ITALIAN POETRY IN THE POEMS OF BROWNING.
I. GENERAL STATEMENT.--Of the two hundred and twenty-two of Browning’s
poems, ten contain the name of an Italian poet or of his writings.
Five imaginary writers--Aprile, Plara, Bocafoli, Eglamor, Stiatta--and
eleven who belong to the history of Italian literature--Sordello, Nina,
Alcamo, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Tasso, Sacchetti, Marino, Aretino,
and Tommaseo--compose the list. Of the historical poets, Dante is given
the most important place; for besides the direct tribute that is paid
him, his name or the name of his great work occurs in seven poems out
of the ten. Sordello, a most insignificant poet from the historical
standpoint, receives more extended treatment than any other literary
figure in Browning’s works. Of the entire list of poems, three deal
with the life and aspirations of a poet as the main theme--_Pauline_,
which, by the way, is really non-Italianate, _Paracelsus_, in which the
poet Aprile is contrasted with the scholar, and _Sordello_.
II. PREDOMINANCE IN EARLY POEMS.--Within the first eight years
of Browning’s career, he published four long poems--_Pauline_,
_Paracelsus_, _Strafford_, and _Sordello_. Three of them deal in
some way with the life of a poet. After this first period, with the
possible exception of _One Word More_, which is essentially a study
in comparative art, there is no extended discussion of this sort in
any poem, either Italianate or non-Italianate. _How it Strikes a
Contemporary_ deals with the attitude of the general public toward the
life and purposes of a poet, but not, as did the early group, with the
poet’s solution of his own problem concerning his relation toward his
work and humanity. It was written much later, when Browning was more
fully settled in his poetical career.
_Pauline_ is an autobiographical sketch of a poet’s early doubts and
aspirations, largely devoted to appreciation of Shelley, and without
Italianate quality; _Paracelsus_ and _Sordello_ deal with Italian
writers of verse. Since these all belong in the same period and that
the early one, it is clear that Browning was endeavoring to establish
his own ideas of a poet, and these poems were the expression of that
effort. But he chose to express his conclusions by giving the negative
side, not the positive; for Aprile, Sordello, Eglamor, Plara, Bocafoli,
and in a lesser degree Nina and Alcamo, are all failures. Not all of
them absolute and hopeless, for Sordello dies with a moral victory won,
Aprile is successful in part, and Nina and Alcamo have their strength
and grace; but still none of these poets has fully attained.
III. SORDELLO.--In _Sordello_, the character of that name has a
shadowy existence in history as one of the most famous of the Italian
troubadours. He seems to have been confused with another Sordello who
was a politician and man of action. Since such scant facts as can be
gathered speak of scandals, and tavern brawls, Browning’s portrait of
him is clearly an idealization, and he probably chose Sordello instead
of some better known figure that the facts might not interfere with the
imaginative picture with which he wished to surround him. The thirty
books which Browning read on the history of the period were not read to
add to his knowledge of the troubadour, but since even the idealized
Sordello had to be represented as having lived at some time and place,
to give the correct background for his life and actions.
Browning shows that Sordello failed because he loved the applause he
received rather than the poetry itself, because the aspirations of the
man and the poet were at war within him, because he lacked feeling
for humanity, and because he was not decisive enough to succeed when
he attempted action. The moral victory at the close is for dramatic
purposes, and the dominant theme of the poem as a whole is the failure
of a poet.
IV. THE IMAGINARY POETS.--Eglamor, a purely fictitious poet in
_Sordello_, has made verse his only ambition. Lacking all perception
of his life as a man, when he is vanquished in verse-making, he dies.
Plara, in the same poem, stands for the poet without depth or genius,
unable to write anything of thought value, polishing his poems until
they were merely pretty words, lacking utterly in any interpretation of
human life. Bocafoli, with his “stark-naked” psalms, represents the
sensualist. While Nina and Alcamo belong to history, they have such
shadowy existence so far as present knowledge is concerned, that they
will be considered here. They stand respectively for strength and for
grace, and Browning represents the low voice as saying to Sordello:
“Nina’s strength, but Alcamo’s the grace,
Each neutralises each then! Search your fill;
You get no whole and perfect Poet--still
New Ninas, Alcamos, till time’s midnight
Shrouds all--or better say, the shutting light
Of a forgotten yesterday.”
Aprile, in the poem fashioned about Paracelsus, the wandering scholar,
typifies love as the latter represents knowledge. Through Aprile, the
foil to Paracelsus, the latter comes to see in part the mistakes in his
attitude toward life, and declares
“I too have sought to KNOW as thou to LOVE--
Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge.
* * * * *
Are we not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom this strange chance unites once more?”
And Aprile exclaims:
“Yes, I see now. God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.”
V. THE ITALIAN AS THE TYPE OF FAILURE.--Browning used seven poets to
typify failure, three historical and four imaginary ones. All these
were Italians, and all suggest the conclusion--“You get no whole and
perfect Poet.” This, then, must have been Browning’s conclusion.
Naturally enough he does not picture for us a poet representing that
for which he himself, after considering different kinds of failure,
has decided to strive. By the very values the failures do not
represent, however, Browning gave us a vision of his own ideals. Lack
of knowledge, lack of strength, of grace, sensuality, superficiality,
lack of purpose, and of interest in humanity--these are the causes of
failure as represented by Aprile, Alcamo, Nina, Bocafoli, Plara, and
Sordello.
