Exquisite is the picture in"La Vita Solitaria"of silent meditation.
At times I seat me in a lonely spot,Upon a hill, or by a calm lake's bank,Fringed and adorned with flowers taciturn.There, when full mid-day heat informs the sky,His peaceful image doth the sun depict,And to the air moves neither leaf nor herb,And neither ruffling wave nor cricket shrill,Nor birds disporting in the boughs above,Nor fluttering butterfly, nor voice nor step,Afar or near, can sight or hearing find.Those shores are held in deepest quietude:Whence I the world and even myself forget,Seated unmoved; and it appears to meMy body is released, no longer wornWith soul or feeling, and its old reposeIs blended with the silence all around.
Very noble is the conclusion of the"Epistle to Count Carlo Pepoli":—
Thou lovest song and poets charm thy mind;Thy task it is that rarest gift to find,That beauty of the soul, amid mankindSo seldom seen, so fugitive and frail,That we its absence rather than its loss bewail.Thrice happy he who never lost the flameOf rich imagination when he cameTo the autumnal tinting of his years,In whom the freshness of the heart appearsFor ever pure and tender! Blessed heWhom Nature still in holy libertyPreserves and keeps that he may deck her browWith all the treasures that his thoughts allow.Such be the gift by Heaven on thee conferred!May sacred Poesy by thee be heardWhen snowy age hath marked thee as her ownAnd on thy head her silvery signs are shown.I feel in me all blest illusions waneThat did my youth and dawn of life sustain;I loved them much, and to the bitter endI shall with tears their fond remembrance tend.When comes the time that frozen quite and hardMy soul shall be, nor in the Heavens starredThe clustering splendours give my spirit joy,My wondering thought in vague surmise employ;Nor sunny hills and lonely places smile,Nor warbling birds with early notes beguileMy weary heart; nor, sailing in the sky,The queenly Moon be welcome to mine eye;When Art and Nature shall to me be dumb,And tender feelings like a stranger come:Then other lore, though less endeared, I'll chooseThat I the sense of bitter life may lose.My weary mind the wonders shall embraceThat scholars seek and questioning sages trace,The bitter truth and dark reality,The goal of life that we so dimly see;Why brought to light and why surcharged with woeThe countless generations here below;What Fate and Nature have for us in store;What laws ordain, what guides direct us o'erThe perilous gulfs of Nature and of Time;These be the fountains of my thought sublime,The lofty theme of many a pensive rhyme.Thus I shall live; unhappy though it be,There are some charms in sad reality.But if my song unwelcome be or strange,I shall not grieve; for in its boundless rangeMy spirit hath outsoared the love of Fame;She is a goddess only in her name;Than Fate and Love that rule our humankindSo vaguely, so unwisely, she is far more blind.
These extracts will enable the reader to form an idea of the power of thought and depth of feeling that characterise Leopardi's Poems, although the beauty of his diction may not be reproduced in all its purity and sweetness. Never was there a poet who knew how to handle the Italian language with greater skill, or to give it more enchanting melody or more varied cadences. If he has a fault, it is that he is sometimes too indifferent to ornament, and that his simplicity now and then degenerates into poverty and bareness. But when we remember what Italian poetry had become in his time, how artificial, how overladen with meretricious ornaments, we shall think him worthy of praise, rather than deserving of censure. His earlier poems are the most ornate, and it was only by degrees that he attained that crystal clearness of style for which we find no parallel in the Italian language. His frequent use of a capricious succession of rhymed and unrhymed lines allows him to develop his thoughts with perfect freedom; indeed, so easy is the metre, that were it not for his happy selection of words and exquisite variety of cadence, it would border dangerously on the slipshod;indeed, it does so in the works of his imitators, and of recent years it has been, probably for that reason, abandoned by poets in favour of systems more rigid and perhaps more epigrammatic.
