From “The Influence of Literature upon Society.”
THE GREATEST part of the ancient manuscripts, the monuments of art, and, in short, all the remains of Roman splendor and knowledge, existed in Italy; and considerable expenses and the authority of public power were necessary in order to make the researches requisite to bring them to light. It was consequently in this country, where the sources of all scientific pursuits were to be found, that literature first made its reappearance, and commenced its career under the auspices of princes; for the different means which are indispensably necessary to the first progress, are immediately dependent upon the power and will of government.
The protection of the Italian princes greatly contributed to the revival of letters; but it must have been an obstacle to the light of philosophy, and those obstacles would have existed even if religious superstition had not, in many instances, been detrimental to the investigation of truth.
I must once more explain the meaning which I have constantly attached to the word Philosophy in the course of this work; what I mean by the use of that term is a more minute inquiry into the principles of political and religious institutions; the analysis of characters, and the events of history,—in a word, the study of the human heart and the natural rights of man. Such a philosophy imagines a state of liberty, or must necessarily lead towards it.
The men of letters in Italy were further from that independence requisite to this philosophy than any other nation; as they required pecuniary means and the approbation of princes, in order to discover those manuscripts of antiquity that were to serve them as guides.
There were in all the great cities of Italy numberless academies and universities; these associations were particularly proper for the learned researches that were to rescue from oblivion so many superior compositions of antiquity. But these public establishments, even from the nature of their institutions, were entirely under the subjection of government; and the corporations, like all other orders, classes, and sects, were extremely useful to one particular aim, but much less favorable than the efforts of individual genius to the advancement of philosophy. We must add to these general reflections, that the long and patient researches requisite for the examination of the ancient manuscripts was peculiarly adapted to a monastic life; and the monks, in fact, were the most active in the study of literature. Thus the same cause which produced the revival of letters opposed the development of natural reason. The Italians took the first steps, and pointed out the way in which the human understanding has since made such immense progress; but they were destined never to make any advance in the path which they themselves had laid open.
In Italy the imagination was intoxicated by the inimitable charms of poetry and the fine arts; but the writers in prose were, in general, neither moralists nor philosophers, and their efforts to appear eloquent produced nothing but bombast. Nevertheless, as it is in the nature of the human understanding always to improve, the Italians, to whom philosophy was interdicted, and who could not, in poetry, exceed the limit prescribed to all arts,—that of perfection,—the Italians, I say, rendered themselves illustrious by the astonishing progress which, by their perseverance, they affected in the sciences. After the century of Leo X., after Ariosto and Tasso, their poetry visibly assumed a retrograde course; but, in Galileo, Cassini, and in others still more recently, they acquired a number of useful discoveries in nature which associated them for the intellectual perfection of the human species.
Superstition made many attempts to persecute Galileo, but a number of the Italian princes came to his relief. Religious fanaticism is very inimical to the arts and sciences, as well as to philosophy; but absolute regal power, or federal aristocracy, have often protected them, and are only averse to a philosophical independence.
In a country where priesthood is predominant, every evil and every prejudice have been often found united; but the diversity of governments in Italy lightened the yoke of priesthood by creating a rivalry between those states or princes, who secured the very limited independence necessary to the arts and sciences.
After having affirmed that it was in the sciences only that the Italians advanced progressively, and furnished their tribute towards the general knowledge of the human species, let us proceed to examine into each branch of intellectual learning, into philosophy, eloquence, and poetry, with the causes of the successes and failures of the Italian literature.
The subdivision of states in the same country is, in general, very favorable to philosophy; this is what I have occasion to show in speaking of the German literature. But in Italy this subdivision did not produce its natural effect; the despotism of the priests destroyed, in a great measure, the happy results which might have arisen from a federal government; it would perhaps have been better if the whole nation had been united under one government; their recollection would have been more active, and the sentiments it inspired would have produced a retrospect favorable to virtue.
Principalities, whether under a federal or a theocratical government, have each of them been a prey to civil wars, parties, and factions altogether unfavorable to liberty. The minds of men were depraved by mutual hatred, instead of being enlarged by the love of their country. Even while they submitted to tyranny, they were familiar with assassination; incredulity was occasionally found the companion of fanaticism, but sound reason was never to be met with.
The Italians, notwithstanding their general incredulity and their universal professions, were much more addicted to pleasantry than reasoning,—which led them to make a jest of their own existence. When they wished to lay aside their natural talent, the comic, and attempted eloquent orations, they were always mixed with the most absurd affectation. Their recollection of past grandeur, without one idea of present greatness, must necessarily produce the stupendous. The Italians might possess dignity, if there were any mixture of the gloomy or melancholy in their characters; but when the successors of the Romans, deprived of all national splendor, and all political liberty, are yet the gayest people on earth, it shows that there is a natural want of elevation of soul.
