Ugo Foscolo's Europe: A Journey from the Sublime to Romantic Humor
[In the following essay, Costa reflects on how Foscolo's travels from Italy to England, his readings, and the politics of the time affected the tone of his fragmentary work Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra, which was written between 1817 and 1818.]
The concept of Europe envisioned by Ugo Foscolo was deeply affected by the aesthetic views that dominated his life. Foscolo's Europe is a reflection of his creative spirit and, as such, must be gathered from his works in prose and verse. Fashioned in various genres, such works reflect different psychological moods by the writer and take the form of two opposite artistic expressions: the sublime and the comic. Both are linked to the theme of the journey, which can be either sublime—as is the case with Ulysses—or comic, as expressed by Yorick, the protagonist of Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey (1768). The travel projected into the mythic past of Greece belongs to the superior sphere of the sublime, which allows us to overcome the narrow confines of geography and history in order to live in an enchanted world where geographic distance and historical remoteness disappear in a kind of mystic embrace. But travel can also be a contemporary fact, imposed by practical necessities, and, in this case, it is eminently comic. In this essay, I will show how Foscolo achieved the fusion of the sublime and the comic dimension of travel literature in his fragmentary Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra or Gazzettino del Bel Mundo, which he initiated at the very beginning of the year 1817 and which he left unfinished on March 1818.1 In so doing, Foscolo made an artistic itinerary from the sublime to romantic humor, which more or less mirrored the journey of his existence from the Ionian Islands to Italy, and from the latter to England. Foscolo's Europe basically consisted of Greece, Italy, and England, viewed in a sublime or comic perspective, which at the end blend together in the humor pervading the Lettere.
In his Ortis (1802), Foscolo expressed his personal experience of exile from Venice and depicted Italy as a part of Europe exposed to foreign invasions, as well as to artistic influences from Northern countries. Among these, Goethe's Werther and Sterne's Sentimental Journey should be mentioned. The latter source might have directed Foscolo's creative power toward a kind of romantic humor, based on the coincidence of the sublime and the ludicrous. But it was not so, because the main component of Ortis appears to be Edmund Burke's identification of the sublime with terror and grief, as Cesarotti unwittingly pointed out in one of his letters, a point grossly misinterpreted by Walter Binni.2 In his lyric poem Dei Sepolcri (1807), Foscolo views Italy as the equivalent of Greece and implicitly adopts an image of Europe in Graeco-Roman terms, perfectly suited to the neoclassic taste of his times. What distinguishes Dei Sepolcri from other Italian neoclassical poems is its rigorous and original use of aesthetic principles, derived from the treatise On the Sublime, which is attributed to Longinus. Thanks to the inspiration drawn from Longinus, an author whom Foscolo, contrary to the majority of his contemporaries, was able to read in the original Greek text, the Italian poet was able to overcome the limits of time and space in the mystic union of great souls from different times and countries, that Longinus advocated in his treatise.3 In the unfinished Grazie, Foscolo continued to cultivate an image of Europe, mainly consisting of Greece and Italy. Such an image coincided with the triumph of the beautiful over the sublime, reflecting, on one hand, Foscolo's debt to Yves-Maire André, Raphael Mengs, and Winckelmann, and, on the other hand, Foscolo's rejection of Burke's and Mendelssohn's aesthetic theories. In his “Dissertation on an Ancient Hymn to the Graces” (1822), Foscolo writes: “If, instead of their poets furnishing subjects, attitudes, and expressions, the Athenians had possessed philosophers like Burke and Mendelssohn, it may be doubted, whether they would ever have executed those masterpieces of sculpture, which Phidias acknowledges he copied from three lines of the Iliad.”4
Paradoxically, Foscolo's disenchantment with the contemporary aesthetics of the sublime was itself a development of the treatise On the Sublime (XIV. 2) where, in the following passage, Longinus stresses the role of great models in the creative process.
Still more effectual will it be to suggest this question to our thoughts, “What sort of hearing would Homer, had he been present, or Demonsthenes have given to this or that when said by me, or how would they have been affected by the other?” For the ordeal is indeed a severe one, if we presuppose such a tribunal and theatre for our utterances, and imagine that we are undergoing a scrutiny of our writings before these great heroes, acting as judges and witnesses.5
This passage was considered highly significant by Foscolo, as it appears from his essay entitled “Traduzione de' due primi canti dell'Odissea di Ippolito Pindemonte” (1810). Here Foscolo paraphrased and lauded Longinus's preference for an audience composed exclusively of dead, though outstanding writers.
