Questions of language, particularly of its worldly use and abuse, are of major concern in I promessi sposi.¹ These questions begin with the book's introduction and continue, though in constantly varying forms and contexts, throughout the novel. In the introduction the narrator states his reasons for reworking the story, which he claims to have found in an anonymous seventeenth-century manuscript, and begins to explain the procedures he has adopted for revising its language. Although toward the end of the introduction the narrator makes an oblique reference to himself as an “author,” the guise he assumes actually combines the attributes of two traditional roles, that of the dutiful editor, common to eighteenth-century fiction from Defoe, Richardson, and Laclos to Goethe and Foscolo, and that of the historical novel's more actively creative writer, such as found in the contemporary and highly influential books of Sir Walter Scott.

The introduction opens, of course, with a passage supposedly copied verbatim from the scratched and faded original, which the narrator had intended to transcribe from first to last, word for word. But after a page or so the narrator breaks off the transcription of the autograph and gives vent to his doubts about the entire project. As the narrator laments, and as the language of the opening passage amply demonstrates, the original is so full of elaborate conceits, Lombard idioms, incorrect Italian, arbitrary grammar, poorly articulated sentences, Spanish elegance, and inappropriate rhetoric that, even transcribed, no one would ever endure the toil of reading it. Regardless of all of the narrator's efforts at transcription, therefore, the story would remain unread and unknown, in short, useless.

The narrator finds this situation distressing for a single reason: the story itself is too beautiful to lose. Therefore, in order to salvage it from the oblivion of unread texts, he proposes what he has already done, that is, to rework the original, leaving the events and their sequence as they stand while changing what he at first terms the manuscript's “dicitura” and later its “stile” In response to the obvious question of what sort of language or style to adopt instead, the narrator admits that at one point he had actually considered furnishing an account of each and every change along with the logic behind it, but by the time that he began putting the explanations together, he realized that they would have made up another book all by themselves. He accordingly refuses the temptation to explain himself at such length, and he seems content to let the matter rest there, without further clarification beyond the inferences to be drawn from his introductory comments and the evidence of the narrative itself. He excuses this omission by saying that, along with the fact that one book at a time seems quite enough, “un libro impiegato a giustificarne un altro, anzi lo stile d'un altro, potrebbe parer cosa ridicola” (p. 6).

It is well known that Manzoni's work on the novel extended over a period of many years and included several thorough revisions. Both in the unpublished draft of Fermo e Lucia (1821-23) and in the first edition of I promessi sposi (1827), the device of the “found” manuscript and its reworking may have been little more than a literary conceit—though one of a different sort from those of the text's “anonymous” original—just a convenient and currently fashionable way to get the story going, insignificant in itself and of little direct relation to the narrative that follows. But this is not the case. As the story develops, it becomes increasingly apparent that questions of language are not only central to the narrative's style but also that they go right to the heart of the story's subject matter. After the openly self-conscious introduction, these issues, which involve linguistic mastery as well as linguistic hierarchy, are clearest in the text's treatment of the official state edicts, in the salient example of Renzo's linguistic education, in the story of Fra Cristoforo's conversion and his encounter with Don Rodrigo, in the massive effects of the plague, and, finally, in Manzoni's overall relation to the product of his own discourse in terms of worldly meaning and worldly use. In the end, no account of the narrative's organization and meaning is complete without coming to terms with the ways in which the novel presents and attempts to resolve these questions.

The first clear sign that the narrative's concern with language is going to continue past the introduction and into the story itself is the presentation in Chapter 1 of the government edicts, the language and style of which recall the circumlocutory and affectedly “elegant” discourse of the anonymous manuscript quoted at the introduction's beginning. The “gride,” in this case dealing with the vagabonds and bravi of seventeenth-century Lombardy, are indeed examples of the inflated rhetoric that Manzoni regularly associates with the upper strata of the dominant Spanish hierarchy. But along with Manzoni's ongoing critique of social behavior, and with the stamp of historical authority that the proclamations lend to the novel's own discourse, the “gride” also give Manzoni a way of broaching one of his favorite topics, the relationship between discourse and worldly action:

Con tutto ciò, anzi in gran parte a cagion di ciò, quelle gride, ripubblicate e rinforzate di governo in governo, non servivano ad altro che ad attestare ampollosamente l'impotenza de' loro autori; o, se producevan qualche effetto immediato, era principalmente d'aggiunger molte vessazioni a quelle che i pacifici e i deboli già soffrivano da' perturbatori, e d'accrescer le violenze e l'astuzia di questi.

(pp. 16-17)

The intention of the narrator's commentary on the “gride” is, of course, to account for the continuing corruption and abuse by powerful, though supposedly outlawed or legally restricted, segments of local society. This and contiguous passages thus help to explain how and why the basic mechanism of the narrative—the blocking of Renzo and Lucia's marriage at the capricious whim of Don Rodrigo in his competition with his cousin Attilio—can have occurred at all. Indeed, the passage goes on to describe the hapless state of the peaceful and unprotected ordinary man (“l'uomo bonario”), who is, ironically, subject both to the arbitrarily enforced rules of the official law and to the unofficial but no less real illegal harassment on the part of the outlaws.

But there is a complementary set of thematics at work in this explanation that, in the long run, is equally telling in I promessi sposi. These thematics, like those in the introduction, deal with questions of language and utility. What, after all, do the high-flown, often repeated, and elaborately elegant edicts represent if not the “impotence” of their authors? Their meaning seems directed outward, into the world of everyday activity. But in another sense their meaning is reflected back inward, to show the ineffectiveness of their authors' endeavors, and this meaning is only underscored by their endless repetition. What, therefore, is the worldly effect of these edicts if not precisely the opposite of that which, at least in practical terms, is intended? The lesson, in this very hierarchical and complexly ordered society, is especially obvious in spite of—or perhaps because of—the well-known ironic detachment with which Manzoni's narrator views it: pompous show goes hand in hand with worldly failure. At best, such overbearing pomposity will end as it began, in vapid rhetoric and “vane proteste” At worst, it will result in the opposite of what is hoped. This is a difficult lesson to learn, since it involves aspects of style in regard both to discourse and to other forms of human behavior; but, as the narrator is already aware (indeed as is demonstrated in the very revisions of his text) and as Renzo must eventually realize, too, this lesson is crucial for anyone who seeks to get along, and possibly even to do well, in human society. It is the narrator's assessment of the “gride,” moreover, both in their rhetorical complexity and their worldly ineffectiveness, that ties the thematics of this first chapter to those of the exchange in Chapter 3 between Renzo and the devilishly tricky lawyer, popularly known as Dr. Azzeccagarbugli, and that thus leads to the scene of Renzo's first great failure in the lessons of discourse as presented in the novel.

II

Renzo goes to consult Azzeccagarbugli (at Agnese's instigation) with his hopes high. Both because of Don Rodrigo's interest in Lucia and Don Abbondio's personal shortcomings, Renzo and Lucia are in stormy seas, with their wedding and their happiness in jeopardy, and Renzo knows it. Yet, given the unpleasant situation, Renzo has done all right for himself up to this point. By his directness and the strength of his will, he has forced the necessary information out of Don Abbondio, cutting through the haze of the timorous priest's obfuscations and “latinorum,” and, together with Agnese and the less than enthusiastic Lucia, he has decided on the next step to be taken. But unlike Don Abbondio, who is still within the social realm of Renzo's everyday life in the village, the once important Azzeccagarbugli is a figure from another social sphere altogether.² In this respect, therefore, the scene between Renzo and Azzeccagarbugli foreshadows Renzo's experiences in Milan after the bread riot, where he is again notably out of his element.