Leopardi had every characteristic of a great lyric poet. If his pessimism is sometimes too pronounced for many readers, it must be admitted that the evils of life are sufficiently numerous to justify his elegies; and he atones for any excess of gloom by the most exquisite pictures of nature and of love. The world appears more beautiful, though more terribly and darkly beautiful, in his poems than in reality. He has a rare power of musical diction which delights the ear even in his most melancholy passages. Indeed, the secret of his power lies in the unique and exquisite contrast between the gloom and bitterness of his thoughts and the sweetness and radiant beauty of his style.
He has also the rare power of concentrating in a few lines a whole world of thought and emotion. Thus, in theRisorgimento:
"Meco ritorna a vivereLa piaggia, il bosco, il monte;Parla al mio core il fonte,Meco favella il mar.
In the poemTo Sylviaquoted above, he calls her "his hope so much bewailed," "mia lacrimataspeme." In theRicordanzehe calls Nerina "his eternal sigh." Numerous other instances could be adduced. Take, for example, the lovely passage in theCanto Notturno,where the shepherd apostrophizes the Moon:
"Pur tu, solinga, eterna peregrina,Che si pensosa sei, tu forse intendi,Questo viver terreno,Il patir nostro, il sospirar, che sia;Che sia questo morir, questo supremoScolorar del sembiante,E perir della terra, e venir menoAd ogni usata, amante compagnia."
His pathos and tenderness, expressed in language of the most perfect purity and sweetness, and adorned with the rainbow hues of his vivid imagination, produce an effect more poetical than words can describe. I know of no lyric poet who keeps the mind of his reader under a more potent spell. Others, like Horace and Alfred de Musset, may be more entertaining, others, again, like Keats and Shelley, may delight us with airier and more brilliant flights of fancy, but Leopardi leads us to the brink of abysses and shows us their unfathomable depth.
He always writes from his heart, a rare quality, for we may find twenty poets who write from the head for one who writes from the heart. He never attempts a task for which he is unfitted. Hispowers of reasoning in verse are very great, but his argument never becomes unpoetical, never becomes dryly didactic. If his works have a fault, it is that now and then the poems have a tendency to fall off towards the end, and in his later works there is a certain languor of style, probably the result of ill-health. He is a great master of blank verse, and only in one of the poems in that metre, thePalinodia,does he become heavy and prolix. Sometimes, when he is not sustained by any great thought, his extreme simplicity degenerates into poverty. Very few poets could venture to be as simple as Leopardi.
His works have the effect of growing upon the reader. The second perusal pleases better than the first, and the more they are read, the more they are admired. In quantity of verse produced, he is surpassed by many writers; but in quality, by none.
His prose works, like his poems, are few in number and short in dimension. They comprise dialogues (a form of which he was very fond), a few essays, and over one hundred detached fragmentary thoughts. They make only a small volume of most unimposing bulk, but the beauties of thought and style are so great that many critics have extolled them as the most perfect production of Italian prose. They all set forth his pessimismand his melancholy, but with so much art and variety, that while they convince us of the world's misery, they also enchant us with its beauty. Leopardi made a profound study of the great prose writers of the Fourteenth Century, and he alone succeeds in reproducing to perfection the freshness and harmony of their style. Some passages are so magnificent that they cry out aloud to be put into verse. In his prose we find less of his heart (that wonderful heart that embraced the whole world in its sympathy) and more of the vivacity of his fancy than in his verse.
HisOperette Morali,as his Prose Works were not very appropriately entitled, did not receive that cordial welcome which their extraordinary beauties should have commanded. In his youth he was extolled up to the skies for his laborious erudition, but when he offered the public works of real originality and value, both in prose and verse, his gift was appreciated only by very gradual degrees. This may be partly explained by the fact that a great wave of Utilitarianism was passing over the country, a tendency against which he exclaims in a letter written to Giordani from Florence in 1828. "I am weary," he says, "of the haughty contempt which people here profess for the beautiful and for literature, especially as I do not think that the summit of human wisdom consists in theknowledge of politics and of statistics. On the contrary, when I consider philosophically the utter uselessness of the endeavours to obtain perfection of governments and happiness of nations, even from the days of Solon to our own, I cannot help smiling at this mania for political and legislative schemes and calculations, and I humbly ask how the happiness of nations can be obtained without the happiness of individuals? We are condemned to unhappiness by Nature, and not by our fellow-creatures or by Fate; and to console us for this inevitable unhappiness, I think nothing is better than the study of the beautiful, the cultivation of che affections, the flights of imagination, and the pleasures of our illusions. Therefore, I consider that all that pleases the mind is useful beyond ordinary things of use, and that literature is more truly useful than all those dry subjects which, even if they fulfilled their objects, would little help the true felicity of human beings, who are individuals, and not masses; but when do they really fulfil their objects?. . . . . . I hold (and not accidentally) that human society has inborn and necessary principles of imperfection, and that its condition can be more or less bad, but never perfect. From every point of view, to deprive men of that which is most delightful to the mind,appears to me the infliction of a real injury upon the human race."
