poetry, must be admitted to have been highly favourable to its improvement, and calculated to confirm and exalt the character impressed upon it by a variety of previous circumstances. the But if the true parentage of the Provençal poetry is to be traced with so much apparent certainty through the medium of historical evidence; coupled with the internal proofs afforded by its peculiarities of subject as well as structure, the fact becomes quite convincing. The first of these traces of filiation is the adoption of rhyme, a comparatively modern invention, which, though attributed by different theorists to a Scandinavian, a Gothic, and even a Latin origin, is most probably ascribable, in t case of the troubadours, to the Arabians only. Another peculiarity in the structure of both is the turn of thought and expression which almost uniformly marks the conclusion of their compositions of love and gallantry, which, in the Provençal poetry, is termed the envoy, and in which the bard suddenly breaks off his train of narrative or reflection to apostrophize either himself, or his song, or the jongleur whose business it is to sing it, or the lady for whom it is composed, or the messenger who is to bear it to her.' The first great revolution noticed in the literary history of the Provençaux is the division which took place between the office of Troubadour and Jongleur, of composer and reciter. We have no monuments extant of the time in which these two professions were united in the same individual. The poetical genius was probably improved by the separation; yet is it noticed as one of the principal causes which operated towards the discredit and ultimate overthrow of the art. It is unnecessary in this place to follow those causes closely or describe them with minuteness. William IX, count of Poitou, is the first acknowledged troubadour in the list of those who have transmitted any remnant of their compositions to our times. That prince died in 1127, and in the space of less than a century after, we have the names, and some remains of the works, of a very numerous body of his poetical successors, among whom are four kings, and a proportionable number of sovereign counts and barons. The gay and gallant court of Provence expired early in the 13th century, together with the dynasty of its ancient princes. About the same period, religious fury and the horrors of inquisitorial vengeance desolated all that lovely portion of the world which had hitherto been the favourite land of the muses; and, when tranquillity was restored, it found them already in possession of an empire whose splendour far eclipsed the short lived brilliancy of that from which it had been expelled. The language itself, as a literary language, had expired; and one only relique of the science gaie appears to have survived the lapse of ages in the singular institution of the Flora! Games at Toulouse, which was in its origin no other than an academy or college of troubadours. We would gladly follow our guides through those interesting divisions of their works in which they estimate the merits, and describe the characteristic qualities of the Provençal poetry; but we feel that it would divert us too long from our main object, though it is possible we may revert to this part of the subject before we have done with those early Italian poets in whom the imitation of the Provençaux is most conspicuous. Of these, the list of obscure sonneteers and canzonieri who preceded Dante, shall not detain us longer than is barely sufficient to mark the nature of the obligations which they owed to their poetical predecessors and of those which they conferred on the illustrious Father of Tuscan song,' who succeeded them. The latter must be confessed to be as nothing in the comparison. The name of the Emperor Frederick II is usually placed at the head of this poetical band, although posterity has retained only a single composition of his, called by M. Ginguené an 'Ode, ou chanson galante,' of which it is enough to say, that, 'ce n'est pas mal pour le temps, et pour un roi qui avait tant d'autres choses à faire que des vers.' Peter de Vineis, the celebrated chancellor of this accomplished sovereign, was likewise a poet, and to him appears to be traced the first rude outline of the Petrarchal sonnet. .* Brunetto Latini of Florence, and Guido Guinezilli of Bologna, are counted among the first who introduced on the continent of Italy the new poetry which had hitherto been confined to the island that gave it birth. Both are handed down to immortal fame (the first to immortal infamy also) by their great pupil and follower but Latini seems to have deserved more honour as a grammarian and logician than as a poet, while Guido merits the higher praise of having brought to perfection that species of poetry which is termed the Canzone, and of having at the same time exalted and refined the poetical sentiment by the mysticism of the Platonic philosophy. Another Guido, usually called Guittone d'Arezzo, is noticed as the perfecter of the sonnet; and a third of the same name, and of the noble family of Cavalcanti, merits the more singular praise of The name of Brunetto is well known as the preceptor of Dante, who recognises him in that quality, in a celebrated passage of his Inferno. Some of his commentators have assigned a similar office to Guinezilli, of whom it is certain that Dante speaks with the highest veneration, bestowing on him the appellation of massimo' and accosting him as Il Padre Mio, e d'altri miei miglior, che mai Rime d'amore usar dolci e leggiadre, &c. Purgat. c. 26. having courted the truth and simplicity of nature in sition of the ballad. the compo It is the absence of this, the first and most indispensable charm of poetry, that has consigned to deserved oblivion almost all the earliest efforts of the Italian muse. " Quel dommage, qu'un peuple si sensible, et en général si susceptible d'affections vives et de passions fortes, environné d'une nature si riche et placé sous un ciel si beau, n'ait pas songé à célébrer les objets réels, les mouvemens et les vicissitudes de ces affections et de ces passions; peindre ce beau ciel, cette riche nature; et, si ce n'est dans les descriptions suivies, à s'en servir au moins dans des comparaisons et dans les autres ornements du style poétique et figuré !* Even in the brightest days of Italian song, and notwithstanding the many illustrious instances of exception which its annals can produce, this want of natural feeling and expression, together with the substitution of false refinement and metaphysical mysticism, has always been the sin that most easily beset its votaries; it is, therefore, on account of their general applicability to the subject of which we are treating that the following reflections, appear to be most valuable. 