



Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Leonard Johnson and the
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Studies in the Poetry
of Italy


II. ITALIAN



BY

OSCAR KUHNS

_Wesleyan University_



[Illustration]



=Chautauqua Press=

CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK

MCMXIII



COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY

OSCAR KUHNS

Third Edition, 1913



=The Chautauqua Print Shop=

Chautauqua, New York




PREFACE


In writing this book the author has endeavored to give a connected story
of the development of Italian literature from its origin down to the
present. In so doing, however, he has laid chief stress on those writers
whose fame is world-wide, and thus, owing to lack of space, has been
obliged to treat in the briefest manner those writers who, although
famous in Italy itself, are not generally known to the world at large.
It is hoped that the reader may be led to study more in detail
this literature, which although ranking with the greatest of the
world-literatures, has been to a large degree neglected in England and
America. The translations from Dante's New Life and of the story from
Boccaccio have been made by the author, inasmuch as during the writing
of this book he could not obtain access to the standard translations.

It is to be noted also, that owing to unavoidable delay in the
transmission of the manuscript, the author has not been able to read the
proof.

FLORENCE, Italy.




CONTENTS

BOOK II. ITALIAN


  CHAPTER                                                 PAGE

  I. THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN LITERATURE                     173

  II. DANTE: LIFE AND MINOR WORKS                          193

  III. THE DIVINE COMEDY                                   214

  IV. PETRARCH                                             263

  V. BOCCACCIO                                             283

  VI. THE RENAISSANCE AND ARIOSTO                          297

  VII. TASSO                                               316

  VIII. THE PERIOD OF DECADENCE AND THE REVIVAL            337



STUDIES IN THE POETRY OF ITALY




CHAPTER I

THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN LITERATURE


The first thing that strikes the attention of the student of Italian
literature is its comparatively recent origin. In the north and south of
France the Old French and Provencal languages had begun to develop a
literature before the tenth century, which by the end of the twelfth had
risen to a high degree of cultivation; indeed, by that time the
Provencal had attained its highest point, and had already begun to
decline. In Italy, however, we cannot trace the beginning of a
literature, properly so-called, farther back than the thirteenth
century.

Among the various causes which may be assigned for this phenomenon, the
most important undoubtedly is the fact that the Italians have always
looked upon themselves as of one race with the ancient Romans, and the
heirs of all the glorious traditions attached to the names of the
heroes, poets, and artists of the Eternal City. In similar manner they
regarded Latin as their true mother-tongue, of which the vernacular was
a mere corruption. Hence it came to pass that all the literature which
we find in Italy before the thirteenth century, and a large proportion
of that written in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries,
was in Latin and not in Italian, which seemed to the writers of those
days unworthy of forming the medium of poetry and learning.

This feeling of kinship was a natural one for those who lived in the
same cities in which the Romans had lived, surrounded by the imposing
ruins of the ancient world, speaking a language, which although
essentially a modern one, with all its characteristics, was still nearer
to Latin than French, Provencal, or Spanish. For these men the
irruptions of the northern barbarians, the Goths, the Lombards, and
later the Normans, were only a break in the continuity of the historical
development of the Latin race in Italy. This spirit--which explains the
popularity and temporary success of Arnold of Brescia, in the twelfth
century, and of Cola di Rienzi, in the fourteenth, in their efforts to
restore the old forms of the Roman republic--must be kept constantly in
mind by the student, not only of the political history of Italy, but of
its literature and art as well.

Yet this natural feeling does not rest altogether on fact. The Italians
of to-day are not the pure descendants of the ancient Romans, but, like
the other so-called Latin races, are of mixed origin, more nearly
related, it is true, to the Romans, yet in general formed in the same
ethnical way as their neighbors.

With the downfall of Rome, Italy, like France and Spain, was overrun by
the hordes of German tribes, who, leaving the cold and inhospitable
regions of the North sought for more congenial climes in the sunny
South. As the Franks in France, the Visigoths and Vandals in Spain, so
the Ostrogoths in Italy, toward the end of the fifth century, conquered
and colonized the country, and under Theodoric restored for a brief time
an appearance of prosperity. In the sixth century came the Lombards, and
after destroying and devastating city and country as far south as Rome,
and even beyond, finally settled in upper Italy now known from them as
Lombardy. Several centuries later came the Normans from France and
conquered Sicily and the southern extremity of the peninsula. All these
peoples were of German origin, and being gradually merged with the
conquered race, formed what we now call the Italian people.[1]

It goes without saying that the Latin language was profoundly affected
by all these changes. Although the German invaders gradually adopted the
civilization of the conquered land, including the language, yet they
could not help influencing this civilization and impressing it with
their own individual stamp.

