A stronger
coercion never existed in literature; but poetry shook it off for the
most part, and it may be said, without the risk of too great optimism,
that it was well for Italian poetry to have had both means of
expressing itself. In both something great and characteristic was
achieved, and in each we can see the reason why Latin or Italian was
chosen. Perhaps the same may be said of prose. The position and
influence of Italian culture throughout the world depended on the fact
that certain subjects were treated in Latin--'urbi et orbi'--while
Italian prose was written best of all by those to whom it cost an
inward struggle not to write in Latin.
From the fourteenth century Cicero was recognized universally as the
purest model of prose. This was by no means due solely to a
dispassionate opinion in favour of his choice of language, of the
structure of his sentences, and of his style of composition, but rather
to the fact that the Italian spirit responded fully and instinctively
to the amiability of the letter writer, to the brilliancy of the
orator, and to the lucid exposition of the philosophical thinker. Even
Petrarch recognized dearly the weakness of Cicero as a man and a
statesman, though he respected him too much to rejoice over them. After
Petrarch's time, the epistolary style was formed entirely on the
pattern of Cicero; and the rest, with the exception of the narrative
style, followed the same influence.
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