'Les Arabes, malgré le désordre de leur imagination déreglée, au milieu de leurs rêveries et de leurs contes extravagants, eurent de la passion et de la vérité; ils peignirent admirablement les objets naturels, et racontèrent de la manière la plus vraie et la plus animée, ou les grandes actions, ou les moindres faits. Les Provençaux eurent, à peu près, les mêmes qualitiés, autant du moins que le leur permettaient des mœurs moins simples et moins grandes à la fois, une langue moins riche et encore inculte, une galanterie plus rafinée. Ils chantèrent les exploits guerriers, les aventures d'amour, les plaisirs de la vie. Ils furent louangeurs adroits, satiriques mordants, conteurs licentieux, mais pleins de sel et de vérité. Les premiers poëtes Siciliens et Italiens ne furent rien de tout cela. Un seul sujet les occupe' c'est l'amour, non tel que l'inspire la nature mais tel qu'il était devenu dans les froides extases des chevaliers, passionnés pour des beautés imaginaires et dans les galantes futilités des cours d'amour. Chanter est une tâche qu'ils remplissent; toujours force leur est de chanter, c'est leur dame qui l'exige, ou c'est l'amour qui l'ordonne, et ils doivent dire prolixement et en canzoni bien longues et bien traînantes, ou en sonnets rafinés et souvent obscurs, les incomparables beautés de la dame et leur intolérable martyre. De temps en temps, ils laissent échapper quelques expressions naïves, qui portent avec elles un certain charme; mais le plus souvent, ce sont des ravissements ou des plaintes à ne point finir, et des recherches amoureuses et platoniques à degoûter de Platon et de l'amour. Ils ont sous les yeux les mers et les volcans, une végétation abondante et variée, les majestueux et mélancoliques débris de l'antiquité, l'éclat d'un jour Ginguené, tom. i. p. 433. brûlant, des nuits fraiches et magnifiques: leur siècle est fécond en guerres, en révolutions, en faits d'armes; les mœurs de leur temps provoquent les traits de la satire; et ils chantent comme au milieu d'un désert, ne peignent rien de ce qui les entoure; ne paraissent rien sentir, ni rien voir.' If ever a poet, in any age or country, has elevated himself by his natural genius to a height which disdains the application of all the ordinary rules of measurement, it is assuredly Dante. His poem, that amazing monument of unrivalled powers, can be judged by itself alone; and while the critic laboriously traces a few faint marks of imitation in the spirit of the age, in the works of worthless and forgotten contemporaries, or lastly in the more splendid and durable models of antiquity, he must confess with some surprise, at the close of his examination, how little he has been able to meet with that is not exclusively ascribable to the creative genius of the author. It is true that the popular superstition of the age naturally led the imagination to dwell on the self embodied visions of an indistinct futurity. The institutions of Francis and Dominic had had just before rekindled the zeal of fanaticism which appeared to have slumbered for centuries, and its tendency in the people at large, was discernible even in the taste which regulated their public festivals and pageants. On one of these solemn occasions,* we are told of a most fearful spectacle designed to exhibit, for the edification of the populace, a lively portraiture of the infernal regions, with its rivers of boiling pitch, its gulphs of fire, and mountains of ice, all of which were brought to act upon real persons, who by their shrieks and groans rendered the illusion complete to the spectators.' Whether, as some will have it, the first notion of the Inferno was founded on this incident, or, according to others, it was in compliment to the poem that the spectacle itself was invented, it affords the most curious and direct evidence as to the spirit of the times and of the people which inspired alike the poet and the directors of the infernal pastime. But it is in the style and sentiments of the poet that his true originality consists; and where, in the works of preceding and contemporary versifiers, such as we have described them, could Dante have discovered any specimens of that severe, yet energetic tone, the voice of nature herself, by which the reader is irresistibly struck even on approaching the vestibule of his immortal fabric? It is in language like this, (of which we should be happy to persuade ourselves that we have been able to retain even a feeble impression,) that he apostrophizes his mighty master.' * At Florence, on the 1st of May, 1304. Sismondi, Tom. I. p. 352. Or sei tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte,' &c. (INF. c. 1.) Art thou that Virgil then? the fountain head Thou art the guide and master of my thought; Sole author thou, from whom the inspired strain That crowns my name with deathless praise I brought. The terrible inscription on the portal of hell, 'Per me si va nella città dolente, &c.* is another passaro which arrests the reader so forcibly by the au stere sublimity of its style, that we believe the present critic is the first who has discovered in it a fault of conception, which we are not altogether disposed to admit. It is in the lines, Fece mi la divina potestate, La somma sapientia e il primo amore.' Divine power and supreme wisdom may, observes M. Ginguené, be allowed to combine in the construction of this terrible fabric; "but it is impossible without repugnance to allow in it the explicit co-operation of primal love. Yet a severe theology would, we conceive, reconcile this seeming repugnance; and the doctrines of those modern divines who have represented the eternity of punishment as inconsistent with the merciful and benevolent attributes of the Deity, were most assuredly neither those of the poet nor of the age in which he lived. In fact the lines may be regarded merely as presenting a periphrasis of the Deity; and in this case, no special agency need be given to the Amore. Or, the word may be interpreted by contrast. Primal love constructed the place of punishment, as, without this, there would have been no place of future happiness. We next turn to a passage, singularly illustrative of the stern spirit of republican faction, which was exalted in the character of Dante by the keen sense of wrongs inflicted by a beloved and This has been rendered by M. Sismondi with a greater degree of force and ma jesty than the language of French poetry is generally esteemed capable of admitting. Par moi l'on entre en la cité du crime, Par moi l'on entre en l'affreuse douleur, Pour moi s'unit à la haute puissance Le sage amour du divin créateur. Rien de mortel n'a pu voir ma naissance, Rien n'a sur moi de pouvoir destructeur. VOUS QUI PASSEZ, PERDEZ TOUTE ESPERANCE. |