This discussion would be incomplete if it did not mention Pulci’s fondness for philosophical reflection, meditations on life and death, on joy and sorrow. Volpi has attempted to demonstrate that Pulci, like many so-called humorists, was really, under the mask, a sad man. In making good this thesis he takes such lines as these as indicative of Pulci’s true attitude towards the problems of existence:—
“Questa nostra mortal caduca vista
Fasciata ē sempre d’un oscuro velo;
E spesso il vero scambia alia menzogna;
Poi si risveglia, come fa chi sogna.”[262]
However this may be, it is certain that Pulci, in his more thoughtful moods, inclined to pessimism and intellectual scepticism.
“Pulci’s versification,” says Foscolo, “is remarkably fluent; yet he is deficient in melody.” Another critic, the author of the brief note in the Parnaso Italiano, mentions his rapidity and his compression: “Tu troverai pochi poeti, che viaggino so velocemente, come il Pulci, il qualo in otti versi dice spesso piu di otte cose.” For this fluency and its corresponding lack of rhythm, the conversational tone of the Morgante is largely responsible. The many colloquial digressions and the use of common idioms hinder any approach to a grand style. Pulci’s indifference to the strict demands of metre, his employment of abrupt and disconnected phrases, and his frequent sacrifice of melody to vigor and compactness, are also characteristic of Byron’s method in his Italian satires. Although Don Juan contains some of Byron’s most musical passages, it nevertheless gives the impression of having been, like the Morgante, composed for an audience, the speaker being, perhaps, governed by rough notes, but tempted from his theme into extemporaneous observations, and caring so little for regularity or unity of structure that he feels no compunction about obeying the inclination of the moment. It is not without some acuteness that he alludes to,
“Mine irregularity of chime,
Which rings what’s uppermost of new or hoary,
Just as I feel the Improvvisatore.”[263]