DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE.
CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES.
DATE.
TYPICAL WORKS.
SOME INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Allegorical Poetry (“Visions”)
DANTE ALIGHIERI
1265-1321
(_Divina Commedia_)
The first model of noble style and matter in modern literature.
Afforded much suggestion to Milton (_Paradise Lost_). Chaucer
shows borrowings and translations in _e.g._, _House of Fame_,
_Parliament of Fowles_, and the story of Ugolino in _Monk’s
Tale_. Specific influences are less obvious than the general
fact.
Francesco PETRARCA
1304-1374
_Trionfi_ (“Triumphs”).
Lyrical Poetry:
(_a_) Sonnets and _Canzoni_
(Dante and his circle)
1265-1321
Francesco PETRARCA
1304-1374
Sonnets and _Canzoni_
Petrarch’s sonnets became the model for all later Italians, and
thence for Englishmen. The form (modified) was introduced into
England by Wyatt and Surrey (temp. Henry VIII) and sonnets, or
sonnet sequences, were written by more than a hundred versifiers
in the Elizabethan period. Examples are Spenser (_Amoretti_),
Sidney (_Astrophel and Stella_), Watson (_Teares of Fansie_),
Daniel (_Delia_), Drayton (_Idea_) Constable (_Diana_),
Shakespeare. Milton’s sonnets (five of them in Italian) are of
the same suggestion; and so down to them Rossetti and Mrs.
Browning. The poetical collections of Elizabethans (_Tottell’s
Miscellany_, _The Paradise of Dainty Devices_, etc.) are
markedly Italian in _provenance_.
(Lorenzo de’ Medici, etc.)
1448-1492
Sonnets and _Canzoni_.
Lodovico ARIOSTO
1474-1533
Sonnets.
Torquato TASSO
1544-1595
Sonnets.
Giovanni Battista MARINI
1569-1625
(Various.)
(_b_) Other Lyrics
Gabriello Chiabrera
1551-1637
Pindaric lyrics
Influenced the taste for Pindarics which appeared in Cowley,
Dryden, etc.
Pietro METASTASIO
1698-1782
Operatic lyrics.
Heroic and Epic Verse (chiefly romantic heroics)
Giovanni BOCCACCIO
1313-1375
_La Teseide_ and _Filostrato_
Chief introducer of the octave stanza (_ottava rima_), which
became the type for Italian epic. Adopted in English with one
modification by Chaucer (_Troilus and Cressida_), and with
another by Spenser (_Faerie Queene_). Chaucer’s _Knight’s
Tale_ is from Boccaccio’s _Teseide_, and his _Troilus and
Cressida_ (like Shakespeare’s) from the _Filostrato_. Chaucer
shows many borrowings and paraphrases.
Luigi PULCI
1431-1487
_Morgante Maggiore_ (heroic romance, serious only in part).
Matteo Maria BOIARDO
1430-1494
_Orlando Innamorato_ (mockingly recast by Berni fifty years
later).
Important as leading to Ariosto’s poem. Boiardo was well known
to Milton, and had previously served as material for Elizabethan
story writers. Byron in _Don Juan_ and _Beppo_ adopted
the “Bernesque” style.
Lodovico ARIOSTO
1474-1533
_Orlando Furioso_ (1516)
Favourite reading of Spenser, to whom it suggests the metrical
form and romantic style of _Faerie Queene_. Translated by
Harington (1591) in the same metre.
Torquato TASSO
1544-1595
_Gerusalemme Liberata_ (1581)
Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_ is full of echoes and imitations
of Tasso (the bower of Acrasia is a translation of the garden of
Armida). Milton is similarly indebted, as well as to Tasso’s
_Creation_ (_Il Mondo Creato_). Translated by Fairfax (1600).
Giovanni Battista MARINI
1569-1625
_Adone_ (a romantic epic)
Chiefly memorable for encouragement of the fantastic style known
as Marinism (early seventeenth century in England). Marini was
favourite reading with Crashaw and his like.