Immaginate che Demostene, Socrate e Omero leggano quanto scrivete: questo è il più bel precetto della letteratura; trovasi con altri pochissimi d'egual tempra nel libro Del Sublime di Dionisio Longino, dal quale, malgrado le magnificenze che se ne cantano, potrebbesi estrarre quattro pagine, inciderle in bronzo, o piuttosto trascriverle in lettere cubitali su le quattro pareti di tutte le scuole di eloquenza, e poi confinare il resto di quel trattato tra le inezie e le noie rettoriche.6
Foscolo's idiosyncratic sublime offered a highly sophisticated motivation to his snobbish attitude toward contemporary culture. The latter, being the opposite of the sublime, could be expressed only in comic terms. It is no wonder that the Lettere, conceived as a mirror of contemporary life, are intrinsically comic even when they deal with the sublime itself. A case in point is the following passage from the so-called “Della poesia moderna,” where Foscolo attacks the creators of contemporary aesthetics:
Fu ed è moda che i professori di metafisica francesi, inglesi e tedeschi insegnassero belle arti. Mengs diede precetti ed esempi a dipingere metafisicamente. Le nostre Accademie dissertano intorno al Bello; alla Grazia; al Sublime: teorie ignote all'età di Raffaello, del Correggio e di Michelangelo, i quali contemplavano le creazioni della natura con cuore non per anche gelato dalle speculazioni, e con mente vergine di sistemi. Ad essi bastava mostrare il Come sentivano e immaginavano la natura bella, sublime, e graziosa; or tutti vogliamo trovare il Perché.7
Foscolo's impatience with the excessive theorizing of his own times—an impatience probably inspired by Giambattista Vico's philosophy, according to which artistic creativity, based on imagination, antedates the rules of the poetics, based on reflection—reveals Foscolo's partiality toward Italy, viewed as the center of European civilization, at the expense of France, England, and Germany. Yet, in deprecating the proliferation of sterile theories, Foscolo reflected an attitude quite common among his contemporaries. Even in England, Byron attacked Coleridge in the dedication of Don Juan (2. 5-8): “And Coleridge too has lately taken wing, / But like a hawk encumbered with his hood, / Explaining metaphysics to the nation. / I wish he would explain his explanation.”8 As usual, despite his proclaimed hostility toward modernity, Foscolo was on the same wavelength of the most relevant European literatures. He sensed that the modern world, being absolutely unfit for the sublime, is ludicrous in all its manifestations, including its speculations on the sublime. For this reason, in his Lettere Foscolo adopted a highly original style, amalgamating the sublime and the comic, namely his nostalgia for the mythic past of Greece and Italy, which continued to haunt him, and his everyday experience with the petty problems connected with his condition as an expatriate in England. The result of Foscolo's creative effort is an unfinished but fascinating work that can be subsumed under the category of romantic humor, namely the reverse of the sublime, according to Jean Paul Richter's School of Aesthetics (1804).9
Foscolo had meditated on Plutarch's essay On Exile, 2 (Moralia, 599), according to which expatriation is a matter of opinion, one which can be viewed either as a calamity or as an advantage:
It is by nature that stone is hard, it is by nature that ice is cold; it is not from outside themselves, fortuitously, that they convey the sensation of rigidity and freezing; but banishment, loss of fame, and loss of honours, like their opposites, crowns, public office, and frontseat privileges, whose measure of causing sorrow and joy is not their own nature, but our judgment, every one makes light or heavy for himself, and easy to bear or the reverse.10
Plutarch proves the validity of his statement, referring to two texts. The first, drawn from Euripides's The Phoenician Maidens (388-89), contains Jocasta's question to Polyneices: “What is the loss of country? A great ill?” as well as Polyneices's unequivocal answer: “The greatest; and no words can do it justice.” The second text quoted by Plutarch is Alexander Aetolus's epigram, in which the poet Alcman expressed his satisfaction at having left Lydia, his native country, in order to become a citizen of Sparta.11 Foscolo did not ignore the exhilarating feeling of liberty that a foreign country can convey to a traveler open to new experiences. Especially his early correspondence from England reveals (to put it in Mario Scotti's words) Foscolo's “sensazione gioiosa della riscoperta libertà.”12 Yet he decided to adopt Euripides's passage as an epigraph for the fragment of the Lettere entitled “Esilio” (“tornerò ad affliggermi degli altrui guai con Euripide allorché mi sarò con voi spassionato de' miei”), leaving aside the gist in Plutarch's essay where Euripides is quoted with Alexander Aetolus (the “opuscoli di Plutarco De exilio dov'è citato”).13 Obviously, Foscolo did not resist the temptation to give an excerpt of sublime poetry that could elevate the daily problems he faced as an exile.
