Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/348

328 Columbus he would find a new world or drown, do the experiments of Chiabrera reveal anything new in spirit or form. To reproduce the classical ode, to substitute classical imagery and sentiment for the more metaphysical and ideal strain of Petrarchian poetry, had been essayed by several poets, including Bernardo Tasso, before Chiabrera; while to make the main theme of poetry the praise of princes and heroes instead of love, was not a striking departure in a country and an age so prone to flattery.

In epic poetry, in like manner, what is novel in Marino's and Tassoni's experiments is either negation or exaggeration. In the Adone the chief novelty is the entire extinction of the heroic spirit which in Ariosto had never quite departed despite the prevalent tone of irony. All the ornaments of style with which that poem is over-laid can be found in the romantic-epic poems of his predecessors. What Marino eviscerated, his friend and admirer Tassoni assailed with ridicule. The Secchia Rapita is the most original poem of the seventeenth century in Italy. Yet the heroic and burlesque had been mingled before. Tassoni has only heightened and intensified the strain of satire with which the mock-heroic is pervaded. The poetry of earlier burlesque is gone. And in all Tassoni's attacks upon the ideals of his day he was prompted more by spleen than by any clear perception of new ends and new ideals.