A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance Part 9

While unity of action is essential to the epic, and is indeed what distinguishes it from narrative poems that are not really epics, the Renaissance conceived of vastness of design and largeness of detail as necessary to the grandiose character of the epic poem.[216] Thus Muzio says:--

"Il poema sovrano e una pittura De l' universo, e per in se comprende Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."

Trissino regards _versi sciolti_ as the proper metre for an heroic poem, since the stanzaic form impedes the continuity of the narrative. In this point he finds fault with Boccaccio, Boiardo, and Ariosto, whose romantic poems, moreover, he does not regard as epics, because they do not obey Aristotle's inviolable law of the single action. He also finds fault with the romantic poets for describing the improbable, since Aristotle expressly prefers an impossible probability to an improbable possibility.

Minturno's definition of epic poetry is merely a modification or paraphrase of Aristotle's definition of tragedy. Epic poetry is an imitation of a grave and n.o.ble deed, perfect, complete, and of proper magnitude, with embellished language, but without music or dancing; at times simply narrating and at other times introducing persons in words and actions; in order that, through pity and fear of the things imitated, such pa.s.sions may be purged from the mind with both pleasure and profit.[217] Here Minturno, like Giraldi Cintio, ascribes to epic poetry the same purgation of pity and fear effected by tragedy. Epic poetry he rates above tragedy, since the epic poet, more than any other, arouses that admiration of great heroes which it is the peculiar function of the poet to excite, and therefore attains the end of poetry more completely than any other poet. This, however, is true only in the highest form of narrative poetry; for Minturno distinguishes three cla.s.ses of narrative poets, the lowest, or _bucolici_, the mediocre, or _epici_, who have nothing beyond verse, and the highest, or _heroici_, who imitate the life of a single hero in n.o.ble verse.[218] Minturno insists fundamentally on the unity of the epic action; and directly against Aristotle's statement, as we have seen, he restricts the duration of the action to one year. The license and prolixity of the _romanzi_ led the defenders of the cla.s.sical epic to this extreme of rigid circ.u.mspection. According to Scaliger, the epic, which is the norm by which all other poems may be judged and the chief of all poems, describes _heroum genus_, _vita_, gesta_.[219] This is the Horatian conception of the epic, and there is in Scaliger little or no trace of the Aristotelian doctrine. He also follows Horace closely in forbidding the narrative poet to begin his poem from the very beginning of his story (_ab ovo_), and in various other details.

Castelvetro (1570) differs from Aristotle in regard to the unity of the epic fable, on the ground that poetry is merely imaginative history, and can therefore do anything that history can do. Poetry follows the footsteps of history, differing merely in that history narrates what has happened, while poetry narrates what has never happened but yet may possibly happen; and therefore, since history recounts the whole life of a single hero, without regard to its unity, there is no reason why poetry should not do likewise. The epic may in fact deal with many actions of one person, one action of a whole race, or many actions of many people; it need not necessarily deal with one action of one person, as Aristotle enjoins, but if it does so it is simply to show the ingenuity and excellence of the poet.[220]

II. _Epic and Romance_

This discussion of epic unity leads to one of the most important critical questions of the sixteenth century,--the question of the unity of romance. Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_ and Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ were written before the Aristotelian canons had become a part of the critical literature of Italy. When it became clear that these poems diverged from the fundamental requirements of the epic as expounded in the _Poetics_, Trissino set out to compose an heroic poem which would be in perfect accord with the precepts of Aristotle. His _Italia Liberata_, which was completed by 1548, was the result of twenty years of study, and it is the first modern epic in the strict Aristotelian sense. With Aristotle as his guide, and Homer as his model, he had studiously and mechanically constructed an epic of a single action; and in the dedication of his poem to the Emperor Charles V. he charges all poems which violate this primary law of the single action with being merely b.a.s.t.a.r.d forms. The _romanzi_, and among them the _Orlando Furioso_, in seemingly disregarding this fundamental requirement, came under Trissino's censure; and this started a controversy which was not to end until the commencement of the next century, and in a certain sense may be said to remain undecided even to this day.

