HUMANISM AND THE VERNACULAR
The renewed interest in classical studies for a time retarded the development of national languages and literatures in Europe. To the humanists only Latin and Greek seemed worthy of notice. Petrarch, for instance, composed in Italian beautiful sonnets which are still much admired, but he himself expected to gain literary immortality through his Latin works. Another Italian humanist went so far as to call Dante "a poet for bakers and cobblers," and the Divine Comedy was indeed translated into Latin a few years after the author's death.
THE VERNACULAR REVIVAL
But a return to the vernacular was bound to come. The common people understood little Latin, and Greek not at all. Yet they had learned to read and they now had the printing press. Before long many books composed in Italian, Spanish, French, English, and other national languages made their appearance. This revival of the vernacular meant that henceforth European literature would be more creative and original than was possible when writers merely imitated or translated the classics. The models provided by Greece and Rome still continued, however, to furnish inspiration to men of letters.
MACHIAVELLI, 1469-1527 A.D.
The Florentine historian and diplomat, Machiavelli, by his book, The Prince, did much to found the modern science of politics. Machiavelli, as a patriotic Italian, felt infinite distress at the divided condition of Italy, where numerous petty states were constantly at war. In The Prince he tried to show how a strong, despotic ruler might set up a national state in the peninsula. He thought that such a ruler ought not to be bound by the ordinary rules of morality. He must often act "against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion." The end would justify the means. Success was everything; morality, nothing. This dangerous doctrine has received the name of "Machiavellism"; it is not yet dead in European statecraft.
CERVANTES, 1547-1616 A.D.
Spain during the sixteenth century gave to the world in Cervantes the only Spanish writer who has achieved a great reputation outside his own country. Cervantes's masterpiece, Don Quixote, seems to have been intended as a burlesque upon the romances of chivalry once so popular in Europe. The hero, Don Quixote, attended by his shrewd and faithful squire, Sancho Panza, rides forth to perform deeds of knight-errantry, but meets, instead, the most absurd adventures. The work is a vivid picture of Spanish life. Nobles, priests, monks, traders, farmers, innkeepers, muleteers, barbers, beggars—all these pass before our eyes as in a panorama. Don Quixote immediately became popular, and it is even more read to-day than it was three centuries ago.
[Illustration: CERVANTES]