These words may be taken to heart at the present day as much as at the time when they were written. There are far too many people ready to cry down the pursuits of art and poetry, and it would be well to answer them with these arguments of one of the most powerful and original intellects that the human race has ever produced.
Alessandro Manzoni, the most popular writer of the first half of the Nineteenth Century, was born at Milan on the seventh of March, 1785. His mother was the daughter of Beccaria, whose philanthropic endeavours to abolish the worst abuses of criminal procedure have received recognition in a previous chapter. He received his education from the Fathers of the Somaschi Order, and in 1805 he accompanied his mother to Paris. There he had the advantage of mixing with the most brilliant and intellectual Society that France could produce. At that epoch he seems first to have attempted composition, and a poem he wrote on the death of a friend obtained sufficient encomiums to encourage him in further efforts.
In 1808 he returned to Italy and married Mademoiselle Blondel, daughter of a banker of Geneva.
She was a Protestant, but soon joined the Church of Rome, and ere long filled her husband, who had hitherto been indifferent to religion, with the fervour that animated her soul. As in Paris, so in Milan, he enjoyed the society of those most eminent for their intellectual powers, and he was a frequent visitor in Monti's house. Silvio Pellico and Tommaso Grossi were among his friends, and Luigi Tosi, afterwards Bishop of Pavia, did much to confirm him in the ardent piety instilled by his wife. Winter and Spring he passed in Milan, Summer and Autumn at a beautiful villa of his at Brusiglio, four miles out of the town.
In 1812 he began writing his Sacred Hymns, and if they do not rise above a spirited, though somewhat conventional, piety, they are nevertheless an enormous advance on the mythological platitudes that formed so long the staple of Italian poetry.
In 1819, he finished his tragedy,Il Conte di Carmagnola,which had occupied him for more than three years. Manzoni entirely abandoned the trammels of the unities of time and place to which Alfieri rigidly adhered; his play has consequently much of the picturesqueness and variety of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans; and it is distinguished by that thoroughness of historical study which marked everything he wrote; but on the other hand, it must be admitted that he isnot inspired by the genuine spirit of tragedy in nearly so high a degree as Alfieri, nor has he his predecessor's remarkable gift of writing sonorous and impressive blank verse. His verse is clear and flowing, but rather wanting in colour. His characters say what they ought to say, but they do not say it in a striking manner. Even more than for its merits as a play, it deserves to be read for the accurate picture it presents of the Venice of the Fifteenth Century.
In 1820 he wrote the most spirited verses he ever produced,Il Quinto Maggio,a poem on the death of Napoleon, full of fire and originality.
In 1822 he published his tragedyAdelchi.AsCarmagnolagave a picture of the Oligarchy of Venice, so doesAdelchigive us a picture of the rule of the Lombard Kings. It is written with as much care as its predecessor, and with more fire ind energy. But even here he is far indeed from displaying Alfieri's mastery over blank verse. Appended to this tragedy we find a long and valuable essay on the Lombards in Italy.
Manzoni contemplated a third tragedy. It was to have been on the subject of Spartacus, but not more was written than an introductory Chorus.
These works procured a high reputation for the poet, a reputation which became even European when he published in 1826 his celebrated historicalromance,I Promessi Sposi—The Betrothed.No prose work in the Italian language has been received with greater enthusiasm in foreign countries than this. Translations appeared in every European language; edition after edition was called for, both of the original and of the renderings. The daily papers teemed with laudatory notices; the author was overwhelmed with tokens of esteem and admiration, and his countrymen hailed in him with rapture an Italian Scott.