As Manzoni makes clear in the scene between Renzo and the lawyer, the passport that permits passage from one level of society toward the next (though without destroying either the hierarchical levels themselves or the privileges that they protect) is language. Azzeccagarbugli, of course, knows this from the start. His particular professional talent is at using language to defend his clients from the apparent intent of the law. He does this, as his epithet suggests (a name so thoroughly associated with the man's essence that Agnese can no longer recall what his real name is), by turning the language of the law away from its worldly referents and then directing it back into a maze of discourse, so that its worldly, legal sense is nothing more than a conundrum, null and void, and his clients, no matter how miscreant, can go scot free. Azzeccagarbugli's once prodigious skills do not mean that he never makes a mistake (although he perceives Renzo's gift of the capons for what it is, he completely misconstrues the import of Renzo's lack of a forelock, which he considers evidence of Renzo's prudence in shaving off the bravo's customary “ciuffo”). But his abilities do mean that he knows how to recognize his errors and how to act on that recognition in order to recover from them.

When Renzo first enters the lawyer's studio and asks to have a word in confidence, Azzeccagarbugli makes everything seem easy: “Son qui … parlate. … Ditemi il fatto come sta” (p. 44). But there is a problem that is greater than either of them, at least for the moment, realizes. As Renzo himself admits: “Lei m'ha da scusare: noi altri poveri non sappiamo parlar bene” (p. 44). Renzo finally manages to mention the threats made to the priest and the unfulfilled matrimony, at which point Azzeccagarbugli takes over.

Throughout the lawyer's subsequent comments and his reading of the “gride” that treat forcible interference with marriage, Renzo remains so thoroughly immersed in the “words” themselves (which he is convinced will aid him but which he can read only “un pochino”) that it never occurs to him that the lawyer has taken him for a bravo in need of a shrewd defense instead of a poor silk-worker in search of justice. When the truth finally comes out—that Azzeccagarbugli has gotten things exactly reversed—the lawyer has a simple explanation. According to Azzeccagarbugli, the fault is Renzo's because he, along with all those of his class, is ignorant of the uses of language in the world: “Diavolo! … Che pasticci mi fate? Tant'è; siete tutti così: possibile che non sappiate dirle chiare le cose?” (p. 49). Now that Azzeccagarbugli has given Renzo a moment to talk, Renzo tells him the rest of the story, stressing that in fact he did make Don Abbondio speak clearly (“io l'ho fatto parlar chiaro”) and then coming out with the name of Don Rodrigo. This is quite enough for Azzeccagarbugli, who washes his hands of the entire matter. The lawyer's only advice to Renzo is to leave people of his station alone. If Renzo really wants to tell his story, he should tell it among his equals, who do not know any better than he does how to measure their words: “Fate di questi discorsi tra voi altri, che non sapete misurar le parole; e non venite a farli con un galantuomo che sa quanto valgono” (pp. 49-50).

At this turn of events, Renzo seems intent on justifying himself, but the lawyer, obviously concerned for his own interests now that the name of Don Rodrigo has been mentioned, cuts his ex-client off and shoves Renzo toward the door, insisting to the astounded servant that she return Renzo's capons, since he wants nothing from Renzo or, indeed, anything whatever to do with him. Before pushing Renzo out of his studio, however, Azzeccagarbugli—more from anger and frustration than anything else—gives him one last piece of advice that will turn out to be of special significance in the development both of Renzo's character and of Manzoni's narrative in general: “Imparate a parlare: non si viene a sorprender così un galantuomo” (p. 50, my italics).

The importance of language is emphasized in the exchange between Renzo and the hapless Azzeccagarbugli by the narrator's insistent repetition of the word “parola,” which resounds like a tattoo throughout the entire scene. It is true that Azzeccagarbugli's type of discourse is not intended in any sense as a model for Renzo to follow, that, because of the lawyer's present condition and his linguistic chicanery, he is actually, as Giorgio De Rienzo has pointed out, a champion of the word who is now “decaduto (e avvilito).”³ Nevertheless, Azzeccagarbugli's climactic exhortation does provide a clear beginning (after Don Abbondio's latinate preface) to Renzo's Bildungsroman in the world of language.⁴ Renzo's real education has to wait, however, until after he, Lucia, and Agnese, with the assistance of Fra Cristoforo, have fled to Monza and then split up, and Renzo has arrived, on his own and dejected, in the turbulent atmosphere of Milan.

Following the bread riot, with its heady mixture of confusion, scuffling, and camaraderie and its odd linguistic amalgam of Italian and Spanish, Renzo, having taken a moment to catch his breath, begins to make a speech. But Renzo simply is not yet competent to act profitably on his own in the broader world of society. It is important to see, moreover, the critical role that language plays in Renzo's worldly ineptitude. Everything that happens to Renzo in this section of the story in Milan—incuding the events to which he will later refer in his final summary of the lessons he has learned—occurs through the medium of discourse. This is not to say that in Manzoni's view discourse itself is somehow superior to other worldly endeavor, but only that there is no action or interaction among human beings that is completely outside of it or that does not depend on it in some fashion or other; which is why language is one thing that Renzo must learn to use if he is to learn others, one key to the kingdom of social wisdom and success.

Renzo begins his harangue after the riot more agitated than agitator, so thoroughly wrapped up in his own predicament that his speech has more to do with the injustice of Don Rodrigo's treachery than with the current availability or price of bread in Milan. But his audience takes him for what he says rather than what he is, and they view him either as a sincere young leader, or as a country lout full of hot air, or, in the eyes of the disguised agent, Ambrogio Fusella, as a dangerous outside agitator to be identified, arrested, and imprisoned for the protection of the State. At the conclusion of what the narrator refers to as Renzo's “predica” (which includes connotations of “sermon” as well as “speech,” p. 244), Renzo has ears only for those who voice their support; and he goes off behind the agent, whom he, of course, believes to be his friend, with the end in mind of satisfying his hunger and thirst.

The following scene at the Inn of the Luna Piena, framed by the hustle and bustle of the crowd and presented through the narrator's juggling of various perspectives all at once, is one of the most astutely organized and precisely sketched in all of Manzoni's narrative.⁵ The action of this scene proves to be crucial, moreover, for Renzo's progressive education in the ways of discourse and in the limits of social behavior. After a brief introduction, the narrator frames the scene with the thoughts of the innkeeper, who immediately recognizes Renzo's companion and wonders whether Renzo himself is hound or hare, hunter or prey. Renzo orders wine and stew, and, at the innkeeper's apology for the lack of bread, he produces the third and last of his supply of panini, raising it high to show the crowd and shouting (amidst a gentle narrative irony over which he has no control) “ecco il pane della provvidenza!” (p. 246, my italics). With the approval of his companions and the encouragement of one in particular (“viva il pane a buon mercato!”), Renzo goes on to give his thumbnail sketch of the ideal economic program: “A buon mercato? disse Renzo: gratis et amore.” He hurries to add, however, that he really has no intention of revolutionizing the current economic system of sale and payment (since, as was clear in his previous speech, he believes not in overthrowing the present system but in ridding it of injustices); and he goes on to say that, if he could only find whoever owned the bread in the first place, he would be more than willing to pay for it.

