Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  In the same way that esteem for an enemy, even a defeated and virtuous enemy, was not typical of those days, so neither was compassion for such an enemy. (See what I said elsewhere [→Z 2760] regarding an action by Aeneas, in Virgil, after Pallas was dead.)1 Natural minds experience no other pleasure in victory than that of revenge. Compassion, meanwhile, even generally speaking (that is, even when bestowed upon persons who are not enemies) is born, as I said previously [→Z 3108–109], [3118] of egoism. It is a form of pleasure, but not one that is typical of animals or men in their natural state,1 nor even, or only rarely and to a limited degree, of minds still largely uncultured (as was the case in heroic times). This pleasure requires a delicacy and mobility of feeling or sensitive faculty, a sophistication and flexibility of egoism, which will allow it to bend backward like a snake, and apply itself to other subjects, and persuade itself that its action is directed entirely toward those other subjects, though in reality it resonates within, and operates entirely upon, itself and for its own benefit, that is, for the benefit of the individual experiencing the compassion. Thus it is that in modern and civilized times too, compassion is typical only of minds that are cultured or naturally delicate and sensitive, that is, that are sensitive and keen. In the countryside, where men are still less corrupt than in cities, compassion is rare, not intimate or keen, and relatively ineffective and short-lived. But Homer’s spirit was certainly [3119] extremely keen and agile, his feeling most delicate and flexible. Hence he experienced the pleasure of compassion, he found it to be most poetic, as indeed it is, because in addition to pleasure, it induces in the mind a sense of its own nobility and singularity, which exalts it and aggrandizes it in its own eyes—a true and genuine effect of poetry. See pp. 3167–68 and 3291–97. He therefore wanted to introduce it into his own poem, indeed to make it one of its principal aims, one of the chief forms of pleasure engendered by his poetry. He wished to make this form of pleasure and sentiment accompany that of wonder, which is a sentiment that belongs to the imagination, not to the heart, and which until that time had perhaps been the only or the principal effect of poetry. He wanted his poem to operate continuously and to the same degree on both the imagination and the heart, and he intended to produce it by using one and the other faculty, that is, both imaginative and sensitive faculties. His intention is very clear [3120] in the poem, more so than in other later Greek poets in more cultured times, more even than in the tragic poets, in whom terror and wonder ordinarily prevail over pity and are often the only emotions present, always in the foreground.1 It is abundantly clear that Homer delights in the compassionate scenes, that if subject and occasion provide him with an opportunity he accepts it immediately, that he introduces other such scenes on purpose and deliberately (such as the interview between Hector and Andromache, in order to introduce which, and for no other reason, Hector’s sudden arrival in Troy is destined and ordained,2 in the fiercest heat of the battle and at a moment which might genuinely appear to be inopportune, untimely, and imprudent), and that in neither does he proceed quickly, but tarries and delights, and brings together all circumstances that are able to arouse or enhance compassion, and breaks them up into smaller sections and represents them with the utmost art and understanding of the human heart. And the subject of [3121] all those scenes in which the mind of the reader is supremely involved, is none other than those characters whom Homer elected to bring low, namely the enemies of the Greeks, whom he chose to exalt. Yet he does not refrain from trying in every way he can to make us weep for the Trojans, and make the Greeks themselves lament the misfortunes which they themselves have caused, for which at the same time he praises them to the highest degree.

  How great and lovely, supremely artful, supremely poetic the effect of the Iliad, obtained by Homer duplicating expressly the interest and purpose and the Hero of the poem, this effect which could not have been obtained in any other way, and was entirely the invention and work of Homer himself, by which I mean the unity and harmony of these two opposing interests and purposes, and the thought of introducing them both to his poem, and sustaining them jointly right to the end, making them run side by side throughout. In this way, as well as doubling the effectiveness of his poem by involving the imagination on the one hand and on the other the heart; [3122] as well as managing to combine the interest that derives from fortunate virtue with that which derives from unfortunate virtue (which could only be achieved by dividing the subjects up from each other, for in adding the one to the other to form one subject, and thus making an unfortunate subject successful or a fortunate one unsuccessful, both interests would have become most imperfect and weak and mutually destructive, because once the reading had been completed only one would remain, as is the case, e.g., at the end of the absurd, so-called tragedies with happy endings. See pp. 3448ff. and in particular 3450–51); as well as being able to set both these forms of interest in motion in his poem, which act so strongly upon man and give such immense pleasure and are most poetical, that is, the admiration for that virtue which overcomes all obstacles and fulfills its purpose, a source of interest which was particularly strong in those times, and the compassion for supreme virtue when it succumbs to supreme calamity for which there is neither treatment nor consolation; [3123] in addition to all this, Homer also managed to introduce in his poem a perpetual contrast between conflicting passions, continually acting upon the readers, passions which continually balance themselves one against the other, continually enter into and implicate and mix with one another. It is a contrast born of the duplication of interest, purpose, and main character, which, by virtue of this perpetual and perpetually perceptible contrast, does not merely double but in fact multiplies by several times the effect and energy of the Iliad in the minds of its readers, the keenness of sensation, and the stirring and excitement of the spirit, which is the true function of poetry.

