Rom. Lang. (044) sotheran 12-12-32 PREFACE 27083 Y preface to this book of verse requires some explanation. always accepted Dante's objection to poetical translations. I am not minded now to renounce my instinctive dislike or to traverse Dante's opinion; but I have had the privilege of reading the present book in manuscript, and I must admit that there are exceptions even among poetical "florilegia." An anthology is an essentially artificial product. Its very name says so. One can as readily gain an idea of the charm of the country in spring-time from a nosegay, as learn to appreciate a literature from a collection of isolated lyrics. But the collection, no less than the nosegay, may be a work of art and reveal the personality of the gatherer. An onlooker, or a reader who is gifted with some insight, is led to look upon nature, or upon literature, from a standpoint that is not his own, and more often than not this is of considerable advantage. Translations are no less artificial. Scarcely any translator would claim to have rendered into his own language the precise meaning, the inner feeling, the verbal expression, and the rhythm of the original. At best he can only attempt to create in his readers a state of mind not dissimilar from his own when he first read the original poem. A translation stands to the original as landscape to nature; but the painter is occasionally a great artist, and also the girl who picks and ties together a bunch of flowers can show an unexpected nicety of taste and artistic judgment. In order to appreciate such qualities in the translator the reader should be acquainted with the originals of the poems which are rendered into English, and also with many other works in prose as well as in verse. Many a reader of the present book may not be so placed at first; but, unless I am much mistaken, the majority of them will soon turn from the translations to the originals which face them in the book, and perhaps to the complete works of the poets who have been assembled here to represent the Italian Parnassus; for the greater the pleasure a translation affords, the more exquisite must be the delight derived from the perusal of the original poem. At any rate, my objections, no matter whether they be instinctive or a priori, have been effectively silenced by my conviction that Madame de' Lucchi's translations will bring about this much to be desired result. Of their inherent merit I would rather say nothing, for I am confident that all readers will be impressed by it even though they be not fully alive to the difficulties that a translator has to overcome. It will be found that the renderings are as faithful to the originals as the genius of the English, so different from the genius of the Italians, permits. They pleased me mainly because I could often detect and recognize at once, in spite of different phraseology, the familiar melody of the originals: in the same way readers of the translations will no doubt recognize as familiar the meaning and spirit of the originals when they come to study the Italian texts. That almost all will attempt such a task, and many a reader accomplish it, is, I think, certain, and surely no greater praise could be desired or a higher hope entertained by Madame de' Lucchi. About the selection itself I must say a little more. It will be manifest to all who are in a position to judge that Madame de' Lucchi has been at pains to make use of the most trustworthy editions of the original texts, thus rendering this anthology easily the best which has been published in England from the scholar's point of view. But could one expect to find specimens representative of all tendencies of Italian lyrical poetry in some eight score poems? The Italian would be the poorest of literatures if one could; and a much bulkier selection would still prove inadequate to such an ambitious undertaking. There is, however, enough that is both excellent and characteristic to render more undesirable. No small selection could be more satisfactory. There are at least four chief subjects of lyrical poetry: love, religion or philosophy, politics, and nature. Of these four subjects only one has, I think, been somewhat sacrificed. Italians are averse to parading their beliefs, and much of their religious and philosophic poetry is difficult and doctrinal, so that its omission is justified, even though certain poems of Dante or Campanella may be missed. There is a further difficulty which must be borne in mind. Much as Italians are disinclined to parade their beliefs, they are prone to make a show of their feelings and to indulge in a vein of Pan-like naturalism that would seem mere coarse ribaldry in an English rendering. Poems of this kind must needs be excluded from any English anthology, whether they be old popular lyrics, such as Bolognese lawyers were pleased to copy or Boccaccio to quote ; semi-literary" canti carnascialeschi " such as "Il Magnifico Lorenzo" and his courtiers composed, poems full of passionate realism such as Ariosto wrote, skits and satires such as several of the poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not disdain to circulate. With few exceptions they are better ignored, though it is well to remember that they exist, for their existence explains an occasional realistic expression in more refined lyrics. Likewise it would not be legitimate to infer from the fact that we have here no religious poems after St. Francis and Iacopone until Michelangelo, and after Michelangelo until Manzoni, that Italians and their poets were little affected by religion throughout those centuries. Such a conclusion has often been drawn, however, and on the strength of it the character of Italians has been unwarrantably extolled or maligned according to the personal bias of individual critics. With these exceptions, which circumstances rendered unavoidable, the selection seems to me an adequate representation of Italian lyrical poetry. This poetry was tentative at its beginnings and was often under the influence of French and Provençal models: it acquired a distinct individuality when Aristotelian and Averrhoistic theories were allowed to recreate the conception of love, and made giant strides when Dante took over the lyre from Guinizelli and Cavalcanti; it gained a new tenderness by the work of Cino and a miraculous power of minute introspection in the poems of Petrarch. |