With regard to the language, we must bear in mind that even in the time
of Vergil and Cicero, Latin had two forms, one the elegant and
artificial language of literature, and the other the idiom of the common
people, or the vernacular. Many of the peculiar phonetic, grammatical,
and syntactical phenomena which characterize the modern Romance
languages existed in this so-called "vulgar Latin," long before the fall
of Rome, the irruption of the northern barbarians, and the consequent
formation of new nations and new tongues.

All the Romance languages have been derived from this "vulgar Latin,"
each one being specially moulded by its peculiar environments, and by
the various German, Celtic, and other dialects by which it was
influenced. Thus the "vulgar Latin" imported by Roman colonists into
Gaul, and influenced by the Franks, produced the French language: in the
same way "vulgar Latin" plus the various local and foreign influences to
which it was subjected in Italy, produced the various dialects of that
country--Venetian, Tuscan, Neapolitan, and Sicilian. While literary
Latin, although becoming more and more corrupt as the years went by,
continued in Italy to be the language of the church, of the courts of
law, and of what literature there was, the vernacular--_i. e._, the
various dialects--was used in all the operations of daily life.

We have evidence that this popular tongue must have been in existence as
far back as the seventh century, for in Latin public documents dating
from that period on, we find occasional words and fragments of phrases,
especially the names of persons and places, which are marked by the
special characteristics of the Italian language. These expressions,
embedded in the Latin documents, like pebbles in sand, become more and
more numerous as we approach the tenth century, until finally, in the
year 960, we meet for the first time with a complete Italian sentence,
in a legal document concerning the boundaries of a certain piece of
property in Capua; four years later we find almost the same formula in a
similar document. Toward the end of the eleventh century certain
frescoes were painted in the lower church of Saint Clement in Rome,
where they may still be seen, and among them is one beneath which is
found an explanation in Italian.

In spite of the fact, however, that these monuments of early Italian
increase from year to year, they were not numerous before the thirteenth
century. The very scarcity of them shows the tenacity with which the
people clung to the traditions of Rome, since not only literature, but
even public and private documents were written in Latin. This literary
tradition never wholly died out in Italy, even in the darkest days of
her history. It is true that in the terrible disorders that accompanied
the slow agony of dying Rome, a long period of darkness and ignorance
occurred. The empire was split into two parts and the seat of the
emperor was transferred to Constantinople; the Goths and Lombards
conquered Northern Italy, the Saracens and Normans the South. All
through the Dark Ages Italy was the prey of foreign marauders; the
Huns--those scourges of the nations--came as far as Rome; the Arabs
obtained a foothold in Sicily, scoured the seas, and even ravaged the
Campagna up to the very walls of the Eternal City.

Not only did devoted Italy suffer from outsiders, but discord and civil
conflicts rent her very entrails. When Charlemagne was crowned emperor
in 800 by Leo III., as a reward for having defended Rome against the
incursions of the Lombards, it was thought that the reestablishment of
the Roman empire would bring in a new era of peace and glory. With the
death of the great king, however, anarchy once more reigned supreme.
His successors in the empire (for the most part weaklings) were kept
busy with the affairs of Germany, and regarded Italy, "the garden of the
empire," as Dante calls it, with indifference. In Italy itself there was
no such thing as patriotism or feeling of national unity. The people
were oppressed by the nobles, who themselves were in a continual state
of warfare with each other. In the eleventh century a new power arose in
the form of free cities, chief among them being Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and
Florence. These, however, only increased the disorder which already
existed; city fought with city, and even within the same walls the
various families formed parties and feuds, which led to incessant
strife, of which murder, rapine, and arson were the usual concomitants.

No wonder, then, that in the midst of all this anarchy and confusion
Roman civilization almost died out. What the barbarians had spared, the
church itself tried to destroy. Having finally triumphed over pagan
Rome, it fought pagan civilization; the early Christian fathers looked
upon art and literature as the work of demons; the clergy were forbidden
to read the classic writers except for grammatical purposes, the subject
matter being deemed poisonous to the souls of Christians. Even so great
a man as Pope Gregory despised classical antiquity. During the long
period when Italy was the prey of Saracen and Hun, when pestilence and
famine stalked gauntly through the desolated land, civilization sank to
its lowest point. Superstition and asceticism held full sway in
religion; men sought relief from the sufferings of the life that now is
in the contemplation of a new and happier state in the life to come.
Hence arose the widespread conviction that God is best pleased with
those who despise this life, with all its beauty and pleasure, its pride
and glory, its pomp and power.

In spite of this apparent death, however, a spark of life still existed.
Through all this dolorous period, schools could be found, in which a
half-barbarous Latin was rudely taught, as being the language of the
church. There never was a time when Latin authors were not read to some
extent in school and monastery.

