CHAPTER XIV.
HISTORY OF POETRY FROM 1550 TO 1600.
SECT. I.--ON ITALIAN POETRY.
_Character of the Italian Poets of this Age--Some of the best enumerated--Bernardino Rota--Gaspara Stampa--Bernardo Tasso-- Gierusalemme Liberata of Torquato Tasso._
|General character of Italian poets in this age.|
|Their usual faults.|
1. The school of Petrarch, restored by Bembo, was prevalent in Italy at the beginning of this period. It would demand the use of a library, formed peculiarly for this purpose, as well as a great expenditure of time, to read the original volumes which this immensely numerous class of poets, the Italians of the sixteenth century, filled with their sonnets. In the lists of Crescimbeni, they reach the number of 661. We must, therefore, judge of them chiefly through selections, which, though they may not always have done justice to every poet, cannot but present to us an adequate picture of the general style of poetry. The majority are feeble copyists of Petrarch. Even in most of those who have been preferred to the rest, an affected intensity of passion, a monotonous repetition of customary metaphors, of hyperboles reduced to commonplaces by familiarity, of mythological allusions, pedantic without novelty, cannot be denied incessantly to recur. But, in observing how much they generally want of that which is essentially the best, we might be in danger of forgetting that there is a praise due to selection of words, to harmony of sound, and to skill in overcoming metrical impediments, which it is for natives alone to award. The authority of Italian critics should, therefore, be respected, though not without keeping in mind both their national prejudice, and that which the habit of admiring a very artificial style must always generate.
|Their beauties.|
2. It is perhaps hardly fair to read a number of these compositions in succession. Every sonnet has its own unity, and is not, it might be pleaded, to be charged with tediousness or monotony, because the same structure of verse, or even the same general sentiment, may recur in an equally independent production. Even collectively taken, the minor Italian poetry of the sixteenth century may be deemed a great repertory of beautiful language, of sentiments and images, that none but minds finely tuned by nature produce, and that will ever be dear to congenial readers, presented to us with exquisite felicity and grace, and sometimes with an original and impressive vigour. The sweetness of the Italian versification goes far towards their charm; but are poets forbidden to avail themselves of this felicity of their native tongue, or do we invidiously detract, as we might on the same ground, from the praise of Theocritus and Bion?
|Character given by Muratori.|
3. “The poets of this age,” says one of their best critics, “had, in general, a just taste, wrote with elegance, employed deep, noble, and natural sentiments, and filled their compositions with well-chosen ornaments. There may be observed, however, some difference between the authors who lived before the middle of the century and those who followed them. The former were more attentive to imitate Petrarch, and unequal to reach the fertility and imagination of this great master, seemed rather dry, with the exception, always, of Casa and Costanzo, whom, in their style of composition, I greatly admire. The later writers, in order to gain more applause, deviated in some measure from the spirit of Petrarch, seeking ingenious thoughts, florid conceits, splendid ornaments, of which they became so fond, that they fell sometimes into the vicious extreme of saying too much.”[1141]
[1141] Muratori, della Perfetta Poesia, i. 22.
|Poetry of Casa.|
4. Casa and Costanzo, whom Muratori seems to place in the earlier part of the century, belong, by the date of publication at least, to this latter period. The former was the first to quit the style of Petrarch, which Bembo had rendered so popular. Its smoothness evidently wanted vigour, and it was the aim of Casa to inspire a more masculine tone into the sonnet, at the expense of a harsher versification. He occasionally ventured to carry on the sense without pause from the first to the second tercet; an innovation praised by many, but which, at that time, few attempted to imitate, though, in later ages, it has become common, not much perhaps to the advantage of the sonnet. The poetry of Casa speaks less to the imagination, the heart, or the ear, than to the understanding.[1142]
[1142] Casa ... per poco deviando dalla dolcezza del Petrarca, a un novello stile diede principio, col quale le sue rime compose, intendendo sopra il tutto alla gravitâ; per conseguir la quale, si valse spezialmente del carattere aspro, e de’ raggirati periodi e rotondi, insino a condurre uno stesso sentimento d’uno in altro quadernario, e d’uno in altro terzetto; cosa in prima da alcuno non più tentata; perlochè somma lode ritrasse de chiunque coltivò in questi tempi la toscana poesia. Ma perche si fatto stile era proprio, e adattato all’ingengo del suo inventore, molto difficile riuscì il seguitarlo. Crescimbeni della volgar poesia, ii. 410. See also Ginguéné, ix. 329. Tiraboschi, x. 22. Casa is generally, to my apprehension, very harsh and prosaic.
