Why did Renaissance theorists try to apply Greek and Latin metrical rules to English poetry?

Renaissance theorists attempted to apply Greek and Latin metrical rules to English poetry primarily due to a profound reverence for Classical models, which were viewed as the standard for "perfect and true" versification. During this period, critics sought to identify permanent laws of art by looking to ancient texts, leading them to reject what they perceived as the "barbarous" and "rude" rhyming traditions of vernacular poetry in favor of quantitative prosody.12

By drafting "laws" based on the long and short syllables of ancient hexameters, these theorists aimed to elevate English literature to the prestige of Homer and Virgil. This effort was part of a broader movement where classicism, individualism, and national pride encouraged authors to create works of lasting greatness. However, because English lacks the fixed quantitative rules and inflectional structures of Greek and Latin, these attempts were fundamentally incompatible with the phonetic nature of the language. Ultimately, this "illicit classicizing" failed to produce a viable system for English verse, as poets continued to rely on the more natural syllable-stress prosody.132