Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  But Goffredo (and this is another major, intrinsic shortcoming of the Gerusalemme, albeit one that is never or hardly ever observed, and the fault of the nature of modern times and sophisticated ideas rather than Tasso’s), Goffredo is an extremely uninteresting character, or perhaps even completely uninteresting, for his virtues and worth are too moral. He is too serious a person, too unlikable, indeed not likable at all, albeit estimable in every part. And how could a man who is so utterly devoid of all passion, who is all reason, be likable? Such a cold character? Again, it is hard for a man who is incapable or who appears not to be capable of loving in any way [3597] to be loved. Now Tasso makes a virtue out of this inability (canto 5, stanzas 61–64).1 Achilles is so interesting because he is so likable. And he is likable not just because of his supreme personal valor, but also because of his ferocity, intolerance, prickliness, force and impetus of character and passions, pride, character, and disdainful manners (which are truly means to get oneself loved, and possibly the only ones, etc.), because he is irascible, unable to put up with being insulted, bullying, a bit étourdi, volage [scatterbrained, flighty], etc., and even for his capriciousness, qualities which, when conjoined with his youth and good looks, and also the courage, strength, and so many other virtues, fortunes, circumstances, and real merits of Achilles, are at all times thoroughly likable, and make the person who possesses them thoroughly loved.2 This is what happens even today, and always will. (And Achilles truly is a thoroughly likable character; he would not be so if he did not have these failings.) Nonetheless, if they were found in a civilized person today to the same measure that Homer depicts them in Achilles, they would surely seem excessive, and would not come across well, but it is clearly necessary to distinguish ancient times from modern ones, and the measure which is fitting for semicoarse nations from that which might be appropriate in civilized ones. And in any case, the epic poet in any age has to put forward a character who is singular, and whose qualities exceed the ordinary also in terms of measure. Such a character must not be merely likable and admirable, but admirably likable, and singularly admirable.3 Tasso steered well clear of excess in this sense with respect to Rinaldo. He gave him those qualities which made him likable (whereas Goffredo is not), and which, because he is likable, also made him much more interesting than Goffredo (however slight our interest in men who are not unfortunate may be, and in an enterprise for which we find it hard to have strong feelings, as has already been said in this connection [→Z 3126ff., 3147–48]). [3598] If Tasso went to excess with Rinaldo, it was in the opposite sense. That is, by still making him too reasonable, pious, and devout. With which qualities, he believed he was embellishing him and making him more interesting, and indeed he believed himself obliged to attribute such qualities to him, for if he had done otherwise he would have believed that he was sinning, not merely against morality or religion, but against poetry and against good judgment and propriety in the epic poem. He even goes so far as to make him confess and do penance on the Mount of Olives, before embarking on his exploit in the wood (canto 18, stanzas 6–17).1 He would have believed he was leaving a great stain on the honor of Rinaldo, and a great gap in the readers’ esteem for him, if he had not made him purge his conscience and absolve him of the sins of murdering Gernando and fornicating with Armida. Despite all this, Rinaldo’s character is very likable. But Goffredo has no ferocity, capriciousness, impetus, or any passion whatsoever, he is not youthful, he does not stand out by his handsomeness, his courage and valor of heart and arms are asserted rather than displayed or shown at work, his heroic virtues [3599] come down to supreme piety and devotion, care, and religious zeal (but not superstitious or impassioned in any way), and near-holiness, in terms of thought and word and deed, which make him worthy of celestial visions and conversing with the Angels and Blessed, and worthy to beseech or perform miracles (see, among others, canto 13, stanzas 70ff.),1 and remarkable judgment—all qualities which are not likable in the slightest, because they are all immaterial, so to speak. Hence Goffredo is not likable, merely estimable. Hence he is only minimally interesting, or not interesting at all, especially today, when all interest in the undertaking, as I said in the relevant passage [→Z 3147], and that religious zeal and fanaticism in which Tasso makes him stand out, have disappeared.

