Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/355

 ias." vin. Aram 9, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 289 In the ' Trattato dello stile ' some modifica- tion has been introduced into the conception of the beautiful : " Vision and fancy very similar in name and nature to vision and not the intellect make use of the beautiful to find delight."* The intellect, however, even if it takes pleasure in the contemplation of the beauti- ful, finds delight only in the truef. But the poet " charmed by the perception of the beautiful alone and in the continual dwelling of thought on it, bears in his intellect the impression of what comes to him through vision."^: Neither Gravina, Muratori nor Conti in the eighteenth century betray the slightest knowledge of this purely aesthetic conception of the beautiful. He develops further the philosophical or rather psychological theory of pleasure, employing the words of Dante : " When I have set out to show that pleasure is only good and desirable by nature, I mean as an end : and from this it is evident that even as a means nothing is good and desirable except by reason of the pleasure it brings. By pleasure I luean a feeling of mellowness and rest in the appetite before the presence of the loved object a feeling called hi the sensual appetite voluptuous- ness, in the intellectual rapture. But all the other feelings are moved by will and pleasure alone gives it repose, as our ancient Poet explained very finely in the words : ' So the enamoured mind falls to desire which} is a spiritual movement, and never rests unti, the object of its love makes it rejoice (Purg.' Poetry is no longer a moral instrument but absolutely independent as an art, the aim of which is to give pleasure directly. Although traces of this somewhat in- volved idea are to be found in Renaissance critics and notably in Vettori and Castel- vetro, there is no doubt that Pallavicino aimed at defining the aesthetic unity under- lying tragic representation, and the aesthetic pleasure derived from the effect does supply this unity. Not the actual emotions but the perception of that emotion gives aesthetic pleasure, identification of representation and the^ spirit of both poet and spectator. The more enduring and therefore most valuable part of Pallavicino' s literary theory and what we might call his aesthetic lies in his definition of sense perceptions prime apprensioni and of fancy and their relation to ingegno and intellect. The progression t ' Trattato dello stile,' chap. 10. ' Del Bene,' p. 359. ' Del Bene,' p. 428, p. 28, p. 39. from reality to intelligence is formed by sensual perception, judgment and distillation by the faculty of reason. All three are per- ceptions varying in degree and united in intellect ; but sense perceptions escape intellect at times and in themselves provide material for fancy and imaginative con- struction. Pallavicino does not affirm directly the value of that poetical intuition which can assimilate externals to the indi- vidual soul and its expression, as we have already noted ; he robs poetry of its ethical tendencies : " What do we see in poetical narration. Every age, every sex, every condition of humanity surrenders with delight to the enchantment of the tale, to the captivation of the scene. This does not arise from our holding as true those prodigious inventions, as many learned men have affirmed. Ask those who suffer gladly hunger, heat, the crowd, to listen to tragedies, those who rob their eyes of sleep to devour the curiosities of romances, ask them, I say, whether they believe that those characters, recognized by them many a time, are Belisarius or Soliman oppressed by disaster or that the stones change in the air to horses astride the Clouds or that Fortune came personally to act as pilot to the seekers after Rinaldo. * " Who can doubt but that the answer will be No ! 'If, however, such a simple- ton exists who would believe such evident im- possibilities, poetry is not written in such common style as to be intended for him. Besides, if the aim of Poetry were consideration as real, it would have for intrinsic aim. a falsehood condemned necessarily by the laws of Nature and God falsehood being the expression of the fictitious in order that it may be held as real."f What then, if any, is the function of poetry apart from pleasure ? Here the writer changes ground : from the critic who strives to penetrate to the nature of poetry, he becomes the connoisseur in poetical beauties, and stands back to appreciate exactly the elements in that poetry which excite admiration. " The one function of poetic narration is to adorn our intellect with pictures, or shall I say, sumptuous, new, wonderful, splendid sense perceptions. And this has delighted the human mind so greatly that man has desired to reward the poets with glory superior to that of other professions, protecting their books from the injuries of centuries with greater care than the treatises of every science or the works of every art and crowning their name with the aura of divinity. You see what great profit comes to the world in being enriched with beautiful sense perceptions not even bearers of science or demonstrators of truth. "J of Tasso. t ' Del Bene,' p. 454. J Ibid., p. 455.
 * ' Trattato dello stile,' chap. 10.
 * The reference is to the Gerusalemma Liberate