More generally his value is great, and we may forgive him (especially since he did us little or no harm) the binding of the Unities on the necks of Frenchmen and Italians, in consideration of the inestimable service which he did in standing up for Epic—that is, Romantic—Unity of a different kind, and in formulating, in a “No Surrender” fashion, the doctrine of Delight as the Poetic Criterion. By doing this he not merely fought for the freedom of the long narrative poem (which, as it happens, has been a matter of minor importance, save at rare intervals, since his time), but he unknowingly safeguarded the freedom of the long narrative prose romance or novel, which was to be the most important new contribution of modern times to literature. Nor may it be amiss once more to draw attention to a more general merit still, the inestimable indifference with which he continually handles ancient and modern examples. Only by this—the wisest “indifference of the wise”—can true criticism be reached. It is an indifference which neglects no change of condition, which takes count of all features and circumstances, but which, for that very reason, declines to allow ancient literature to prescribe unconditionally to modern, or modern to ancient, or either to mediæval. As to this last, Castelvetro has, and could be expected to have, nothing to say: as to the others, he is more eloquent in practice than in express theory. But his practice speaks his conviction, and it is the practice by which, and by which alone, the serene temples of the really Higher Criticism can be reached.
The last third of the century provides only one author who deserves (though he has seldom received) at least equal attention with Scaliger and Castelvetro: but it has, like the second, a crowd of minor critics who must not be wholly passed over. Tasso and the controversies over the Gerusalemme. Moreover, it boasts—if such a thing be a subject of boasting—one equally famous and weary controversy, that over the Gerusalemme. This, which expects the critical historian as its prey, and will test his powers to the utmost if haply he may wrestle free of it at once without inadequacy and without tedium, we may dare first: may take the interesting single figure of Patrizzi or Patrici second, and then may sweep the rest into a conclusion, which will itself leave not a little summarising to be done in the Interchapter succeeding this Book.
Torquato Tasso was, in more ways than one, fated to the ordeal of controversy. His work would, in the already unfolded state and temper of Italian criticism on the subject of the “heroic poem,” have invited it in any case; but he had, in a manner, inherited the adventure. His father, Bernardo, as has been briefly recorded above, had himself taken much interest in critical questions; and after being at first a classicist, had come round to the position of Cinthio. It was Torquato’s object, by argument and example alike, to reconcile the combatants. His Discorsi did not appear till late in 1587;[[121]] but they are said to have been written some twenty years earlier, after the appearance of Minturno’s Italian book. His plan is as simply obvious—shall we say as obviously defective?—as that of the immortal contributor to the Eatanswill Gazette. He, too, “combined his information.” Some kind of Unity is to be imposed on the Romantic Variety; and though this Unity cannot possibly be the Aristotelian, it need not be quite such a different kind as that of Castelvetro. It is to be organic, but may permit itself the organs of a complex animal system.
Nor did Tasso stick to generalities; nor did he shrink from giving hostages to fortune, and his enemies, by embodying his ideas in practice. These ideas we have already seen floating in various critical minds from Fracastorius to Castelvetro. The “heroic poem”—for his theory and his example alike consecrated that word for use, instead of either “epic” or “romance,” for nearly two centuries—must not be pure invention, but must avail itself of the authority of history. It must be animated by religion, true religion—that is to say, Christianity. It must have the supernatural. The hero must be a pious and moral, if not necessarily faultless, character. It must not be too dogmatic—that the poet may be free. It must deal with ancient or modern history so as to be neither absolutely unfamiliar, nor too familiar in its atmosphere and manners. The persons, things, and scenes must be noble and stately. It will probably strike every one that this is an admirable receipt for a historical novel; and thus do we constantly find blind strivings at things that cannot yet get themselves born. But whether it is an equally good receipt for a poem may be doubted. Some of us, at least, have no doubt that the Gerusalemme, which is faithfully constructed in accordance with it, is not nearly so good a poem as the Orlando, for the graceless graces of which it was expressly devised to substitute something more orderly and decent.
The extensive and execrable controversy which followed did not, however, turn wholly, though it very largely turned, on the actual case of Ariosto v. Tasso. But, as usually happens, the partisans of the latter provoked it by unadvised laudations of him, and worse-advised attacks on his great predecessor. The Florentines had not, as such, any special reason for championing the “turnip-eating” Ariosto; but Tasso had offended the coteries of the Della Crusca, and a Della Cruscan chief, the Salviati already mentioned, took the field against the author of the Gerusalemme. He sallied forth in turn; and the bickering became universal. Five mortal volumes of the standard edition of Tasso appear to be occupied with an incomplete collection of the documents on the subject—a collection which I have not read and do not intend to read, but which whosoever rejoices in such things may, if he likes, supplement with all the Histories of Italian Literature from Tiraboschi downwards, and all the Lives of Tasso, especially those of Serassi in the eighteenth century and Solerti in the nineteenth.
The most important upshot of the controversy is not itself in dispute. The impregnable historical position of Cinthio was strangely neglected by both sides (except by Ishmaelite outsiders like Bruno and Patrizzi); nor was even the modified Aristotelianism and “Unitarianism” of Castelvetro, as a rule, attempted. Both sides swore fealty to Aristotle, and all debated what Aristotle meant—what Unity was. And, in spite of the exceptions, this was the condition in which the question was left to the next century.