Mock Heroic
Alessandro Tassoni
1565-1638
_La Secchia Rapita_ (“Rape of the Bucket”).
Suggested Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_.
Satirical Verse
(Ariosto)
Luigi Alamanni
1495-1556
Utilized by Wyatt.
Pietro Aretino
1492-1557
Much affected by Elizabethan pamphleteers, _e.g._, Nash (“the
English Aretino”).
Drama: Tragedy
Giovanni Giorgio TRISSIMO
1478-1550
_Sofonisba._
Important as the first example of blank verse, which was
borrowed from him by Surrey, used in the first English tragedy
(_Gorboduc_, by Sackville), and thence established by Marlowe
for English drama.
TASSO
_Il Torrismondo._
(The French and English dramatists proper began by following the
Italian example of producing so-called classical plays: but
English drama owes little to Italian, the case being rather
the reverse. So far as Italian effect was pronounced it was in
the direction of horrible detail.)
Scipione MAFFEI
1675-1755
_Merope._
Vittorio ALFIERI
1749-1803
_Saul._
Drama: Comedy
ARIOSTO
1474-1533
_I Suppositi_ and _La Cassaria_, etc.
_I Suppositi_ (_The Supposes_) translated by Gascoigne
(1566) as one of our earliest comedies.
Niccolo MACHIAVELLI
1469-1527
_Mandragola_, etc.
(Pietro Aretino)
(The general influence in England was as slight as that of
Tragedy. It should, however, be remarked that our Harlequin,
Pantaloon, Columbine, and Punch, are derived from the old
Italian _commedie dell’arte_, _i.e._, stock un-literary
comedies: also that the “Masques” (up to Ben Jonson) were a
suggestion from Italy.)
Carlo GOLDONI
1707-1792
Comedies.
Pastoral Drama (See below, “Pastoral Eclogues.”)
Angelo POLIZIANO
fl. 1480
_Orfeo._
TASSO
1544-1595
_Aminta_ (1572)
Watson’s _Amyntas_ (1584).
Battista GUARINI
1537-1612
_Pastor Fido_ (1585)
Many times translated into English, first in 1602. Fletcher’s
_Faithful Shepherdess_.
Musical Drama (Melodrama, Opera.)
Ottavio Rinuccini
fl. 1594
_Dafne_ and _Euridice_.
Apostolo Zeno
1669-1750
Pietro METASTASIO
1698-1782
Twenty-eight grand operas (_La Semiramide_, etc.).
Pastoral Eclogues
Battista Spagnoli (MANTUANUS)
fl. 1502
Latin eclogues
Used by Barclay (1513) and freely by Spenser (_Shepheard’s
Calender_), quoted by Holofernes in Shakespeare.
Giacomo SANNAZARO
1458-1530
_Arcadia_ (1504) (prose and verse).
Original of Sidney’s _Arcadia_. (These revive pastoral poetry
among both the French (Marot) and English.)
(Marini.)
Prose Fiction
Giovanni BOCCACCIO
1313-1375
_Decameron_ (100 tales).
Suggests plan of Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_, and also several
of the tales themselves. In Elizabethan times some of them
appear in Painter’s _Palace of Pleasure_, whence _All’s
Well that Ends Well_ is derived. Well known at all times.
Ser Giovanni
Publ. 1558
_Pecorone_
Giraldi Cinthio
Publ. 1565
_Hecatommithi_
Matteo Bandello, etc.
Publ. 1554-1573
_Novelle_
Much read and used by Elizabethans (Greene, Peel, etc. ). The
storehouse of dramatic plots. Thus, _Romeo and Juliet_,
_Measure for Measure_, _Othello_, etc., are from the Novelle.
Other Prose
Niccolo MACHIAVELLI
1469-1527
_Il Principe_, _History_, _Discourses on Livy_
_The Prince_ widely read. Bacon was well acquainted with
Machiavelli, and takes occasional suggestion from him in the
_Essays_.