THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 434.-JANUARY, 1913, Art. 1.-SOME NEW VERSIONS OF LEOPARDI. 1. I Canti di Giacomo Leopardi. Commentati da Alfredo Straccali. Firenze: Sansoni, 1895. 2. The Poems of Leopardi. Edited with introductions and notes by Francis Brooks. Manchester: University Press, 1909. 3. Vita di Giacomo Leopardi. Narrata da Giuseppe Chiarini. Firenze: Barbéra, 1905. 4. Poesia e Storia di Giosuè Carducci. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1905. 5. A History of Italian Literature. By Richard Garnett. London: Heinemann, 1898. WHAT is Leopardi's true place in literature? That assigned to him by his countrymen is very high, higher than they would concede to any other Italian poet born since the close of the sixteenth century. As for his European reputation, Dr Garnett, in one of the most brilliant pages in his History of Italian Literature,' declares that within certain limits the author of the 'Canti'' has approached absolute perfection more closely not only than any other Italian, but than any other modern writer.' He then goes on to say: 'He (Leopardi) is one of that small and remarkable class of men who have arisen here and there in recent Europe to reproduce each some peculiar aspect of the ancient Greek genius. As Shelley is a Greek by his pantheism, Keats by his feeling for nature, Platen by the architectonic of his verse, so is Leopardi by his impeccability. All the best Greek productions, whether of poetic or plastic art, have this character of inevitableness; they can be neither better nor other than they are. . . . So wrote the Greeks; and the recovery of an apparVol. 218.-No. 434. B ently lost type makes amends for the monotony of Leopardi's dismal message to mankind and the extreme limitation of his range of thought' (pp. 359, 360). So enthusiastic a verdict from this excellent critic and historiographer is sufficient proof of the exceptional qualities, even among men of genius, which Leopardi possessed-qualities that at any time would justify a fresh examination of his life and work and his claim to literary eminence. Unfortunately, for reasons easily understood, his reputation in this country is not so great as on the Continent, and certainly less than he deserves. Of these reasons the principal appears to be a prevailing impression that help and encouragement are unlikely to be derived from so decided a pessimist. This we believe to be an error, yet one that can only be dispelled by reference to the 'Canti'; and it is with a view to facilitate the study of the best and most striking of these remarkable productions that the following notes and translations have been prepared. This, it will be seen, brings us to the other great cause of British neglect the inadequacy of the existing translations of the poet into our tongue. Italian is not a difficult language to acquire so far as ordinary prose, or even narrative verse, is concerned; but the idiomatic forms on which a subjective poet relies for compression and other effects offer serious obstacles to the student. A good translation is therefore indispensable; yet this evident want has not hitherto been met. Of course we are aware that an almost complete translation of the odes, by Mr J. M. Morrison, was published about ten years ago; but this work, though conscientious and painstaking, preserves little beyond the literal meaning of the original. Sir Theodore Martin, shortly before the close of a long and active literary life, issued a translation of some of the odes which certainly contains many good lines, but is very unequal, occasionally lapses into prose, and entirely omits the Risorgimento,' in spite of its importance as the pole on which this poetic galaxy revolves. There is also Mr F. H. Cliffe's more recent version, which repays perusal, and may be consulted by those desiring to have the entire work before them; but it does not reproduce the higher qualities of the orginal verse. All these able writers have been animated by love of their author and admiration for his work, but their performances do not close the field to fresh endeavour, nor can it be said that any single ode has hitherto been translated in a manner which even by courtesy can be described as adequate. In truth the difficulty of such a task is very great, the precise thought of our author being so often apparently inseparable from the words chosen to express it. But this is a difficulty which every attempt to translate fine poetry has to meet. An English dress, as the phrase goes, is hardly what the occasion requires, but rather, by some development of metempsychosis, a living English body in which the unquiet spirit of the Odes can feel at home, if not at peace. To translate Leopardi the writer must have been subjected, at any rate for a season, to Leopardic environment-steeped in the bitter waters that gave such mordant energy to his line. No poet has ever suffered more from the attentions, however well intended, of those who have undertaken to interpret him; and this applies to French as well as English interpretation.