1200) is a representative of the early medieval grammarian movement, termed preceptive grammar for its interest in teaching the ars poetica.
They appeared separately all over Europe, usually anonymous, and were incorporated in elementary schooling, as adjuncts to ordinary grammar instruction.
He incurred the displeasure of Bishop Adam, allegedly after a quarrel in Paris with a certain Robert, once his friend, and was forced to appeal to the mercy of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
His designation as "Vinsauf", or "de Vino Salvo", is traceable to a treatise attributed to him on the keeping of the vine and other plants.
Its handbook genre is reinforced by multiple illustrations of its precepts entirely invented by Geoffrey of Vinsauf, rather than culled from classical authors.
As Woods notes, the applicability of the instructions of Poetria nova to both verse and prose and the various ways it could be used in the classroom, combined with the range of styles that Geoffrey of Vinsauf used to illustrate techniques, made it the general all-purpose medieval rhetorical treatise par excellence.
Gallo summarizes the major topics of the Poetria nova as follows (numbers in parentheses refer to line numbers of the original Latin verse), following the dedication, a panegyric to Pope Innocent III:[16] Figurative language is discussed in detail in the Poetria nova, which marks this treatise as grammatical.
However, two of the central parts of the Poetria nova - Invention of subject matter and disposition or organization of the work - belong to the domain of rhetoric.
Among the methods of amplification are refining or dwelling on a point; periphrasis; comparison; apostrophe; prosopopeia; digression; description; and opposition.
The doctrine of conversion is a systematic method of varying a given sentence while preserving its meaning to make the sequence of words pleasant.
Excessive alliteration, awkward violation of word order, and overly long periods are stylistic faults to be avoided.
Geoffrey of Vinsauf concludes his treatise with the observation that "power comes from speech, since life and death rest in its hands; however, language may perchance be aided, in moderation, by both expression and gesture".
A more profound examination of Chaucer's principles of composition, however, reveals that the essential scheme of the Wife of Bath's Prologue (specifically, lines 193-828) conforms to the doctrine promulgated by Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Documentum.
The integration of the Poetria nova precepts into Troilus and Criseyde I, 1065-71 reflects Chaucer's interest in rhetorical doctrine in general, and in Geoffrey of Vinsauf's in particular.
1258), a teacher of grammar and literature at the University of Paris, in the Parisiana poetria (known also as De arte prosayca, metrica, et rithmica, written and revised probably between 1220 and 1235), and Eberhard the German in the Laborintus.
Kelly asserts that understanding and appreciation of the writings of the great medieval poets, such as Chaucer, Dante, Gottfried von Strassburg, and Chrétien de Troyes, can only be fully achieved if studied in the light of the instruction contained in treatises like Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetria nova and Documentum de modo et arte dictandi et versificandi.