Desine. Gregori subsiste.”
[545]. Three other poems of the twelfth or early thirteenth century (referred to above) are more original, two of them at least are more amusing, and all have obtained more notice from general literary historians. These are the Speculum Stultorum or Brunellus of Nigel Wireker, the Architrenius (see p. 410) of John of Hauteville, and the Anti-Claudianus of Alanus de Insulis. All three may be found most conveniently in Wright’s above-cited work, Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century (2 vols., Rolls Series, London, 1872). They are by no means to be neglected by us, though their testimony is mostly negative, and a slight reference to its nature will cover, indirectly, the absence of reference in the text to such still more generally famous authors as John of Salisbury and Walter Mapes himself. It is probable that all five writers, as well as Godfrey of Winchester (also in Wright, op. cit.), who could write fair epigrams in the more decent style of Martial, and others, were well acquainted with no inconsiderable part of the classics. Upon satirists, moreover, like Wireker and John of Hauteville, who were attacking the vanity of monkish and clerical life, hopes, and ambitions, the labour-in-vain of Universities, and the like, some such indirect but substantive literary criticism as we find in their Roman originals would seem almost imperative. But there is nothing of the kind, either in the Speculum or in the Architrenius. In the much duller Anti-Claudianus, Rhetoric, like the other arts, appears, and she is employed, consistently with her presentation in Martianus (though the Rhetoric of Capella would perhaps have been too proud to do this directly) to “paint and gild the pole” of the allegorical Chariot of Prudence. But of criticism there is nothing, or so little as to be nothing. Nor will much be found in the interesting notice of mediæval notices of books and book collections which occurs in M. Cocheris’ ed. of the Philobiblon (v. infra, p. [455]), pp. xxxiv-xlvii.
[546]. If to this peculiarity I seem to refer too often, let me close this chapter with a sentence from one who loved the Middle Ages as well as any man, and knew them far better than almost any. To them, says M. Paulin Paris, “Les siècles passés ne semblaient former qu’une seule et grande époque, où se réunissaient toutes les célébrités de l’histoire.”—Les Romans de la Table Ronde, i. 169 (Paris: 1868-77).
CHAPTER II.
DANTE.
THE ‘DE VULGARI ELOQUIO’: ITS HISTORY AND AUTHENTICATION—ITS IMPORTANCE, AND THE SCANTY RECOGNITION THEREOF—ABSTRACT OF ITS CONTENTS: THE “VULGAR TONGUE” AND “GRAMMAR”—THE NATURE, ETC., OF THE GIFT OF SPEECH—DIVISION OF CONTEMPORARY TONGUES, AND OF THE SUBDIVISIONS OF ROMANCE—THE ‘ITALIAN DIALECTS’: SOME REJECTED AT ONCE—OTHERS: SICILIAN, APULIAN, TUSCAN, AND GENOESE—VENETIAN: SOME GOOD IN BOLOGNESE—THE “ILLUSTRIOUS” LANGUAGE NONE OF THESE, BUT THEIR COMMON MEASURE—ITS FOUR CHARACTERISTICS—THE SECOND BOOK: WHY DANTE DEALS WITH POETRY ONLY—ALL GOOD POETRY SHOULD BE IN THE “ILLUSTRIOUS”—THE SUBJECTS OF HIGH POETRY: WAR, LOVE, VIRTUE—ITS FORM: CANZONI—DEFINITION OF POETRY—ITS STYLES, AND THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE GRAND STYLE—“SUPERBIA CARMINUM”—“CONSTRUCTIONIS ELATIO”—“EXCELLENTIA VERBORUM”—“PEXA ET HIRSUTA”—THE CANZONE—IMPORTANCE OF THIS BOOK—INDEPENDENCE AND NOVELTY OF ITS METHOD—DANTE’S ATTENTION TO FORM—HIS DISREGARD OF ORATORY—THE INFLUENCE ON HIM OF ROMANCE, AND OF COMPARATIVE CRITICISM—THE POETICAL DIFFERENTIA ACCORDING TO HIM—HIS ANTIDOTE TO THE WORDSWORTHIAN HERESY—HIS HANDLING OF METRE—OF DICTION—HIS STANDARDS OF STYLE—THE “CHAPTER OF THE SIEVE”—THE “PEXA”—THE “HIRSUTA”—OTHER CRITICAL “LOCI” IN DANTE: THE EPISTLE TO CAN GRANDE—THE “CONVITO”—DANTE ON TRANSLATION—ON LANGUAGE AS SHOWN IN PROSE AND VERSE—FINAL REMARKS ON HIS CRITICISM.