With this pronouncement, the narrator distinguishes Renzo's goals from the sort of economic and social program familiar to Manzoni's contemporaries as the basis for the revolution in France. But more than that, he demonstrates Renzo's inability, at this point in the narrative, to formulate and express clear ideas either about his own situation or about that of others. This failing was already apparent in his high-flown pronouncements and exhortations before meeting his “guida”; and, as occurs with regularity throughout the first half of the novel, Manzoni again makes use of lexical indicators to shade Renzo's limitations. During Renzo's encounter with Don Abbondio, one of his primary objections had been to the priest's resorting to the linguistic trickery of Latin (a language that, as Manzoni suggests on several occasions in the story, was not understood by the general populace). Moreover, while still at the inn, Renzo complains obliquely about Don Abbondio's linguistic subterfuge and openly about Ferrer's “qualche parolina in latino” (p. 255), which Renzo attempts to repeat in his own wine-addled discourse (“siés baraòs trapolorum”), thereby reflecting both Ferrer's Spanish and Don Abbondio's “latinorum.” But to state his economic program, Renzo himself has resorted to a Latin formula, “gratis et amore.”

Such inconsistency within Renzo's behavior would not be disturbing in and of itself, but as Renzo continues, the inconsistencies mount. Indeed, it is obvious to the innkeeper and perhaps to others present as well that Renzo is not only a hare, but also (as the narrator already suggested in his comments on Don Rodrigo's schemes in Chapter 11) one that is doing everything possible to get caught. Renzo, of course, knows nothing of this, and therein lies both Renzo's foolishness and his weakness. Earlier, in the street, he thought he had spoken “con un po' di politica, per non dire in pubblico i fatti miei” (p. 244). But at the Inn of Luna Piena, where he is not only urged on by the crowd but also animated by the wine, Renzo lets himself go as though he were indeed inspired by the Full Moon, and he does so at exactly the wrong moment.

Fusella's task at the inn is as precise as it is tricky: to get Renzo's name without arousing either Renzo's suspicions or the ill will of the inn's other customers. After Renzo's assertion of his legal expertise (probably a result of his single disastrous experience with Azzeccagarbugli) and his refusal to give his name and province of origin despite the innkeeper's dutiful citation of the appropriate “gride” under the agent's watchful gaze, Renzo's “guida” is constrained to hold his tongue and wait for his loquacious prey to set his own trap, in which Renzo is quick to oblige. Having thanked his guide and the others who have helped him to avoid the innkeeper's pen, ink, and paper, Renzo once again assumes the attitude of a preacher (“mettendosi di nuovo in attitudine di predicatore”) and decries those who rule the world and who always want to make writing enter into everything: “Sempre la penna per aria! Grande smania che hanno que' signori d'adoprar la penna!” (p. 250). One of the gamblers nearby makes a joke of this, saying that once “que' signori” have finished eating their geese, they have to find something to do with all those quills. Here Renzo responds in kind, and the narrator, in an important aside to which we will return shortly, comments on Renzo's reply. But the matter is more serious than either the gambler's initial jest or Renzo's jocular response, and Renzo continues along the same line he had taken previously, lamenting the close association between writing and power and the use of writing to subject the unlettered: “Ma la ragione giusta la dirò io … : è perché la penna la tengon loro: e così, le parole che dicon loro, volan via, e spariscono; le parole che dice un povero figliuolo, stanno attenti bene, e presto presto le infilzan per aria, con quella penna, e te le inchiodano sulla carta, per servirsene, a tempo e luogo.” Renzo's lament leads to his complaints about the treacheries of Latin and then once more to the day's affairs, all of which were conducted “in volgare,” or the common speech of the local populace, and all, Renzo notes, without recourse to pen, ink, and paper. This brings Renzo back to his expectations for the following day, thereby giving the guileful agent, who up to now has listened in silence, the opening he needs.

The program Fusella outlines for the rectification of the pricing and distribution of bread depends, first, on pen, ink, and paper and, second, on the gathering up of all the names of those involved, as the narrator takes pain to emphasize. But, as the narrator also points out, Renzo, “invaghito del progetto,” does not notice any of that; he falls for the ruse without hesitation when asked to participate in a trial run and gives not only his name but also the details of his marital status. With this, the guide has obtained exactly what he wanted, and he departs posthaste, in fact so abruptly that Renzo is left talking to himself, apparently loudly enough that the serving boy thinks Renzo is addressing him rather than the agent's undrained glass (which Renzo then downs in one gulp). When the waiter responds to Renzo, saying he has understood (“Ho inteso”), Renzo seems bemused but not surprised, since he still believes, despite all the lessons of his own experience, that when reasons are just (“giuste”), every reasonable person will understand and agree. For Renzo at this point, when language is used in the service of justice and truth, it is, or should be, transparent, that is, significant but secondary: expression is only a necessary means to a much more important end. Ironically, the more he drinks the more he demonstrates the failures of this belief, since he cannot find the words to finish his well-meant but poorly formed sentences, and by the end of the scene, very nearly insensate, he has become the laughingstock of the inn's earthy clientele.

The narrator handles the description of the entire scene by distancing himself from its presentation both through the use of such screens as the innkeeper and even Fusella and through direct addresses to the reader. As Renzo drinks more and more, the narrator recounts less and less. Early in the scene, during the exchange over the official registration of guests at the inn, Renzo downs his third glass of wine and the narrator, after reporting that fact, adds: “e d'ora in poi ho paura che non li potremo più contare” (p. 248). Later on, just after Fusella's departure and Renzo's oblique exchange with the waiter, the narrator again interrupts the course of his description in order both to provide extra information not discernible from the present scene and to explain the rationale for the gaps in representation that are to follow. While discussing Renzo's excesses in light of his inexperience, the narrator alludes once again to the original manuscript's anonymous author:

Su questo il nostro anonimo fa una osservazione, che noi ripeteremo: e conti quel che può contare. Le abitudini temperate e oneste, dice, recano anche questo vantaggio, che, quanto più sono inveterate e radicate in un uomo, tanto più facilmente, appena appena se n'allontani, se ne risente subito; dimodoché se ne ricorda poi per un pezzo; e anche uno sproposito gli serve di scola. …

Noi riferiremo soltanto alcune delle moltissime parole che [Renzo] mandò fuori, in quella sciagurata sera: le molte più che tralasciamo, disdirebbero troppo; perché, non solo non hanno senso, ma non fanno vista d'averlo: condizione necessaria in un libro stampato.

(pp. 253-54)

Manzoni's narrator thus excuses Renzo's behavior (and quietly asks the reader's complicity) by saying not only that this is Renzo's first indulgence in such excess but also that Renzo will learn from it, and what he will learn, in his movement from inexperience toward maturity, will be the value of honesty and temperance and the dangers of excessive behavior of any sort. At the same time, the narrator reaffirms his own love of truth (“l'amore che portiamo alla verità”) and his commitment to representational fidelity (in following the anonymous manuscript's story if not its style), even though he later qualifies this commitment, within his own narrative intended for publication, by subordinating representational fidelity to sense. This valuation in regard to narrative practice is of the same sort that the narrator and, perhaps surprisingly, even the author of the anonymous original make in regard to Renzo's social behavior: it is important to act in the world and to believe in something that is worthy of action, but it is equally important to exercise restraint in all endeavors or chaos will reign in terms of both literary representation and worldly comportment. This attitude toward behavior also recalls the narrator's initial goal in redoing the anonymous manuscript, that is, to rid it of linguistic excesses and, thereby, to make it readable and pleasant so that its story can be followed and understood. The lesson for Manzoni's narrator as well as for the narrative's “primo uomo” is clear: following one's beliefs and even acting on one's impulses can be a benefit and a virtue, but only as they are subordinated to a higher value, that of making sense (and although exactly what this value is subordinate to is not yet apparent in Manzoni's text, it will become much more so by the story's end).