|Of Costanzo.|
|Baldi.|
|Caro.|
5. Angelo di Costanzo, a Neapolitan, and author of a well-known history of his country, is highly extolled by Crescimbeni and Muratori; perhaps no one of these lyric poets of the sixteenth century is so much in favour with the critics. Costanzo is so regular in his versification, and so strict in adhering to the unity of subject, that the Society of Arcadians, when, towards the close of the seventeenth century, they endeavoured to rescue Italian poetry from the school of Marini, selected him as the best model of imitation. He is ingenious, but perhaps a little too refined; and by no means free from that coldly hyperbolical tone in addressing his mistress, which most of these sonnetteers assume. Costanzo is not to me, in general, a pleasing writer; though sometimes he is very beautiful, as in the sonnet on Virgil, Quella cetra gentil, justly praised by Muratori, and which will be found in most collections; remarkable, among higher merits, for being contained in a single sentence. Another, on the same subject, Cigni felici, is still better. The poetry of Camillo Pellegrini much resembles that of Costanzo.[1143] The sonnets of Baldi, especially a series on the ruins and antiquities of Rome, appear to me deserving of a high place among those of the age. They may be read among his poems; but few have found their way into the collections by Gobbi and Rubbi, which are not made with the best taste. Caro, says Crescimbeni, is less rough than Casa, and more original than Bembo. Salfi extols the felicity of his style, and the harmony of his versification; while he owns that his thoughts are often forced and obscure.[1144]
[1143] Crescimbeni, vol. iv. p. 23.
[1144] Crescimbeni, ii. 429. Ginguéné (continuation par Salfi), ix. 12. Caro’s sonnets on Castelvetro, written during their quarrel, are full of furious abuse with no wit. They have the ridiculous particularity that the last line of each is repeated so as to begin the next.
|Odes of Celio Magno.|
6. Among the canzoni of this period, one by Celio Magno on the Deity stands in the eyes of foreigners, and I believe of many Italians, prominent above the rest. It is certainly a noble ode.[1145] Rubbi, editor of the Parnaso Italiano, says that he would call Celio the greatest lyric poet of his age, if he did not dread the clamour of the Petrarchists. The poetry of Celio Magno, more than one hundred pages extracted from which will be found in the thirty-second volume of that collection, is not in general amatory, and displays much of that sonorous rhythm and copious expression which afterwards made Chiabrera and Guidi famous. Some of his odes, like those of Pindar, seem to have been written for pay, and have somewhat of that frigid exaggeration which such conditions produce. Crescimbeni thinks that Tansillo, in the ode, has no rival but Petrarch.[1146] The poetry in general of Tansillo, especially La Balia, which contains good advice to mothers about nursing their infants very prosaically delivered, seems deficient in spirit.[1147]
[1145] This will be found in the Componimenti Lirici of Mathias; a collection good on the whole, yet not perhaps the best that might have been made; nor had the editor at that time so extensive an acquaintance with Italian poetry as he afterwards acquired. Crescimbeni reckons Celio the last of the good age in poetry; he died in 1612. He praises also Scipio Gaetano (not the painter of that name) whose poems were published, but posthumously, in the same year.
[1146] Della Volgar Poesia, ii. 436.
[1147] Roscoe republished La Balia, which was very little worth while; the following is an average specimen:--
Questo degenerar, ch’ognor si vede, Sendo voi caste, donne mie, vi dico, Che d’Altro che dal latte non precede. L’altrui latte oscurar fa’l pregio antico Degli avi illustri e adulterar le razze, E s’infetta talor sangue pudico.
|Coldness of the amatory sonnets.|
7. The amatory sonnets of this age, forming the greater number, are very frequently cold and affected. This might possibly be ascribed in some measure to the state of manners in Italy, where, with abundant licentiousness, there was still much of jealousy, and public sentiment applauded alike the successful lover and the vindictive husband. A respect for the honour of families, if not for virtue, would impose on the poet who felt or assumed a passion for any distinguished lady, the conditions of Tasso’s Olindo, to desire much, to hope for little, and to ask nothing. It is also at least very doubtful, whether much of the amorous sorrow of the sonnetteers were not purely ideal.
|Studied imitation of Petrarch.|
8. Lines and phrases from Petrarch are as studiously introduced as we find those of classical writers in modern Latin poetry. It cannot be said that this is unpleasing; and to the Italians, who knew every passage of their favourite poet, it must have seemed at once a grateful homage of respect, and an ingenious artifice to bespeak attention. They might well look up to him as their master, but could not hope that even a foreigner would ever mistake the hand through a single sonnet. He is to his disciples, especially those towards the latter part of the century, as Guido is to Franceschini or Elisabetta Serena; an effeminate and mannered touch enfeebles the beauty which still lingers round the pencil of the imitator. If they produce any effect upon us beyond sweetness of sound and delicacy of expression, it is from some natural feeling, some real sorrow, or from some occasional originality of thought, in which they cease for a moment to pace the banks of their favourite Sorga. It would be easy to point out not a few sonnets of this higher character, among those especially of Francesco Coppetta, of Claudio Tolomei, of Ludovico Paterno, or of Bernardo Tasso.
