Those who come to him in the spirit of
a cross-examiner, and busy themselves in detecting the contradictions
between the poet and the man, his infidelities in love, and the other
weak sides of his character, may perhaps, after sufficient effort, end
by losing all taste for his poetry. In place, then, of artistic
enjoyment, we may acquire a knowledge of the man in his 'totality.'
What a pity that Petrarch's letters from Avignon contain so little
gossip to take hold of, and that the letters of his acquaintances and
of the friends of these acquaintances have either been lost or never
existed! Instead of Heaven being thanked when we are not forced to
inquire how and through what struggles a poet has rescued something
immortal from his own poor life and lot, a biography has been stitched
together for Petrarch out of these so-called 'remains,' which reads
like an indictment. But the poet may take comfort. If the printing and
editing of the correspondence of celebrated people goes on for another
half-century as it has begun in England and Germany, illustrious
company enough sitting with him on repentance.
Without shutting our eyes to much that is _. artificial in his poetry,
where the writer is merely imitating himself and singing on in the old
strain, we cannot fail to admire the marvelous abundance of pictures of
the inmost soul -- descriptions of moments of joy and sorrow which must
have been thoroughly his own, since no one before him gives us anything
of the kind, and on which his significance rests for his country and
for the world.
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