Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/430

412 These form a galaxy indeed, but belong rather to learning and science than to literature. This temporary languor of pure literature may perhaps be accounted for when it is considered that one main factor of inspiration has been removed by the contentment of the national aspirations. The subjection and oppression of the country, with all their evils, at all events afforded an intense stimulus to literary genius. Every Italian heart was possessed by the emotions most conducive to impassioned composition; and patriotic sentiment, even when not expressed in words, imbued the whole of literature. The tension removed, it was perhaps inevitable that overstrained feelings should decline to a lower level, which may be suddenly elevated by the occurrence of some great national crisis, or the appearance of some genius gifted, like Mazzini and Carducci, with an especial power of influencing the young. What Italian letters seem to want above all things is men, other than poets and novelists, capable of impressing their own individuality on what they write, and such men are most readily formed either by the agitation of stirring times, or by the contagious enthusiasm caught from a great teacher.

The opinions of many eminent living men of letters on the future of their country's literature have been collected by Signor Ugo Ojetti in his Alla scoperta dei Letterati (1895). They are not in general of a very encouraging character, but their weight is considerably impaired by their almost complete restriction to a single branch of literature, and that one whose preponderance is by no means to be desired. Almost all the authors interviewed by Signor Ojetti are novelists, and, so far as appears from his reports, would appear utterly unconscious of the