Boiardo treats his characters with the same mastery, using them
for serious or comic purposes as he pleases; he has his fun even out of
supernatural beings, whom he sometimes intentionally depicts as louts.
But there is one artistic aim which he pursues as earnestly as Pulci,
namely, the lively and exact description of all that goes forward.
Pulci recited his poem, as one book after another was finished, before
the society of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and in the same way Boiardo
recited his at the court of Ercole of Ferrara. It may be easily
imagined what sort of excellence such an audience demanded, and how
little thanks a profound exposition of character would have earned for
the poet. Under these circumstances the poems naturally formed no
complete whole, and might just as well be half or twice as long as they
now are. Their composition is not that of a great historical picture,
but rather that of a frieze, or of some rich festoon entwined among
groups of picturesque figures. And precisely as in the figures or
tendrils of a frieze we do not look for minuteness of execution in the
individual forms, or for distant perspectives and different planes, so
we must as little expect anything of the kind from these poems.
The varied richness of invention which continually astonishes us, most
of all in the case of Boiardo, turns to ridicule all our school
definitions as to the essence of epic poetry.
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