If, however, this dual appeal to both behavioral and linguistic discretion, in worldly action as well as in worldly representation, seems too limited, indeed, entirely too sober in view of Renzo's extraordinary spirit and Manzoni's strikingly rich text, it must be remembered that these comments on narrative and linguistic aims and practices are not the only self-consciously literary notations in this portion of the narrative. The other commentary in this vein, produced by Renzo before his fall into drunkenness and explained by the narrator in the aside mentioned previously, comes earlier in the chapter, following the gambler's joke about the geese and the quills. Renzo responds to the gambler's witticism in an especially significant way: “To', disse Renzo: è un poeta costui. Ce n'è anche qui de' poeti: già ne nasce per tutto. N'ho una vena anch'io, e qualche volta ne dico delle curiose … ma quando le cose vanno bene” (p. 250). The narrator explains Renzo's remark with the pretense of clarifying the key term's local usage:

Per capire questa baggianata del povero Renzo, bisogna sapere che, presso il volgo di Milano, e del contado ancora più, poeta non significa già, come per tutti i galantuomini, un sacro ingegno, un abitator di Pindo, un allievo delle Muse; vuol dire un cervello bizzarro e un po' balzano, che, ne' discorsi e ne' fatti, abbia più dell'arguto e del singolare che del ragionevole. Tanto quel guastamestieri del volgo è ardito a manomettere le parole, e a far dir loro le cose più lontane dal loro legittimo significato! Perché, vi domando io, cosa ci ha che fare poeta con cervello balzano?

(p. 250)

As is often true of Manzoni's irony in the novel, this passage is equally as interesting for what it omits as for what it says. It is clear that Renzo's tongue has long since been loosened by the exuberance of the day's events and that his head is light from the wine, and it is also obvious that Renzo's reply is meant as a facetious feint. In both of these respects, it is a “baggianata.” But the narrator's explanation of the term “poeta,” or indeed his reason for explaining it at all, is far from straightforward. The importance of the quality of behavior in regard to both speech and other forms of action (“ne' discorsi e ne' fatti”) is a theme that, as we have seen, runs throughout the entire chapter, so that part of the narrator's commentary seems clear enough. But neither of the two definitions of poet that the narrator offers—either the supposedly correct one, cast in the erudite, Neoclassical frame of the gentlemanly allusion to Pindus and the Muses or the popular meaning of “poet” as a term designating an irrational oddball—seems entirely acceptable to the narrator. The first is treated ironically through its inflation, the second through its vulgarity and illegitimacy. The next step, therefore, rather than the outright rejection of the populace's wisdom as contained in language, is the questioning of this wisdom yet without offering any real solution, as though maybe there were some truth, though not the whole truth, in the popular conception of the poet as a singular, exceptionally imaginative individual. Finally, rather than affirming or denying either sense of the word or taking any sort of definite stance on the question—Classical as well as Shakespearean and Romantic—of the relation between poetry and irrationality, the narrator lets the whole matter drop with a question of his own.

Although this approach differs from the narrator's later explicit explanation of his representional procedure in regard to Renzo's drunken discourse, the technique of placing two positions on an issue side by side and then withdrawing from any definite solution (often weighting the second over the first by means of a question that seems merely rhetorical) recurs throughout Manzoni's text, beginning with his pre-publication consideration of stylistic questions as described in the introduction and running all the way to Renzo's and Lucia's closing evaluations of the meaning of their experience. At the inn, the weight seems to fall on the imagination as significant in its own right even if it is peculiar and even if, in excess, it, too, is doubtless either hazardous, repugnant, or both. Renzo's depiction of himself as something of a poet (though only in better times) thus joins the other indications of the close relation between the narrator and his character; and it tempers the narrator's sober judgment of Renzo's follies even as Renzo indulges in the excesses for which he will have to pay but from which, eventually, he will learn. That the narrator himself is implicated in this assessment of human discourse and behavior is important, therefore, since this self-reflexive implication demonstrates the ties of sympathy between the narrator and the story's leading man at the same time that it reinforces the narrative bond between action and discourse and again underscores the continuing thematics of excess and restraint in both areas. But however significant the narrator's excursus is, it must also be remembered that, at least at this point, the narrator's reaction to the question he raises is neither affirmation nor denial but instead clever, ironic withdrawal.

Consequent to what the Milanese authorities eventually learn, the notary and his bailiffs arrive at the inn early the following morning to take Renzo into custody. At first it may seem that the change in Renzo's attitude from the night before—from acceptance and unquestioning fellowship to skepticism and recalcitrance—is simply the result of his sobriety, the usual feelings and reactions of the “morning after.” But as is typical of the multilayered depth of Manzoni's narrative technique, there is no single logical or psychological explanation for Renzo's sudden enlightenment. Part of his learning has, however, already been explained by the narrator in the lengthy excursus dealing with the limitations of the text's fidelity to complete representation and with the moral effects that extreme behavior has on normally reserved individuals. Within the narrator's earlier scheme of things, therefore, Renzo's awakening into the light (however grim) of knowledge can be explained by his excesses of the previous evening, the very same excesses, in fact, that have got him into the straits in which he now finds himself.

This combination of psychological notation—broadly stated and then subtly developed without further narratorial commentary—and implicit literary “explanation” (in terms of the topos of the reawakening into moral knowledge) is most clearly demonstrated, as is again customary in Manzoni's representationally oriented aesthetics, in the character's deeds. At first Renzo can do little except watch, look, and think (p. 269). This is the same behavior that, in a later context, is extolled by Manzoni as the exemplary conduct of human beings, who all too often, by separating speech from these other aspects of intelligent behavior and by being too quick to leap to language, manage only to make themselves lamentable rather than admirable (p. 543). As distinct from Renzo's earlier reactions in Milan, his behavior now shows that he no longer indiscriminately believes whatever he hears (“Però, di tante belle parole Renzo non ne credette una” (p. 271). When Renzo sees and recognizes others who might help him approaching him and his captors on the street, he signals to them by moving his head and coughing; and when the right moment comes, he seizes the opportunity that fortune has provided and states his case in both practical and moral terms: “Se non m'aiuto ora, pensò, mio danno. E subito alzò la voce: figliuoli! mi menano in prigione, perché ieri ho gridato: pane e giustizia. Non ho fatto nulla; son galantuomo: aiutatemi, non m'abbandonate, figliuoli!” (p. 273). So Renzo has begun to learn the importance and utility of language, and he demonstrates what he has learned by using discourse (including body language) in action. His words are skillfully framed, and they play once again on that trickiest of terms, “galantuomo.” He seizes the moment and speaks, and shortly thereafter is free. In the narrative organization of these central chapters (14 to 16), the efficacy of the concluding harangue at least in part makes up for the foolishness of the introductory one as well as for the discursive errors in between.