The first to take up the cudgels in defence of the writers of the _romanzi_ was Giraldi Cintio, who in his youth had known Ariosto personally, and who wrote his _Discorso intorno al comporre dei Romanzi_, in April, 1549. The grounds of his defence are twofold. In the first place, Giraldi maintains that the romance is a poetic form of which Aristotle did not know, and to which his rules therefore do not apply; and in the second place, Tuscan literature, differing as it does from the literature of Greece in language, in spirit, and in religious feeling, need not and indeed ought not to follow the rules of Greek literature, but rather the laws of its own development and its own traditions. With Ariosto and Boiardo as models, Giraldi sets out to formulate the laws of the _romanzi_. The _romanzi_ aim at imitating ill.u.s.trious actions in verse, with the purpose of teaching good morals and honest living, since this ought to be the aim of every poet, as Giraldi conceives Aristotle himself to have said.[221] All heroic poetry is an imitation of ill.u.s.trious actions, but Giraldi, like Castelvetro twenty years later, recognizes several distinct forms of heroic poetry, according as to whether it imitates one action of one man, many actions of many men, or many actions of one man. The first of these is the epic poem, the rules of which are given in Aristotle's _Poetics_. The second is the romantic poem, after the manner of Boiardo and Ariosto. The third is the biographical poem, after the manner of the _Theseid_ and similar works dealing with the whole life of a single hero.

These forms are therefore to be regarded as three distinct and legitimate species of heroic poetry, the first of them being an epic poem in the strict Aristotelian sense, and the two others coming under the general head of _romanzi_. Of the two forms of _romanzi_, the biographical deals preferably with an historical subject, whereas the n.o.blest writers of the more purely romantic form, dealing with many actions of many men, have invented their subject-matter. Horace says that an heroic poem should not commence at the very beginning of the hero's life; but it is difficult to understand, says Giraldi, why the whole life of a distinguished man, which gives us so great and refined a pleasure in the works of Plutarch and other biographers, should not please us all the more when described in beautiful verse by a good poet.[222] Accordingly, the poet who is composing an epic in the strict sense should, in handling the events of his narrative, plunge immediately _in medias res_. The poet dealing with many actions of many men should begin with the most important event, and the one upon which all the others may be said to hinge; whereas the poet describing the life of a single hero should begin at the very beginning, if the hero spent a really heroic youth, as Hercules for example did. The poem dealing with the life of a hero is thus a separate _genre_, and one for which Aristotle does not attempt to lay down any laws. Giraldi even goes so far as to say that Aristotle[223] censured those who write the life of Theseus or Hercules in a single poem, not because they dealt with many actions of one man, but because they treated such a poem in exactly the same manner as those who dealt with a single action of a single hero,--an a.s.sertion which is of course utterly absurd. Giraldi then proceeds to deal in detail with the disposition and composition of the _romanzi_, which he rates above the cla.s.sical epics in the efficacy of ethical teaching. It is the office of the poet to praise virtuous actions and to condemn vicious actions; and in this the writers of the _romanzi_ are far superior to the writers of the ancient heroic poems.[224]

Giraldi's discourse on the _romanzi_ gave rise to a curious dispute with his own pupil, Giambattista Pigna, who published a similar work, ent.i.tled _I Romanzi_, in the same year (1554). Pigna a.s.serted that he had suggested to Giraldi the main argument of the discourse, and that Giraldi had adopted it as his own. Without entering into the details of this controversy, it would seem that the priority of Giraldi cannot fairly be contested.[225] At all events, there is a very great resemblance between the works of Giraldi and Pigna. Pigna's treatise, however, is more detailed than Giraldi's. In the first book, Pigna deals with the general subject of the _romanzi_; in the second he gives a life of Ariosto, and discusses the _Furioso_, point by point; in the third he demonstrates the good taste and critical ac.u.men of Arios...o...b.. comparing the first version of the _Furioso_ with the completed and perfected copy.[226] Both Pigna and Giraldi consider the _romanzi_ to const.i.tute a new _genre_, unknown to the ancients, and therefore not subject to Aristotle's rules. Giraldi's sympathies were in favor of the biographical form of the _romanzi_, and his poem, the _Ercole_ (1557), recounts the whole life of a single hero. Pigna, who keeps closer to the tradition of Ariosto, regards the biographical form as not proper to poetry, because too much like history.

