ALFIERI.
Italy had produced splendid epics, noble lyrics and spirited satires, but up to the middle of the Eighteenth Century she had not produced a single tragedy which could be placed beside the tragic masterpieces of other nations. At last, in 1749, at Asti in Piedmont, the poet was born who was destined in a certain measure to supply the want.
Vittorio Alfieri was born of noble and wealthy parents. His father died soon after his birth, and his mother married again and survived until 1792. He has left us in his Autobiography a complete picture of his life and times. His relatives looked down upon learning and science, and he was taught to feel thankful that he had no need to study. He learnt a little Latin and a good deal of French, and that was practically all that he took away with him from college. He entered the Piedmontese Army, but he found the routine of military duties so irksome that he asked and obtained leave from the King to travel in foreign countries. He was presented to Louis XV at Versailles and to Frederick the Great at Potsdam. He visited Sweden and Russia, Holland and England, Spain and Portugal. He liked the Dutch and the English best, and found in their countries the beneficial effects of that liberty which he loved and to which he consecrated the fruits of his genius. The development of his intellectual powers was, however, phenomenally slow. He had practically forgotten his own language and had to acquire it all over again. He was gifted with a fiery and impetuous nature and intense vigour of thought, but the fertility of his imagination was not commensurate with his other powers, Thus he had to wait until study and observation had furnished him with sufficient materials to enable him to write. This is the true explanation of the torpid condition of his intellect for so many years.
A lady of Turin to whom he was much attached, fell dangerously ill, and whilst he was sitting with her during the tedious hours of convalescence, his eye fell upon some tapestries in her room, representing the history of Anthony and Cleopatra. It occurred to him that a fine tragedy could be written on the subject of their loves, and he endeavoured to make the attempt. He liked the occupation, and his ambitious spirit was fired by the hope that he might at last prove to the world that Italy could produce a great tragic poet as well as Greece, France, and England. He persevered, and by dint of labour and study he overcame the difficulties of his task, not the least of which was his inability to express himself in his native language, so that he was at first obliged to write down his ideas in French, then to translate them into Italian prose, and finally to alter the prose until it became verse. His heroic industry was crowned with a measure of success, and if he did not become an Italian Shakespeare or Sophocles, he enjoys, at least, the distinction of being the first Italian writer of tragedies who deserves serious consideration from the literary historian.
His ample wealth enabled him to indulge in pleasures and pursuits which often diverted his attention from his poetical labours. He was especially fond of riding and horses, and he made several pilgrimages to England to replenish his stud. English literature does not seem to have occupied much of his attention. In his Autobiography he mentions the works of Pope, and he says that he looked into Shakespeare and became fully aware of his faults. It would have been well if he had been equally alive to his beauties, and if he could have caught a reflection of their rainbow hues to irradiate his own statuesque tragedies.
In later years he made the acquaintance of Louisa Stolberg, Countess of Albany, wife of Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, and she took refuge with him from the brutality of her drunken husband. They went together to Paris, and there he published his tragedies in four volumes, in 1789. They remained in Paris, convulsed as it was with the frenzy of the Great Revolution, up to the very last moment compatible with safety; and in 1792 they returned to Italy, just in time to escape the massacres of September. They took up their abode in Florence, where he amused himself with learning Greek and translating some of the tragedies of Euripides. He died in 1803, and the Countess of Albany had a magnificent monument by Canova erected to his memory in the Church of Santa Croce.
Alfieri was a fertile writer, as was to be expected from the unwearied industry which was one of his most salient characteristics. He wrote numerous poems and satires, nearly thirty tragedies, several comedies, translations from the Greek and Latin, political tracts, and his Autobiography. His fame rests entirely on his Tragedies, his Autobiography, and, I think, his Satires, some of which are very racy and original, especially the piece descriptive of his travels in foreign countries. His Autobiography gives us a vivid picture of the Italy of the Eighteenth Century, of its torpor and frivolity. He reveals himself with a complete absence of reserve, and his Life is the only work in which he gives us vivid descriptions, all his other productions being rather colourless from the lack of descriptions.
Want of colour is, indeed, the great defect of his poetry, as well as of his prose. He had little eye for the beauties of Nature, and less for the beauties of Art. He has nothing of the sweetness of Metastasio; he has none of the exquisite details of Parini. Indeed, the details of his works are singularly devoid of charm. To do them justice, we must consider them as a whole, and not dwell on detached passages.
The best of his Tragedies, to my mind, is one of the earliest, the Filippo, on the subject of Philip the Second of Spain and Don Carlos. One of the most striking passages in Alfieri is the laconic dialogue, terrible in its fierce abruptness, between Philip and his confidant Gomez, after they have overheard the interview between the lovers.
Filippo— Udisti?
Gomez—Udii.
Filippo—Vedesti?
Gomez—Io vidi.
Filippo—Oh rabbia!
Dunque il sospetto?...
Gomez—E' omai certezza.
Filippo—E inulto
Filippo è ancor?
Gomez—Pensa...
Filippo—Pensai ... Mi segui.
Nothing could be more spirited and effective, and had Alfieri often written like that, very few tragic poets would have surpassed him. But unfortunately, he is seldom seen to such advantage, and his inability to cast the charm of imagination over his works makes them dry and stony. He is a strict adherent of the French school in so far as scrupulous observation of the three unities of time, place, and action is concerned. But unlike the French dramatists, freedom, and not love, is the mainspring of his tragedies. He brings as few actors on the stage as possible. Some of his tragedies have only four characters. It would be impossible for even the most skilful dramatist to make so few persons fill up five acts without monotony and repetition, and unfortunately Alfieri is anything but a skilful dramatist. His powers of construction are but slight, and in many of his plays it is curious to observe that the first act and the last are by far the best, the three intervening acts being filled up with conversations that do not greatly advance the action. He had, however, some power of delineating character and some power of expressing passion, and his blank verse has often a stern and rugged ring, impressive in its noble severity. Thus it happens that some of his creations have proved effective in the hands of great actors. Ristori achieved a brilliant triumph in his Mirra. Salvini often appeared in Saul and Timoleon. His Saul has been extolled above all his other works, but I think Virginia, the Congiura de' Pazzi, and Filippo are quite as fine. The Antigone and the Agamemnon are terribly dry and colourless compared to the creations of Æschylus and Sophocles. The Abele, on the subject of Cain and Abel, endeavours to enchant the reader with lyrical beauty, but the poet's want of imagination is more painfully apparent than ever.
The great qualities of the poet are vigour of thought and tenacity of purpose, thus he is seen to the greatest advantage in those plays that deal with the aspirations of freedom and the downfall of tyrants. But, unfortunately, these subjects do not admit of much variety, and when we have read four or five of Alfieri's tragedies, we have practically read them all. In perusing his plays, we have the impression as if we were standing in a temple, bare and stern, adorned with only a few statues. But, assuredly, the rigid grandeur of Alfieri's genius is better and more worthy of praise and honour, than the meretricious ornaments of too many of his contemporaries. He sounds an heroic note, and arouses his hearers to noble deed and to magnanimous desire. There is nothing low, nothing vile, in his works. He bids us ascend, not grovel. Every line in his Tragedies was written with the desire of inspiring freedom and patriotism. He hated oppression and he loved justice, and for that he deserves honour and glory, and for that his Tragedies will ever hold their own in the annals of literature, even though their creator does not give us characters as human and varied as those of Shakespeare, or compositions as perfect and splendid as those of Sophocles.