It would be a mistake, however, to view Foscolo's preference for Euripides as a mere literary gimmick. When he wrote “Esilio,” Foscolo harbored the tragic foreboding that he would never be able to go back to Italy, as it is clear from the following passage in which he refers to the period he spent in France (1804-1806) serving in Napoleon's army: “E temo ch'io non riavrò il piacere di cui ho goduto quando ritornando dopo due anni rividi con occhi lacrimosi di gioia i miei libri, di più gioia che non rividi gli amici miei.”14 The premonition is almost hidden in a frivolous context, dealing with the partiality of English writers, such as Addison and Fielding, for epigraphs and quotations (“Gl'Inglesi ne sono pazzi come pure di citazioni”).15 The same remark can be extended to the rest of the drafts and notes that constitute the Lettere. The most striking characteristic of Foscolo's unfinished project is the tragic feeling that lies buried under the jocular surface of its sprightly prose. One of the most convincing expressions of the ubiquitous tension between tragedy and comedy is found in the introductory letter that Foscolo completed on December 25, 1817: “E appunto perché su l'Inghilterra io scriveva, per così dir, novellando; e intanto nella mia memoria risanguinavano piaghe—per le quali il forte sdegna di lasciare udire lamenti; e il cittadino vorrebbe poterle palliare; né io bramava che di sfogarmi secretamente—io allora non m'intendeva, o lettore, che tu pure dovessi essere depositario delle lettere mie.”16 Apart from the conventional disclaimer of fictitious epistolary works, allegedly written for private consumption, what we have here is an accurate description of the two main ingredients of the Lettere: tragedy and comedy. These basic components exert upon each other a strong magnetic pull, which precludes the possibility of a purely sublime or comic expression. The ultimate result of these opposite forces is romantic humor. In the Lettere, Foscolo experimented with a style that was highly appreciated in northern Europe, especially in England. From this point of view, Foscolo's physical journey to England appears to have been also an artistic evolution toward romantic humor.
Such an evolution was the fruit of a laborious gestation, strongly influenced by Sterne, whose Sentimental Journey Foscolo translated into Italian from the original, in 1805, while in France. As reflected in the “Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico” (1816), in Sterne's novels Foscolo discovered a new kind of irony, neither epigrammatic nor persuasive, simply and warmly narrative (a “nuova specie d'ironia, non epigrammatica, né suasoria, ma candidamente ed affettuosamente storica”).17 In the dedication of the second edition of his Tristram Shandy (1760), Sterne asserted that “every time a man smiles,—but much more so, when he laughs, it adds something to this Fragment of life.”18 Yet Foscolo was perfectly aware that Sterne's magic style was made not only of mirth but also of tears (“ma pare ch'egli inoltre sapesse che ogni lagrima insegna a' mortali una verità”).19 Certainly, Sterne's new brand of narrative irony suggested to Foscolo a new aesthetic possibility, resulting from the blend of the tragedy and the comedy. Sterne's artistic vision was founded on a subversion of traditional rhetoric, which had separated the sublime from the ludicrous, as it appears in Tristram Shandy (I, Ch. 19) where the eloquence of Tristram's father is jocularly described as a natural gift: “Persuasion hung upon his lips. … And yet, 'tis strange he had never read Cicero nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus among the ancients.”20 Literary taste was decidedly changing, since Longinus himself, whom Pope viewed as the perfect embodiment of the sublime,21 could be quoted to poke fun at the admirers of ancient rhetoric. Such a desecrating attitude, which paved the way for modern aesthetics, was not ignored in the Venetian literary world, where a brilliant novelist such as Francesco Gritti, in his La mia istoria ovvero Memorie del signor Tommasino (1767-1768), could satirize a speech for its Longinian character (“mercé la irresistible forza de' miei sillogismi pieni zeppi di verità e della più fina quintessenze del gran Longino”).22
The most accomplished example of romantic humor that Italian literature could offer to Foscolo, however, was Alfieri's Vita, published in 1806, an autobiography that was also a travel book dealing with various countries of Europe.23 In a fragment of his Lettere, Foscolo epitomizes in a few lines the content of Alfieri's Vita, calling attention to some revealing episodes: “L'Alfieri incocciatosi che il suo cavallo saltasse una sbarra nell'Hyde Park si slogò un braccio, e dopo tre o quattro giorni duellò—poi tornato a Firenze vestiva da militare perché parevagli farsi più bello—poi scrisse tragedie e abbellì la poesia italiana dell'unica corona che le mancava.”24 Foscolo, who liked to view himself as Alfieri's heir, alludes to that part of the Vita, (I, III, X) containing a romanesque description of Alfieri's adventures during his second stay in England, namely his love affair with Penelope Pitt. One such adventure was Alfieri's fall from a horse. As a result of the accident, Alfieri's left shoulder was dislocated. In spite