[444] Parnaso Italiano, vol. xli. (Avvertimento). Rubbi, however, gives but two out of his long collection in fifty volumes, to the writers of the seventeenth century.
Also by Salfi. 4. It is probable that every native critic would think some parts of this panegyric, and especially the strongly hyperbolical praise of Marini, carried too far. But I am not sure that we should be wrong in agreeing with Rubbi, that there is as much Catholic poetry, by which I mean that which is good in all ages and countries, in some of the minor productions of the seventeenth as in those of the sixteenth age. The sonnets, especially, have more individuality and more meaning. In this, however, I should wish to include the latter portion of the seventeenth century. Salfi, a writer of more taste and judgment than Rubbi, has recently taken the same side, and remarked the superior originality, the more determined individuality, the greater variety of subjects, above all, what the Italians now most value, the more earnest patriotism of the later poets.[445] Those immediately before us, belonging to the first half of the century, are less numerous than in the former age; the sonnetteers, especially, have produced much less; and in the collections of poetry, even in that of Rubbi, notwithstanding his eulogy, they take up very little room. Some, however, have obtained a durable renown, and are better known in Europe than any, except the Tassos, that flourished in the last fifty years of the golden age.
[445] Salfi, Hist. Litt. de l’Italie (continuation de Ginguéné), vol. xii., p. 424.
Adone of Marini. 5. It must be confessed that the praise of a masculine genius, either in thought or language, cannot be bestowed on the poet of the seventeenth century whom his contemporaries most admired, Giovanni Battista Marini. He is, on the contrary, more deficient than all the rest in such qualities, and is indebted to the very opposite characteristics for the sinister influence he exerted on the public taste. He was a Neapolitan by birth, and gave to the world his famous Adone, in 1623. As he was then fifty-four years old, it may be presumed, from the character of the poem, that it was in great part written long before; and he had already acquired a considerable reputation by his other works. The Adone was received with an unbounded and ill-judging approbation; ill-judging in a critical sense, because the faults of this poem are incapable of defence, but not unnatural, as many parallel instances of the world’s enthusiasm have shown. No one had before carried the corruption of taste so far; extravagant metaphors, false thoughts and conceits on equivocal words are very frequent in the Adone; and its author stands accountable in some measure for his imitators, who during more than half a century looked up to Marini with emulous folly, and frequently succeeded in greater deviations from pure taste, without his imagination and elegance.
Its character. 6. The Adone is one of the longest poems in the world, containing more than 45,000 lines. He has shown some ingenuity in filling up the canvas of so slight a story by additional incidents from his own invention, and by long episodes allusive to the times in which he lived. But the subject, expanded so interminably, is essentially destitute of any superior interest, and fit only for an enervated people, barren of high thoughts and high actions, the Italy, notwithstanding some bright exceptions, of the seventeenth century. If we could overcome this essential source of weariness, the Adone has much to delight our fancy and our ear. Marini is, more than any other poet, the counterpart of Ovid; his fertility of imagination, his ready accumulation of circumstances and expressions, his easy flow of language, his harmonious versification, are in no degree inferior; his faults are also the same; for in Ovid we have all the overstrained figures and the false conceits of Marini. But the Italian poet was incapable of imitating the truth to nature and depth of feeling which appear in many parts of his ancient prototype, nor has he as vigorous an expression. Never does Marini rise to any high pitch; few stanzas, perhaps, are remembered by natives for their beauty, but many are graceful and pleasing, all are easy and musical.[446] “Perhaps,” says Salfi, “with the exception of Ariosto, no one has been more a poet by nature than he;”[447] a praise, however, which may justly seem hyperbolical to those who recall their attention to the highest attributes of poetry.
[446] Five stanzas of the seventh canto, being a choral song of satyrs and bacchanti, are thrown into versi sdruccioli, and have been accounted by the Italians an extraordinary effort of skill, from the difficulty of sustaining a metre which is not strong in rhymes with so much spirit and ease. Each verse also is divided into three parts, themselves separately sdruccioli, though not rhyming. One stanza will make this clear:—
Hor d’ellera s’adornino, e di pampino
I giovani, e le vergini più tenere,
E gemina nell’anima si stampino
L’imagine di Libero, e di Venere.
Tutti ardano, s’accendano, ed avampino,
Qual Semele, ch’al folgore fù cenere;
E cantino a Cupidine, ed a Bromio,
Con numeri poetici un’encomio.
Cant. vii., st. 118.
Though this metrical skill may not be of the highest merit in poetry, it is no more to be slighted than facility of touch in a painter.
[447] Vol. xiv., p. 147. The character of Marini’s poetry, which this critic has given, is in general very just, and in good taste. Corniani (vii., 123) has also done justice, and no more than justice, to Marini. Tiraboschi has hardly said enough in his favour; and as to Muratori, it was his business to restore and maintain a purity of taste, which rendered him severe towards the excesses of such poets as Marini.
And popularity. 7. Marini belongs to that very numerous body of poets who, delighted with the spontaneity of their ideas, never reject any that arise; their parental love forbids all preference, and an impartial law of gavelkind shares their page among all the offspring of their brain. Such were Ovid and Lucan, and such have been some of our own poets of great genius and equal fame. Their fertility astonishes the reader, and he enjoys for a time the abundant banquet; but satiety is too sure a consequence, and he returns with less pleasure to a second perusal. The censure of criticism falls invariably, and sometimes too harshly, on this sort of poetry; it is one of those cases where the critic and the world are most at variance; but the world is apt, in this instance, to reverse its own judgment, and yield to the tribunal it had rejected. “To Marini,” says an eminent Italian writer, “we owe the lawlessness of composition: the ebullition of his genius, incapable of restraint, burst through every bulwark, enduring no rule but that of his own humour, which was all for sonorous verse, bold and ingenious thoughts, fantastical subjects, a phraseology rather Latin than Italian, and in short aimed at pleasing by a false appearance of beauty. It would almost pass belief how much this style was admired, were it not so near our own time that we hear as it were the echo of its praise; nor did Dante, or Petrarch, or Tasso, or perhaps any of the ancient poets, obtain in their lives so much applause.”[448] But Marini, who died in 1625, had not time to enjoy much of this glory. The length of this poem, and the diffuseness which produces its length, render it nearly impossible to read through the Adone; and it wants that inequality which might secure preference to detached portions. The story of Psyche in the fourth canto may perhaps be as fair a specimen of Marini as could be taken: it is not easy to destroy the beauty of that fable, nor was he unfitted to relate it with grace and interest; but he has displayed all the blemishes of his own style.[449]