His reputation reached its zenith in 1830. But if his admirers expected that he would display the fertility of his Caledonian prototype, they were doomed to disappointment. He was renowned as the writer of two able tragedies, of one of the most brilliant lyrics in any language, and of the most successful novel that Italy had ever produced. He was rich and comfortable, two strong incentives to indolence. He had acquired fame so great that it would be impossible to add to it; what need was there for him to labour and toil in producing works that could not by any possibility approach the marvellous success of their predecessors? Accordingly, we find that Manzoni wrote but little after the appearance of thePromessi Sposi,and that little is not of great importance. In hisStoria della Colonna Infame,he protests, like a true descendant of Beccaria, against the horrors of therack; in hisMorale Cottolica,he displays considerable powers of observation and of argument.
He had numerous children, but many of them predeceased him. His eldest daughter married Massimo d'Azeglio.
After the Italian victories of 1859, he was elected a member of the Senate assembled at Turin, but he only attended its debates on two occasions, probably owing to advancing age. He was offered high dignities and the medals of many Orders; but he refused them all, and lived in simple retirement, sufficiently distinguished by his renown, and by the esteem accorded to his amiable and benevolent character. He died on the 22nd of May, 1873, and Milan accompanied her poet to the grave with magnificent obsequies.
Turning from the man to his works, we find both his prose and his poetry characterized by a noble spirit of repose. There is nothing stormy or angry in his writings, for there was nothing to disturb or to embitter his mind. He resemble Goethe in the cloudless serenity of his intellect, though he may not equal him in the rarer attributes of genius. It was probably this very repose that militated against his success as a dramatist, for if they did not present so faithful a picture of an historical epoch, his two tragedies would hardly deserve the attention they received.
This happy peace of mind enabled him to reproduce very clearly what he observed and imagined. It is, therefore, no cause for wonder that when he devoted the powers of his mind to the production of an historical novel, he should have given a masterpiece to the world. The story is interesting. We follow the vicissitudes of the lovers with breathless attention. The subject is well fitted to the author's powers. He writes of localities among which he lived, and of times, the history of which he had profoundly studied. The descriptions never fail to be vivid and accurate, and the skill with which he masses together great events cannot be too highly extolled. Nothing could be finer than the description of the plague of Milan, and of the popular disturbances. Nor is he less admirable in the delineation of character. The portrait of the Friar would be alone sufficient to show his mastery in that line. The style has its beauties, but even in this most successful work of the Nineteenth Century we notice the same peculiarities as in his dramas; the characters say what they ought to say, but they do not always say it in a striking manner. Little as he resembled Leopardi, he was like him in a certain indifference to ornament which sometimes degenerates into poverty.
In reading Manzoni's works we become aware howmuch the romantic movement benefited literature. A new life is infused into prose and poetry; fresh thoughts arise in the writer's mind, and the wretched conventionalities of phraseology are done away with for ever.
Above praise though thePromessi Sposimay be, it is not possible to extol Manzoni very highly as a poet. With the exception of the magnificentCinque Maggio,his lyrics do not glow with vivid fire, nor do they haunt the reader with their melody. The extremely comfortable circumstances of the poet's life prevented him from being torn with passion and harrowed by despair. His genius had nothing wild or impetuous about it to spur him on to a passionate outpour of song. Nor had he the gaiety of convivial, or the acrimony of satirical, verse. Therefore, it is not strange that he has left us nothing quite worthy of his renown in the lyric line, always excepting the poem on the death of Napoleon.
His powers of versification are not very remarkable. He is deficient in the delicate cadences of a truly great poet. His blank verse has a tendency to become flat. His rhymes are stronger, but the metre, though effective, is not modulated and varied with the consummate skill that can alone satisfy a cultivated ear. But all his poems are the emanationof a truly noble mind, and if we search the pages of Manzoni, whether in his prose or in his verse, for lofty thoughts and elevating influence, we can truly say that we never search in vain.
