Modern Italian Poets | Page 2

I write it is because I have something _to do_; my
books are not productions, but deeds. Before all, here in Italy we must
be men. When we have not the sword, we must take the pen. We heap
together materials for building batteries and fortresses, and it is our
misfortune if these structures are not works of art. To write slowly,
coldly, of our times and of our country, with the set purpose of creating
a _chef-d'oeuvre_, would be almost an impiety. When I compose a
book, I think only of freeing my soul, of imparting my idea or my
belief. As vehicle, I choose the form of romance, since it is popular and
best liked at this day; my picture is my thoughts, my doubts, or my
dreams. I begin a story to draw the crowd; when I feel that I have
caught its ear, I say what I have to say; when I think the lesson is
growing tiresome, I take up the anecdote again; and whenever I can
leave it, I go back to my moralizing. Detestable aesthetics, I grant you;
my works of siege will be destroyed after the war, I don't doubt; but
what does it matter?"
II
The political purpose of literature in Italy had become conscious long
before Guerrazzi's time; but it was the motive of poetry long before it

became conscious. When Alfieri, for example, began to write, in the
last quarter of the eighteenth century, there was no reason to suppose
that the future of Italy was ever to differ very much from its past.
Italian civilization had long worn a fixed character, and Italian
literature had reflected its traits; it was soft, unambitious, elegant, and
trivial. At that time Piedmont had a king whom she loved, but not that
free constitution which she has since shared with the whole peninsula.
Lombardy had lapsed from Spanish to Austrian despotism; the
Republic of Venice still retained a feeble hold upon her wide territories
of the main-land, and had little trouble in drugging any intellectual
aspiration among her subjects with the sensual pleasures of her capital.
Tuscany was quiet under the Lorrainese dukes who had succeeded the
Medici; the little states of Modena and Parma enjoyed each its little
court and its little Bourbon prince, apparently without a dream of
liberty; the Holy Father ruled over Bologna, Ferrara, Ancona, and all
the great cities and towns of the Romagna; and Naples was equally
divided between the Bourbons and the bandits. There seemed no reason,
for anything that priests or princes of that day could foresee, why this
state of things should not continue indefinitely; and it would be a long
story to say just why it did not continue. What every one knows is that
the French revolution took place, that armies of French democrats
overran all these languid lordships and drowsy despotisms, and
awakened their subjects, more or less willingly or unwillingly, to a
sense of the rights of man, as Frenchmen understood them, and to the
approach of the nineteenth century. The whole of Italy fell, directly or
indirectly, under French sway; the Piedmontese and Neapolitan kings
were driven away, as were the smaller princes of the other states; the
Republic of Venice ceased to be, and the Pope became very much less
a prince, if not more a priest, than he had been for a great many ages. In
due time French democracy passed into French imperialism, and then
French imperialism passed altogether away; and so after 1815 came the
Holy Alliance with its consecrated contrivances for fettering mankind.
Lombardy, with all Venetia, was given to Austria; the dukes of Parma,
of Modena, and Tuscany were brought back and propped up on their
thrones again. The Bourbons returned to Naples, and the Pope's
temporal glory and power were restored to him. This condition of
affairs endured, with more or less disturbance from the plots of the

Carbonari and many other ineffectual aspirants and conspirators, until
1848, when, as we know, the Austrians were driven out, as well as the
Pope and the various princes small and great, except the King of
Sardinia, who not only gave a constitution to his people, but singularly
kept the oath he swore to support it. The Pope and the other princes,
even the Austrians, had given constitutions and sworn oaths, but their
memories were bad, and their repute for veracity was so poor that they
were not believed or trusted. The Italians had then the idea of freedom
and independence, but not of unity, and their enemies easily broke, one
at a time, the power of states which, even if bound together, could
hardly have resisted their attack. In a little while the Austrians were
once more in Milan and Venice, the dukes and grand-dukes