of the injury, Alfieri was able to fight a duel with his mistress's jealous husband who had discovered their relationship.25 Alfieri's fall from a horse suggested to Foscolo a self-serving comparison with a similar accident he had on July 25, 1817 (“non voglio spedire domani il precedente numero senza questo, tanto da non lasciarvi fantasticare cos'abbia a che fare l'Alfieri con la tribolazione della mia gamba”).26 In one of his letters, addressed to John Allen on September 2, 1817, Foscolo related his misadventure, which after immobilizing him for three weeks, left him with a limp. Even in this account, one can detect the same tension between the sublime and the ludicrous that pervades the Lettere. For Foscolo, after comparing himself to Theseus in Virgil's Aeneid (VI, 618-19) and to Philoctetes, the hero of one of Sophocles's tragedies, does not hesitate to identify himself with the anti-hero of Cervantes's Don Quijote as follows:
Le chirurgien m'a tenu dans l'immobilité du Héros Theseus pendant vingt et un jours: aeternumque sedebat—Infelix Theseus:—maintenant je suis le Héros Filoctetes; je marche boiteux comme lui; et la nuit je pousse des cris aussi aigus que les siens: car le rhumatisme n'a point declined the occasion—et je finirai par devenir la véritable figure du Héros Don Quixote mon ami, et, je crois, l'un de mes ancêtres.27
In the passage from the Lettere just cited, Foscolo also alludes to another episode in Alfieri's autobiography, one that constitutes an excellent example of romantic humor. In his Vita (I, IV, III), Alfieri confesses that, at the very time he was writing his Virginia and the essay Della Tirannide, he was still wearing the uniform of the Sardinian army, simply because he wanted to look more smart and attractive. commenting on his own vanity, Alfieri made the striking discovery of the dual nature of his own character, consisting of a giant and a dwarf: “In questa particolarità, la quale in me si troverà accoppiata con gli atti di forza che io andava pure facendo, si scorgerà da chi ben osserva e riflette, che talvolta l'uomo, o almeno, che io riuniva in me, per così dire, il gigante ed il nano.”28 Such a confession points to the same tension between the sublime and the ludicrous that Foscolo experienced in himself and expressed in his writings. It was a tension that polarized the contradictions of Foscolo's personality, reflecting an essential condition of the romantic malaise. As Alfieri discovered to have a split personality, one that allowed him to be a giant and a dwarf at the same time, in the same way Foscolo was Ortis and Didimo Chierico. While Ortis represents the traveler journeying in the mythic dimension of the sublime, Didimo Chierico represents the traveler journeying in the contemporary world—a man who has seen many countries, described them in his autobiography written in Greek, and yet regretted having seen them (“parla de' molti paesi da lui veduti, e si pente d'averli veduti”), as Foscolo stated in his “Notizia.”29 Didimo is also the fictitious author of the Hypercalypsis (1816), which contains a vitriolic attack against Urbano Lampredi. Here Foscolo depicts himself in the larger-than-life figure of the military man (“vir militaris”) who, having played the role of the archangel, in the end proclaims to be just a cavalry captain (“Non sum apostolus nec propheta nec angelus, sed centurio Draconum”).30 Didimo, like Foscolo, was a rationalist who paradoxically believed in the power of prophecy (“Credeva nell'ispirazione profetica, anzi presumeva di saperne le fonti”).31
In his Lettere, Foscolo does not fail to mention Didimo, who was well informed about the ways of the world thanks to his travels through Europe. In the “lettera sulla moda,” where he deals with the habit of kissing the ladies' hands, which did not exist in England, Foscolo fondly evokes Didimo: “Ma qui si tratta del nostro secolo, di mode e di baci—e tu sì Didimo Chierico, amico mio! tu ne sapevi più d'Anacreonte.”31 As he had already done in his “Notizia,” Foscolo feigns to have lost track of Didimo (“Poi non l'abbiamo veduto più: né so s'egli cammini ancora sopra la terra”).32 In a canceled draft of the same “Lettera sulla moda,” Foscolo describes Didimo's gift of prophecy, and mentions his own Hypercalypsis: “E' fu nella sua adolescenza invasato da uno spirito o demone di profezia, e scrisse certo libretto a modo della Scrittura che si chiama con vocabolo strano Hypercalypsis.”34 Then Foscolo refers to Ch. XVII of the prophetic work he attributed to Didimo, who allegedly exposed the misery of Paris, Rome, and Milan, the three Babylons of Napoleonic Europe: “ei pronostica di tre Babilonie—Babilonia massima, Babilonia perpetua, e Babilonia minima.”35 Since the Lettere were intended for English readers, Foscolo found it expedient to overlook the fact that Didimo, in Hypercalypsis, XVII, 9, had directed his barbs against England, the rich Babylon, and had predicted its ruin (“ad te quoque perveniet calix: inebriaberis atque nudaberis”).36 However, Didimo's negative view of England did not cease to affect Foscolo's direct experience of English life, as shown by his correspondence. In the letter addressed to Quirina Mocenni Magiotti on February 20, 1818, Foscolo scorned England's materialistic mentality, based on the glorification of money: “E t'ho già avvertito, credo, che qui la povertà è vergogna che nessun merito lava. E' delitto non punito dalle leggi, ma perseguitato più crudelmente dal mondo. Sì fatto modo di pensare fa di grandi beni alla nazione—ma riduce chi ha bisogno a non potere cercare né aiuto, né sfogo.”37