A work hardly inferior in popularity to thePromessi SposiwasLe Mie Prigioni,an account of all that he suffered in Austrian prisons, bySilvio Pellico.
The author of this celebrated book was born at Saluzzo, in Piedmont, in 1788. He spent his youth in France, but shortly after he came of age, he returned to Italy and settled in Milan. He supported himself for a while as a tutor, and then as a journalist. He wrote several tragedies, the best of which isFrancesca da Rimini,and a spirited translation of Byron'sManfred.
In conjunction with a few friends, he published a paper,Il Conciliatore.Some articles excited the displeasure of the Austrian Government, and the paper was forbidden to appear. The disturbances in Piedmont in 1820 aroused the fears of the Authorities, and he was arrested with some of hiscompanions and taken to Venice, where he was first of all confined in the "Piombi" in the Doge's Palace, and then in the prison on the Island of San Michele. He and his confederates were sentenced to death, but the capital sentence was commuted to fifteen years imprisonment in a fortress for Pellico and twenty years for his friend Maroncelli. Both victims were removed in 1822 to the Spielberg, near Brunn, in Moravia, and confined in subterranean dungeons. They were treated with the utmost rigour. Heavy manacles were fastened to their limbs; coarse and scanty fare alone was provided for them. Pellico's health was never strong, and it broke down utterly under such rigorous treatment. He fell dangerously ill, and a certain relaxation was made in order to save his life. But no sooner was he on the way to recovery, than the former severities were revived and even aggravated. He was no longer allowed to beguile his wretched captivity with reading and writing, and all that he could do was to brood in his wretched dungeon over his sorrows and to wonder whether he would live until the day appointed for his release. His wounded spirit took refuge in the consolations of a somewhat mystic piety. In later years the demand for a United Italy brought the patriots into collision with the Papacy, whose adherence to the claim of temporal powerfor the Pope was inflexibly maintained, and the collision resulted in bitter hostility to Christianity; but for at least the first forty years of the Century nearly every patriot was a fervent Catholic, whose religious enthusiasm was fostered by the romantic movement, with its attendant love and veneration for the Middle Ages. Pellico was emphatically the incarnation of this type of patriot. He looked upon all free thought with horror, and any doubts as to the tenets of his Church never seem to have entered his mind. His cruel captivity made him cling all the closer to the promises of the Church to her faithful, and after his liberation his frame of mind continued the same.
That liberation came sooner than was expected. Pellico and his friend Maroncelli were released on the first of August, 1830.
Count Pralormo, Envoy of the Court of Turin to Vienna, interceded frequently for the unhappy poet, and it was probably in a large measure owing to him that Pellico was released so soon. The Revolution of July broke out on the very day the Emperor Francis signed the order for the release. It was considered a fortunate circumstance for the prisoners that the order was signed before the Emperor had heard of this event, or he might not have been so inclined to clemency.
The prisoners were conducted under escort toVienna, but Silvio was in so feeble a state of health that the exertion of travelling threw him on a sick bed. He tells us that on his recovery he was taken drives and excursions, and one day, when he and Maroncelli were walking in the park at Schönbrunn, the approach of the Emperor was announced, and he and his companion were ordered to go aside lest his Majesty should be depressed by the sight of their pale and emaciated faces.
When Pellico was allowed to return to Italy, he took refuge at Turin with his sister. He beguiled his time by writingLe Mie Prigioniand numerous tragedies and poems; but his health was quite ruined by the hardships he had endured, and he languished in much suffering. He died unmarried in 1854.
Why Silvio Pellico was treated with such rigour and cruelty by the Austrian Government is inexplicable, for he was the very reverse of a dangerous and turbulent spirit. Even his imprisonment did not rouse him to frenzy, andLe Mie Prigioniis less an outpouring of wrath than a chronicle of all the tears he shed. Indeed, it would have been better for his fame as an author if he had possessed something of the cruel indignation that devoured the heart of Swift. His works are tender and pensive, but they are sadly in want offire. He gives us mild elegies when we expect passionate invectives.
