Italian humour, says Mr. J. A. Symonds, died with Ariosto; and, in the face of such a declaration, any attempt to bring together a collection of specimens, some of which at any rate belong to a more recent date, would seem to savour of presumption. Yet, even at the risk of differing from such a recognised authority on Italian literature, we venture to think that a good deal has been produced since the age of Ariosto which may legitimately be defined as humour, though, for various reasons presently to be detailed, there are peculiar difficulties connected with its presentation in a foreign tongue.
It may as well be said at once that the professed humorist, the writer who is comic and nothing else, or, at any rate, whose main scope is to be funny, is all but unknown in modern Italian literature. Strictly speaking, he is perhaps a Germanic rather than a Latin product. The jokes in Italian comic and other papers are not, as a rule, overpoweringly amusing; and if we do come across a book which sets itself forth as Umoristico, the chances are that it turns out to be very tragical mirth indeed. But in novels and tales, even in essays and descriptions, which have no specially humorous intention, you often come across passages of a pure and spontaneous humour, inimitable in its own kind.
Italian humour may be said to fall into two great divisions, or rather—for it is impossible to draw hard and fast lines—to present two main characteristics, which are sometimes present together, sometimes separately. The first of these is what we may call the humour of ludicrous incident—a very elementary kind indeed, comprising what is usually known as “broad farce,” and finding its most rudimentary expression in horse-play and practical jokes of the Theodore Hook kind. The early stages of all literatures afford abundant examples of this; indeed, there are some stories which appear to be so universally pleasing to human nature that they reappear, in various forms, all the world over, sometimes making their way into literature, sometimes surviving in oral tradition to the present day. Boccaccio and his predecessor, Franco Sacchetti, with numberless other writers of the “novelle” or short stories in prose, which very early became a striking feature in Italian literature, afford plenty of examples. Such are the tricks played on the unlucky Calandrino, the various “burle” (historical or not) ascribed to the painter Buffalmacco, and the story of the wicked Franciscan friar, who, after having been caught in his own trap and, as was confidently hoped, exposed before a whole congregation, had the wit to turn the situation to his own profit after all, and preached a most eloquent sermon on the incident. The same tendency is also seen in the “Morgante Maggiore” of Pulci, which in its turn gave birth to a large number of “heroico-comic” poems, most of them celebrating the adventures of some more or less fabulous hero, and also, it must be confessed, somewhat heavy and long-winded, the cumbrous ottava rima contributing not a little to this result.[[1]] Ariosto’s great poem, of course, though having some points in common with these—(he had two predecessors in his treatment of the Roland legend in epic form)—stands on an entirely different footing.
The other characteristic is difficult to define, and its best examples are almost impossible to render into another language. It consists in a peculiar, naïve drollery,—a something which reminds one of the Irish way of relating a story, only that it is quieter and more restrained,—a simplicity which seems almost unconscious of the ludicrous side of what it is describing, till we are undeceived by a sly hit here and there. This, though more developed in modern writers, exists side by side with the broader comic element in the older literature. There is a certain childlike quality about the Italian of the age of Dante that lends itself admirably to the expression of this trait.
The French are said to possess wit, but not humour; the Italians have humour, but not wit—or, at any rate, more of the former than the latter. True humour is never divorced from pathos; and it is usually allied with the power of seeing the poetry in common things. This one notices in many writers of the present day, such as Verga and Pratesi—whose works are full of humour, though not of a kind that appears to advantage in selections. It is shown in delicate elusive touches of description and narration, and provokes smiles—sometimes sad smiles—rather than laughter. Verga’s humour is often grim and bitter—the tragedy of the hard lives he writes of has its farce too, but even that is a sad one. Something of this grimness comes out in his cynical sketch of the village priest, who was also farmer and money-lender—hated by his flock in one capacity, reverenced in the other, and dreaded in both.
Italy is so intimately associated with music and the drama, that, in such a selection as the following, one might expect to find a large number of quotations from comedies. This, however, is not the case. With hundreds of comedies to choose from, it is almost impossible to find anything adapted for quotation. It is quite true that quoting from a drama must always be more or less like handing round a brick as a sample of the house; but in Shakespeare, for instance, we can find abundance of single passages which will stand well enough by themselves to give a taste of his humorous quality. Had we been able to find in all the works of Goldoni or Gozzi, of Gherardi del Testa, Torelli, or Ferrari, a speech approaching—I do not say in degree, but in kind—any one of some dozen which one might pick out almost at random, on opening Twelfth Night, or Henry IV., or Much Ado About Nothing, the task would have been much easier than it is. But in the best classical plays, such as Goldoni’s, the interest is much more dependent on plot and situation than on character, and no short selection can either give an idea of the whole or be very amusing in itself. The liveliest bits of dialogue lose point apart from their context, and in any case are better adapted for acting than reading. The same might be said of any play worth the name, but it is perhaps peculiarly true of the eighteenth century “comedy of intrigue.”
The comedy of the present day has not quite the same disadvantage. The stereotyped characters are done away with, and there is more play of individuality. But it will be noticed that the specimens given consist of one or more whole scenes, sometimes of considerable length—i.e., there is the same deficiency, or nearly so, of quotable speeches. This, of course, is not a fault from the dramatic point of view; but it is embarrassing for the maker of selections.
Making all these allowances, one finds some of Torelli’s and Ferrari’s plays fairly amusing in the reading, whatever they may be when well acted; but even so the reflection is forced upon one that some of them are lamentable comedies indeed. It is not that they lack spirit and vivacity, but one is astonished at the subjects chosen. That any man should write a play called The Duel, in which the principal incident is a duel, which really does come off, and in which a man is killed, and then call it a comedy, passes one’s comprehension. Not that the subject is made light of; there are comic characters and situations, it is true, but these are subsidiary, and the main treatment is dignified and even pathetic. Again, we have Torelli’s I Mariti,—no tragedy could cause one acuter misery than this drama of ill-assorted marriages and slowly-tortured hearts. La Verità, by the same author, would be a bright and amusing play, were it not for the cynical bitterness of the main idea running through it. The hero, a simple, honest young fellow from the country, gets into trouble by his outspokenness all through the first act or two; then, having found out that honesty does not pay, he takes to lying and flattery, and gets on in the world accordingly. Another example of the same tendency is Ferrari’s Suicidio.
It is true that the word commedia in Italian does not always denote what we mean by a comedy (as witness the Divina Commedia), but that the distinction is to some extent observed in the modern drama is proved by the fact that some plays are designated commedia, others “dramma” or “tragedia.”
There is a peculiarly national development of the drama in Italy, which demands a word or two to itself. I mean the Commedia dell’ Arte, so fully and ably discussed by Mr. Symonds in the introduction to his recent translation of Gozzi’s Memoirs. Briefly speaking, this is a play of which the author furnishes only the outline—the plot, the division into acts and scenes, and a certain number of stage directions—the words being wholly or partly extemporised by the actors. In fact, the dialogue of these plays consisted chiefly of “gag,” though the extent to which this was the case appears to have varied, the playwright sometimes supplying hints for every speech, and even entire speeches,—sometimes only indicating the general line taken during the scene. The Commedia dell’ Arte was immensely popular during the first half of the eighteenth century; but then declined, owing to the influence of Goldoni, who introduced the Comedy of Manners, in which he largely followed French models. It is curious that Molière, who thus, one might say, was indirectly instrumental in superseding the Commedia dell’ Arte, should have received his first impulse from this very form of the drama, as brought into France by Italian companies.