If there is any doubt as to what Renzo has learned in Milan, it is quickly dispelled by his behavior at the inn in Gorgonzola, where the way in which he conducts himself reaffirms his newly acquired wisdom in the uses of discourse. As the Milanese mercante begins to relate his version of the story of the previous day's events (in which Renzo figures as a dangerous provocateur), Renzo listens “zitto e attento” (p. 284), paying closer attention than any of the others in the audience while carefully concealing his interest. Along with this cautious, in part fear-driven behavior, he also refrains from the sort of alcoholic indulgence of the evening before (although he does not refuse wine altogether, as he had meanwhile at the rustic inn) and now remains content with a half liter of “vino sincero.” Even when the merchant's story becomes most animated and the reactionary slant of his opinions most obvious, Renzo, despite all his perfectly natural desires to flee, continues to sit quietly and restrain himself (as Fusella had done at the Luna Piena and as Fra Cristoforo had also done during another meal). Finally, when Renzo sees the opportunity to depart without giving rise to suspicion, he pays the innkeeper and leaves “senza far altri discorsi” (p. 289), thereby conducting himself in a manner completely different from that of the previous evening in Milan. Renzo has thus begun to learn not only how to use language but also how to refrain from linguistic excess in the interest of his own well-being (though this is just a beginning and nothing more), and his behavior at the inn in Gorgonzola aptly attests to this knowledge.

In this case, of course, Renzo's silence has nothing to do with acquiescence. His fury at the merchant's tale is reflected, however, not in public discourse but in his thoughts to himself as he heads away from the inn towards the Adda. After mentally berating the merchant for the inaccuracies of his report, Renzo concludes with an internally voiced imperative, again directed to the merchant, that both binds Renzo's linguistic experiences together into a consistent process of learning and recalls the beginning of that very process: “E imparate a parlare un'altra volta; principalmente quando si tratta del prossimo” (p. 291, my italics). From a beginning pupil, Renzo has, at least in the context of this moment, become the master.

At the end of this chapter, there is a codicil to the entire lesson that extends from Renzo's entry into Milan to his arrival at his cousin Bortolo's in the territory of Bergamo in Chapter 17. Bortolo, after praising the bergamasco lawyer who has made such an impression in Venice and done so much for his fellows in Bergamo precisely because he “knows how to speak” (304; 271), cautions Renzo that, if he wants to stay and work in the silk industry nearby, there is a local linguistic oddity that he must learn to accept, however repugnant it may be to him at first. This is the bergamasco habit of referring to anyone from the territory of Milan as a “baggiano.” That Renzo says he is ready to live with this facetious if less than complimentary epithet pleases Bortolo at the same time that it indicates another stage on the way to Renzo's understanding of the ways and the deformations of language in the world. The term itself casts back, furthermore, to the narrator's description of Renzo's own “baggianata” concerning poets at the inn in Milan, and it also casts forth to the novel's conclusion. The narrative is not done, therefore, either with this epithet or with the process of linguistic education signaled by the repetition of the verb “imparare.” But before reviewing where these terms lead in the story, it is necessary to trace the development of another set of concerns that are also of crucial significance both within Azzeccagarbugli's initial command and within the order of language itself, those of hierarchy.

III

In I promessi sposi hierarchy is important to language both in an external and in an internal sense. Externally, the forms of language correspond to the already hierarchical ordering of society: each class, and each local division within a given class, has its own regular way of expressing meaning in discourse. Internally, language depends on the ordered priorities of hierarchy for its articulation and so for the production of its meaning. These two all-pervasive aspects of linguistic hierarchy—social and grammatical—are already apparent in the novel's introduction, in the narrator's reflection on the “gride,” and in Azzeccagarbugli's discussion with Renzo concerning the laws and their meaning; and they are presented with special force in the story of Fra Cristoforo's encounter with the irascible young nobleman in Chapter 4 and in the scene of the friar's exchange with Don Rodrigo in Chapter 6, in each of which questions of hierarchy assume the primary focus of the narrative.⁶ Because of the complexities of the laws of social conduct as explained in the first of these two scenes, the problem between the nobleman and Lodovico (soon to become Cristoforo) may appear to be merely a matter of interpretation, of understanding the differences between the old behavioral codes of chivalry and the new ones of the bourgeoisie. In fact, however, the encounter is due as much to the pettiness and the overbearing pride of both parties as to the contradictions within the laws of conduct, and the dispute is finally resolved not by intricate interpretation but by the violence that cuts through and thus renders mute all artificial questions of hierarchy and privilege.

It is important to see, in these and other scenes, that Manzoni's polemic is not directed against the hierarchical ordering of the rules of human society but rather toward the knowledgeable readjustment of such hierarchies along the lines of revealed Christian truth.⁷ As becomes apparent in the postprandial exchange between Far Cristoforo and Don Rodrigo, moreover, Manzoni's polemic is actually two-pronged, since it is for worldly use within a hierarchically ordered set of values and against either disuse or incorrectly ordered hierarchies. At the same time, Manzoni's position is further refined by his concern not just for “doing good” but also for avoiding “doing evil.”

The exchange between Don Rodrigo and Fra Cristoforo underscores the hierarchical nature of language as a social phenomenon when the angered nobleman describes his usual procedures for teaching his inferiors to speak properly (p. 92). The eventual reversal of fortune in the hierarchy of worldly power between Renzo and Don Rodrigo is also given special linguistic emphasis in Chapter 35 when the Capuchin encourages Renzo to forgive Don Rodrigo through blessing (bene dire).⁸ But the centra event that demonstrates the importance of linguistic and social hierarchy—and its breakdown through violence—is the arrival of the plague itself and the total disorder and confusion that it brings with it.⁹ In Chapter 31, moreover, one of the first institutions portrayed as being affected by the plague is—perhaps not unexpectedly, given the novel's habitual concerns—language itself. As in the novel's initial discussions of the “gride,” Manzoni again concentrates on the use and abuse of language in the state's official pronouncements and particularly on its equivocations regarding the name to be given the pestilence, which goes from “non peste” to “febbri pestilenziali” before at last being officially called “peste.” After generalizing on the all too common examples of gradually increasing errors in the history of human expression, in which words and ideas often do not coincide in any transparent fashion, Manzoni's narrator concludes, in a passage mentioned earlier in the context of Renzo's escape, by offering first a “metodo” of proceeding that demonstrates Manzoni's confidence in regard to human potential and then a lament that shows his pessimism in regard to actual human practice. This passage is perhaps worth citing in its entirety:

In principio dunque, non peste, assolutamente no, per nessun conto: proibito anche di proferire il vocabolo. Poi febbri pestilenziali: l'idea s'ammette per isbieco in un aggettivo. Poi, non vera peste; vale a dire peste sì, ma in un certo senso; non peste proprio, ma una cosa alla quale non si sa trovare un altro nome. Finalmente, peste senza dubbio, e senza contrasto: ma già ci s'è attaccata un'altra idea, l'idea del venefizio e del malefizio, la quale altera e confonde l'idea espressa dalla parola che non si può più mandare indietro.

Non è, credo, necessario d'esser molto versato nella storia dell'idee e delle parole, per vedere che molte hanno fatto un simil corso. Per grazie del cielo, che non sono molte quelle d'una tal sorte, e d'una tal importanza, e che conquistino la loro evidenza a un tal prezzo, e alle quali si possano attaccare accessòri d'un tal genere. Si potrebbe però, tanto nelle cose piccole, come nelle grandi, evitare, in gran parte, quel corso così lungo e così storto, prendendo il metodo proposto da tanto tempo, d'osservare, ascoltare, paragonare, pensare, prima di parlare.