* The simple diction and animated style, the almost cheerful tone and singing quality of the verse that brings such sad tidings, vanish in most metrical renderings; but the prose translations published abroad have considerable value, and their example might well be followed here. Having thus shown the propriety of making a fresh attempt to bring the true Leopardi before English readers, we may briefly state the reasons for selecting the poems written between the spring of 1828 and the early summer of 1830 with this object. These poems form the smallest body of verse that will give an idea, sufficient for our purpose, of the author's genius; they have a certain unity and continuity; and they belong to the years immediately following the writer's recovery after a period of great depression and mental effacement, of which we shall shortly speak. They are also, with one * Un homme né débile et pauvre de richesse, ('La Ginestra,' 87-93.) The above, by M. Lacaussade, is a fair example of French translation in verse. In the passage translated Leopardi says nothing about Croesus and Hercules. slight omission, the entire poetical fruit of these years, exhibit most of their writer's idiosyncrasies, and are highly charged with personal interest associated with his early life, his first affections, and his birthplace-the hills and cedar groves of Recanati, surrounding that semicloistral retreat where the young student, poet and philosopher grew to manhood and slowly discovered that, with one of the weakest and sickliest bodies, he possessed probably the most powerful mind in Italy. It is this 'Power girt round with weakness'-physical, not mental or moral weakness as with Shelley, Cowper and others— whom we would introduce to a wider circle than can study him with any pleasure in his own tongue; and the short series we have selected-standing midway in point of time between the Ode to Italy,' which at the age of nineteen established his fame, and the Ginestra,' apparently heralding at the close of his life a new departure, had time permitted-seems well adapted to that end. The last on our list is also thought by many, though we do not quite share this opinion, to be the author's masterpiece, and is unquestionably the most brilliant of the Odes. Of Leopardi's literary environment and the great names, such as Niebuhr and Bunsen, that appear even in his youthful correspondence, attesting the consideration very early entertained for him by these leaders of European thought, we can say nothing at present, nor do we propose to discuss his philological, philosophical or epistolary labours; but a word may be added touching his English contemporaries and competitors. In 1822, when, shortly after his twenty-fourth birthday, his father, Monaldo, first allowed him to quit Recanati, he visited Rome, where Keats had died a year and a half previously; but it does not appear that the author of the two odes that challenge Leopardi's superiority on his own ground had ever held communication with him. Nor does he appear to have met Byron or Shelley. The ten years by which he was Byron's junior, combined with the comparative lateness of his best work and his essentially modern view of things, bring him more nearly into line with Victorian than with Georgian writers; that is, of course, with those of advanced tendencies such as Ruskin and Morris, for there is nothing of middle-class optimism about this 'spirit that denies the excellence of sublunar conventions and superlunar direction, and, like Mill in his celebrated essay, denounces Nature as the great criminal. With regard to our leading poets of the later Georgian period, all in some measure affected by the relaxing influences of that day, the contrast between them and Leopardi is very considerable; and what first strikes us, in the slight and cursory comparison our space permits, is the impeccability (corresponding to that mentioned by Dr Garnett in another connexion) observable in the tone, conduct and manners of this scion of a noble house on the eastern seaboard of the old Papal States. In all he says or does we perceive an almost puritanic forbearance from coarse ideas, and an ever-present sense of due restraint, probably allied to the asceticism which had part in his nature, but never prevented the eager longing for refined enjoyment that pervades and animates his poetry. In spite of his Latin blood he appears more Athenian than Roman,* yet far removed from the orgiastic Hellenism of the Byron group.† Beauty he worshipped, and Love, whereof he professes himself the life-long votary, but not with the Mænad-like devotion to these sovereign influences that impelled Shelley to sacrifice wife and friend in wild pursuit of an ideal. Further comparison, however, is difficult, owing to the far wider activity of these spoilt children of the Muse. To go back to a somewhat earlier epoch, the limited output and high finish of Gray's classic and elegiac verse and Cowper's tender sensibility suggest points of resemblance; but there is little of the inspired seer, who brings welcome or unwelcome truths from the 'great deep of being,' in these sweet singers; yet both are distinguished by similar propriety in thought and language. * He had a truly Athenian desire to set up an altar to Pity' in Western Europe. It is strange how close these Attic conceptions come to Christianity. If we go more into detail, Byron's epic, dramatic, and satiric powers hardly enter into the field of comparison, and in other matters he would appear at a disadvantage. His Isles of Greece' seems to us better than the 'Ode to Italy,' but the latter was written at nineteen, and 'The Dream' is hardly equal to 'Memories.' Leopardi's sorrow is also more genuine than Byron's. Lo gran mar dell' essere.'-Dante. |