  Such were the intentions of Homer, such the means and art deployed by him to achieve them, such the true nature, true character, true development of his poem, the true form which it has and which its author desired to impress on it. Let us now look at the other epic poets and their poems, and [3124] the rules of epic poetry which after Homer were conceived, taught, established, and followed.

  Everyone saw the need to ensure that the Hero and main exploit to be praised and narrated in the epic poem came to a happy conclusion. This was taken as a precept, and the precept was followed by all. Especially because, following the example of the Iliad (although the Odyssey provided an alternative example), no subject other than the exploits of war was deemed to be appropriate to the epic poem, nor was it believed that the epic poem should represent the model of any other kind of Hero than the great Captain. So the success of the hero of the poem and the exploit that was its subject was all the more important, since a Leader defeated by his enemies and a war that had been lost were not considered subjects worthy of an epic poem.

  So far so good, but there was a major drawback in that the interest which readers are able to take in the fortunate, even those who are virtuous, is negligible, weak, and short-lived, and cannot [3125] be sustained throughout the duration of a poem, nor can it animate it or enliven it, so to speak, for its entirety, nor even animate a single part of it satisfactorily. For if there is no contrast between virtue and fortune, in addition to the fact that the truthfulness of the imitation loses out, since it is unhappily the case that such a contrast does exist in the world and is constant to the extent that a person who is fortunate and virtuous is like something out of fiction and comes close to undermining belief in the poem and blocking the illusion—see pp. 3451–52—(especially in modern times, for in Homer’s time it was different), there also ensues the dreadful effect of indifference, for there is nothing for the reader to be interested about in virtue when he sees that it is happy and already rewarded.

  Hence in epic poems subsequent to Homer, the Hero and the successful undertaking would not have interested readers in the slightest if the Hero, the undertaking, the
success had not somehow also belonged to the readers themselves, in the same way that Achilles, etc., did to the Greeks. In truth an [3126] epic poem with a happy ending must also necessarily have the attribute of being a national poem. Insofar as it looks at and aims toward such a purpose, an epic poem that is not national is of interest to no one, while an epic poem which is national will never be able to generate an interest that is universal or eternal, merely an interest within that nation and under certain circumstances. Thus the Aeneid was a national poem and, even without considering all the episodes, parts, and allusions pertaining to the history and glory of the Romans, the Aeneid was capable of producing in the Romans the first of those forms of interest which we identified in Homer, also by virtue of its own subject, for the Romans believed themselves to be Trojan by origin, hence Aeneas’s victory was seen, or could be seen, by them as an ancestral success and glory, which belonged to them and had been inherited by them. The subject of the Lusiads1 was national, and also modern. It could not have been more successful in terms of producing the first of the forms of interest of which we have been speaking. The subject of the Henriade2 is entirely national, and the memory of this Hero was particularly dear to the French, hence this choice of argument in general was very judicious, largely because it was neither too ancient nor too modern, indeed it was almost as remote as, or only slightly more remote than, the Trojan war was from the time of Homer. The subject and the [3127] hero of the Gerusalemme were more than national, and hence also more worthy, and particularly able to arouse interest. I say more than national, because the subject and Hero did not belong to one nation alone, but to many compressed into one, through there being the same opinion, the same spirit, the same profession of belief, the same interest regarding the subject of the Goffredo.1 I say more worthy because, being of more general interest, they made the poem more than national without, however, at the same time making it of universal interest, which, the interest in question being the one of which we are speaking, would have been tantamount to saying of no interest at all. I say particularly able to arouse interest, because however spent the fervor of the Crusades might have been in that century, there nonetheless persisted among Christians in general a spirit of felt hatred toward the Turks, as though they were enemies of their own confession, for at that time the Christians, despite still being extremely corrupt in their customs and divided among themselves with respect to the faith, still considered the Christian faith [3128] to be something that belonged to them, and its enemies as the enemies of each of them; hence they hated the Mohammedans and Mohammedanism not just with a hatred that was spiritual and out of love for God, but with a human hatred, with a passion which we might describe as fleshly and sensual, out of respect for themselves and by inclination. And the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre of Christ was an issue in which everyone at the time had an interest, much as in these recent times everyone has had an interest in the destruction of Tunisian and Algerian piracy,1 despite the fact that both were more a question of desire than of hope, or rather, were certainly more desired than they were probable; with the addition, however, of the difference in times, for in the sixteenth century, public inclinations, opinions, and desires were much more manifest, decisive, keen, strong, and constant than they are in this century. As Petrarch did in the fourteenth century (Canzone “O aspettata”),2 so too in the sixteenth century all learned men exercised their minds to exhort the nations and princes of Europe, with printed speeches, letters, or poems, [3129] to put aside their mutual differences and come together to liberate the Holy Sepulchre from the dogs,a and destroy the enemy of the Christians and avenge the injuries and damages received at their hands. This was the general wish in that age of educated albeit not learned people, and again, if not of cabinets, then certainly of all private politicians, who, in that century of much freedom of speech and press, particularly in Italy, were far from insignificant in number;b and this wish continually provided the subject matter for writings and allusions and digressions, etc., and this project, or dream if we prefer, fired the imaginations of the poets and prose writers and people derived inspiration from it in their writing. No less, indeed, than the dream, the desire, the project of all learned Greeks in the last century of Greek freedom prior to Alexander had been to see concord between those republics, an alliance entered into between them, and war waged against the great king and against the barbaric Persian empire, eternal enemy of the Greek name. And as Isocrates, [3130] in order to achieve this purpose, addressed his most studied and epideictic, written, not recited orations to both the Athenians (in the Panegyricus, and see the Oration To Philip in the edition cited above, pp. 260–61) and Philip,1 according to whether he judged the latter or the former to be more willing to listen to him, and more inclined to reconcile and pacify Greece and lead it against the Barbarians, so too did Speroni, in the sixteenth century, address Philip II of Spain2 by means of a most elaborate printed oration, neither recited nor intended to be recited in order to achieve the same effect, and others addressed others, according to time and occasion. But all was in vain, for unlike what happened to the Greeks, whose wish was fulfilled by Alexander, moved among other things, as the story goes (see Aelian, Varia Historia, bk. 13 and ὑπόθεσις τοῦ πρὸς Φίλιππον λόγου [Summary of the Speech to Philip]) by the very oration that Isocrates had composed to his father Philip, both of whom were dead by that stage.3