With the eleventh century a change for the better began in the
intellectual, as well as in the political life of Italy. The rise of
cities, the crusades, even the unholy contest between pope and emperor
gave new impulse to the minds of all, and led to the beginning of a new
era. The defeat of the German emperors, through papal intrigue, added to
the power of the free cities, which were thus made independent of
trans-Alpine over-lordship, and now began to enter upon that long career
of prosperity and intellectual conquest which is the wonder of the
student of the history of medieval Italy.

This intellectual movement of the eleventh century, which gave a new and
strong impulse to the study of philosophy and theology, resulted in a
rich literature in these departments of learning. Peter Damian, the
right hand of Gregory VII. in his war with the emperors, became a leader
in the study of philosophy and wrote many celebrated works. Other
Italian philosophers and theologians--Lanfranc, Anselm, and Peter
Lombard--taught in foreign schools. In the thirteenth century Italy
produced two of the greatest of the medieval philosophers, St. Thomas
Aquinas and St. Bonaventura. Later the newly founded University of
Bologna became the center of an eager study of law, which resulted in
the writing of many books on jurisprudence.

This late and artificial bloom of Latin literature in theology and
philosophy brought the necessity of a more satisfactory study of the
Latin language itself. Hence arose many new grammars, rhetorics, and
texts. In a similar manner the newly awakened interest in science (such
as it was) brought in a new class of books, corresponding to our modern
encyclopedias. From the twelfth century on, all over Europe, large
numbers of these compendiums were compiled, containing a summary of all
the knowledge of the times; chief among these encyclopedias was the vast
_Speculum Majus_ (the Greater Mirror) of Vincent of Beauvais, containing
82 books and 9,905 chapters. Very popular, also, were the moral and
didactic treatises. Symbolism took possession of all literature. The
phenomena of nature became types of religious life--even the writings of
pagan antiquity were treated symbolically and made to reveal prophecies
of Christian doctrine; Vergil, in a famous passage, was supposed to have
foretold the coming of the Savior, and even the _Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid,
"of the earth earthy," if ever poem was, was interpreted in terms of
Christian mysticism.

All the above-mentioned literature, however, so far as it existed in
Italy before the thirteenth century, was written in Latin; we must
dismiss it, therefore, with this brief mention, and pass on to the true
subject of this book, Italian literature properly so-called, which, as
we have already seen, cannot be said to have existed before the
thirteenth century.

One feature which is largely characteristic of all subsequent periods of
Italian literature marks the formative period thereof, that is, the
comparative lack of invention and originality, and the spirit of
imitation of other literatures, distant either in time or space. In
order to trace its early beginnings to their sources, we must go outside
the borders of Italy. For nearly two hundred years the south of France
had been the home of a large number of elegant lyrical poets, whose fame
and influence had spread over all Europe. These troubadours, as they
were called, were welcomed not only at the courts of princes and nobles
in Provence, but were likewise honored guests in Northern France, in
Spain, and in Italy. The latter country had long been closely connected
with Southern France by means of commerce and politics. Hence it was
natural for the troubadours to seek the rewards of their art in the
brilliant courts of Italy. Toward the end of the twelfth century some of
the best known of them, among them the famous Pierre Vidal and Rambaud
de Vaqueiras, made their way thither. After the terrible crusades
against the Albigenses--which not only cruelly slaughtered tens of
thousands of earnest Christians, but likewise destroyed forever the
independence and prosperity of Provence, and thus, by destroying the
courts of noble families, put a sudden stop to the flourishing
literature--large numbers of the wandering minstrels came to Northern
Italy.

It was not long before their influence began to manifest itself, first
in Northern Italy, and later in the south and center. The north Italian
poets began to imitate the troubadours, and soon a considerable body of
poetry had been composed by native poets, in the manner and--a
phenomenon worthy of note--in the language itself of the Provencal
poets. This is due to the relationship between the dialects of Northern
Italy and the Provencal, and also to the fact that at that time the
latter tongue was far more elegant and cultivated than the other Romance
languages. This north Italian poetry is always included in the Provencal
collections and the writers are known as troubadours in spite of their
Italian nationality. Among the most famous are Bartolomeo Zorzi of
Venice, Bonifaccio Calvo of Genoa, and especially Sordello of Mantua,
praised by Dante in a famous passage of the Purgatory, and the subject
of Browning's well-known poem.

We see, then, that the above poets belong rather to the history of
Provencal than that of Italian literature. To find the first springs of
national poetry in Italy, we must traverse the whole length of the
peninsula and arrive at the court of Frederick II. (1194-1250) in
Sicily, which at this time was far ahead of the rest of the country in
civilization, art, and literature. Frederick himself was a many-sided
man, warrior, statesman, lawyer, and scholar, and stands out among his
contemporaries, especially in matters of religious tolerance. He
welcomed to his court not only the scholars, poets, and artists of
Europe, but likewise Arabs, who were at that time in possession of a
high degree of culture. He caused many Greek and Arab authors to be
translated into Latin, among them Aristotle; he founded the University
of Naples; above