After his initial enthusiasm, Foscolo made the disturbing discovery that, as an Italian writer, he could not prosper in England where the Italian language was generally ignored. In the same letter to Quirina, Foscolo laments the fact that he was unable to write in English, and, forgetting Didimo's indifference to financial matters, regrets the material success he could have attained with a full mastery of English, thanks to the reputation he enjoyed as an Italian author:
Questa Fama che no viene meritamente, ma che pure mi è data, m'arricchirebbe, se potessi scrivere Inglese;—ma chi intende il mio Italiano? … Moltissimi lo studiano, pochi l'imparano: tutti affettano o presumono di saperlo. Ma i libraji assicurano che appena d'un libro Italiano, anche classico, si vendono cinquecento copie in tre anni;—e d'un libro Inglese, d'autore di qualche nome, se ne vendono cinque e spesso sei mila copie in due o tre settimane.38
England offered Foscolo the unique opportunity to acquire a first-hand knowledge of a modern, growing literary life, supported by a thriving book market, all of which was a far cry from a stagnating situation in Italy, where men of letters who could not count on a fortune were still obliged to make a living by soliciting state patronage or private generosity. A fragment of the Lettere shows that Foscolo had grasped the interconnection between an affluent society and a vigorous culture, because he stresses the fact that a reading public is the byproduct of habit, money and self-love: “La Lettura viene da' costumi—perché per essi s'ha tempo di Leggere—dal danaro perch'e s'ha mezzo d'incivilirisi, e spendere—dalla vanità perché provoca emulazione.”39 Because English literature was financed by the readers who bought books printed by the publishers in order to satisfy their demand, the English poets were more independent and less adept to adulation than the Italian counterparts who could not rely upon a vast audience: “Quanto a' poeti inglesi sono tutti meno adulatori perché son più liberi degli italiani;—ma perché sono poeti si compiacciono anch'essi del favore de' grandi; oggi peraltro men che mai perché i lor cari mecenati sono i librai, e quindi l'intera nazione.”40 Here Foscolo was moving on untilled ground. Only in 1832, the economic underpinnings of modern culture were pointed out by Giuseppe Pecchio in the essay “Sino a qual punto le Produzioni Scientifiche e Letterarie seguano le leggi economiche della produzione in generale.” Pecchio went so far as to assert that the market generates literary perfection but refused to extend this principle to the productions of sublime writers: “il gran consumo crea la perfezione; ma questo principio non debb'essere spinto troppo lontano fino a dire che crea la sublimità.”41
In the light of his English experience, Foscolo did not hesitate to manifest, once again, his profound distaste for Italian literary life, which was not founded on a national community, because the very idea of country was stifled first by the Napoleonic regime and then by the restoration sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna:
Or da quattr'anni ogni speranza di patria dileguasi; gl'ingegni frementi sotto Napoleone si giacciono in muta costernazione; e coloro che scrivono per venalità o per vanità, non hanno altra suppellettile che di parole; e combattono fra di loro: gli uni, ad immiserire con grammaticali superstizioni la lingua—gli altri a snaturarla con formule matematiche, o con vocaboli metafisici che inorgogliscono l'intellettotè è confondono l'evidenza delle idee; stile de' romanzieri, de' poeti e degli storici d'oggi, avvampante d'entusiasmo e di passioni artefatte.”42
Here Didimo's comic dislike for the literary quarrels of Italy, which he called “eunuchs' battles” (“l'ho imparato appunto da Didimo che i duelli di penna s'hanno da chiamare eunocomachie”),43 goes hand in hand with Ortis's tragic grief for the loss of country, which is expressed in the sublime opening of Foscolo's novel (“Il sacrificio della patria nostra è consumato: tutto è perduto; e la vita, seppure ne verrà concessa, non ci resterà che per piangere le nostre sciagure e la nostra infamia”).44 Foscolo's Europe consisted of highly diversified nations, which he naturalistically regarded as representing different species of men, more adept than other living beings to love and kill each other:
… la genitrice Natura sa bene quali diverse doti e dosi bisognino meglio a tutti noi sue creature uomini e bestie. E quanto agli animali umani destinati da lei ad amarsi più ch'altri fra loro e a trucidarsi più ch'altri, essa gli ha divisi in specie—e che noi diciamo Nazioni—ed ha provveduto ciascheduna di loro dell'istinto più acconcio all'intento dell'amarsi e del trucidarsi.”45
Yet Europe was held together by a kind of unifying cement, called Western civilization, while non-European peoples constituted the barbarian world. This Eurocentric view, universally accepted at the time, was never rejected by Foscolo, although he was somewhat uneasy about it.