  Now, given such circumstances, the choice made by Tasso truly appears to be most wise, appropriate, and noble, and worthy of such a great mind, which was able to conceive nothing less [3131] than a European poem (which is what the Goffredo was, in terms of both its subject matter and other qualities), where the general nature of the interest did not jeopardize its vivacity and force (which in itself is most difficult and unusual). It should also be noted that Tasso managed to make the subject matter of the Gerusalemme national by giving the greater part of the valor among the Christians to two Italians: Tancredi of Campania, in the kingdom of Naples, the home of Tasso himself, and Rinaldo d’Este, ancestor of the Duke to whom Tasso addressed his poem. And Rinaldo, properly speaking, is the other, not the second, Hero of the Gerusalemme, along with Goffredo, as I said at the time [→Z 3525], and, according to Tasso’s intention, in equal amounts, but in terms of effect he is more successful than Goffredo.1 And in truth, if the qualities of a poem, or indeed of any form of writing, are to be measured by the breadth of its interest, no epic poem has ever beaten or matched the Gerusalemme in this respect, for again, according to the opinions of those times, which we must enter into with our minds, no epic poet ever proposed a more noble, more worthy or magnanimous purpose than Tasso, who intended, by means of his poem, to contribute more than all other writers combined, to incite the Christian princes to engage in that holy and generous war, etc., by means of the example and praise of those who had already undertaken it and waged it valiantly and brought it to a successful conclusion. (To gain a clearer understanding of the opinions and feelings of [3132] Christian Europe toward the Ottoman empire in the 16th century, see Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, tome 13, pp. 500–506.)1 See p. 3173. See also in particular Speroni, Orationi, Venice 1596, p. 23, p. 56, and p. 109, and Castiglione, Cortegiano, Venice 1541, fol. 173; Venice 1565, pp. 423–24, book 4.

  Very reasonably, then, the poets referred to above (not to mention others, such as Voltaire, or Ercilla author of the Araucana, Trissino, etc.)2 chose a national subject for their poems, without which (the term “national,” however, being understood in the broad sense, as, e.g., with regard to the Gerusalemme) it is absolutely impossible to furnish any kind of interest to an epic poem which has and retains unity as it is understood today. For this reason, the attempt by that modern writer to provide Italy with a new Gerusalemme (Arici’s Gerusalemme distrutta)3 deserves very little praise.

  But the interest that derives from fortunate virtue is always weak, as I have said, in a national subject as well, and suffers from a great number of disadvantages, espe
cially in times as different from those of Homer as modern times are, and as those of Virgil were, which in many respects resemble those of the present day.

  (1) All those particular circumstances which in very ancient times made success most highly prized, [3133] and a reason for respect in its own right, perished very quickly, and other, opposing circumstances came into being which produced and continue to produce the opposite effect and will always do so, for such circumstances will not now pass away.