These resemblances in outward form seem to indicate along what lines Byron was affected by Frere’s poem. The differences in spirit and motive between the two men are indeed striking. The Monks, and the Giants belongs unmistakably to the burlesque division of satire: it is, said Frere, “the burlesque of ordinary rude uninstructed common sense—the treatment of lofty and serious subjects by a thoroughly common, but not necessarily low-minded man—a Suffolk harness maker.”[193] The poem is, for the most part, satiric only in an indirect and impersonal way, and there is in it very little straightforward destructive criticism, like that in English Bards. Nor is there any underlying bitterness or indignation; it would be futile to seek, in these verses so marked by mildness, geniality, and urbanity, for any purpose beyond that of amusing, in a quiet way, a cultivated circle of friends. Even in the gossipy introduction there are few allusions to current events, and if, as has been claimed, the knights of the Round Table are intended to represent prominent living personages, no one uninitiated could have discovered the secret. Frere himself said of it: “Most people who read it at the time it was published would not take the work in a merely humorous sense; they would imagine it was some political satire, and went on hunting for a political meaning.” When we recall that Byron spoke of Beppo as “being full of political allusions,”[194] we comprehend the gap which separates the two works.
The real divergence between the poems—and it is a wide one—is due, as Eichler intimates, to the characters of the authors. Whistlecraft’s words:—
“I’m strongly for the present state of things:
I look for no reform or innovation,”[195]
summarize Frere’s conservative position. He was a Tory, and Byron was a radical. Frere approached his theme from the standpoint of a scholar; Byron, from that of a man of the world. The former, actuated by antiquarian interest, built up a background in a fabulous age and took his characters from legend; the latter, urged by a desire for vividness and reality, laid his action in a city which he knew well and placed his men and women in modern times. The Tristram and Gawain of The Monks, and the Giants are puppets and abstractions; Laura and the Count, on the other hand, are drawn from life and consequently seem to throb with warmth and passion. There are no women in Frere’s poem who receive more than cursory notice; in Beppo the central figure is a woman, and the atmosphere vibrates with love and intrigue. One result of these contrasts is that The Monks, and the Giants, unexceptionable in morality, lacks charm and is somewhat chastely cold; while Beppo, sensuous and frequently sensual, is never dull. It is obvious, then, that the two poems, however much they may resemble each other superficially, have fundamentally little in common.
What, then, did Byron take from Frere to substantiate his assertion that Beppo is “in the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft”? He may have learned from him some lessons in the management of the English octave, particularly as employed in humorous verse; he probably accepted a hint concerning the use of the language of every-day life; and he may have drawn a suggestion as to the value of the colloquial and discursive method. In each of these features, as we have seen, he surpassed his predecessor. Specifically in the matter of direct satire he could have gained little from Frere, for the latter was but a feeble satirist. Eichler sums up the logical conclusion: “Die Monks and Giants, eine amuesante Burleske, haben in Beppo eine moralische Satire gezeugt.”[196] The same idea is brought out by the anonymous writer of a Letter to Lord Byron, by John Bull (1820), in comparing Frere’s poem with Don Juan;—“Mr. Frere writes elegantly, playfully, very like a gentleman, and a scholar, and a respectable man, and his poem never sold, nor ever will sell. Your Don Juan, again, is written strongly, lasciviously, fiercely, laughingly—and accordingly the Don sells, and will sell, until the end of time.” In habits of mind and in temperament, Byron was more akin to Frere’s Italian masters than he was to Frere himself; and therefore, in his knowledge of Casti, later of Berni and Pulci, and possibly of Ariosto, Forteguerri, Tassoni, and Buratti, we shall be more likely to discover the sources of the spirit of Beppo and Don Juan.
Of these men it is probable that Giambattista Casti (1721–1804) is the nearest congener of Byron in the satiric field. The fact that his work has never been subjected to careful scrutiny by critics in either Italy or England accounts possibly for the general ignoring of Casti as an inspiration for Byron’s Italian satires.[197] In spite of Eichler’s positive statement that the Italians “aus zeitlichen Gruenden” may be neglected as sources for Byron’s work,[198] it is certain that Byron had read Casti before he wrote Beppo; for in 1816 he said to Major Gordon, referring to a copy of Casti’s Novelle which the latter had presented to him at Brussels: “I cannot tell you what a treat your gift of Casti has been to me: I have got him almost by heart. I had read his Animali Parlanti, but I think these Novelle much better. I long to go to Venice to see the manners so admirably described.”[199] Not until March 25, 1818, does he mention Berni, and he does not refer to Pulci until November, 1819. There is, then, presumptive evidence for maintaining that Byron, coming in 1816 or before in contact with the work of Casti, found in him some inspiration for the satiric method of Beppo, a method somewhat modified in Don Juan after a perusal of Berni and Pulci.
The Novelle, praised so highly by Byron, consist of forty-eight tales in ottava rima, printed together in 1804, although at least eighteen had been completed by 1778. Their author, a sort, of itinerant rhymester,[200] had acquired notoriety through his attacks on the reigning sovereigns of Europe, especially on Catharine II, whom he had assailed in Il Poema Tartaro, a realistic and venomous portrayal of Russian society and politics, containing a violent assault on the Empress. Although Casti’s poems are now forgotten, their vogue during his lifetime was considerable. His greatest work, Gli Animali Parlanti, was translated into several languages, including English, and Casti, as an apostle of revolt, was recognized as energetic and dangerous. His coarseness and vulgarity, however, combined with his slovenly verse structure and his neglect of art, prevented him from reaching a high position as a poet, and his literary importance was thus only temporary, occasioned principally by the popular interest in his timely satiric allusions. He, like Byron, was at heart a rebel, and in his own uncultivated way, he anticipated the spirit of the English poet. Indeed it is curious how often the two pursue the same general plan of attack on their respective ages.
The Novelle Amorose are verse tales of the type which Boccaccio, and after him, Bandello, Straparola, and their imitators, had made popular in prose. Dealing in a laughing and lenient fashion with the indiscretions of gallants, usually monks and priests, they are marred by grossness and indecency in plot and language. The cynical immorality of the stories has subjected Casti to much unfavorable criticism. Foscolo, his countryman, speaks of him as “spitting his venom at virtue and religion, as the sole expedient by which he can palliate his own immorality.”[201] However, the coarse tone of the Novelle is hardly unique with Casti; he is merely adhering to the standard of the earlier prose novelists.
The likeness between Beppo, which is an English novella in verse, and some of Casti’s Novelle, is one in manner and spirit rather than in plot and style.[202] Byron’s story, taken as it was from an episode with which he had met in his own experience, has no exact parallel in Casti’s collection, but his method of handling it is not unlike that followed by the Italian in treating of themes not greatly dissimilar. Choosing practically at random among the Novelle—for Casti’s plan was much the same in all—we may discover certain peculiarities which have their counterparts in Beppo. Novella IX, Lo Spirito, has, like Beppo, a humorous introduction, in which the narrator, speaking, like Byron, in the first person, analyzes what is meant by “spirit” in man or woman. He then proceeds with the adventure of the Lady Amalia and her two lovers, describing each of the three in a rather clever character sketch, not unlike the pictures which Byron gives of Laura and the Count. The rival suitors pursue different tactics in their struggles to win the lady’s favors and in dwelling on their actions, Casti often pauses to indulge in a chuckling aside to the reader, never so long continued as Byron’s digressions, but in very much the same vein. Finally one of the wooers meets with success, and the tale concludes with a bantering moral.