Referring to the fact that Dante’s Divina Commedia includes Sordello as a character, and that De Vulgari Eloquio praises him because he had first attempted to establish an Italian vernacular, Browning names Sordello as the forerunner of Dante. Again in the same poem, Dante is mentioned as having called the “Palma” of Browning’s poem “Cunizza,” and as having taken advantage of Sordello’s lost chance to establish a vernacular.
In most of the other poems, the references to Dante are merely incidental. Up at a Villa refers to the great literary triumvirate of Italy, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as standing in the popular mind for all that is great in Italian letters. In Time’s Revenges Dante appears as being, in the mind of a poor, starving poet, the highest possible standard of fame.
The only other Dante reference of any importance is in One Word More. In this poem, Browning’s most beautiful tribute to his wife, he represents every artist as wishing once, in his life, to honor his Margarita or his Beatrice. Dante, he says in speaking of that poet, once prepared to paint an angel, laying aside his own art of poetry. A historical basis for this statement is found in the Vita Nuova. But Browning, either intentionally or unintentionally, probably the former, for the purpose of making this basis accord with his poetical conception, departs from the facts in two important particulars. Dante plainly states that his attempt at the drawing grew out of his meditations on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice; and the people who broke in upon him were those of his own town, to whom he apologized for his delayed salutation, by “Another was with me.” Browning assumes that the picture was drawn to please Beatrice and that the people who interrupted symbolized Dante’s own thoughts about the characters of his Inferno.
VII. Other real writers.
In Part III, the gossipers speak of the case of Guido and his wife as “this last best of the Hundred Merry Tales.” In Part V, Guido, in his complaint against the parents of Pompilia, appeals to Boccaccio’s “Book” and “Ser Franco’s [Sacchetti’s] Merry Tales,” as proofs of the greed and wrong-doing of the parents in contrast to his own innocence. Caponsacchi, in Part VI, refers to the forged letters claimed to have been passed between himself and Pompilia, as worthy of the profligate Aretine. In Part X, the Pope makes the same comparison, declaring that the letters are “False to body and soul they figure forth—As though the man had cut out shape and shape From fancies of that other Aretine.” In Part XI, Guido attempts to prove that the Pope, in former times, was very human, since he used to “chirrup o’er the Merry Tales.” Later in the same section, he asserts his right to enjoy “When Master Pietro [Aretino] rhymes a pleasantry.”
VIII. Browning’s knowledge of italian literature.
IX. Browning’s interest in italian literature.
Browning gives very little space to any formal praise of Italian poetry or poets, either of the past, or contemporary with himself. In this respect his treatment of them is very similar to that he gives to English poets. Memorabilia, in praise of Shelley, is his only poem which has for its theme the unmodified praise of another poet. As this poem and the Shelley references in Pauline are Browning’s only tributes to writers of his own country, so the praise of Dante, in Sordello, is the only instance of an expressed appreciation of Italian literature. The only Italian poet contemporary with himself whom he mentions is Tommaseo; and he is noticed only as the author of the inscription on the tablet erected by the city of Florence to the memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.