How many modern epics treat of a
subject at once so popular, so historical in its basis, and so striking
to the imagination? For us, it is true, the poem is unreadable. For
other themes of the same kind the reader may be referred to the
histories of literature.
A richer and more fruitful vein was discovered in expanding and
completing the Greco-Roman mythology. In this too, Italian poetry began
early to take a part, beginning with the 'Teseid' of Boccaccio, which
passes for his best poetical work. Under Martin V, Maffeo Vegio wrote
in Latin a thirteenth book to the, Aeneid; besides which we meet with
many less considerable attempts, especially in the style of Claudian--a
'Meleagris,' a 'Hesperis,' and so forth. Still more curious were the
newly-invented myths, which peopled the fairest regions of Italy with a
primeval race of gods, nymphs, genii, and even shepherds, the epic and
bucolic styles here passing into one another. In the narrative or
conversational eclogue after the time of Petrarch, pastoral life was
treated in a purely conventional manner, as a vehicle of all possible
feelings and fancies; and this point will be touched on again in the
sequel.58 For the moment, we have only to do with the new myths. In
them, more clearly than anywhere else, we see the double significance
of the old gods to the men of the Renaissance.
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