Ma parlare, questa cosa così sola, e talmente più facile di tutte quel-l'altre insieme, che anche noi, dico noi uomini in generale, siamo un po' da compatire.

(p. 542-43)

The damage done to language by man's reaction to the plague is not different in kind from that which periodically afflicts, and progressively contaminates, the relationship between words and ideas, though it is far more severe. Indeed, the temptation to use language too freely, and so to abuse its true meaning and propriety, is one that is shared even by the narrator, as part of the human condition (“anche noi, dico noi uomini in generale” (p. 543). It is probably a simplification to say that, with the passing of the plague, language as well as everything else in the novel is put right again, and that in fact all is better than before. Nevertheless, something of the sort is the case, because this is, of course, the general motion of Manzoni's commedia. The absolution of Lucia from her vow, which Fra Cristoforo, as the worldly instrument of God's word (p. 637), accomplishes by placing one good alongside another and choosing between them in the hierarchically ordered Christian system of values, is a part of this process, as had been Renzo's pardoning of Don Rodrigo. It is also true that, after the passing of the plague and the completion of Renzo and Lucia's union, many of the linguistic practices that earlier had presented difficulties are now acceptable as an aspect of the new order of things. Don Abbondio's Latin, now “honest, sacrosanct” rather than guileful, is no longer offensive to Renzo (p. 663), and even the references to Lucia in Bergamo as “quella bella baggiana” are taken for honest admiration (as the narrator remarks approvingly, “L'epiteto faceva passare il sostantivo,” p. 671).

But despite the temptation to view the plague primarily as a terrifying yet arbitrarily conceived and introduced deus ex machina, as an important yet mechanical device that intervenes from outside the story to remove all difficulties and set everything straight, the plague's role in the story should not be taken lightly. Rather than being an external phenomenon in relation to the thematic development of the novel, the plague is part and parcel of a cluster of themes that have been inextricably present since the very beginning of the story (and fairly obvious since Lodovico's death in Chapter 4 and the initially humorous though later deeply serious moral, social, and physical confusion of the attempted but thwarted trickeries in the village in Chapter 8). The primary components of this narrative cluster are, first, various forms of reciprocal violence and, second, the lengthy process of decay that leads to chaos and then to sacrifice before it culminates in the reinstitution of a newly sanctified order. That this process plays itself out on the level of language as well as on those of other social, moral, and religious institutions demonstrates the all encompassing nature of these Girardian thematics in Manzoni's text.¹⁰ The wager voiced between Don Rodrigo and Attilio, his “colleague” and at the same time his rival in libertinism and bullying (p. 78), also shows the power of mimetic desire within Manzoni's story (i.e. Don Rodrigo desires Lucia in large measure because he perceives that Attilio desires her, and Don Rodrigo perseveres in his otherwise unlikely plot because of his pride and his concern for his reputation, which is to say, his concern for the way in which others perceive him). Don Rodrigo thus demonstrates the sort of melodramatically active and profane desire that is the other side of the narrator's own benignly chaste (i.e. idealistically Romantic) though only slightly less obvious feelings for Lucia (p. 256). The disconcerting hubris of Don Rodrigo's attitude toward Attilio's death, moreover, quickly turns him into the uncanny double of all of the plague's other victims, thus extending his role past that of an individual villain into that of the communal scapegoat, at once the embodiment and the carrier of all that is evil in regard to both cruelty and sexual transgression. In Girardian terms, therefore, it is not a coincidence that Don Rodrigo shows the unmistakable signs of the plague immediately after his evening of wine and his hubristic mock eulogy for his dead cousin.¹¹

The Unnamed, of course, would have been the prime candidate for this part, especially after the abduction of Lucia and his symbolic usurpation of Don Rodrigo's role, however temporary, in relation to her. But the Unnamed's conversion short-circuits such a fate. It also, surprisingly enough, indicates the eventual turn of the narrative's entire representation of society away from the corrupted hierarchy of chivalry—Spanish, petty, and thoroughly decadent, the type of social order in which the unrestrained treachery of Don Rodrigo, a mediocre man yet one inhabited by the devil (p. 309), could not only exist but also dominate—and toward the newly (re)established power and authority of traditional Christian values.¹² It is important to see, therefore, that what Renzo and Lucia learn from the entire arc of their experience, and are free to express after the plague has first reunited them and then passed, is not a group of lessons adduced by the narrator at the story's conclusion like a handful of morals plucked from the body of the story and tacked onto its conclusion at the last minute. Rather, they represent the lessons embedded in the entire process of decadence, violence, and reestablished (though inherently precarious) hierarchical order that has been an integral part of the narrative's subject matter, in its representation of all levels of society, from the very start.

But what exactly do Renzo and Lucia learn from their “adventures,” or, better yet, what are we as readers intended to make of what they say they have learned? The narrator's report of Renzo's recapitulation of his own story and his account of what he has learned from it follows two paragraphs of description of the young couple's current circumstances. According to this passage, Renzo's business is going extremely well, and he and Lucia, as new arrivals in the region of Bergamo, have been granted a special exemption from the local taxes (“Per i nostri fu una nuova cuccagna,” p. 672). Before a year of marriage has ended they have a baby girl, named not surprisingly for the Virgin, and thereafter follow others of both sexes, all of whom, Renzo decides, must learn to read and write, “dicendo che, giacché la c'era questa birberia, dovevano almeno profittarne anche loro.” Lucia, of course, understands a great deal more than her husband and, despite her usually quiet nature, speaks the crucial lesson at the narrative's conclusion. But before that, at the end of the narrator's telescoped description of the couple's present life, Renzo gets to his list of individual lessons:

“Ho imparato … a non mettermi ne' tumulti: ho imparato a non predicare in piazza: ho imparato a guardare con chi parlo: ho imparato a non alzar troppo il gomito: ho imparato a non tenere in mano il martello delle porte, quando c'è lì d'intorno gente che ha la testa calda: ho imparato a non attaccarmi un campanello al piede, prima d'aver pensato quel che possa nascere.” E cent'altre cose.

All of these individual lessons (regardless of Renzo's notable and continuing personal limitations) derive primarily from what is, for Renzo, the story's germinating center, made up of his experiences in Milan in the novel's middle chapters. The ritornello of “ho imparato,” however, along with its connection to the acts of discourse (making speeches and paying attention to those with whom one speaks) ties this concluding litany to the entire process of linguistic and social education that begins, in regard to Renzo, with the exhortation from Azzeccagarbugli to learn to speak properly, and in regard to the novel as a whole, with the narrator's explanation of his linguistic aims and procedures in the story's introduction. In both cases, though in different ways, the goal of this process has been the attainment of the ability to use language and other forms of behavior to make one's way in the world of humanity, in what is now a symbolically and literally purged society.