Thanks to his familiarity with Vico's New Science,46 Foscolo was aware of the fact that barbarism and civilization are relative concepts inasmuch as they represent different stages in the historical development of all nations, including those of Europe. This relativistic view of the dichotomy between barbarism and civilization invited comparisons between Europeans and non-European peoples in order to better understand the history of Europe, from its origins to the present. Such is the proper perspective that help us to understand Foscolo's observations on the inability of both barbarians and civilized men to think, when they reach the apex of the stage of barbarism or civilization. According to Foscolo, barbarians tend to fix their attention on very few objects, while civilized people tend to disperse their intellectual powers over a wide range of subject matter. Therefore, barbarians are comparable to maniacs, while civilized men are to be considered as fatuous: “Parmi che nel sommo della barbarie o della civiltà de' popoli la facoltà di pensare è inattiva. I barbari, per troppa intensità di passione verso pochissimi oggetti potrebbero paragonarsi ai Maniaci—e noi, per troppa distrazione a infiniti capricci, siam simila a' Fatui.”47
Can Europe, the reign of fatuousness, boast of its alleged superiority over the uncivilized nations, characterized by mania? It is difficult to say. Foscolo limits himself to assert that mania is the result of an excess of feelings, and can be cured. On the other hand, Foscolo notes that fatuousness is more intractable, because it is cherished in the high society: “Notate che la Mania deriva dal troppo sentire; però è men difficile a guarire; ma à malinconica. La Fatuità non ha più forze da riaversi in salute; ma perché è spensierata ed allegra piace al Bel mondo.”48 The dilemma posed by barbarism and mania, on one hand, and civilization and fatuousness, on the other, entails a geographical as well as a literary dimension that affects contemporary criticism. Foscolo believes that the Moslems who read only the Koran are no more afflicted by mania than those European critics who extol Homer or Dante over all other authors: “I dervisci e i Monaci d'ogni setta i quali non hanno libro se no il loro Alcorano, e parimenti i settari d'Omero e di Dante che infuriano contro gli autori d'ogni secolo e popolo, non sono forse Maniaci?”49 Foscolo did not want to be a maniac. Like Didimo, who liked to read all sorts of books (“Leggeva quanti libri gli capitavano”),50 Foscolo was familiar with an impressive number of European authors, as attested by the drafts of his Lettere. Yet he also felt that we should not be inclined to admire all novelties, because such an attitude generates skepticism: “Frattanto noi correndo dietro la turba tumultuosa degli scrittori viventi, combattiamo per conquistare un'infinità d'opinioni e di fantasie e di novità, finché ciascheduno di noi volendole afferrar tutte quante, si stanca, s'annoia di tutte e cade smemorato sul campo di battaglia del Pirronismo.”51
Echoing what Longinus maintains in his treatise On the Sublime (XIV. 2), Foscolo again stresses the importance of great models, both ancient and modern, which enable us to think, and, in this way, help us avoid the dangerous reefs of mania and fatuousness: “Adunque è da presumersi men barbaro quel Bel mondo popolato di scrittori e lettori i quali, studiando i pochi grandi esemplari d'ogni generazione fino alla nostra, possono educarsi a pensare; e quindi, a scansare gli inconvenienti della Mania e della Fatuità.”52 According to Foscolo, if we follow his advice to converse only with major writers, whom Longinus did not hesitate to call “great heroes,”53 we will learn three essential principles: the general ideas of truth and beauty, as well as a more adequate idea of taste. This aesthetic view, adhering, as it does, to the heroic, namely aristocratic and classical tenor of Longinus's treatise while replacing the sublime with the beautiful, represents Foscolo's antidote to the growing influence of German philosophy; “la Metafisica tedesca rivestita delle gonnelle di Madama di Staël.”54 Clearly, Foscolo's artistic itinerary from the sublime to romantic humor placed him in a position to complete his Grazie, the magnum opus mentioned in a fragment of the Lettere: “Un amico mio di cui forse un giorno manderò a voi … un poema intitolato Alle Grazie scrive che le Gravie ebbero da Pallade in dono un velo, che era istoriato a ricami di alcune pitture della vita umana.”55 Unfortunately, the financial problems Foscolo had to face in England hindered his tireless efforts to bring to fruition, through the Grazie, the poetic masterpiece he had strived for throughout his life.
