Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 1

Leigh Hunt, Luigi Pulci, 1265-1321 [Contributor] Dante Alighieri

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• Publié par: enno
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 30
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories from the
Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1,
by Leigh Hunt
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Title: Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of
the Writers, Volume 1
Author: Leigh Hunt
Release Date: January 31, 2004 [EBook #10885]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK STORIES FROM THE ITALIAN POETS
***
Produced by Stan Goodman, Jayam Subramanian
and PG Distributed ProofreadersSTORIES FROM THE
ITALIAN POETS: WITH
LIVES OF THE
WRITERS.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.MDCCCXLVI.TO SIR PERCY SHELLEY,
BART.
MY DEAR SIR PERCY,
As I know no man who surpasses yourself either in
combining a love of the most romantic fiction with
the coolest good sense, or in passing from the
driest metaphysical questions to the heartiest
enjoyment of humour,—I trust that even a modesty
so true as yours will not grudge me the satisfaction
of inscribing these volumes with your name.
That you should possess such varieties of taste is
no wonder, considering what an abundance of
intellectual honours you inherit; nor might the world
have been the better for it, had they been tastes,
and nothing more. But that you should inherit also
that zeal for justice to mankind, which has become
so Christian a feature in the character of the age,
and that you should include in that zeal a special
regard for the welfare of your Father's Friend, are
subjects of constant pleasurable reflection to
Your obliged and affectionate
LEIGH HUNT.PREFACE.
The purpose of these volumes is, to add to the
stock of tales from the Italian writers; to retain as
much of the poetry of the originals as it is in the
power of the writer's prose to compass; and to
furnish careful biographical notices of the authors.
There have been several collections of stories from
the Novellists of Italy, but none from the Poets;
and it struck me that prose versions from these, of
the kind here offered to the public, might not be
unwillingly received. The stories are selected from
the five principal narrative poets, Dante, Pulci,
Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso; they comprise the
most popular of such as are fit for translation; are
reduced into one continuous narrative, when
diffused and interrupted, as in the instances of
those of Angelica, and Armida; are accompanied
with critical and explanatory notes; and, in the case
of Dante, consist of an abstract of the poet's whole
work. The volumes are, furthermore, interspersed
with the most favourite morceaux of the originals,
followed sometimes with attempts to versify them;
and in the Appendix, for the furtherance of the
study of the Italian language, are given entire
stories, also in the original, and occasionally
rendered in like manner. The book is particularly
intended for such students or other lovers of the
language as are pleased with any fresh
endeavours to recommend it; and, at the same
time, for such purely English readers as wish to
know something about Italian poetry, without
having leisure to cultivate its acquaintance.I did not intend in the first instance to depart from
the plan of selection in the case of Dante; but when
I considered what an extraordinary person he was,
—how intense is every thing which he says,—how
widely he has re-attracted of late the attention of
the world,—how willingly perhaps his poem might
be regarded by the reader as being itself one
continued story (which, in fact, it is), related
personally of the writer,—and lastly, what a
combination of difficulties have prevented his best
translators in verse from giving the public a just
idea of his almost Scriptural simplicity,—I began to
think that an abstract of his entire work might
possibly be looked upon as supplying something of
a desideratum. I am aware that nothing but verse
can do perfect justice to verse; but besides the
imperfections which are pardonable, because
inevitable, in all such metrical endeavours, the
desire to impress a grand and worshipful idea of
Dante has been too apt to lead his translators into
a tone and manner the reverse of his passionate,
practical, and creative style—a style which may be
said to write things instead of words; and thus to
render every word that is put out of its place, or
brought in for help and filling up, a
misrepresentation. I do not mean to say, that he
himself never does any thing of the sort, or does
not occasionally assume too much of the oracle
and the schoolmaster, in manner as well as matter;
but passion, and the absence of the superfluous,
are the chief characteristics of his poetry.
Fortunately, this sincerity of purpose and utterance
in Dante render him the least pervertible of poets ina sincere prose translation; and, since I ventured
on attempting one, I have had the pleasure of
meeting with an express recommendation of such
a version in an early number of the Edinburgh
Review.[1]
The abstract of Dante, therefore, in these volumes
(with every deprecation that becomes me of being
supposed to pretend to give a thorough idea of any
poetry whatsoever, especially without its metrical
form) aspires to be regarded as, at all events, not
exhibiting a false idea of the Dantesque spirit in
point of feeling and expression. It is true, I have
omitted long tedious lectures of scholastic divinity,
and other learned absurdities of the time, which
are among the bars to the poem's being read
through, even in Italy (which Foscolo tells us is
never the case); and I have compressed the work
in other passages not essentially necessary to the
formation of a just idea of the author. But quite
enough remains to suggest it to the intelligent; and
in no instance have I made additions or alterations.
There is warrant—I hope I may say letter—for
every thing put down. Dante is the greatest poet
for intensity that ever lived; and he excites a
corresponding emotion in his reader—I wish I could
say, always on the poet's side; but his ferocious
hates and bigotries too often tempt us to hate the
bigot, and always compel us to take part with the
fellow-creatures whom he outrages. At least, such
is their effect on myself. Nor will he or his
worshippers suffer us to criticise his faults with
mere reference to the age in which he lived. I
should have been glad to do so; but the claimsmade for him, even by himself, will not allow it. We
are called upon to look on him as a divine, a
prophet, an oracle in all respects for all time. Such
a man, however, is the last whom a reporter is
inclined to misrepresent. We respect his sincerity
too much, ferocious and arrogant though it be; and
we like to give him the full benefit of the recoil of
his curses and maledictions. I hope I have not
omitted one. On the other hand, as little have I
closed my feelings against the lovely and
enchanting sweetness which this great semi-
barbarian sometimes so affectingly utters. On
those occasions he is like an angel enclosed for
penance in some furious giant, and permitted to
weep through the creature's eyes.
The stories from goodnatured Pulci I have been
obliged to compress for other reasons—chiefly
their excessive diffuseness. A paragraph of the
version will sometimes comprise many pages.
Those of Boiardo and Ariosto are more exact; and
the reader will be good enough to bear in mind,
that nothing is added to any of the poets, different
as the case might seem here and there on
comparison with the originals. An equivalent for
whatever is said is to be found in some part of the
context—generally in letter, always in spirit. The
least characteristically exact passages are some in
the love-scenes of Tasso; for I have omitted the
plays upon words and other corruptions in style, in
which that poet permitted himself to indulge. But I
have noticed the circumstance in the comment. In
other respects, I have endeavoured to make my
version convey some idea of the different stylesand genius of the writers,—of the severe passion
of Dante; of the overflowing gaiety and affecting
sympathies of Pulci, several of whose passages in
the Battle of Roncesvalles are masterpieces of
pathos; of the romantic and inventive elegance of
Boiardo; the great cheerful universality of Ariosto,
like a healthy anima mundi; and the ambitious
irritability, the fairy imagination, and tender but
somewhat effeminate voluptuousness of the poet
of Armida and Rinaldo. I do not pretend that prose
versions of passages from these writers can
supersede the necessity of metrical ones,
supposing proper metrical ones attainable. They
suffice for them, in some respects, less than for
Dante, the manner in their case being of more
importance to the effect. But with all due respect to
such translators as Harrington, Rose, and Wiffen,
their books are not Ariosto and Tasso, even in
manner. Harrington, the gay "godson"