IV

Manzoni's feelings as a Christian writer demonstrate a further concern for the communicative powers of language in his relation to his own text. As Manzoni's various reflections on the aesthetics of narrative fiction attest (though with markedly differing measures of optimism and pessimism during different periods of his life), in his view the historical novel attempts to unite the effects of two distinct sorts of writing, poetry, broadly defined, and history. Traditionally, this sort of distinction might have lead to a further one, that, roughly speaking, between creating and reporting. But in regard to I promessi sposi this was not Manzoni's concept. For Manzoni, history already contained the evidence of divine Providence, and so of the one Creator, in its course, however difficult or even impossible to discern this evidence might be. The writer's goal, as Olga Ragusa has pointed out in regard to Manzoni's Romantic aesthetic theories, was not to create but to find the suitable object to re-create.¹³ The writer's distinctive imaginative skill lay both in conceiving of that object and in imitating it in the most effective manner possible. If he could succeed in getting his re-presentation of “history” right (i.e., both imaginatively effective and seemingly transparent), then that representation would contain, and at the same time bear witness to, the immanent signs of truth's meaning with which the Creator, through Providence, had already endowed the world's story.¹⁴ The exceptional ambition of his project, and the responsibility Manzoni felt for it as a devout Christian, suggest some of the reasons for his agonizing over the novel both before and after its publication.

At the same time, the thoroughgoing nature of the novel's representational aesthetic, with its religious as well as artistic rationales, explains in large part why—after the introduction—the tale most often turns back on the manner of its telling only in secondary ways, like the habitual broaching but then stylized curtailment of such topics as fictional representation and the status and fortunes of books in the world of the present as well as in the historical past.¹⁵ In the published versions of the novel, moreover, this same restraint is generally evident in Manzoni's self-reflexive commentaries on authors and their audience, including Manzoni's actual readership, as well as in his invitations, or at times his challenges, to his readers to fill in the novel's gaps in representation (which remain brief boutades rather than the harangues or the extended excurses of Fermo e Lucia). However, there is a further example of literary self-reflexivity in I promessi sposi that is striking both in its openness and in the aura of skepticism surrounding it. The passage in question, which again deals specifically with questions of language, is a lengthy explanation in Chapter 27. It picks up the thread of the narrator's various earlier references to books and writing (and particularly the discussions of Renzo the “poet” and of the requirements of intelligibility for printed books in Chapter 14). In Chapter 27, the narrator's commentary begins with consideration of the inevitable gaps between intention, linguistic reproduction, and meaning in the letters written and interpreted by the “letterati” for Agnese and Renzo. The “letterato,” similar to Manzoni's narrator in relation to the story's anonymous manuscript, is not content merely to copy out whatever he is told but feels obliged both to put whatever it is in literary form and to improve on it. These considerations would not be so obviously disturbing if they did not go on to include a self-consciously pointed discussion of the language of published authors. Such writers—explicitly including Manzoni himself—are in fact prey to the same pitfalls in the relationship between words, things, and human understanding and are thus victims of the same problems in the praxis of writing:

Con tutto ciò, al letterato suddetto non gli riesce sempre di dire tutto quel che vorrebbe; qualche volta gli accade di dire tutt'altro: accade anche a noi altri, che scriviamo per la stampa.

(p. 464, my italics)

That this process of error and confusion is then seen to extend past writing to reading and interpretation (including, in this instance, Renzo's fury with the “lettore interprete”) confirms our earlier consideration of Manzoni's concerns for his book as a meaningful product in the world of everyday communication even while it casts those concerns in a remarkably uncertain and troubled light.

Once again, part of this uncertainty stems from Manzoni's concept of communication not only in terms of logic but also in terms of religious truth. Even though, within Manzoni's religious system, language's relation to its referents may not finally be accidental or arbitrary (the question occupying the story's anonymous chronicler at the very point at which Manzoni's narrator breaks off his transcription), man cannot know the precise nature of the motivation between names and things, signs and referents, since that knowledge is restricted to the barred realm of Providence's source. Sometimes, as in “Lucia,” the relation may seem to be clear by divine intention, or, as in “Cristoforo,” it may appear meaningful both beyond and also within human design; but usually understanding, and in all cases complete certainty, is reserved to one realm alone.

This abdication of final authority on the part of the worldly author helps to account for the fact that I promessi sposi, even when it is self-conscious of its language, is most often not overly disturbed or disturbing in that regard. Like the organizing effects of Romantic irony itself, moreover, this abdication makes the narrative into a seemingly closed system, though one in which closure is raised to the second power, wherein resides the will of the true Author. But at the same time it is essential to see that this abdication, this very lack of certainty, cuts both ways, since it returns to disrupt Manzoni's text to such a degree that no amount of self-conscious apologetics can finally resolve the continuing doubts about not just the use but also the ends of novelistic discourse. Given this impasse, all that man can do, as is affirmed by the narrator, Fra Cristoforo, and eventually even Renzo (whose offspring would now in theory be able to read about and thus to follow their forebear's lesson in Manzoni's book), is to learn to use language, despite all its inherent difficulties and pitfalls, as well and therefore as effectively as possible. As far as the novel is concerned, this ability, within the limits of mankind's intellectual and moral capacities and his social opportunities, can help to furnish the keys to the kingdom of this world, if not the next. At the narrative's conclusion, as for Manzoni himself through the entire novel, this turns out to be no small prize and no meager responsibility, either for the story's characters, striving to live and communicate in their world, or for Manzoni in his.

Notes

1. All references are to I promessi sposi. Testo critico della edizione definitiva del 1840. Tutte le opere di Alessandro Manzoni, 2, tome 1, ed. Alberto Chiari and Fausto Ghisalberti, I classici Mondadori (Milan: Mondadori, 1954).

2. This point is also made by Sergio Romagnoli in “Lingua e società nei Promessi sposi,” in Atti del convegno manzoniano di Nimega (16-17-18 ottobre 1973), ed. Carlo Ballerini. Istituto di lingua e letteratura italiana dell'Università Cattolica di Nimega e Istituto di Cultura per i Paesi Bassi (Florence: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1979), pp. 126-59; rpt. in Romagnoli's Manzoni e i suoi colleghi, Nuovi saggi (Florence: Sansoni, 1984), pp. 35-64.

3. In L'avventura della parola nei “Promessi sposi”, L'ippogrifo, 21 (Rome: Bonacci, 1980), pp. 42-43. De Rienzo, who sees the word as both the entry to and the embodiment of the worldly “regno del possibile,” goes on to characterize Don Rodrigo, somewhat too grandiosely, as “l'eroe negativo della parola” (p. 43). He eventually fills out this scheme through consideration of l'Innominato, Fra Cristoforo, Don Abbondio, and Federigo Borromeo, as well as through discussion of Renzo's liguistic education and Lucia's silence. De Rienzo's perspective is limited by his continued emphasis on language as an act in itself, that is, apart from the other wordly gestures and attitudes that are essential to language's meaning and force. Despite this limitation, however, his book is a landmark in the study of linguistic self-consciousness in Manzoni's novel.

4. The term Bildungsroman is used by Giovanni Getto, who sees Renzo's experience in Milan (Chapter 14) as the key to his ongoing education in Letture Manzoniane (Florence: Sansoni, 1964), p. 241. In this regard, see also Guido Baldi, “La ribellione di Renzo tra Eden e storia,” in Da Dante al Novecento. Studi critici offerti dagli scolari a Giovanni Getto nel suo ventesimo anno di insegnamento universitario (Milan: Mursia, 1970), pp. 485-512. For more recent treatments of this aspect of Renzo's story see: Romagnoli, “Lingua e società nei Promessi Sposi”; Mary Ambrose, “Error and Abuse of Language in the ‘promessi sposi,’” Modern Language Review, 72 (1977), 62-72; Giorgio Ficara, “Renzo, l'allievo delle Muse,” Lettere italiane, 29 (1977), 34-58; De Rienzo, pp. 107-37; and Robert S. Dombroski, L'apologia del vero. Lettura ed interpretazione dei ‘Promessi Sposi’, Guide di cultura contemporanea (Padua: Liviana, 1984), pp. 35-66.