|Their fondness for description.|
9. A school of poets, that has little vigour of sentiment, falls readily into description, as painters of history or portrait that want expression of character endeavour to please by their landscape. The Italians, especially in this part of the sixteenth century, are profuse in the song of birds, the murmur of waters, the shade of woods; and, as these images are always delightful, they shed a charm over much of their poetry, which only the critical reader, who knows its secret, is apt to resist, and that to his own loss of gratification. The pastoral character, which it became customary to assume, gives much opportunity for these secondary, yet very seducing beauties of style. They belong to the decline of the art, and have something of the voluptuous charm of evening. Unfortunately they generally presage a dull twilight, or a thick darkness of creative poetry. The Greeks had much of this in the Ptolemaic age, and again in that of the first Byzantine emperors. It is conspicuous in Tansillo, Paterno, and both the Tassos.
|Judgment of Italian critics.|
10. The Italian critics, Crescimbeni, Muratori, and Quadrio, have given minute attention to the beauties of particular sonnets culled from the vast stores of the sixteenth century. But as the development of the thought, the management of the four constituent clauses of the sonnet, especially the last, the propriety of every line, for nothing digressive or merely ornamental should be admitted, constitute in their eyes the chief merit of these short compositions, they extol some which in our eyes are not so pleasing, as what a less regular taste might select. Without presuming to rely on my own judgment, defective both as that of a foreigner, and of one not so extensively acquainted with the minor poetry of this age, I will mention two writers, well-known indeed, but less prominent in the critical treatises than some others, as possessing a more natural sensibility and a greater truth of sorrow than most of their contemporaries, Bernardino Rota and Gaspara Stampa.
|Bernardino Rota.|
11. Bernardino Rota, a Neapolitan of ancient lineage and considerable wealth, left poems in Latin as well as Italian; and among the latter his eclogues are highly praised by his editor. But he is chiefly known by a series of sonnets intermixed with canzoni, upon a single subject, Portia Capece, his wife, whom, “what is unusual among our Tuscan poets (says his editor), he loved with an exclusive affection.” But be it understood, lest the reader should be discouraged, that the poetry addressed to Portia Capece is all written before their marriage, or after her death. The earlier division of the series, “Rime in Vita” seems not to rise much above the level of amorous poetry. He wooed, was delayed; complained, and won--the natural history of an equal and reasonable love. Sixteen years intervened of that tranquil bliss which contents the heart without moving it, and seldom affords much to the poet in which the reader can find interest. Her death in 1559 gave rise to poetical sorrows, as real and certainly full as rational as those of Petrarch, to whom some of his contemporaries gave him the second place; rather probably from the similarity of their subject, than from the graces of his language. Rota is by no means free from conceits, and uses sometimes affected and unpleasing expressions, as _mia dolce guerra_, speaking of his wife, even after her death; but his images are often striking;[1148] and, above all, he resembles Petrarch, with whatever inferiority, in combining the ideality of a poetical mind with the naturalness of real grief. It has never again been given to man, nor will it probably be given, to dip his pen in those streams of ethereal purity which have made the name of Laura immortal; but a sonnet of Rota may be not disadvantageously compared with one of Milton, which we justly admire for its general feeling, though it begins in pedantry and ends in conceit.[1149] For my own part, I would much rather read again the collection of Rota’s sonnets than those of Costanzo.
[1148] Muratori blames a line of Rota as too bold, and containing a false thought.
Feano i begl’occhi a se medesmi giorno.
It seems to me not beyond the limits of poetry, nor more hyperbolical than many others which have been much admired. It is, at least, _Petrarchesque_ in a high degree.
[1149] This sonnet is in Mathias, iii. 256. That of Milton will be remembered by most readers.
In lieto e pien di riverenza aspetto, Con veste di color bianco e vermiglio, Di doppia luce serenato il ciglio, Mi viene in sonno il mio dolce diletto. Io me l’inchino, e con cortese affetto Seco ragiono e seco mi consiglio, Com’abbia a governarmi in quest’esigilo, E piango intanto, e la risposta aspetto. Ella m’ascolta fiso, e dice cose Veramente celesti, ed io l’apprendo, E serbo ancor nella memoria ascose. Mi lascia alfine e parte, e va spargendo Per l’aria nel partir viole e rose; Io le porgo la man; poi mi reprendo.
In one of Rota’s sonnets we have the thought of Pope’s epitaph on Gay.
Questo cor, questa mente e questo petto Sia ’l tuo sepolcro, e non la tomba o ’l sasso, Ch’io t’apparecchio qui doglioso e lasso; Non si deve a te, donna, altro ricetto.
He proceeds very beautifully:--
Ricca sia la memoria e l’intelletto, Del ben per cui tutt’altro a dietro io lasso; E mentre questo mar di pianto passo, Vadami sempre innanzi il caro objetto. Alma gentil, dove bitar solei Donna e reina, in terren fascio avvolta, Ivi regnar celeste immortal dei. Vantisi pur la morte averti tolta Al mondo, a me non già; ch’a pensier miei Una sempre sarai viva e sepolta.
The poems of Rota are separately published in two volumes. Naples, 1726. They contain a mixture of Latin. Whether Milton intentionally borrowed the sonnet on his wife’s death,
“Methought I saw my last espoused saint,”
from that above quoted, I cannot pretend to say; certainly his resemblances to the Italian poets often seem more than accidental. Thus two lines in an indifferent writer, Girolamo Preti (Mathias,