PROSE WRITERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Pre-eminent among the historians of the Nineteenth Century are Cesare Balbo and Cesare Cantu. They were both indefatigably laborious and they both devoted themselves to the elucidation of the history of their native land. Manin's History of Venice has research and minuteness of detail without wearisome prolixity to recommend it.
Tommaso Grossi was highly successful with his historical romance Marco Visconti, but he has a tendency to become very tearful and sentimental.
The plays of Alberto Nota procured considerable reputation for their author, but they are not quite amusing enough for comedies and not quite Strong enough for dramas, so that they have fallen into neglect in spite of their delicacy and refinement. The Italian Stage in this Century depended too much on French importations, as did the average fiction of the day. Even at the present time, the poorest rubbish of the Boulevards has a better chance of attracting attention than the best works of indigenous authors. Extreme concessions have been made of late years to vulgar realism, but it cannot be denied that realism has called forth life-like characters and accurate descriptions. Matilde Serao has been particularly successful as a novelist.
But the most brilliant novelist of the present day is undoubtedly Gabriele D'annunzio. His poems are well-conceived, though not particularly musical in diction, but as a novelist he is quite the first. He excels in descriptions. Nowhere else can such word-painting be found, with the possible exception of the books of travel of Edmondo De Amicis. Tullio Giordana has written a most interesting monograph on Gabriele d'Annunzio's Trionfo della Morte, but perhaps the best works he has produced as yet are Il Piacere and Giovanni Episcopo. He is not always particularly happy in his choice of subjects; but if he exercises discretion in that respect, there is no saying to what height he may not in future ascend.
In Italy, as elsewhere, the extreme popularity of the novel has overshadowed every other branch of literature. To enumerate the various authors and their works would be like counting the sands of the sea-shore and the stars of the Heavens, suffice it to observe that everywhere skill and ingenuity are manifest, and if some authors become repulsive from excess of realism, others, and those the most recent, have, in emulation of Gabriele d'Annunzio, thrown over their realism the garb of fancy and imagination, thus presenting a happy augury for the future.