Notes
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U. Foscolo, Gli appunti per le “Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra,” Livorno, Biblioteca Labronica, ms. XIV, cc. 98v-143v, ed. L. Conti Bertini (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1975) XXXV-LXXIII. On Foscolo's stay in England see E. R. Vincent, Ugo Foscolo: An Italian in Regency England (Cambridge: UP, 1953). The validity of Vincent's book was duly stressed by an illustrious critic, who asserted that “one can do no better than refer to that biography” (G. Cambon, Ugo Foscolo: Poet of Exile [Princeton: UP, 1980] 15).
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On Cesarotti's opinion of the Ortis, see G. Costa, “Melchiorre Cesarotti, Vico and the Sublime,” Italica 58, 1 (Spring 1981): 10-11. On the sublime in Ortis, see A. Sole, “La sublimità malinconica di Jacopo Ortis,” Rassegna della letteratura italiana 88. 1-2 (January-August 1984): 52-79. Unfortunately, Sole fails to identify the specific character of Foscolo's sublime within the context of contemporary culture. Foscolo himself acknowledged his debt to Werther in a letter addressed to Goethe (January 16, 1802). See Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, ed. G. Gambarin (Florence: Le Monnier, 1955), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, IV: 542. In 1803, the Giornale dell'italiana letteratura compared Ortis to Werther: see G. Avanzi and G. Sichel, Bibliografia italiana su Goethe, 1779-1965 (Florence: Olschki, 1972) 3, no. 15; E. Guidorizzi, L'Italia, Goethe e la natura: La critica letteraria italiana (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1980) 14-15. On the Werther-Ortis relationship, see G. Manacorda, Materialismo e masochismo: Il “Werther,” Foscolo e Leopardi (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1973) 27-36 and passim; G. Nicoletti, Il “metodo” del'“Ortis” e altri studi foscoliani (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1978) 41-70. For Sterne's influence on Foscolo, see L. Berti, Foscolo traduttore di Sterne (Florence: Edizioni di Rivoluzione, 1942); P. Fasano, “L'amicizia con Sterne e la traduzione didimea del Sentimental Journey,” in Stratigrafie foscoliane (Rome: Bulzoni, 1974) 83-189; C. Varese, Foscolo: sternismo, tempo e persona (Ravenna: Longo, 1982).
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See G. Costa, “Foscolo e la poetica del sublime,” Forum Italicum 12. 14 (Winter 1978): 483.
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U. Foscolo, Poesie e carmi: Poesie—Dei Sepolcri—Poesie postume—Le Grazie, eds. F. Pagliai, G. Folena, and M. Scotti (Florence: Le Monnier, 1987), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo I: 1098. See my review of this volume in Annali d'Italianistica 7 (1989): 470-72.
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Longinus, On the Sublime, ed. and tr. W. R. Roberts, 2nd ed., rpt. (Cambridge: UP, 1935) 82-83.
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U. Foscolo, Lezioni, articoli di critica e di polemica (1809-1811), ed. E. Santini (Florence: Le Monnier, 1933), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, VII: 226. Part of the same passage was quoted by Foscolo in his “Ragguaglio d'un'adunanza dell'Accademia de' Pitagorici” (1810); see ibid., 242.
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U. Foscolo, Prose varie d'arte, ed. M. Fubini (Florence: Le Monnier, 1951), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, V: 359.
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Lord Byron, Don Juan, eds. T. G. Steffan, E. Steffan, and W. W. Pratt (New Haven-London: Yale UP, 1982) 41.
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Horn of Oberon: Jean Paul Richter's School for Aesthetics, tr. M. R. Hale (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1973) 88. See G. Costa, “Il comico e il sublime nella cultura italiana del primo settecento,” Intersezioni 1 (1981): 555-73. Richter's romantic humor practically coincides with romantic irony, which was the object of various studies. See, for instance, A. K. Mellor, English Romantic Irony (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980); L. R. Furst, Fictions of Romantic Irony (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984); D. J. Enright, The Alluring Problem: An Essay on Irony (Oxford-New York: Oxford UP, 1986). I share Almansi's distaste for the “tragicisti, i quali presumono di teorizzare il territorio dell'arte solo dall'altopiano del sublime e non dalla bassura di ciò che suscita riso e diletto” (G. Almansi, La ragion comica [Milan: Feltrinelli, 1986] 10). However, I also believe that no serious student of the comic should ignore the implications of the sublime.
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Plutarch's Moralia in Fifteen Volumes, ed. and tr. P. H. De Lacy and B. Einarson (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1959) 7: 520-21.
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Ibid., 520-23. See Euripides, ed. and tr. A. S. Way (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1950) 3: 374-75.
