The
universal talent for dramatic representation could not indeed be
uprooted, and in music Italy long made good its claim to supremacy in
Europe. Those who can find in this world of sound a compensation for
the drama, to which all future was denied, have, at all events, no
meagre source of consolation.
But perhaps we can find in epic poetry what the stage fails to offer
us. Yet the chief reproach made against the heroic poetry of Italy is
precisely on the score of the insignificance and imperfect
representation of its characters.
Other merits are allowed to belong to it, among the rest, that for
three centuries it has been actually read and constantly reprinted,
while nearly the whole of the epic poetry of other nations has become a
mere matter of literary or historical curiosity. Does this perhaps lie
in the taste of the readers, who demand something different from what
would satisfy a northern public? Certainly, without the power of
entering to some degree into Italian sentiment, it is impossible to
appreciate the characteristic excellence of these poems, and many
distinguished men declare that they can make nothing of them. And in
truth, if we criticize Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Berni solely with
an eye to their thought and matter, we shall fail to do them justice.
They are artists of a peculiar kind, who write for a people which is
distinctly and eminently artistic.
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