This book has grown out of studies begun twenty years ago in Italy,
and continued fitfully, as I found the mood and time for them, long
after their original circumstance had become a pleasant memory. If any
one were to say that it did not fully represent the Italian poetry
of the period which it covers chronologically, I should applaud his
discernment; and perhaps I should not contend that it did much more
than indicate the general character of that poetry. At the same time,
I think that it does not ignore any principal name among the Italian
poets of the great movement which resulted in the national freedom and
unity, and it does form a sketch, however slight and desultory, of the
history of Italian poetry during the hundred years ending in 1870.
Since that time, literature has found in Italy the scientific and
realistic development which has marked it in all other countries. The
romantic school came distinctly to a close there with the close of the
long period of patriotic aspiration and endeavor; but I do not know
the more recent work, except in some of the novels, and I have not
attempted to speak of the newer poetry represented by Carducci. The
translations here are my own; I have tried to make them faithful; I am
sure they are careful.
Possibly I should not offer my book to the public at all if I knew of
another work in English studying even with my incoherence the Italian
poetry of the time mentioned, or giving a due impression of its
extraordinary solidarity. It forms part of the great intellectual
movement of which the most unmistakable signs were the French
revolution, and its numerous brood of revolutions, of the first,
second, and third generations, throughout Europe; but this poetry is
unique in the history of literature for the unswerving singleness of
its tendency.
The boundaries of epochs are very obscure, and of course the poetry of
the century closing in 1870 has much in common with earlier Italian
poetry. Parini did not begin it, nor Alfieri; it began them, and its
spirit must have been felt in the perfumed air of the soft Lorrainese
despotism at Florence when Filicaja breathed over his native land the
sigh which makes him immortal. Yet finally, every age is individual;
it has a moment of its own when its character has ceased to be
general, and has not yet begun to be general, and it is one of these
moments which is eternized in the poetry before us. It was, perhaps,
more than any other poetry in the world, an incident and an instrument
of the political redemption of the people among whom it arose.
“In free and tranquil countries,” said the novelist Guerrazzi in
conversation with M. Monnier, the sprightly Swiss critic, recently
dead, who wrote so much and so well about modern Italian literature,
“men have the happiness and the right to be artists for art's sake:
with us, this would be weakness and apathy. When I write it is because
I have something _to do_; my books are not productions, but deeds.
Before all, here in Italy we must be men. When we have not the
sword, we must take the pen. We heap together materials for building
batteries and fortresses, and it is our misfortune if these structures
are not works of art. To write slowly, coldly, of our times and of our
country, with the set purpose of creating a _chef-d'oeuvre_, would be
almost an impiety. When I compose a book, I think only of freeing my
soul, of imparting my idea or my belief. As vehicle, I choose the form
of romance, since it is popular and best liked at this day; my picture
is my thoughts, my doubts, or my dreams. I begin a story to draw the
crowd; when I feel that I have caught its ear, I say what I have
to say; when I think the lesson is growing tiresome, I take up the
anecdote again; and whenever I can leave it, I go back to my
moralizing. Detestable aesthetics, I grant you; my works of siege will
be destroyed after the war, I don't doubt; but what does it matter?”