The controversy, like that between Caro and Castelvetro, and (I fear it must be said) like literary controversies in general, did not pass off without a muddying of the waters. Salviati, Tasso’s chief adversary, and author of the dialogue L’Infarinato against him, had at first been a great admirer and almost flatterer of the Gerusalemme, had offered the author his friendship, had praised his scheme, and had actually proposed to celebrate it in that very commentary on the Poetics which Mr Spingarn (who has read it in MS.) describes as actually devoted to “undermining Tasso’s pretensions.” Exactly by what personal, or cliquish, or patriotic offences he was induced to take the opposite line, belongs to the obscure, dull, and disgusting history of these literary squabbles generally, and we need not concern ourselves with it. The points “for us” in the whole matter are, first, that the controversy shows the strong hold which a certain conception of criticism (whether the right one or not) had obtained of the Italian mind; and, secondly, that the main question on which it turned—“What sort of Unity heroic poems must have?”—“In what manner must the precepts of Aristotle be interpreted and adjusted?”—shows more than the shadow of coming Neo-Classicism. The path of safety and truth which Giraldi and Pigna had opened up many years earlier, and which even Castelvetro, Unitarian as he was, had been careful to leave open—the path starting, that is to say, from the positions that Aristotle had not all literature before him, and that the kinds of literature which he had not before him could not, therefore, be subject to his dicta—was now ignored or barred. Apparent diræ facies, the faces of the Unities, and there is nothing left to do, in the general opinion, but to wrangle about their exact lineaments.
The critical work of Tasso is far from inconsiderable, and only a sense of duty prevents the consideration of it here at greater length. Tasso’s Critical writings It consists[[122]] of the Discorsi which, as noted above, appeared at Venice (with divers Lettere Poetiche) in one of the thin small parchment-covered quartos for which the student of this literature begins, after a time, to feel a distinct affection. The much longer and later Discorsi del Poema Epico partly repeat, partly correct, partly expand, the earlier work; and sometimes stand in a curious relation to it.[[123]] But this by no means exhausts the tale. Tasso, nothing if not conscientious, appears to have taken his art in general, and his work in particular, very seriously indeed. He makes extracts from Castelvetro; writes on the Allegory of his own Gerusalemme, an Apology for it in dialogue, a formal Reply to the strictures of the Della Cruscans, a tractate in answer to Patrizzi’s defence of Ariosto, another on Poetical Differences, a long “Judgment of the Conquistata,” a discourse on the Art of the Dialogue. Also he has some curious considerations on three Canzoni of Pigna’s entitled Le Tre Sorelle, written in honour of Lucrezia Bendidio, and dealing with Sacred and Profane Love. These considerations have the additional interest of being addressed to Leonora d’Este, and of breathing a peculiar blend of that half-sensual, half-Platonic Renaissance rapture of which the great locus is the discourse assigned to Bembo at the end of Castiglione’s Courtier, with the religiosity which we more specially think of in Tasso. He has an elaborate lecture on a single sonnet of La Casa,—a great favourite of Tasso’s, and deservedly so as far as his serious poetry goes,—and some minor matter of the kind.
To the writing of this not inconsiderable corpus of criticism Tasso brought, besides his own genius and the interesting association of his creative power, really wide reading, and, as has been said, an indefatigable interest in the subject. and position. He exercised a good deal of influence in the time to come—both Milton and Dryden, for instance (the latter again and again), refer to his critical work. Yet it may perhaps be said without presumption that this criticism is rather more interesting to a student of Tasso, or to one who wishes to obtain at famous hands some knowledge of the Italian sixteenth century ethos in this kind without going any further, than to the student of criticism itself. Tasso is very fairly representative of it in its combination of Plato and Aristotle, in its anxiety to get general notions of poetry and poetic kinds, in its respect for the ancients, in its ethical turn. But he is rather more representative than original or distinct; and his criticism is not perhaps improved by the very natural fact that sometimes avowedly, and probably in most cases really, it is less a disinterested consideration of Poetry in general than an apologetic of the poetry of Torquato Tasso. And as that poetry itself, beautiful as it often is, is notoriously something of a compromise between the Romantic and the Classical, so the criticism which is connected with it is compromising and compromised likewise. Tasso has many interesting observations, intelligent aperçus, just remarks: he is a link, and a very early link, in the apostolic succession of those who have held and taught the great doctrine that poetry makes the familiar unfamiliar, the accustomed strange and new.[[124]] But he has not shaken himself free enough to gain the standpoint of his friendly antagonist Patrizzi, and to recognise, even imperfectly, that the secret of poetry is treatment poeticamente, and that only the historic method unfettered by rules will tell you what poeticamente has been and is, even thus leaving unknown what it will be.
At about the same time, however, a last, and the most vigorous, if not altogether the best informed, attempt was made to put the matter on this true historical basis. Patrizzi: his Poetica. A year (1586) before the publication of Tasso’s Discorsi, and of his Apologia, though long after the writing of the first, and not without reference to himself and the dispute between his partisans and those of Ariosto, there had been printed at Ferrara, in two parts, one of the most important and original of the numerous treatises which appeared during this half-century or more, under the title of Della Poetica. It was the work of Francesco Patrizzi (as he is generally cited in books, though both in the title-pages of this work, and in the signature of his Dedication, it is spelt Patrici). The inspiration of the book was, at least partly, due to the violent anti-Peripateticism of which Patrizzi was at this time the twin champion with Bruno;[[125]] and while we must no doubt thank this party spirit for being in great part the cause of the volume, there may be room for objecting that it somewhat obscures the pure critical value of the treatises. That value, however, remains great, and would be great even if there were nothing in the book but an ill-carried-out idea. For its idea is the basing of the inquiry into poetry, not on a priori discussion of the nature of the thing, and of its exponent the poet,—not on previous authority as to these questions,—but on a historical examination of extant poetical composition. It is, of course, true that an examination of the kind was ready at hand in Scaliger’s book. But nothing was further from Scaliger’s mind than to base his inquiry on this: on the contrary, it comes late, and is merely intended to supply illustration and texts for verbal criticism.