It would be unfair to say that these unsuccessful poets are typical of
the Italian nation; but it can be safely stated that they are fairly
representative of Italian weaknesses. A predominance of ill controlled
feeling is the most inclusive characteristic of the group --a trait
which is perhaps marked in Italians of the least desirable class. It is
also significant, in contrast to Browning’s own nature, that no poet of
his group of failures represents an intelligent, unselfish interest in
human life.
VI. ITALIAN MEN OF LETTERS: DANTE.--Of the great Italian men of
letters, Dante is the only one who is mentioned in _Sordello_, and with
the exception of the Shelley references in _Memorabilia_ and _Pauline_,
Browning pays him the most perfect tribute he ever gave a writer, in
the last two lines of the following passage:
“Dante, pacer of the shore
Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume,
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope,
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God’s eye,
In gracious twilights where his chosen lie.”
Referring to the fact that Dante’s _Divina Commedia_ includes Sordello
as a character, and that _De Vulgari Eloquio_ praises him because he
had first attempted to establish an Italian vernacular, Browning names
Sordello as the forerunner of Dante. Again in the same poem, Dante is
mentioned as having called the “Palma” of Browning’s poem “Cunizza,”
and as having taken advantage of Sordello’s lost chance to establish a
vernacular.
In most of the other poems, the references to Dante are merely
incidental. _Up at a Villa_ refers to the great literary triumvirate of
Italy, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as standing in the popular mind
for all that is great in Italian letters. In _Time’s Revenges_ Dante
appears as being, in the mind of a poor, starving poet, the highest
possible standard of fame.
The only other Dante reference of any importance is in _One Word
More_. In this poem, Browning’s most beautiful tribute to his wife,
he represents every artist as wishing once, in his life, to honor his
Margarita or his Beatrice. Dante, he says in speaking of that poet,
once prepared to paint an angel, laying aside his own art of poetry.
A historical basis for this statement is found in the _Vita Nuova_.
But Browning, either intentionally or unintentionally, probably the
former, for the purpose of making this basis accord with his poetical
conception, departs from the facts in two important particulars.
Dante plainly states that his attempt at the drawing grew out of his
meditations on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice; and the
people who broke in upon him were those of his own town, to whom he
apologized for his delayed salutation, by “Another was with me.”
Browning assumes that the picture was drawn to please Beatrice and that
the people who interrupted symbolized Dante’s own thoughts about the
characters of his _Inferno_.
VII. OTHER REAL WRITERS.--Aretino and Boccaccio are both presented
throughout _The Ring and the Book_ as examples of questionable morality
in literature, or at least of tendencies in that direction.
In Part III, the gossipers speak of the case of Guido and his wife
as “this last best of the Hundred Merry Tales.” In Part V, Guido, in
his complaint against the parents of Pompilia, appeals to Boccaccio’s
“Book” and “Ser Franco’s [Sacchetti’s] Merry Tales,” as proofs of the
greed and wrong-doing of the parents in contrast to his own innocence.
Caponsacchi, in Part VI, refers to the forged letters claimed to have
been passed between himself and Pompilia, as worthy of the profligate
Aretine. In Part X, the Pope makes the same comparison, declaring
that the letters are “False to body and soul they figure forth--As
though the man had cut out shape and shape From fancies of that other
Aretine.” In Part XI, Guido attempts to prove that the Pope, in former
times, was very human, since he used to “chirrup o’er the Merry Tales.”
Later in the same section, he asserts his right to enjoy “When Master
Pietro [Aretino] rhymes a pleasantry.”
VIII. BROWNING’S KNOWLEDGE OF ITALIAN LITERATURE.--Browning’s poems
display no remarkable knowledge of Italian literature. In comparison
with that of the average American or English citizen, it is above
the ordinary, but not more than any student of literature might very
readily acquire without visiting Italy or residing there. However,
the average English student of literature, if he were a poet, would
probably embody less of that knowledge of Italy in his verse than
Browning has done. Except for the idea of failure as typified by lesser
Italian poets, the references are mainly of secondary importance,
introduced because he had chosen an Italian theme and wished to give it
reality of detail. The stimulus of Italian residence on Browning, then,
probably led to the embodiment in his poems of the literary knowledge
he already possessed. He seems to have made no particular study of
Italian letters, even after going to that country. Some scattered
references to readings in Italian literature (for example in the novels
of Sacchetti[175]) exist in the records of the Brownings in Italy; but
these references are few in comparison to those concerning sculpture
and painting.
IX. BROWNING’S INTEREST IN ITALIAN LITERATURE.--While all the
historical references, except the one to Dante noted above as a
probably intentional departure from history, are substantially correct
in both fact and spirit, Browning did not have any great interest
in Italian literature as it existed in his day. Much more space is
given to the treatment of imaginary poets, or to the idealization
of a historical one, for the sake of personality, as in the case of
Sordello. As for the other arts, then, personality is the keynote of
Browning’s appreciation of Italian literature, and of its place in his
poetry.
Browning gives very little space to any formal praise of Italian
poetry or poets, either of the past, or contemporary with himself. In
this respect his treatment of them is very similar to that he gives
to English poets. _Memorabilia_, in praise of Shelley, is his only
poem which has for its theme the unmodified praise of another poet.
As this poem and the Shelley references in _Pauline_ are Browning’s
only tributes to writers of his own country, so the praise of Dante,
in _Sordello_, is the only instance of an expressed appreciation of
Italian literature. The only Italian poet contemporary with himself
whom he mentions is Tommaseo; and he is noticed only as the author of
the inscription on the tablet erected by the city of Florence to the
memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.