Many are the fortunes of books and the curiosities of them: but there are few which exceed, in curiosity of many kinds, the history, character, and fate of the treatise variously entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia and De Vulgari Eloquio, and attributed generally, if not universally, to Dante Alighieri.[[547]] Its mere history is unusual. In the fifth chapter of the first book of |The De Vulgari Eloquio. Its history and authentication.| the Convito, Dante says that he shall speak elsewhere more fully, on the subject of Latin and the Vernacular, in a book which, D.V., he intends to write on Volgare Eloquenza. Boccaccio further says that very near his death he did write it, and the statement is confirmed by Villani. These mentions give it us as written in Latin prose and in two books, but after them we hear nothing about it. In 1529 the poet and dramatist Trissino printed at Vicenza an Italian translation of it, not under his own name, but under that of Giovan Battista Doria. No indication was given that this was not the original, and for a time it was taken as such. But in 1577 Jacopo Corbinelli published, at Paris, the Latin Text. The MS. which he used, and which for centuries was supposed to be unique, appears to be that rediscovered at Grenoble in 1840, and published in facsimile by MM. Maignien and Prompt in 1892; but there are two other early MSS. One of these, belonging to the Trivulzi, is taken to be as old, perhaps, as the Grenoble, both not improbably being older than 1400. A third, at the Vatican, is a century younger, but still some twenty years older than the first printed (and translated) edition. The usual difficulties have been started over these facts, and over some supposed contradictions between the treatise and Dante’s more certain work. But these concern us little, and may be sought, by those who want them, in the editions of the book. It is sufficient to say that few books have a better external testimony, and that the internal difficulties (some of which will be referred to later) are quite insignificant.
We may take it then on its own showing; and, without haggling about dates, be reasonably confident that it was written |Its importance.| after Dante’s banishment, and of course before his death—that is to say, in the opening years of the fourteenth century. Forgery is practically out of the question, for, as has been said, the oldest manuscripts are some century and a quarter older than Trissino’s version, and there could be no conceivable reason why any one late in the fourteenth century—even if he had the wits to forge such a thing, which is begging a huge question—should have abstained from reaping the sole advantage derivable from such a forgery by making it known as Dante’s. We take it, then—and may take it with confidence very nearly if not completely absolute—as in two different ways a document of the very highest value, even before its intrinsic worth is considered at all. In the first place, there is the importance of date, which gives us in it the first critical treatise on the literary use of the vernacular, at exactly the point when the various vernaculars of Europe had finished, more or less, their first stage. Secondly, there is the importance of authorship, in that we have, as is hardly anywhere else the case, the greatest creative writer, not merely of one literature but of a whole period of the European world, betaking himself to criticism. If Shakespeare had written the Discoveries instead of Ben Jonson, the only possible analogue would have been supplied. Even Homer could not have given us a third, for he could hardly have had the literature to work upon.
As a matter of fact, however, the book, as I shall hope to show, would be of almost the highest interest if it were anonymous. |And the scanty recognition thereof.| Its intrinsic value has been by no means universally recognised: indeed I hardly know any editor or critic of Dante who has put it in quite its right place. This is, I venture in all humility to think, due mainly to the fact that the historic estimate of criticism in general has hitherto been so rarely taken, and so scantily based. But there are minor reasons. In the first place, the book, except by professed Dantists, has been very little studied.[[548]] And in the second, what I shall endeavour to prove to be its greatest value may, in the curious critical prejudices which still prevail so largely, have told positively against it. It has shocked people to find the author of the Commedia indulging in grammatical and prosodic scholasticism; and the shocked ones either do not pause to ask, or refuse to answer, the question whether the said scholasticism had not a good deal to do with the quality of the Commedia.
As in the case of other books of importance, we may give a pretty full abstract of the book, which will be all the more desirable in that it is, as has been said, far from well known. The Latin, though not very crabbed, is sometimes peculiar, and some of the terms require careful elucidation.
Dante begins by stating in due form his reasons for writing; the absence of any treatise of the kind, the importance of the |Abstract of its contents: The “Vulgar Tongue” and “Grammar.”| subject, and so forth. He is going to write about the Vulgar Tongue, and this Vulgar Tongue is that which we acquire, without any rule, by imitating our nurses. But, he says, we also have another and secondary speech, which the Romans called Grammar. The Greeks also have it, and other nations, but not all, while comparatively few individuals possess it, because its acquisition means time and trouble. And the Vulgar Tongue is nobler, because it is more natural: so we shall treat of it.