cultural production. For Gramsci, the distinction between popular and elite culture was not merely historical or sociological but reflected real divisions in social power and cultural hegemony. A purely aesthetic approach, he suggested, risked obscuring these political dimensions.
Later twentieth-century developments in cultural studies, anthropology, and performance theory have also challenged aspects of Croce’s argument. Scholars have emphasized the distinctive features of oral poetry, the importance of performance context, and the ways in which collective participation shapes aesthetic experience. From these perspectives, Croce’s insistence on individual creation and his focus on the text as fixed expression seem to miss important dimensions of popular poetic practice.
Nevertheless, Croce’s essay remains significant for its conceptual clarity and its defense of aesthetic autonomy. His insistence that aesthetic value cannot be reduced to social origin or cultural authenticity continues to resonate in debates about popular culture, folk art, and the criteria of aesthetic judgment. Even critics who reject his conclusions often engage with the distinctions and arguments he established.
Croce’s Method and Style
The essay exemplifies Croce’s characteristic philosophical method: conceptual analysis aimed at clarifying distinctions and dissolving false problems. Rather than accumulating empirical data or constructing elaborate theoretical systems, Croce proceeds by examining how terms are used, identifying confusions, and proposing clearer conceptual frameworks.
His style is direct and argumentative, moving systematically through objections and alternative positions. He engages respectfully with opposing views, often granting their partial validity while showing their limitations. The essay demonstrates Croce’s wide learning, drawing on examples from Italian, German, and other European traditions, and engaging with scholarship in aesthetics, folklore, and philology.
At the same time, the essay reflects certain limitations of Croce’s approach. His focus on conceptual analysis sometimes leads him to underestimate the complexity of actual poetic practices and cultural phenomena. His idealist framework, with its emphasis on individual consciousness and intuition-expression, may not fully capture the social and performative dimensions of poetry. And his insistence on aesthetic autonomy, while philosophically rigorous, can seem to isolate art from the broader contexts that give it meaning and significance.
Conclusion and Lasting Significance
“Poesia popolare e poesia d’arte” represents a crucial intervention in aesthetic theory and literary criticism. By challenging the popular/art distinction as aesthetically fundamental, Croce clarified the proper domains of aesthetic judgment, historical inquiry, and philological study. His argument that all genuine poetry must be judged by the same aesthetic standard—successful intuition-expression—defended the autonomy of aesthetic criticism while opening the possibility that aesthetic achievement could appear in any social context.
The essay’s influence extended beyond its immediate subject matter to broader questions about genre, classification, and the relationship between aesthetic value and social context. It exemplified Croce’s idealist aesthetics in practice, showing how philosophical principles could illuminate specific critical problems.
While subsequent developments in cultural studies, anthropology, and literary theory have challenged aspects of Croce’s position, his essay remains a landmark in aesthetic thought. It continues to provoke reflection on fundamental questions: What makes poetry poetry? Can aesthetic value be separated from social and historical context? How should we understand the relationship between individual creation and collective tradition? These questions, which Croce addressed with characteristic clarity and rigor, remain central to aesthetic theory and criticism today.