  It is hard to conceive of keen interest for a person who is not just pretend, but is not even real and living, without there being some kind of love. I mean the kind of interest I have distinguished elsewhere [→Z 3095ff.], that is, which in poems or romances or histories or similar is not born of pure curiosity, and in life is not born of something of this kind or of care for one’s own advantage (which interest would be for oneself, not for others), or made out of anything else that is similar. Mere esteem has no place in the heart, and in no way does it touch the [3600] heart. Now, interest understood in the sense in which we wish to and must understand it in this discussion, either must be entirely in the heart, or the heart cannot but have some part in it. It may be seen in life, that no effective and perceptible interest in any person may be experienced that arises entirely outside the heart. Whether it is gratitude, natural kinship or liking or anything else which produces this interest, the heart always has some part in it. And where it does not, either it is not true interest but egoism (like a person who is interested only in those who are useful or pleasing to him, or who hopes they are, and is interested in them in a way that is directly and immediately related to himself and his own advantage), or it is very weak, and for the most part ineffective, like that which is produced only by duty and insofar as it is duty, whether natural or of whatever kind, or by any other cause. Now, that interest which is entirely of the heart, or where the heart has at least some part, is either love itself or is some kind of love. Therefore, the poet cannot make a character interesting if he is unable or does not intend to make him likable. It is proper to poetry to arouse marvel and to feed it. But apart from the fact that this passion [3601] cannot last very long, and even if it does, the marvelous would soon cloy if not accompanied by something else; the interest which may be conceived for a person who is merely admirable can only be very weak. The same thing may almost be said of this interest as we said of the other which is produced and sustained by curiosity (which may also last longer than this, because curiosity is capable of lasting longer than marvel, which is often, and indeed in poems possibly always, the object of curiosity, which is a kind of desire, and an objective that, when it is achieved, delights only for a short space of time). Coming back to real life, we can see all the time, how weak, ineffective, and transitory is the interest produced by even the highest admiration or esteem, that is, if any interest truly worthy of the name is ever produced by these qualities. Turning now to epic poems, we see in the Odyssey that Ulysses, who is very estimable, and in many parts admirable and extraordinary, but in no way likable despite being unfortunate virtually throughout the poem, is not interesting in the slightest. He is not young, indeed he is far from being so, even though Homer tries his best to [3602] make him appear to be still young and handsome through some special grace of the Gods, Minerva, etc., or through some marvel (which does not convince us in the slightest, as it is implausible), rather than by nature, or indeed contrary to nature. But the reader follows nature despite the poet, and to him Ulysses seems neither young nor handsome. The qualities in which Ulysses stands out are perhaps largely as odious as they are estimable. Patience is not odious, but is so far from being likable that impatience rather is likable.1 Certainly an excess of patience, especially in the intercourse and meager daily relations of men, may be said to be odious, or certainly unpleasant, or at least contemptible, and that which is contemptible not only is unlikable, it is almost odious, and apart from the fact that a person who is disdained cannot be loved or be interesting, it is very hard not to feel a certain hatred or aversion for him. Patience is possibly the most odious and least likable of all the virtues, and this must have been especially so among the ancients, and is sti
ll so with us when we see it in ancient characters and circumstances, as in the case of Ulysses. In other words, the result is that despite his many, great, varied, new, and continuous misadventures, and despite his appearing wretched until virtually the end, Ulysses is not likable in the slightest. And for this reason he does not interest us. Ulysses is a marvelous and extraordinary character. The pedants will say that this is sufficient for him to be interesting. But I say no, and that to these qualities must be added that of being likable, and that the former should lead and conspire to produce the latter, or at least, if nothing else, they should be seasoned with it. And the protagonist should be marvelously and extraordinarily likable, that is, extraordinary and marvelous in his likableness, [3603] or at least as likable as he is marvelous and extraordinary.

  From these discussions, a substantial and capital (albeit unnoticed) shortcoming of the Gerusalemme may be inferred, which is that its main Hero, or the character who was supposed to be so, is not merely not likable in any part, but that his character and actions have expressly been drawn and composed in such a way that he never could be likable, or at least without the intention of making him so, because Tasso was satisfied with making him admirable, and the most estimable of all the characters (along with Rinaldo), and extraordinary as a result of qualities that are only estimable. Goffredo is almost comparable to Ulysses1 in the kind of heroism and superiority (save for the difference in times, customs, and circumstances, etc., of both the two Heroes and the two poets), Goffredo, I repeat, is comparable to Ulysses, except in terms of odiousness, which I am still not sure whether it is completely lacking in the character of Goffredo, and if it can be lacking in a man who is utterly incapable of passions, utterly bereft of illusions, who is all reason, utterly austere in his customs, his actions, his military, civil, or private discipline, etc., in his [3604] precepts regarding ethics, conduct, etc., austere toward himself and to others, etc., blameless in everything that concerns those under his command, etc., serious, melancholic, and almost sad and glowering, etc. etc. I mean I am not sure whether the reader of the Gerusalemme can help conceiving deep inside himself if not outright hatred, then perhaps at least a certain ill-acknowledged, indistinct, unavowed distancing of the mind and aversion for Goffredo.

