Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/124

114 men into passion, as in the case of the Flagellanti, but it is a malady of emotion only; the madness passes, the mind remains untouched. In Dante's poem, as has been often pointed out, these race qualities are clearly apparent: the journey is mapped out as on a chart; the hours are duly reckoned; the world beyond is laid open to accurate observation; the dark places of his Comedy are not dark with the spirit's excess of light, but with mediæval metaphysics. In later authors, however different the subject, the temper of mind is the same. The grasp on reality is no less tenacious, the attention to detail no less careful; the incidents of the adventure, the look of the landscape, the physiognomy of the characters, no less plainly defined as phenomena ocularly seen.

In the poems of chivalry, whether romantic, heroic, or burlesque, which seem to possess the characteristics of later Italian literature in most variety, this realism is veiled by the apparent unreality of the fable. Arthur and Roland belong to the North; and to the Northern mind itself, although they have the substance of ideals, they are very remote. But the Arthur of Italian nobles, the Roland of the Italian people, are the