These arguments, presented by Giraldi and Pigna, were answered by Speroni, Minturno, and others. Speroni pointed out that while it is not necessary for the romantic poets to follow the rules prescribed by the ancients, they cannot disobey the fundamental laws of poetry. "The _romanzi_," says Speroni, "are epics, which are poems, or they are histories in verse, and not poems."[227] That is, how does a poem differ from a well-written historical narrative, if the former be without organic unity?[228] As to the whole discussion, it may be said here, without attempting to pa.s.s judgment on Ariosto, or any other writer of _romanzi_, that unity of some sort every true poem must necessarily have; and, flawless as the _Orlando Furioso_ is in its details, the unity of the poem certainly has not the obviousness of perfect, and especially cla.s.sical, art. A work of art without organic unity may be compared with an unsymmetrical circle; and, while the _Furioso_ is not to be judged by any arbitrary or mechanical rules of unity, yet if it has not that internal unity which transcends all mere external form, it may be considered, as a work of art, hardly less than a failure; and the farther it is removed from perfect unity, the more imperfect is the art. "Poetry adapts itself to its times, but cannot depart from its own fundamental laws."[229]

Minturno's answer to the defenders of the _romanzi_ is more detailed and explicit than Speroni's, and it is of considerable importance because of its influence on Torquato Ta.s.so's conception of epic poetry. Minturno does not deny--and in this his point of view is identical with Ta.s.so's--that it is possible to employ the matter of the _romanzi_ in the composition of a perfect poem. The actions they describe are great and ill.u.s.trious, their knights and ladies are n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious, too, and they contain in a most excellent manner that element of the marvellous which is so important an element in the epic action. It is the structure of the _romanzi_ with which Minturno finds fault. They lack the first essential of every form of poetry,--unity. In fact, they are little more than versified history or legend; and, while expressing admiration for the genius of Ariosto, Minturno cannot but regret that he so far yielded to the popular taste of his time as to employ the method of the _romanzi_. He approves of the suggestion of Bembo, who had tried to persuade Ariosto to write an epic instead of a romantic poem,[230]

just as later, and for similar reasons, Gabriel Harvey attempted to dissuade Spenser from continuing the _Faerie Queene_. Minturno denies that the Tuscan tongue is not well adapted to the composition of heroic poetry; on the contrary, there is no form of poetry to which it is not admirably fitted. He denies that the romantic poem can be distinguished from the epic on the ground that the actions of knights-errant require a different and broader form of narrative than do those of the cla.s.sical heroes. The celestial and infernal G.o.ds and demi-G.o.ds of the ancients correspond with the angels, saints, anchorites, and the one G.o.d of Christianity; the ancient sibyls, oracles, enchantresses, and divine messengers correspond with the modern necromancers, fates, magicians, and celestial angels. To the claim of the romantic poets that their poems approximate closer to that magnitude which Aristotle enjoins as necessary for all poetry, Minturno answers that magnitude is of no avail without proportion; there is no beauty in the giant whose limbs and frame are distorted. Finally, the _romanzi_ are said to be a new form of poetry unknown to Aristotle and Horace, and hence not amenable to their laws. But time, says Minturno, cannot change the truth; in every age a poem must have unity, proportion, magnitude. Everything in nature is governed by some specific law which directs its operation; and as it is in nature so it is in art, for art tries to imitate nature, and the nearer it approaches nature in her essential laws, the better it does its work. In other words, as has already been pointed out, poetry adapts itself to its times, but cannot depart from its own laws.

Bernardo Ta.s.so, the father of Torquato, had originally been one of the defenders of the cla.s.sical epic; but he seems to have been converted to the opposite view by Giraldi Cintio, and in his poem of the _Amadigi_ he follows romantic models. His son Torquato, in his _Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica_, originally written one or two years after the appearance of Minturno's _Arte Poetica_, although not published until 1587, was the first to attempt a reconciliation of the epic and romantic forms; and he may be said to have effected a solution of the problem by the formulation of the theory of a narrative poem which would have the romantic subject-matter, with its delightful variety, and the epic form, with its essential unity. The question at issue, as we have seen, is that of unity; that is, does the heroic poem need unity? Ta.s.so denies that there is any difference between the epic poem and the romantic poem as poems. The reason why the latter is more pleasing, is to be found in the fact of the greater delightfulness of the themes treated.[231]