It was hard to suffer so much, but had he suffered less, he would not now be remembered among the authors of his country. A pure and noble spirit he would always have been, but his star would not have shone with sufficient brilliancy to be distinguishable from the galaxy around it.
"After writing twelve tragedies," he tells us, "eight of which alone have been published, I ceased to write for the stage, as I felt that I had not sufficient resources to enable me to depict a great variety of characters. In my youth I had a wild hope that I might in time occupy a place not distant from Alfieri, but with years I awoke from that illusion in spite of the applause that was lavished upon me. Now I take pleasure only in lyric and narrative poetry, in which I admit that I do not rise to any great height; but those branches of poetry have a strong attraction for me; I love to make of them the instruments to express my sentiments, and especially my religious emotions. I often feel the want of praying, as it were, in verse; and thus I produce sometimes an ode, sometimes an elegy, in which I pour out my heart to God, and that suffices to give me back my spiritual serenity. I should like to see poets arise greater than myself, that they might increase thenumber of sacred compositions, diffusing the love of God and of virtue, and elevating their intellect and that of their fellow creatures, with the holy union of noble thoughts and fervent religion. We have a few such poets, but very limited in number, and too often the divinest of arts is dedicated to frivolous, or what is worse, to despicable subjects."
These words give a clear idea of the spirit in which he wrote, and it cannot be denied that he comes up to his noble conception, even though a certain want of fire prevents him from occupying a high rank in Italian literature. His two best tragedies areFrancesca da RiminiandThomas More.In both he rises to considerable dignity, and nothing better can be found out of Alfieri. HisFrancescawas produced by the celebrated actress Carlotta Marchionni with brilliant success.
His lyric poems are a mirror of his tender and pensive soul, but the fatal want of fire is more apparent than in his tragedies which are sustained by the interest of the story.
Far and away the most important of his works isLe Mie Prigioni,the record of his weary years of cruel captivity. The book was a prodigious success, and was read wherever freedom was loved and tyranny detested. No literary production of the age was more welcome to Italianpatriots, because it furnished them with so forcible a justification for rising against their oppressors. Indeed, the marvel is that a nation like the Italian bore the yoke of foreign invaders so long. Italy was not like Poland, without natural frontiers to act as a barrier against the aggression of powerful neighbours. Nor was she, like Poland, distracted by internal faction and discord. Why, therefore, did she submit so long? The only answer, in my opinion, is that the system in the Middle Ages of hiring venal condottieri and their followers to fight their battles demoralised the Italians until they failed to realise their own inherent strength. When once the nation resolved to be free, the task was not so stupendously difficult. It was a fortunate circumstance for Italy that neither Spain nor Austria ever attempted to effect settlements of their own subjects on her soil, as England did in Ireland and as Russia is now doing in Poland. Thus, when the hour of freedom struck, the Italians had only to overcome hostile garrisons, they had not to uproot a settled population.
The style of Silvio Pellico is eminently clear and direct, and his work is on that account a great favourite with foreigners beginning the study of the language. He has considerable powers of description, and he succeeds admirably in reproducing the colouring and the atmosphere of the scenes hewent through. He is occasionally too sentimental, and the tears he sheds are out of all proportion to the fortitude he displays. But a great wave of sentimentality was passing over Italy at that time, and it was perhaps wanted to bring men back to nature after the artificiality of the past.
His gaolers seem to have been as kind to him as they dared; but the rules of the prison were terribly rigorous, and they were not relaxed for Silvio and his confederates, blameless though their characters were known to be. Maroncelli had to submit to the amputation of a leg owing to the mortification resulting from the friction of his heavy fetters, and Pellico himself was prostrated by illness from his excessive hardships, so that for a while his life was in danger, and great indeed would have been the loss to Literature had a fatal termination prevented him from leaving to posterity the record of a cruel captivity and of a lofty and unsullied patriotism.
