How can we appropriately describe Giovan Battista Marino’s very complex and ambiguous poetics? Torn between strong modernity claims on the one hand and literary tradition as its original starting point on the other, it resists simplistic classifications such as rupture versus continuity. We can in fact identify various convergences, divergences, and hybridizations between literary past and present, which clearly shows us that even an apparently revolutionary poetics such as Marino’s can only really be understood in light of its historical context. More specifically, this study demonstrates that three highly productive spheres of critical debate in sixteenth-century Italy (the sacred and secular rhetoric, as well as the controversy over tragicomedy) deeply influenced and formed Marino’s poetics.