It was perhaps from antipathy to the Italian bombast, that Machiavelli used such extreme simplicity when he analyzed tyranny. It is very probable that he wished that the horror of crimes should arise from the development of their principles; and carrying his contempt rather too far even for the appearance of declamation, he left everything to the imagination of his readers. The reflections of Machiavelli upon Titus Livy are far superior to his “Prince.” These reflections may be considered as one of the works in which the human understanding has showed itself to the greatest advantage; such a production belongs entirely to the genius of the author, and has no connection with the general character of the Italian literature.
The literature of the Spaniards ought to have been more remarkable than that of the Italians; it should have united the imagination of the North with that of the East, the Oriental grandeur with the splendor of chivalry, the martial spirit which repeated wars had exalted, and the poetry which was inspired by the beauty of their climate: but regal power, which served as a prop for superstition, stifled in their birth those puerile dispositions to glory.
The subdivision of states, although it precluded Italy from becoming one nation, gave sufficient liberty for the study of the sciences; but the united despotism of Spain, in encouraging the active power of the Inquisition, left no pursuit for thought, no resource nor means of escaping the yoke. We may, however, judge what the Spanish literature might have been, by some essays which may yet be collected.
The romances of the Moors established in Spain borrowed their respect for the fair sex from chivalry. This respect was not to be found in the national manners of the East. The Arabs who remained in Africa did not in this instance resemble the Arabs established in Spain; the Moors inspired the Spaniards with their spirit of magnificence; and the Spaniards reciprocally taught their love and their chivalric honor to the Moors. No mixture could be more favorable to works of imagination, if literature had been encouraged in Spain. Amongst their romances, the “Cid” gives us some idea of the grandeur which would have characterized the efforts of their genius. In the poem of Camoens, which is written in the same spirit as many of the Spanish productions, we find a most beautiful fiction in the phantom which defends the entrance of the Indian seas. In the comedies of Calderoni, and of Lopez de Vega, an elevation of sentiment always shines through the cloud of faults by which their beauties are veiled. The love and jealousy of the Spaniards have quite a different character from the sentiments represented in the Italian pieces; their expressions are very subtile, though not entirely insipid; they never portray perfidy of character nor depravity of manners: it is true, they have too much pompousness of style; but while we condemn their bombast, we are convinced of the truth of their sentiments. It is not the same in Italy: if the affectation of certain works were taken away, there would remain nothing at all; while, if we could remove that of the Spaniards, they would shortly attain to the perfection of dignity, courage, and the most affecting sensibility.
It was not possible that the elements of philosophy could be improved in Spain; the invasion of the North introduced nothing but the military spirit; and the Arabians were altogether enemies to philosophy: their absolute government, and the fatality of their religion, led them to detest the light of philosophy: this hatred caused them to burn the library of Alexandria. They, however, cultivated the sciences and poetry: but they studied the former like astrologers, and the latter like warriors. They cultivated their vocal talents, merely to sing their exploits; and they studied nature only with the hopes of attaining the magic art. They had no idea of strengthening their reason: and in reality, to what use could they have applied a faculty which would have overthrown what they most respected, despotism and superstition?
The Spaniards, strangers like the Italians to the labors of philosophy, were entirely diverted from all literary emulation by the gloomy and oppressive tyranny of the Inquisition. They drew no profit from the inexhaustible sources of poetic invention which the Arabians brought with them. Italy was in possession of the ancient monuments; was also immediately connected with the Greeks of Constantinople; and drew from Spain the Oriental style, which the Moors had introduced, but which the Spaniards neglected….
In Italy everything conspired to fill the life of man with the agreeable sensations which naturally arise from their fine arts and their unclouded sun; but since this country has lost the empire of the world, it seems as if its inhabitants disdained a political existence; and, according to the maxims of Cæsar, they aspired to the first rank in pleasure, rather than the second place in the annals of fame.
Dante having, as well as Machiavelli, supported a character in the civil commotions of his country, in some of his poems we observe an energy in no degree analogous to the literature of his time; but the numberless faults with which we may reproach him, belonged without doubt to the century he lived in. It is only in the time of Leo X. that we remark a decided purity in the Italian literature; the ascendency of this prince was to the Italian government what unity might have been; the rays of knowledge were collected into one focus, in which taste also might have been concentrated, and literary judgments have proceeded from the same tribunal.