  The epic poet (and similarly also the dramatic poet, novelist, etc., and also the historian) therefore necessarily having somehow, anyhow, to make the character whom he wants to make interesting likable, and the character intended to be supremely interesting extremely likable, it should be considered that misfortune is of great use in order to produce such an effect, for where it finds likableness it greatly increases it, and often causes a person who is unlikable to be liked, despite their deserving misfortune, and much more so when they are undeserving of it. The man who is most likable and who is unjustly also most unfortunate, is the most likable thing you can imagine. [3605] The man who is likable and justly unfortunate is always much dearer, more sympathized with and more interesting, than the unlikable and unjustly unfortunate man, for whom no compassion may be experienced in any way, and who is of no interest whatsoever (as is often the case), even when his misadventures are extreme and the other’s more trivial, in which case, again, the latter cannot fail to be sympathized with and proves to be more likable than usual. But let us not go into so many subtleties and distinctions. A lack of fortune in the main Hero of the undertaking which is the proper subject of the poem can only be an accidental occurrence, and must ultimately end up in success, as I have explained and shown elsewhere [→Z 3097ff.]. Hence these observations substantially confirm my argument regarding the need to duplicate the source of interest in the epic poem, if the poem is desired to be supremely interesting and in order to produce an extremely significant effect, and they further serve to justify and praise what Homer did in the Iliad. Because, there being no supreme interest without supreme likableness, and misfortune being the main [3606] source of likableness and almost its perfection and peak, and a full, significant, and final lack of success for the Hero of the undertaking being impossible, it follows that in order for the poem to be supremely interesting, the source of interest has to be formally duplicated, and one interest diversified from the other, by introducing another Hero who is supremely likable and supremely unfortunate, from whose ultimate misfortune this second source of interest of which we are speaking is produced, and around which it revolves and always tends toward and is driven to, and in view of which it is maintained throughout the poem. This is what makes the poem so supremely interesting and capable of causing the interest to endure in readers’ minds for a long time after they have finished reading, etc. This is what Homer did in the Iliad, where Hector is supremely likable and hence also supremely interesting, because of his qualities and actions, and because of his complete, supreme, and final misfortune. As for Achilles, who is the other protagonist, and the Hero of the undertaking (thus we shall call him for reasons of brevity), Homer could not make him unsuccessful and unhappy, in particular considering the nature and opinions of those times, which located the supreme worth of men in their good fortune, and also reasoning (in the way I have spoken of [3607] elsewhere [→Z 3097ff., 3342–43]) from good or ill fortune they inferred each person’s good or evil, their merit or demerit, believing that neither misfortune nor good fortune could affect those who were undeserving of it. Nonetheless, insofar as he was able, Homer did not fail to try to settle on Achilles, along with the most favorable feelings, that most sweet affect of pity, which is the mother of love, or the bellows with which it is fanned into flame.1 This not only with the accidental misfortune of his friend Patroclus and other such misadventures, but also by showing, as though in the distance, the final misadventure and unfortunate destiny of the worthy Achilles, who by immutable decree of fate, had to die in the flower of his youth, as the price for the glory which he had knowingly and freely chosen and preferred, along with a premature death, over a long life without honor. A sublime trait, which completes the poetic and epic nature of Achilles’s character, and his virtue, courage, magnanimity, etc., and makes of him in the end a supremely likable and interesting character.

