Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/303

 12 S. VIII. MARCH 26, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 245T. attitude to the creation of the individual mind in poetry and in art. The century, which produced Galileo, was the same century in every detail which produced the basis may still have been too classical in the concept of imitation, too hedonistic in the insistence on pleasure, too ethical in the praise of good, too empirical in the division of intellect, imagination, fancy, sensual perception, too fragmentary in the actual critical detail, but it was distinctly more modern than that of the Renaissance in this effort or design of evaluating the production and means of production of the mind. In a sense the Cartesian movement in philosophy resembles this quasi -aesthetic movement in literary criticism although no influence of Descartes can be traced until the end of the century : traditional and largely extrinsic literary standards were no longer accepted by or sympathetic to this movement of spiritual inquiry. The main tendencies of the century are fully represented in Sforza Pallavicino and in his works* we may trace the first sincere effort to realize an aesthetic ideal in literary criticism an ideal which shines through a confusion of Aristotelian, Renaissance, Neo- Alexandrian, Secentist tendencies and traditions and does present a certain unity of vision. On the one side, if such a division is possible, the classical criticism with its minute study of grammatical for- mulae, its love of technical perfection, its insistence on the moral principle enters into his theory and, on the other, we find indica- tions of free, independent judgment, a desire for natural expression, simplicity in repre- sentation; clarity of artistic vision with no hint of the Marinistic sensuality and meta- phorical frippery, an admiration of poetry as a source of pure delight, a deeper understanding of the science of form. He shares with Tassoni and Boccalini, the cool, almost disinterested attitude towards the ancients : " The ancients alone do not suffice since time and the various is based are : ' Del Bene Libri Quattro (Roma Corbelletti 1644) ; ' Arte della perfezion cristiana (Milano, 1820 ; Edition used) ; ' Arte dello stile (Bologna, per G. Monti, 1647), edition used is ' Trattati su lo stile e su 1'eloquenza ' (Napoli 1 s.".(i): ' Ermenegildo, Martire ' (Roma, Cor- belletti, 1644) ; ' Awertimenti grammaticali (P. F. Rainaldi, 1661); ' Lettere ' (Roma, Ber- nabo, 1668 and Venezia, Bombi, 1678) ; ' Discorso se il Principe debba o no essere letterato ' (Roma 1 844, Edition used). tastes of man have rendered necessary some- divagation from their style";* but the- ancient and noble simplicity is set against the Marinist extravagance f while he deplores the evil influence of Petrarch who, by running riot in love-subtleties, has led to immorality in poetry " and many of his successors have added to variety of content obscenity of form."t His attitude towards Homer and the Greek epic is almost Crocian> in the denial of an allegorical interpretation,, out ethical and Renaissance in the conception of the ultimate effect of the 'Iliad' even if it is a divine thing, it is not fit to instruct a mind either in morals or in speculative- sciences^ The thought of Italian epic& ; induces melancholy : " for I remarked from one standpoint the nobility of those works, the greatness of which lies in bhe sublimity of genius and not in the value of bhe material, nor in the patience nor length of? industry : from the other, I grew sad at the thought that our century appeared fallen from, such high place. "|| The Pallavicinian theory of poetry, al- though it works from the Renaissance con- ception of poetical imitation, and at some moments lays weight on instruction and the didascalic element at the expense of the purely aesthetic, rises into a noble vision and, by giving pride of place to the- beautiful, becomes- almost spiritual arid aesthetic in this very attribute. The Renaissance ut pictura poesis contributes greatly to Pallavicino' s theory but he differs in the view of imitation : imitation is not exact reproduction without any individual touch but must depend for its efficacy on vivacity of representation and thus on the artistic expression.^ The poet, while acting as a mirror to nature, transforms that mir- rored image in the act of expression and the power of artistic transformation lies in the persuasive effect of the representation : <4 j " what is the use of depicting the poem as pro- bable if it is not taken as real. Poetical imitation, the soul of poetry, would have no utility.... Painting does not pretend that the fictitious should be held as real as the stupidity of those birds that fly to taste with their beaks the grapes painted by Zeus or of those dogs and horses t ' Arte della perfezion cristiana,' Ed. cit. p. 6. J Quoted in ' A. Belloni : II Seicento ' (Vallardi* Milano), p. 52. ' Trattato dejlo stile,' Ed. cit. p. 43. 1 'Trattato dello stile,' Chap, xxx, passim* Del Bene,' Ed. cit., p. 456.
 * Trattato dello stile ' of Pallavicino : the
 * The works of Pallavicino which this studT
 * ' Lettere,' p. 19.
 * ' Lettere,' p. 9.