The most conspicuous, though not in reality the most eminent, of the Italian poets in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, wasVincenzo Monti. The inexhaustible fluency of his verses attracted universal attention, and even Leopardi worshipped at his shrine. But he was only an idol, not a divinity. The feet of clay soon became apparent. He veered round with shameless apostacy from one political party to another. Beginning his career by flattering Pius VI, he continued it by extolling the French invaders, and concluded it by grovelling before the Austrian tyrants. He wrote odes without enthusiasm, and tragedies without dignity, and he translated Homer without knowing sufficientGreek to read the original. An epigram was suggested for his portrait:
"Questo è Monti, poeta e cavaliero,Gran traduttor dei traduttor d'Omero."
But it would be unjust to deny that he had great flexibility of style and full command over all the resources of the language. He is always elegant and flowing, and his works, such as they are, never sin against the canons of good taste. Perhaps the most pleasing of his shorter poems is a very beautiful sonnet on the portrait of his daughter.
A far more masterful and daring spirit was UGO FOSCOLO. His poemI Sepolcriattracted universal attention, but it can hardly be said that the promise of this poem was fulfilled by later works. He had brilliant gifts, but he was inclined to fritter them away on learned trifles. As a prose writer he exercised a wider influence. HisLettere di Jacopo Ortis,were to Italy much what Goethe'sWertherwas to Germany. He was an admirable critic, and his essays on Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio are valuable even at the present day. He took refuge in England, and some of his best articles were written in English, being subsequently translated into his mother-tongue. He died at Turnham Green, near London, in 1827.
Melchiorre Cesarottitranslated Macpherson'sOssian,and was a powerful promoter of the romantic movement.
Ippolito Pindemontewrote many poems distinguished by a gentle pensiveness, and he translated theOdysseywith considerable success.
Giovanni Berchetof Milan, contributed largely by his verses to kindle the fire of patriotism, but vigorous and stirring though they be, they have hardly sufficient finish and delicacy to rank as works of art.
Giuseppe Giustiwas a satirist of amazing raciness and originality. He attacked the tyrannical Governments of his day, and he knew neither fear nor discretion. Those who can form an idea of what Mr. Gilbert's inexhaustible powers of grotesque versification would produce if directed towards political satire, may conceive what Giusti's poems are. He died of consumption in 1850.
Felice Bellotti, of Milan, rendered noble services to the literature of his country by his magnificent translation of theLusiadof Camoens, theArgonauticaof Apollonius Rhodius, and the tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Giambattista Nicoliniwas the author of numerous tragedies, but his tendencies were as much political as poetical, and his poetry suffers in consequence.
Jacopo Vittorelliwas musical and flowing in his verse, and some of his best lines are worthy of the pen of Metastasio.
The poems ofGiuseppe Puzzonehave a tender sentimentality that is both moving and pleasing,
Giuseppe Borghitranslated Pindar, and wrote poems of his own with considerable fire and originality.
Luigi Carrer, a Venetian, had the merit of opening up new sources of ideas in his poems, and he has much pathos and command of language.
Gabriele Rossetti, the father of a celebrated family, was inspired by patriotism in almost everything he wrote. Some of his patriotic hymns have inimitable fire and energy. He took refuge in England, where he died in 1854.
The poems ofAleardo Aleardiare remarkable for strength of imagination, but his powers of execution are not considerable.
Giosue Carducciranks very high among the poets of the Nineteenth Century, but his endeavours to revive the mythology of which the world had become utterly weary were not very judicious, although in his case they were redeemed by great learning and much force of imagination. He tried to introduce the metres of Horace into Italian, but the result is not very musical.
Enrico Panzacchiis a true poet, and his imagery is always graceful and in good taste.
The same cannot be said ofOlindo Guerriniwho, under the pseudonym ofLorenzo Stechetti, published poems remarkable for freshness and melody of style, but also, unhappily, for coarseness and indecency. He is very successful in the art of making the verses sing; they really come from the heart of the poet and go straight to the heart of the reader.
The SicilianRapisardiproduced some fine works, among others a long poem on the afflictions of Job. It is full of imagination, but it would be difficult to conceive a more unnecessary work; the book of Job is so sublime in itself that any reproduction, not a literal translation, is either a dilution or a "gilding of refinéd gold."
