Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/243

Rh looked upon Raphael, or sculptors upon Phidias. They deemed them the norm of excellence, and condemned themselves to a sterile imitation, which might and often did possess high literary merit, but which was entirely estranged from popular sympathies. Men like Politian and Pontano, who really could have created a national drama if they could have trusted their own instincts, were deterred from producing anything at variance with the canons in which they themselves believed. It must be said in extenuation of their error, that the classical school, with all its defects, was vastly in advance of the rude, amorphous beginnings of the romantic drama in every country but one. One little corner of Europe alone possessed in the early sixteenth century a drama at once living, indigenous, and admirable as literature. Nothing in literary history is more surprising than the gap between Gil Vicente and his contemporaries, whether classical or romantic. Had he been born an Italian instead of a Portuguese, the history of the Italian stage might possibly have been different. It nevertheless remains to be explained why no such person arose among so gifted a people, and why throughout their entire history, with one or two marked exceptions in particular departments, Italians have never had a drama that they could justly call their own.

In its first beginnings, notwithstanding, the Italian drama was as national as any other. As with all other modern European dramas, its origin was religious. Christianity found the need of replacing the heathen shows and spectacles it had suppressed, and amused the people with representations of Scriptural subjects, or of incidents in the lives of the saints. For centuries these were never