MANZONI.
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 is not 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 tragedy Adelchi. As Carmagnola gave a picture of the Oligarchy of Venice, so does Adelchi give 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 historical romance, 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 the Promessi Sposi, and that little is not of great importance. In his Storia della Colonna Infame, he protests, like a true descendant of Beccaria, against the horrors of the rack; in his Morale 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 how much 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 the Promessi Sposi may be, it is not possible to extol Manzoni very highly as a poet. With the exception of the magnificent Cinque 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 emanation of 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.