After the age of the Medici, the Italian literature made no progress of any kind, either because some central point was necessary to rally all the forces of the intellect, or, principally, because philosophy was not at all cultivated in Italy. When the literature of imagination has attained to the highest possible degree of perfection, the subsequent age belongs to philosophy, in order that the human understanding may not cease in its advancement towards perfection in some way or other. After Racine, we have seen Voltaire; because, in the eighteenth century, men were more profound thinkers than in the seventeenth. But what could have been added to the excellence of poetry after Racine?
The Italians have no romances like those of the French and English, because the love which inspired them, not being a passion of the mind capable of any long continuation, their customs and manners were too licentious to preserve any interest in this style. Their comedies were filled with that kind of buffoonery which arises from the absurdities and vices; but we do not find, if we except a few pieces of Goldoni, one striking and variegated picture of the vices of the human heart, such as are found in the French comedies. The Italians simply wished to create laughter; no serious aim can be discovered through the veil of flippancy, and their comedies are not the picture of human life, but its caricature.
The Italians, even in their theatres, have often turned their priests into ridicule, although in other respects they were entirely subjected to them; but it was not with a philosophical view that they attacked the abuses of religion; they had not, like some of our writers a wish to reform the faults they complained of; it was easy to perceive that their real opinions were totally opposite to that kind of authority to which they were compelled to submit; but this spirit of opposition incited them to nothing more than a contempt for those who commanded esteem; it was like the cunning of children to their teachers; they were willing to obey them on condition they might be permitted to make sport of them.
It follows from this that all the works of the Italians, except those which treat on physical sciences, have nothing useful in view; which is absolutely necessary in order to give a real strength and solidity to their reflections. The works of Beccaria, Filangieri, and a few others, make the only exception to what I have now advanced.
One question more remains to be decided before I close,—which is, whether the Italians have carried the dramatic art to any length in tragedy.
For myself, in spite of the charms of Metastasio, and the energy of Alfieri, I do not think they have. The Italians have a lively invention in subjects, and a brilliancy in expression; but the personages which they represent are not characterized in a manner to leave any lasting traces on the mind; and the affliction which they portray excites but little sympathy. This may be occasioned by their moral and political situation, not allowing the mind its full display: their sensibility is not serious, their sadness is without melancholy, and their grandeur commands no respect. The Italian author was therefore obliged to have recourse entirely to himself; and, to compose a tragedy, he must not only forget all he sees, but renounce all his habitual ideas and impressions: and it is very difficult to find out the true basis of a tragedy which is so widely different from the general manners and customs of the time in which it was composed.
Vengeance is the passion which is the best described in the Italian tragedies: it is natural to their character to be suddenly roused by this sentiment in the midst of that habitual indolence in which they spent their lives; and their resentments were naturally expressed, because they really felt them.
The operas alone were followed, because at the opera was heard that enchanting music which was the glory and pleasure of Italy. The performers did not exert themselves in tragedy; fine acting would have been thrown away; they were not even heard; and it must ever be thus, when the art of touching the passions is not carried to a sufficient length to predominate over every other pleasure. The Italians did not require to be softened, and the authors for want of spectators, and the spectators for want of authors, did not give themselves up to the profound impressions of the dramatic art.
Metastasio, however, found out the secret of turning his operas almost into tragedies; and though compelled to struggle with all the difficulties imposed by the obligation of submitting to music, he still preserved many beauties of style and situation truly dramatic. It may be that there exist yet some other exceptions little known to strangers; but to draw the principal characters of any national literature, it is absolutely necessary to lay aside many details; there are no general ideas that are not contradicted by certain exemptions; but the mind would be incapable of ever forming any determination, if it were to stop at each particular instead of drawing a consequence from a collective whole.
Melancholy, that sentiment which is so fertile in works of genius, appears to have belonged almost exclusively to the people of the North. The Oriental style, which the Italians have often imitated, had a sort of melancholy of which we find some traces in the Arabian poetry, and likewise in the Hebrew psalms; but it has a character entirely distinct from that we shall find when we analyze the literature of the North.
The people of the East, whether Jews or Mahometans, were sustained and directed by their positive reliance on their religion. It was not that uncertain and undetermined apprehension which afforded the mind a more philosophical impression; the melancholy of the Orientals was that of men who were happy from every enjoyment of nature; they simply reflected with regret upon the brevity of human life, and the rapid decay of prosperity; while the melancholy of the people of the North was that which is inspired by the sufferings of the mind, the void which the absence of sensibility makes in the existence, and that continual musing upon the calamities of this life, and the uncertainty of their destiny in a life to come.