5. No one has reacted to this scene more appropriately than Attilio Momigliano, who, with exquisite sensibility, describes the innkeeper as Rembrantesque and comments that the visual qualities of the portrayal of the crowd of drinkers bring to mind the paintings of Van Ostade, in Alessandro Manzoni, 5th ed. (Milan-Messina: Principato, 1958), p. 267.

6. In a different context, Jean-Pierre Barricelli has noted that the effects of hierarchy, along with elaborate obstruction and closure, are even at work in Manzoni's composition of place, particularly in the novel's description of the path, the walls, and the cliffs and valleys of the opening paragraphs. See “Structure and Symbol in Manzoni's I Promessi Sposi,” PMLA 87 (1972), 499-507.

7. The polemical nature of I Promessi Sposi, discussion of which began as soon as the novel was published, led Benedetto Croce (in this instance borrowing his terminology from Giuseppe Citanna, with whom Croce exchanged opinions on Manzoni in La critica in the 1920's) to declare Manzoni's novel an “opera oratoria.” See: Croce, Alessandro Manzoni. Saggi e discussioni, 4th ed., Biblioteca di cultura moderna, 191 (Bari: Laterza, 1952), pp. 105-11, 146; and Citanna, Storia della letteratura italiana. Volume terzo. Ottocento, 2nd ed. (Milan: Garzanti, 1954), pp. 40-63. For an important continuation of this once lively discussion, see Luigi Russo, “Alessandro Manzoni poëta an orator?” (1941), in Ritratti e disegni storici. Serie quarta. Dal Manzoni al De Sanctis e la letteratura dell'Italia unita, New ed., La civiltà europea (Florence: Sansoni, 1965), pp. 109-47.

8. On the importance of this term in the novel, see Ficara, “Le parole e la peste in Manzoni,” Lettere italiane, 33 (1981), 3-37.

9. In regard to the chaos and reciprocal violence that the plague in literature (including I Promessi Sposi) both symbolizes and further incites, see René Girard, “The Plague in Literature and Myth” (1974), in “To double business bound”: Essays on Literature, Mimesis, and Anthropology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 136-54. See also Dombroski, “The Ideological Question in Manzoni,” Studies in Romanticism, 20 (1981), 497-524, especially pp. 515-24, trans. and rev. in L'apologia del vero, pp. 67-96, especially pp. 86-96; and Ficara, “Le parole e la peste in Manzoni.”

10. Girard is succinctly explicit on this cluster of themes in “The Plague in Literature and Myth,” pp. 148-49. For his most recent treatment of this subject see Le Bouc émissaire (Paris: Grasset, 1983), especially pp. 7-36.

11. Girard discusses similar effects of hubristic pride and the communal doubling of sudden victimage in Artaud's work (treated by Girard in the context of Shakespeare and Dostoevski) in “The Plague in Literature and Myth,” p. 149.

12. In terms of the symbolism of narrative organization, this conversion and shift also help save Lucia's honor, since one of the primary aspects in certain mythic representations of the scapegoat's role is sexual union with a beautiful maiden prior to his ritual expulsion or murder. The role of the scapegoat in modern literature, including this aspect of it, is discussed by John B. Vickery in his Myths and Texts: Strategies of Incorporation and Displacement (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1983), pp. 43-45, 102-47.

13. See Ragusa's “Imitation and Originality in Manzoni's Romantic Theory,” Le parole e le idée, 6 (1964), 219-28. On the development and the complexity of Manzoni's aesthetic theories, in his own writings as well as in relation to competing theories of the period, see also: Barbara Reynolds, The Linguistic Writings of Alessandro Manzoni: A Textual and Chronological Reconstruction (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1950); Dante Isella, “Introduzione,” in Postille al vocabolario della Crusca nell'edizione veronese, ed. Dante Isella. Documenti di filologia, 7 (Milan: Ricciardi, 1964), pp. vii-xviii; and Mario Puppo, Poesia e verità. Interpretazioni manzoniane, Biblioteca di cultura contemporanea, 137 (Messina-Florence: D'Anna, 1979). For brief commentaries on the close relation in Manzoni's thought between language and its practical use in society, see: Maria Corti, “Uno scrittore in cerca della lingua,” L'approdo letterario, 10 (1964), p. 12; and Vittorio Spinazzola, ed., I promessi sposi, 3rd ed., I Garzanti, 382 (Milan: Garzanti, 1972), p. 11 (and for more extensive, if also more diffuse treatment, see Spinazzola, Il libro per tutti. Saggio sui ‘Promessi sposi’ Nuova biblioteca di cultura, 246 [Rome: Riuniti, 1983]). On the relation between rhetoric and logic in Manzoni's aesthetic theories, with particular attention to the Storia della colonna infame, see Angelo R. Pupino, “Il vero solo è bello.” Manzoni tra retorica e logica, Saggi, 221 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982). Romano Amerio discusses Manzoni's views of the importance of both language's use in the world and its potential for abuse (as one key to human error) in his extensive commentary on La morale cattolica, Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica, ed. Romano Amerio, 3 vols. (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1965), III, 106-17, 125-27.

14. In regard to general questions of Manzoni's style as technique and meaning, see: (on style and the mixture of narrative voices) Giuseppe De Robertis, Primi studi manzoniani e altre cose, Quaderni di letteratura e d'arte (Florence: Le Monnier, 1949), pp. 3-110; (on style as both form and sense) Giovanni Nencioni, “Conversazioni dei Promessi Sposi,” La rassegna della letteratura italiana, 60 (1956), 53-68; (on linguistic parodies) Giorgio Petrocchi, La tecnica manzoniana del dialogo, Saggi di letteratura italiana, 10 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1959); (on rhetorical levels and stylistics) Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti, Teoria e prove dello stile di Manzoni, I quaderni di Sigma (Milan: Silva, 1965); (on literary irony and social class) Guido Guglielmi, Ironia e negazione, La ricerca letteraria, Serie critica, 24 (Turin: Einaudi, 1974); and (on irony and metalanguage) Ezio Raimondi, Il romanzo senza idillio. Saggio sui Promessi Sposi (Turin: Einaudi, 1974), pp. 223-47, 250-307.

15. The most important treatments of the effects and the implications of self-consciousness in I Promessi Sposi, all of which have been mentioned earlier in regard to specific issues, are: Romagnoli; Raimondi; Ambrose; Ficara, “Renzo, l'allievo delle Muse” and “Le parole e la peste in Manzoni”; De Rienzo; and Spinazzola, Il libro per tutti, especially pp. 219-76. There is also an early and extremely impressionistic (though lengthy) treatment of the topic by Giuseppe Sertoli, “Lettura metaromanzesca della prima pagina dei ‘Promessi Sposi,’” Il cristallo, 13 (1971), 67-86. Joanna Richardson's recent structuralist reading of the novel, “Narrative Strategy in I promessi sponsi,” Neophilologus, 68 (1984), 214-24, points toward (though does not actually provide) another way of treating the “dédoublement” (p. 223) of the nineteenth-century narrator in relation to Manzoni's novel.