Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 484 pages of information about Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6).

Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 484 pages of information about Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6).
lowest branches of the art, and description as a mere ornament, but which should never form the “subject” of a poem.  The Italians, with the most poetical language, and the most fastidious taste in Europe, possess now five great poets, they say, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and, lastly, Alfieri[1]; and whom do they esteem one of the highest of these, and some of them the very highest?  Petrarch the sonneteer:  it is true that some of his Canzoni are not less esteemed, but not more; who ever dreams of his Latin Africa?

[Footnote 1:  Of these there is one ranked with the others for his SONNETS, and two for compositions which belong to no class at all?  Where is Dante?  His poem is not an epic; then what is it?  He himself calls it a “divine comedy;” and why?  This is more than all his thousand commentators have been able to explain.  Ariosto’s is not an epic poem; and if poets are to be classed according to the genus of their poetry, where is he to be placed?  Of these five, Tasso and Alfieri only come within Aristotle’s arrangement, and Mr. Bowles’s class-book.  But the whole position is false.  Poets are classed by the power of their performance, and not according to its rank in a gradus.  In the contrary case, the forgotten epic poets of all countries would rank above Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Burns, Gray, Dryden, and the highest names of various countries.  Mr. Bowles’s title of “invariable principles of poetry,” is, perhaps, the most arrogant ever prefixed to a volume.  So far are the principles of poetry from being “invariable,” that they never were nor ever will be settled.  These “principles” mean nothing more than the predilections of a particular age; and every age has its own, and a different from its predecessor.  It is now Homer, and now Virgil; once Dryden, and since Walter Scott; now Corneille, and now Racine; now Crebillon, now Voltaire.  The Homerists and Virgilians in France disputed for half a century.  Not fifty years ago the Italians neglected Dante—­Bettinelli reproved Monti for reading “that barbarian;” at present they adore him.  Shakspeare and Milton have had their rise, and they will have their decline.  Already they have more than once fluctuated, as must be the case with all the dramatists and poets of a living language.  This does not depend upon their merits, but upon the ordinary vicissitudes of human opinions.  Schlegel and Madame de Stael have endeavoured also to reduce poetry to two systems, classical and romantic.  The effect is only beginning.]

Were Petrarch to be ranked according to the “order” of his compositions, where would the best of sonnets place him? with Dante and the others? no; but, as I have before said, the poet who executes best, is the highest, whatever his department, and will ever be so rated in the world’s esteem.

Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory:  without it, his odes would be insufficient for his fame.  The depreciation of Pope is partly founded upon a false idea of the dignity of his order of poetry, to which he has partly contributed by the ingenuous boast,

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Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.