Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/357

Rh of René, but adds to the merely personal sorrows of these tragic autobiographies the nobler motive of despair at the ruin and enslavement of the hero's countr, Foscolo, though born at Zante, was prouder of his Venetian descent than of his Greek nativity, and the ignominious end of so glorious a history as the Republic's not unnaturally or ignobly drove him to despair. At the same time he was usually under the spell of some woman; one of his genuine letters, indeed, written at a much later date, surpasses his romance in the eloquence of unhappy passion. Both motives combine to drive Ortis to suicide. Apart from its impressive style, the book is weak and unwholesome, but it powerfully depicts an unquestionable tendency of the age, and as such has a right to live, apart from its influence on Leopardi, George Sand, and other more recent writers of genius. Foscolo's melancholy, fretful and egotistic as it is, is not pessimism; is not grounded in the nature of things, but is always remediable by a change in external circumstances.

Unlike the exuberant Monti, Foscolo wrote little poetry, but his scanty production is of choice quality, his most celebrated poem is the Sepolcri (1807), which in style and subject bears a remarkable resemblance to the finest poem America has yet given to the world, Bryant's Thanatopsis. The American poet has conceived his work in a larger and grander spirit, and consequently surpasses Foscolo in the sublimity of his thought, though the latter's poem is longer and adorned with episodes, and in merit of execution there may be little to choose. Bryant dwells on the majesty of death; Foscolo on the reverence due to the tomb, and the immortality of the memories of the great—a fine theme undoubtedly, and deserving of the monumental eloquence with which he