II
In the early eighties d’Annunzio had come to Rome. The little circle of young Carduccians in the capital welcomed the poet’s brilliant disciple, who was soon to outdistance them all in sheer splendour of literary gift. More important, however, than any literary or personal influence—for his hard encasing shell of egoism made him extraordinarily immune to the intrusion either of alien genius or of friendship or love—was the deep impression made upon the young Abruzzan by the splendour, the art glories, and above all the historic import of Rome. ‘The Abruzzi gave d’Annunzio the sense of race‘, says an excellent critic, ‘Rome gave him the sense of history.’ The magical effect of Rome had hitherto been rendered most vividly in the poetry of other peoples, to whom it was a revelation, or a fulfilment of long aspiration, of the ‘city of their soul,’ in Goethe’s Roman Elegies, Childe Harold, or Adonais. How overwhelming to an imaginative Italian the sight and living presence of Rome could be may be judged from the magnificent Ode of Carducci. The Englishman who is thrilled as he stands in the Forum, or by the mossy bastions of our own Roman wall, may faintly apprehend the temper of a citizen of the ‘Third Italy’ who felt his capital, newly won from the Popes, to be once more in living continuity with the city of Cæsar. Both the nobility and the extravagance of Italian national feeling have their root in this sense of continuity with antique Rome, and this is to be remembered in estimating the perfervid Italianità of d’Annunzio, the most striking example both of the sublime idealism and of the childish extravagance which it is able to inspire.
The work of the next years abounded in evidence of the spell which Rome had laid upon his sensuous imagination. He poured forth novels and poems, both charged with an oppressive opulence of epicurean and erotic detail, but saved for art by the clear-cut beauty of the prose, and by frequent strokes of bold and splendid imagination.
Andrea Sperelli in Il Piacere (1889) and Tullio Hermil in L’Innocente (1892), are virtuosos in æsthetic as well as in erotic luxury, and the two allied varieties of hedonism reflect and enforce one another. Sperelli is artist and connoisseur, of unlimited resources and opportunities, and neither he nor his mistress could think love tolerable in chambers not hung with precious tapestry and adorned with sculptured gold and silver vessels, the gift of queens or cardinals of the splendour-loving Renascence. No doubt there is irony in the picture too; the native stamina in d’Annunzio resists complete assimilation to the corrupt aspects of the luxury he describes, and he feels keenly the contrast between the riotous profusion of the ‘new rich’ of the new Rome and the heroism and hardships of the men of the Risorgimento who had won it.
The poetry of this period is less repellent because its substance, though not definitely larger or deeper, is sustained and penetrated by the magic of a wonderfully winged and musical speech. His Elegie Romane (1892)—a rare case of his emulating another poet—are inferior in intellectual force to Goethe’s, which yet have as lyrics an almost pedestrian air in comparison with the exquisite dance of the Italian rhythms. Here is one of d’Annunzio’s, in some approach to the original elegiacs. He has listened to a service in St. Peter’s:
Thro’ the vaulted nave, that for ages has gathered so vast a
Human host, and of incense harboured so vast a cloud,
Wanders the chorus grave from lips invisible. Thunders
Break from the organ at times out of its hidden grove.
Down thro’ the tombs the roar reverberates deep in the darkness;
The enormous pillars seem to throb to the hymn.
High enthroned the pontifical priests watch, blessing the people.
At the iron gates angels and lions keep guard.
How majestic the chant! From its large, long undulations
Rises one clear voice with a melodious cry.
The voice mourns, alone; in his cold vault does he not hear it,
Palestrina? Alone the voice mourns, to the world
Uttering a sorrow divine. Does the buried singer not hear it?
Does not his soul leap up, bright on the heights of heaven?
Even as a dove makes wing aloft unto golden turrets?
The voice mourns, alone; mourns, in the silence, alone.
The sonnets of the Isottèo and Chimera (1885-8) show a concentration rare in the later history of the Italian sonnet. And any reader who thinks d’Annunzio incapable of writing of love without offence may be invited to try the charming idyll of Isaotta Guttadàuro. Scenery and circumstances, to be sure, are sumptuous and opulent as usual. The simple life and homely persons traditional in idyll are remote; but poetry did not absolutely fly from Tennyson’s touch when he turned from his Miller’s and Gardener’s daughters to put Maud in a Hall; and neither does she retire from d’Annunzio’s Isaotta, in her noble mansion. The lover stands at sunrise in the ‘high hall garden’ under her window and summons her in a joyous morning song to come forth. It is late autumn, the house is silent, but the peacocks perched on the orange trees hail the morning in their raucous tones. The situation is that of Herrick’s May morning song to Corinna; but though Herrick loved jewels and fine dresses not a little, the contrast is piquant between the country simplicity of his Devonshire maids and men, and the aristocratic luxury of Isaotta. ‘Come, my Corinna, come! Wash, dress, be brief in praying’—bids Herrick; but no such summary toilette will serve the Italian. Isaotta will rise from her brocaded bed, and her white limbs will gleam in a marble bath, as her maid pours amber-scented water on them, while the woven figures of the story of Omphale look on from the walls. At length Isaotta comes out on to her vine-wreathed balcony and playfully greets messèr cantore below. She is secretly ready, we see, to surrender, but makes a show of standing out for terms. They will wander through the autumnal vineyards, and if they find a single cluster still hanging on the poles, ‘I will yield to your desire, and you shall be my lord.’ So they set out in the November morning. The vineyards, lately so loud with vintage merriment and song, are now deserted and still. Not a cluster is to be seen. She archly mocks him: ‘What, has subtle Love no power to give you eyes?’ They meet peasant women going to their work, and one of them asks him, ‘What seekest thou, fair sir?’ And he replies: ‘I seek a treasure.’ A flight of birds rises suddenly across their path with joyous cries; they take it as a sign, and gaze at each other, pale and silent. Then unexpectedly he sees before him a vineyard flaming in full array of purple and gold, and a flock of birds making a chorus in its midst. “‘O lady Isaotta, here is life!’ I cried to her with rapt soul; and the chorus of songsters cried over our heads. I drew her to the spot, and she came as swift as I, for I held her firmly by the hand. Rosy was the face she turned away from me, but fair as Blanchemain’s when she took the kiss of Lancelot, her sovran lover, in the forest. ‘O Lady, I keep my pact; for you I pluck the fatal untouched cluster.’ Then she gave me the kiss divine”.