FOOTNOTES:

[1] The characteristics of this norm are well set forth by Wetz, Shakespeare, ch. v.

[2] The conflict of friendship with love was in general treated in England with a livelier sense of the power of love than in Italy. Boccaccio’s Palemone and Arcita, rivals for the hand of Emilia, courteously debate their claims (Teseide, V, 36, 39 f.); Chaucer makes them fight in grim earnest. Spenser in the spirit of the Renascence makes friendship an ideal virtue, but exposes it to more legitimate trials, as where the Squire of low degree repels the proffered favours of his friend’s bride. (Faerie Queen, iv. 9, 2.)

[3] ‘Perjured, murderous, ... savage, extreme ... rude, cruel, not to trust.’

[4] Goethe probably never heard of a less fortunate adventure in that kind by his English contemporary, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the Loves of the Plants, which had then been famous in England for ten years; a poem which suffices to show that it is possible to exploit in the description of natural processes all the figures and personifications of poetry, and yet to go egregiously wrong.

[5] To Knebel, 14 February 1821.

[6] I. 140 f.

[7] I. 922, 1.

[8] This and subsequent passages are freely compressed here and there.

[9] IV. 575.

[10] II. 29.

[11] 18 July 1818.

[12] 13 July 1818, to Tom Keats.

[13] April 1818, to Taylor.

[14] Cf. his amusing outburst at Teignmouth, in the previous March, at the effeminacy he ascribed to the men of Devon. ‘Had England been a large Devonshire, we should not have won the battle of Waterloo. There are knotted oaks, there are lusty rivulets, there are meadows such as are not elsewhere—there are valleys of feminine climate—but there are no thews and sinews,’ etc. March 13th, to Bailey.

[15] Lord Houghton, quoted by Buxton Forman, Letters, LXI.

[16] It is not irrelevant, however, in this context, to recall that Dante’s account of his Dream-journey has been thought to give evidence of actual climbing experience. The Purgatory mountain was provided with a good path; but the Inferno, with its precipitous walls, was less easily negotiated. He had, however, the services of a most competent Guide! Cf. H. F. Tozer, Mod. Quart., April 1899.

[17] Cf. ‘vaulted with fire,’ Paradise Lost, i. 298, with ‘the vaulted rocks,’ Hyperion, ii. 348.

[18] Cf. the sonnet written at the top.

[19] Referred to also by Professor de Sélincourt (note ad loc.), though he ascribes it (somewhat sternly) to the ‘vulgarity of Hunt.’

[20] Much of this paragraph is repeated in substance from an article, by the writer, on ‘The Higher Mind of Italy,’ in the Manchester Guardian, 15 March 1920.

[21] Manchester Guardian, 12 September 1918.

[22] Dedication of Il Poema Paradisiaco (1892).

[23] Laus Vitæ, 232 f.

[24] Gargiulo, Gabriele d’Annunzio (1912), to whose account of the poet’s sovrumanità the present essay is much indebted.

[25] Beatitudine.

[26] Il Fanciullo.

[27] Elettra: Città del Silenzio.

[28] Elettra: A uno dei Mille.

[29] Fast. iv. 291 f.

[30] The distinction of a religious, philosophic, and poetic World-view is based upon W. Dilthey: Das Wesen der Philosophie: Weltanschauungalehre (Hinneberg, Kultur der Gegenwart, I. vi).

[31] Wilamowitz, Oresteia, p. 47.

[32] Purg. xxiv. 52. 4.

[33] The case of Trajan, who for his justice was said to have been saved by the prayers of Gregory, is not quite parallel, since there was here a theological tradition in his favour. But at least Dante seizes on and emphasizes the tradition, and not merely ‘saves’ Trajan, but makes him the comrade of the glorious just kings in Jupiter (Par. xx. 44 f.).

[34] The second type I take to be represented, with obvious differences, for Dante by the ‘philosophical’ love of Guido Guinicelli, the ‘father of love poets and my own’ (Purg. xxvi. 97); there is no evidence that he knew anything of this part of Plato; in any case, of course, this love is for him excited only by woman. The amore of Empedocles is mentioned in Inf. xii. 42; Empedocles himself, as well as Plato, is in Limbo (Inf. iv. 138).

[35] De Vulg. Eloq. ii. 2.

[36] Purg. xviii. 36.

[37] Canz. xix.

[38] Canz. i.

[39] Parlement of Fowles, 1 f.

[40] A. E., Imaginations and Reveries, p. 151.

[41] Ginestra, p. 120.

[42] Il Copernico.

[43] Sopra un basso relievo, etc.

[44] Sopra un ritratto di una bella donna, etc.

[45] Aspasia.

[46] Storia dell genere umano.

[47] Amore e Morte.

[48] Consalvo.

[49] Amore e Morte.

[50] ‘Che paradiso è quello,’ etc.

[51]

‘Ma di natura ...

Divina sei,’ etc.

[52] Ginestra.

[53] Il Pensiero Dom.: ‘Quasi intender non posso,’ etc.

[54] Il Pensiero Dom.: ‘Giammai d’allor,’ etc.

[55] Bruto Minore.

[56] Pens. Dom. ‘Quanto più torno,’ etc.

[57] Alla sua Donna.

[58] The essay on The Poetry of Lucretius in the present volume supplements the argument of the present essay at this point, and he is merely referred to here.

[59] His famous illustration, quoted by Plato, is the harmony of the lyre brought about by the balance of opposite forces in the strings. Plut. Is. et Osir. (quot. Ritter and Preller, p. 17), Plat. Symp., p. 187.

[60] A Commentary on In Memoriam, Introd.

[61] Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, iv. 9.

[62] A. E., The Renewal of Youth.

[63] The lines from The Borderers are in fact, of course, earlier than those from Peele Castle.

[64] English Poetry and German Philosophy in the Age of Wordsworth (Manchester University Press).

Corrections

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p. [28]

p. [57]