The mediaeval legends had lived on after the gradual extinction of the poetry of chivalry, partly in the form of rhyming adaptations and collections, and partly of novels in prose.The latter was the case in Italy during the fourteenth century; but the newly-awakened memories of antiquity were rapidly growing up to a gigantic size, and soon cast into the shade all the fantastic creations of the Middle Ages.
Boccaccio, for example, in his 'Visione Amorosa,' names among the heroes in his enchanted palace Tristram, Arthur, Galeotto, and others, but briefly, as if he were ashamed to speak of them; and following writers either do not name them at all, or name them only for purposes of ridicule.But the people kept them in its memory, and from the people they passed into the hands of the poets of the fifteenth century.These were now able to conceive and represent their subjects in a wholly new manner.But they did more.They introduced into it a multitude of fresh elements, and in fact recast it from beginning to end.It must not be expected of them that they should treat such subjects with the respect once felt for them.All other countries must envy them the advantage of having a popular interest of this kind to appeal to; but they could not without hypocrisy treat these myths with any respect.
Instead of this, they moved with victorious freedom in the new field which poetry had won.What they chiefly aimed at seems to have been that their poems, when recited, should produce the most harmonious and exhilarating effect.These works indeed gain immensely when they are repeated, not as a whole, but piecemeal, and with a slight touch of comedy in voice and gesture.A deeper and more detailed portrayal of character would do little to enhance this effect; though the reader may desire it, the hearer, who sees the rhapsodist standing before him, and who hears only one piece at a time, does not think about it at all.
With respect to the figures, which the poet found ready made for him, his feeling was of a double kind; his humanistic culture protested against their mediaeval character, and their combats as counterparts of the battles and tournaments of the poet's own age exercised all his knowledge and artistic power, while at the same time they called forth all the highest qualities in the reciter.Even in Pulci, accordingly, we find no parody, strictly speaking, of chivalry, nearly humour of his paladins at times approaches it.By their side stands the ideal of pugnacity--the droll and jovial Morgante--who masters whole armies with his bellclapper, and who is himself thrown into relief by contrast with the grotesque and most interesting monster Margutte.Yet Pulci lays no special stress on these two rough and vigorous characters, and his story, long after they had disappeared from it, maintains its singular course.Boiardo treats his characters with the same mastery, using them for serious or comic purposes as he pleases; he has his fun even out of supernatural beings, whom he sometimes intentionally depicts as louts.
But there is one artistic aim which he pursues as earnestly as Pulci, namely, the lively and exact description of all that goes forward.
Pulci recited his poem, as one book after another was finished, before the society of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and in the same way Boiardo recited his at the court of Ercole of Ferrara.It may be easily imagined what sort of excellence such an audience demanded, and how little thanks a profound exposition of character would have earned for the poet.Under these circumstances the poems naturally formed no complete whole, and might just as well be half or twice as long as they now are.Their composition is not that of a great historical picture, but rather that of a frieze, or of some rich festoon entwined among groups of picturesque figures.And precisely as in the figures or tendrils of a frieze we do not look for minuteness of execution in the individual forms, or for distant perspectives and different planes, so we must as little expect anything of the kind from these poems.
The varied richness of invention which continually astonishes us, most of all in the case of Boiardo, turns to ridicule all our school definitions as to the essence of epic poetry.For that age, this form of literature was the most agreeable diversion from archaeological studies, and, indeed, the only possible means of re-establishing an independent class of narrative poetry.For the versification of ancient history could only lead to the false tracks which were trodden by Petrarch in his 'Africa,' written in Latin hexameters, and a hundred and fifty years later by Trissino in his 'Italy delivered from the Goths,' composed in 'versi sciolti'--a never-ending poem of faultless language and versification, which only makes us doubt whether this unlucky alliance has been more disastrous to history or to poetry.
And whither did the example of Dante beguile those who imitated him?
