Other burlesque writers. 17. Among the writers of satirical, burlesque, or licentious poetry, after Aretin, the most remarkable are Firenzuola, Casa (one of whose compositions passed so much all bounds as to have excluded him from the purple, and has become the subject of a sort of literary controversy, to which I can only allude),[1161] Franco, and Grazzini, surnamed Il Lasco. |Attempts at Latin metres.| I must refer to the regular historians of Italian literature for accounts of these, as well as for the styles of poetry called macaronica and pedantesca, which appear wholly contemptible, and the attempts to introduce Latin metres, a folly with which every nation has been inoculated in its turn.[1162] Claudio Tolomei, and Angelo Costanzo himself, by writing sapphics and hexameters, did more honour to so strange a pedantry than it deserved.
[1161] A more innocent and diverting capitolo of Casa turns on the ill luck of being named John.
S’io avessi manco quindici o vent’anni,
Messer Gandolfo, io mi sbattezzerei,
Per non aver mai più nome Giovanni.
Perch’io non posso andar pe’ fatti miei,
Nè partirmi di qui per ir si presso
Ch’io nol senta chiamar da cinque e sei.
He ends by lamenting that no alteration mends the name.
Mutalo, o sminuiscil, se tu sai,
O Nanni, o Gianni, o Giannino, o Giannozzo,
Come più tu lo tocchi, peggio fai,
Che gli è cattivo intero, e peggior mozzo.
[1162] Macaronic verse was invented by one Folengo, in the first part of the century. This worthy had written an epic poem, which he thought superior to the Æneid. A friend, to whom he showed the manuscript, paid him the compliment, as he thought, of saying that he had equalled Virgil. Folengo, in a rage, threw his poem into the fire, and sat down for the rest of his life to write Macaronics. Journal des Savans, Dec. 1831.
Poetical translations. 18. The translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid by Anguillara, seems to have acquired the highest name with the critics;[1163] but that of the Æneid by Caro is certainly the best known in Europe. It is not, however, very faithful, though written in blank verse, which leaves a translator no good excuse for deviating from his original; the style is diffuse, and, upon the whole, it is better that those who read it should not remember Virgil. Many more Italian poets ought, possibly, to be commemorated; but we must hasten forward to the greatest of them all.
[1163] Salfi (continuation de Ginguéné), x. 180. Corniani, vi. 113.
Torquato Tasso. 19. The life of Tasso is excluded from these pages by the rule I have adopted; but I cannot suppose any reader to be ignorant of one of the most interesting and affecting stories that literary biography presents. It was in the first stages of a morbid melancholy, almost of intellectual derangement, that the Gierusalemme Liberata was finished; it was during a confinement, harsh in all its circumstances, though perhaps necessary, that it was given to the world. Several portions had been clandestinely published, in consequence of the author’s inability to protect his rights; and even the first complete edition in 1581 seems to have been without his previous consent. In the later editions of the same year he is said to have been consulted; but his disorder was then at a height, from which it afterwards receded, leaving his genius undiminished, and his reason somewhat more sound, though always unsteady. Tasso died at Rome in 1595, already the object of the world’s enthusiastic admiration, rather than of its kindness and sympathy.
The Jerusalem excellent in choice of subject. 20. The Jerusalem is the great epic poem, in the strict sense, of modern times. It was justly observed by Voltaire, that in the choice of his subject Tasso is superior to Homer. Whatever interest tradition might have attached among the Greeks to the wrath of Achilles and the death of Hector, was slight to those genuine recollections which were associated with the first crusade. It was not the theme of a single people, but of Europe; not a fluctuating tradition, but certain history; yet history so far remote from the poet’s time, as to adapt itself to his purpose with almost the flexibility of fable. Nor could the subject have been chosen so well in another age or country; it was still the holy war, and the sympathies of his readers were easily excited for religious chivalry; but, in Italy, this was no longer an absorbing sentiment; and the stern tone of bigotry, which perhaps might still have been required from a Castilian poet, would have been dissonant amidst the soft notes that charmed the court of Ferrara.