Variety in itself is not pleasing, for a variety of disagreeable things would not please at all. Hence the perfect and at the same time most pleasing form of heroic poem would deal with the chivalrous themes of the _romanzi_, but would possess that unity of structure which, according to the precepts of Aristotle and the practice of Homer and Virgil, is essential to every epic. There are two sorts of unity possible in art as in nature,--the simple unity of a chemical element, and the complex unity of an organism like an animal or plant,--and of these the latter is the sort of unity that the heroic poet should aim at.[232] Capriano (1555) had referred to this same distinction, when he pointed out that poetry ought not to be the imitation of a single act, such as a single act of weeping in the elegy, or a single act of pastoral life in the eclogue, for such a sporadic imitation is to be compared to a picture of a single hand without the rest of the body; on the contrary, poetry ought to be the representation of a number of attendant or dependent acts, leading from a given beginning to a suitable end.[233]

Having settled the general fact that the attractive themes of the _romanzi_ should be employed in a perfect heroic poem, we may inquire what particular themes are most fitted to the epic, and what must be the essential qualities of the epic material.[234] In the first place, the subject of the heroic poem must be historical, for it is not probable that ill.u.s.trious actions such as are dealt with in the epic should be unknown to history. The authority of history gains for the poet that semblance of truth necessary to deceive the reader and make him believe that what the poet writes is true. Secondly, the heroic poem, according to Ta.s.so, must deal with the history, not of a false religion, but of the true one, Christianity. The religion of the pagans is absolutely unfit for epic material; for if the pagan deities are not introduced, the poem will lack the element of the marvellous, and if they are introduced it will lack the element of probability. Both the marvellous and the _verisimile_ must exist together in a perfect epic, and difficult as the task may seem, they must be reconciled. Another reason why paganism is unfit for the epic is to be found in the fact that the perfect knight must have piety as well as other virtues. In the third place, the poem must not deal with themes connected with the articles of Christian faith, for such themes would be unalterable, and would allow no scope to the free play of the poet's inventive fancy. Fourthly, the material must be neither too ancient nor too modern, for the latter is too well known to admit of fanciful changes with probability, and the former not only lacks interest but requires the introduction of strange and alien manners and customs. The times of Charlemagne and Arthur are accordingly best fitted for heroic treatment. Finally, the events themselves must possess n.o.bility and grandeur. Hence an epic should be a story derived from some event in the history of Christian peoples, intrinsically n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious, but not of so sacred a character as to be fixed and immutable, and neither contemporary nor very remote. By the selection of such material the poem gains the authority of history, the truth of religion, the license of fiction, the proper atmosphere in point of time, and the grandeur of the events themselves.[235]

Aristotle says that both epic and tragedy deal with ill.u.s.trious actions.

Ta.s.so points out that if the actions of tragedy and of epic poetry were both ill.u.s.trious in the same way, they would both produce the same results; but tragic actions move horror and compa.s.sion, while epic actions as a rule do not and need not arouse these emotions. The tragic action consists in the unexpected change of fortune, and in the grandeur of the events carrying with them horror and pity; but the epic action is founded upon undertakings of lofty martial virtue, upon deeds of courtesy, piety, generosity, none of which is proper to tragedy. Hence the characters in epic poetry and in tragedy, though both of the same regal and supreme rank, differ in that the tragic hero is neither perfectly good nor entirely bad, as Aristotle says, while the epic hero must have the very height of virtue, such as aeneas, the type of piety, Amadis, the type of loyalty, Achilles, of martial virtue, and Ulysses, of prudence.