Giovanni Pratihad great powers of thought and genuine inspiration. HisArmandois a very noble work, but it is somewhat wanting in skilful construction, and in everything he wrote his beauties are rather heaped together than skilfully displayed.
Pietro Cossaproduced some tragedies very unlike those of Alfieri, full of crude colours and startling contrasts, by which he obtained an immense vogue, but it is doubtful whether they will stand the test of time.
Ada Negri, of Milan, has published some lyrics full of the most extraordinary fire and brilliancy, and if she continues as she has begun, she cannot fail to produce something great.
TheAbbe Zanellahas published poems which have been much admired. He is reported to be the favourite poet of Leo XIII.
MadameRachele Botti Bindahas written numerous poems, characterised by strength and originality of thought; indeed, it is delightful to find in almost all the poets enumerated in this chapter that the old sameness and conventionality have utterly disappeared and that freshness and versatility are everywhere apparent. This circumstance cannot fail to be of good augury for the future and to infuse new life into a literature which was sadly in need of freshness of thought and unconventionality of style. If some writers have been indelicate and others inartistic, these are faults that are immediately seen and easily avoided, and in view of the greater interest and appreciation bestowed by the public of late years on poetry, there is every reason to hope that the next century will witness the appearance of poets in no respect unworthy of the Country of Dante and Ariosto.
Pre-eminent among the historians of the Nineteenth Century areCesare BalboandCesare Cantu. They were both indefatigably laborious and they both devoted themselves to the elucidation of the history of their native land.Manin'sHistory of Venicehas research and minuteness of detail without wearisome prolixity to recommend it.
Tommaso Grossiwas highly successful with his historical romanceMarco Visconti,but he has a tendency to become very tearful and sentimental.
The plays of Alberto Nota procured considerable reputation for their author, but they are not quite amusing enough for comedies and not quite Strong enough for dramas, so that they have fallen into neglect in spite of their delicacy and refinement. The Italian Stage in this Century depended too much on French importations, as did theaverage fiction of the day. Even at the present time, the poorest rubbish of the Boulevards has a better chance of attracting attention than the best works of indigenous authors. Extreme concessions have been made of late years to vulgar realism, but it cannot be denied that realism has called forth life-like characters and accurate descriptions.Matilde Seraohas been particularly successful as a novelist.
But the most brilliant novelist of the present day is undoubtedlyGabriele D'annunzio. His poems are well-conceived, though not particularly musical in diction, but as a novelist he is quite the first. He excels in descriptions. Nowhere else can such word-painting be found, with the possible exception of the books of travel ofEdmondo De Amicis. Tullio Giordanahas written a most interesting monograph on Gabriele d'Annunzio'sTrionfo della Morte,but perhaps the best works he has produced as yet areIl PiacereandGiovanni Episcopo.He is not always particularly happy in his choice of subjects; but if he exercises discretion in that respect, there is no saying to what height he may not in future ascend.
In Italy, as elsewhere, the extreme popularity of the novel has overshadowed every other branch of literature. To enumerate the various authors and their works would be like counting the sands ofthe sea-shore and the stars of the Heavens, suffice it to observe that everywhere skill and ingenuity are manifest, and if some authors become repulsive from excess of realism, others, and those the most recent, have, in emulation of Gabriele d'Annunzio, thrown over their realism the garb of fancy and imagination, thus presenting a happy augury for the future.
In this History of Italian Literature I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to trace its progress and development. That it has progressed, cannot, I think, be denied. Poetry has freed itself from conventionality. Prose has given birth to works which former ages could not even have conceived. Compare the magnificent creations of Gabriele d'Annunzio to the stories of Bandello and theNovellineofMasaccio. The advance is prodigious. Much, however, remains to be done. Italy has not yet given the world a philosopher so profound as Kant or Schopenhauer, or a tragic poet so great as Sophocles or Shakespeare. There is still room for an Italian Burns, for a really original and striking poet in dialect. The SicilianGiovanni Meliis, perhaps, the nearest approach to such a writer, indeed, he is the most genuinepoet that Sicily has ever produced. There is every reason to hope that the free and united Italy of the present will see writers as brilliant as those of the enslaved and divided Italy of the past.