  Aeneas’s character shares in many of the failings of Goffredo’s. He has more fire, but this [3608] does not mean he is not rather cold (and a cold character, in real life and in poems, leaves the reader, or anyone else who has some kind of real relationship with him, or who hears or thinks about him, cold and uninterested). He has or displays more personal courage and physical valor, but these qualities appear as though secondary in him, and do not stand out much, and this is indeed Virgil’s intention, for he wanted other qualities to prevail in his Hero, qualities which do not greatly contribute to, or rather detract from being likable. His patience is similar to that of Ulysses. Prudence and wisdom defeat, overarch, and obscure his other gifts, not to the same degree as in Goffredo, but they still stand out too much, and are too superior to his other qualities, and the part which they have is too much the greater. Too much moral virtue, little force of passion, too much reasonableness, too much uprightness, too much balance and tranquillity of the mind, too much placidity, too much benevolence, too much goodness. Virgil describes Dido’s love for him divinely: from this, and almost from this alone, we note that he is still young and handsome, and although this does not offend [3609] nature and the verisimilar in him as it does in Ulysses, nonetheless, the idea which Virgil makes us conceive of his Hero is so grave that youth and good looks appear out of place in him, and strike us as new and almost make us marvel (poetic marvel should certainly not be of this kind), and we are almost not persuaded by them, even though they are perfectly natural. Or at least we pass over them, without valuing them, without allowing our thought to dwell on them, without forming a picture of them, without considering them as among Aeneas’s notable virtues, because Virgil would almost have believed himself to be doing his Hero and himself an injustice if he had represented them to us as truly important virtues, worthy of consideration and notable in him among
his other qualities. And so, while Virgil dwells on and delights in describing the passion of Dido and its various accidents, progress, development, and effects, he clearly leads us to understand that it was not unrequited, and that in the cave, as everyone knows what Dido experienced, so too no one can hide what Aeneas did. But concerning Aeneas and his passion [3610] Virgil speaks in such covert, indeed, disguised terms (I mean of his passion, not of what ensued, which it would be improper to describe, and about which he is rightly most reticent also in respect to Dido), indeed almost maintains so noble a silence, that he only shows passion indirectly and by accident, and insofar as it is conjectured and allows itself to be inferred necessarily from what he recounts of Dido, and always with reference to Dido alone. And it appears that had he been able, he would willingly have caused the reader to judge Aeneas not to be in any way touched by the passion of love (even for a woman who was so noble and worthy and magnanimous and beautiful and loving and tender), and to believe that Dido had obtained her pleasure without his having yielded.1 And anybody who could think this was the case would be acquiescing to Virgil’s wish. So loath was he to cause an error, a weakness to appear in his Hero, whereas nothing is as likable as weakness in strength, and nothing is as dislikable as a character and person without any weakness at all. And so much did he consider that [3611] to conceive of and see his Hero as capable of passion, capable of love, tender, sensitive, heartfelt, would be damaging not just to the esteem in which his readers held him, but also their interest in him (which Virgil wrongly confused with esteem). As though the heart could be interested by someone who does not show they have a heart themselves, or who disguises the fact that they have one, or that they have one that is capable of the sweetest, dearest, most human, most powerful, most universal of the passions that can take place in anyone who has a heart, especially the most magnanimous, and similarly also those who are physically most vigorous and highly trained, the most warriorlike (see Aristotle, Politics, bk. 2, Florence 1576, p. 142),1 and which often make those who experience that passion likable even to those who are indifferent, unlike what many other passions do by themselves. Tasso’s judgment with regard to Rinaldo was in this respect much better than Virgil’s. He has no problems of conscience in showing Rinaldo as being subject to passions, to weaknesses, and to human and youthful errors. He does not disguise his loves by merely describing Armida’s love for him, but dwells on and delights in describing his too directly. He does not even refrain from making him [3612] absolutely guilty of a grave misdeed, albeit a forgivable one, caused by a passion which is proper to and worthy of man, and almost required of a young man, and even more so a young man of noble mind, willing of heart and quick of hand, I mean anger, provoked by insults. A passion which, especially in the above circumstances, is habitually most likable, despite the unfortunate effects that it may produce, despite the fact that it is also usually criticized (because criticism is one thing, hatred another), and despite the fact that the philosophers or educators prescribe that it be eradicated from the mind or curbed. And certainly in a young man, and almost also generally, it is much more likable than patience. And this is seen all the time in real life. For this reason, Rinaldo’s character is much more similar to Achilles, and much more poetic, likable, and interesting than that of Aeneas. Or if nothing else, it may truthfully be said that Rinaldo is as much more likable than Aeneas, as Aeneas is than Goffredo. Of course, Aeneas has gone through many misfortunes, and continues to do so, before reaching a state of happiness. But the compassion which these cause is not great, because it happens upon a subject that the poet believed he had to make [3613] estimable rather than likable, and also because little compassion is experienced for a person who shows in the midst of misfortune and evil that he is almost not suffering.