No More Learning

The genius of Dante,
on the other hand, they say, appeals to all that is bold and natural in
the human breast, and they trace the grand revival of his popularity in
our own times to the re-awakened spirit of liberty. On this side of the
question the most eminent Italian scholars and poets are certainly
ranged. The most gifted man of that country with whom I was ever
personally acquainted, Ugo Foscolo, was a vehement Danteist. Yet his
copious memory was well stored with many a sonnet of Petrarch, which he
could repeat by heart; and with all his Danteism, he infused the deepest
tones of admiration into his recitation of the Petrarchan sonnets.

And altogether, Foscolo, though a cautious, is a candid admirer of our
poet. He says, "The harmony, elegance, and perfection of his poetry are
the result of long labour; but its original conceptions and pathos
always sprang from the sudden inspiration of a deep and powerful
passion. By an attentive perusal of all the writings of Petrarch, it may
be reduced almost to a certainty that, by dwelling perpetually on the
same ideas, and by allowing his mind to prey incessantly on itself, the
whole train of his feelings and reflections acquired one strong
character and tone, and, if he was ever able to suppress them for a
time, they returned to him with increased violence; that, to
tranquillize this agitated state of his mind, he, in the first instance,
communicated in a free and loose manner all that he thought and felt, in
his correspondence with his intimate friends; that he afterwards reduced
these narratives, with more order and description, into Latin verse; and
that he, lastly, perfected them with a greater profusion of imagery and
more art in his Italian poetry, the composition of which at first served
only, as he frequently says, to divert and mitigate all his afflictions.
We may thus understand the perfect concord which prevails in Petrarch's
poetry between Nature and Art; between the accuracy of fact and the
magic of invention; between depth and perspicuity; between devouring
passion and calm meditation. It is precisely because the poetry of
Petrarch originally sprang from the heart that his passion never seems
fictitious or cold, notwithstanding the profuse ornament of his style,
or the metaphysical elevation of his thoughts. "

I quote Ugo Foscolo, because he is not only a writer of strong poetic
feeling as well as philosophic judgment, but he is pre-eminent in that
Italian critical school who see the merits of Petrarch in no exaggerated
light, but, on the whole, prefer Dante to him as a poet. Petrarch's
love-poetry, Foscolo remarks, may be considered as the intermediate link
between that of the classics and the moderns. * * * * Petrarch both
feels like the ancient and philosophizes like the modern poets. When he
paints after the manner of the classics, he is equal to them.

I despair of ever seeing in English verse a translation of Petrarch's
Italian poetry that shall be adequate and popular. The term adequate, of
course, always applies to the translation of genuine poetry in a subdued
sense.
It means the best that can be expected, after making allowance
for that escape of etherial spirit which is inevitable in the transfer
of poetic thoughts from one language to another. The word popular is
also to be taken in a limited meaning regarding all translations.
Cowper's ballad of John Gilpin is twenty times more popular than his
Homer; yet the latter work is deservedly popular in comparison with the
bulk of translations from antiquity. The same thing may be said of
Cary's Dante; it is, like Cowper's Homer, as adequate and popular as
translated poetry can be expected to be. Yet I doubt if either of those
poets could have succeeded so well with Petrarch. Lady Dacre has shown
much grace and ingenuity in the passages of our poet which she has
versified; but she could not transfer into English those graces of
Petrarchan diction, which are mostly intransferable. She could not bring
the Italian language along with her.

Is not this, it may be asked, a proof that Petrarch is not so genuine a
poet as Homer and Dante, since his charm depends upon the delicacies of
diction that evaporate in the transfer from tongue to tongue, more than
on hardy thoughts that will take root in any language to which they are
transplanted? In a general view, I agree with this proposition; yet,
what we call felicitous diction can never have a potent charm without
refined thoughts, which, like essential odours, may be too impalpable to
bear transfusion. Burns has the happiest imaginable Scottish diction;
yet, what true Scotsman would bear to see him _done_ into French? And,
with the exception of German, what language has done justice to
Shakespeare?

The reader must be a true Petrarchist who is unconscious of a general
similarity in the character of his sonnets, which, in the long perusal
of them, amounts to monotony. At the same time, it must be said that
this monotonous similarity impresses the mind of Petrarch's reader
exactly in proportion to the slenderness of his acquaintance with the
poet. Does he approach Petrarch's sonnets for the first time, they will
probably appear to him all as like to each other as the sheep of a
flock; but, when he becomes more familiar with them, he will perceive an
interesting individuality in every sonnet, and will discriminate their
individual character as precisely as the shepherd can distinguish every
single sheep of his flock by its voice and face. It would be rather
tedious to pull out, one by one, all the sheep and lambs of our poet's
flock of sonnets, and to enumerate the varieties of their bleat; and
though, by studying the subject half his lifetime, a man might classify
them by their main characteristics, he would find they defy a perfect
classification, as they often blend different qualities. Some of them
have a uniform expression of calm and beautiful feeling.