Having formulated these theories of heroic poetry in his youth, Ta.s.so set out to carry them into practice, and his famous _Gerusalemme Liberata_ was the result. This poem, almost immediately after its publication, started a violent controversy, which raged for many years, and which may be regarded as the legitimate outcome of the earlier dispute in connection with the _romanzi_.[236] The _Gerusalemme_ was in fact the centre of critical activity during the latter part of the century. Shortly after its publication, Camillo Pellegrino published a dialogue, ent.i.tled _Il Caraffa_ (1583), in which the _Gerusalemme_ is compared with the _Orlando Furioso_, much to the advantage of the former. Pellegrino finds fault with Ariosto on account of the lack of unity of his poem, the immoral manners imitated, and various imperfections of style and language; and in all of these things, unity, morality, and style, he finds Ta.s.so's poem perfect. This was naturally the signal for a heated and long-continued controversy. The Accademia della Crusca had been founded at Florence, in 1582, and it seems that the members of the new society felt hurt at some sarcastic remarks regarding Florence in one of Ta.s.so's dialogues. Accordingly, the head of the academy, Lionardo Salviati, in a dialogue ent.i.tled _L' Infarinato_, wrote an ardent defence of Ariosto; and an acrid and undignified dispute between Ta.s.so and Salviati was begun.[237] Ta.s.so answered the Accademia della Crusca in his _Apologia_; and at the beginning of the next century, Paolo Beni, the commentator on Aristotle's _Poetics_, published his _Comparazione di Omero, Virgilio, e Torquato_, in which Ta.s.so is rated above Homer, Virgil, and Ariosto, not only in dignity, in beauty of style, and in unity of fable, but in every other quality that may be said to const.i.tute perfection in poetry. Before dismissing this whole matter, it should be pointed out that the defenders of Aristotle had absolutely abandoned the position of Giraldi and Pigna, that the _romanzi_ const.i.tute a _genre_ by themselves, and are therefore not subject to Aristotle's law of unity. The question as Giraldi had stated it was this: Does every poem need to have unity? The question as discussed in the Ta.s.so controversy had changed to this form: What is unity? It was taken for granted by both sides in the controversy that every poem must have organic unity; and the authority of Aristotle, in epic as in dramatic poetry, was henceforth supreme. It was to the authority of Aristotle that Ta.s.so's opponents appealed; and Salviati, merely for the purpose of undermining Ta.s.so's pretensions, wrote an extended commentary on the _Poetics_, which still lies in Ms. at Florence, and which has been made use of in the present essay.[238]

FOOT-NOTES:

[210] Pope, i. 133.

[211] Rapin, 1674, ii. 2.

[212] _Poet._ xxvi.

[213] Trissino, ii. 118 _sq._

[214] Daniello, p. 34.

[215] _Ars Poet._ 73.

[216] Trissino, ii. 112 _sq._

[217] _Arte Poetica_, p. 9.

[218] _De Poeta_, pp. 105, 106.

[219] _Poet._ iii. 95.

[220] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 178 _sq._

[221] Giraldi Cintio, i. 11, 64.

[222] Giraldi Cintio, i. 24.

[223] _Poet._ viii. 2.

[224] Giraldi, i. 66 _sq._

[225] _Cf._ Tiraboschi, vii. 947 _sq._, and Giraldi, ii. 153 _sq._ Pigna's own words are cited in Giraldi, i. p. xxiii.

[226] Canello, p. 306 _sq._

[227] Speroni, v. 521.

[228] _Cf._ Minturno, _De Poeta_, p. 151.

[229] Minturno, _Arte Poetica_, p. 31. For various opinions on the unity of the _Orlando Furioso_, _cf._ Canello, p. 106, and Foffano, p. 59 _sq._

[230] _Arte Poetica_, p. 31.

[231] T. Ta.s.so, xii. 219 _sq._

[232] T. Ta.s.so, xii. 234.

[233] _Della Vera Poetica_, cap. iii.

[234] T. Ta.s.so, xii. 199 _sq._

[235] T. Ta.s.so, xii. 208.

[236] Accounts of this famous controversy will be found in Tiraboschi, Canello, Sera.s.si, etc.; but the latest and most complete is that given in the twentieth chapter of Solerti's monumental _Vita di Torquato Ta.s.so_, Torino, 1895.

[237] Nearly all the important doc.u.ments of the Ta.s.so controversy are reprinted in Rosini's edition of Ta.s.so, _Opere_, vols. xviii.-xxiii.

[238] The question of unity was also raised in another controversy of the second half of the sixteenth century. A pa.s.sage in Varchi's _Ercolano_ (1570), rating Dante above Homer, started a controversy on the _Divine Comedy_. The most important outcome of this dispute was Mazzoni's _Difesa di Dante_ (1573), in which a whole new theory of poetry is expounded in order to defend the great Tuscan poet.

CHAPTER V