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M. Scotti, “I primi cinque anni del Foscolo inglese, attraverso l'epistolario,” in Foscolo fra erudizione e poesia (Rome: Bonacci, 1973) 127. See also G. Costa, “Due inediti foscoliani,” Modern Language Notes 86. 1 (January 1971): 89-95.
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U. Foscolo, Prose varie 261. Edoardo Sanguineti remarked that Foscolo “confuse, citando a memoria, le parti di Polinice e di Giocasta” (U. Foscolo, Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra [Gazzettino del bel mondo], ed. E. Sanguineti [Milan: Mursia, 1978] 28, note 2).
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Foscolo, Prose varie 263.
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Ibid.
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Ibid., 240. Mandruzzato observed that the Lettere is characterized by “un estro,” which Foscolo “credeva arguto perché lieto,” although it lacks the “lievità” and “indifferenza di fondo del vero umorismo” (E. Mandruzzato, Foscolo [Milan: Rizzoli, 1978] 392). What Mandruzzato means by “vero umorismo” is not clear to me; certainly, he does not refer to romantic humor.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 176.
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L. Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, ed. G. Petrie (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979) 33.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 39.
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Sterne, The Life and Opinions 79. On Sterne's attitude toward Longinus, see J. Lamb, “The Comic Sublime and Sterne's Fiction,” ELH 48. 1 (Spring 1981): 110-43.
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In his Essay on Criticism, 675-80, Pope pays homage to “bold Longinus,” who, being both a critic and a poet, was the incarnation of the sublime: “And Is himself that Great Sublime he draws” (The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. J. Butt [New Haven: Yale UP, 1963] 165). According to Samuel H. Monk, Pope's praise of Longinus is “a cliché echoed from Boileau” (S. H. Monk, The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England [Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1960] 22).
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F. Gritti, Memorie del signor Tommasino, ed. R. Damiani Milan: Curcio, 1979) 119. See G. Ficara, “Rousseau e cioccolata nel caffè veneziano,” Tuttolibri V. 15 (April 21, 1979): 11.
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See G. Costa, “Achilles and Thersites in the Maelstrom of French Revolution: The Sublime and the Ludicrous in Alfieri's Vita,” Forum Italicum 26. 1 (Spring 1992): 28-45.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 334.
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V. Alfieri, Vita scritta da esso, ed. L. Fassò (Asti: Casa d'Alfieri, 1951), Opere di Vittorio Alfieri da Asti, I: 110-15.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 334. On this incident, see U. Foscolo, Epistolario, VII, ed. M. Scotti (Florence: Le Monnier, 1970), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, XX: 208, note 1 and passim.
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Ibid., 223.
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Alfieri, Vita I: 213.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 174.
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U. Foscolo, Prose politiche e letterarie dal 1811 al 1816: Frammenti sul Machiavelli, Ipercalisse, Storia del sonetto, Discorsi sulla servitù dell'Italia, Scritti vari, ed. L. Fassò (Florence: Le Monnier, 1933), Edizione Nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo 8: 105.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 178.
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Ibid., 298.
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Ibid.
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Ibid.
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Ibid. See Foscolo, Prose politiche 99-100.
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Ibid., 100.
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Foscolo, Epistolario 7: 289.
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Ibid.
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Foscolo, Gli appunti 26.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 412.
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G. Pecchio, Della produzione letteraria (Pordenone: Edizioni Studio Tesi, 1985) 73.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 244-45.
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Ibid., 288.
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This is the incipit of the final version of the Ortis, which Foscolo published in Zurich, 1816 (with the false imprint London, 1814). The Zurich edition reproduces, with a minor modification, the beginning of the novel as it was printed in Milan, 1802. The edition of Bologna, 1798 had a different opening: “Sia dunque così! io vivrò lontano da quanto m'avea di più caro …” See Foscolo, Ultime lettere 5, 137 and 295.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 285-86.
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B. Croce and F. Nicolini, Bibliografia vichiana (Naples: Ricciardi, 1947-1948) I: 425-27; G. Cambon, “Vico e Foscolo,” Forum Italicum 12. 4 (Winter 1978): 498-511.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 383.
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Ibid., 384.
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Ibid., 385.
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Ibid., 180
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Ibid., 385.
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Ibid.
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Longinus, On the Sublime 82.
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Foscolo, Prose varie 375.
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Ibid., 281. Foscolo alludes to his fragments on the veil: see Poesie e carmi 823-58.
This paper reflects my research project on the sublime in Italian culture. See E. Mattioli, “Gli studi di Gustavo Costa sul Sublime in Italia,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 36 (1988): 139-55 (reprinted in E. Mattioli, Interpretazioni dello Pseudo-Longino [Modena: Mucchi, 1988] 67-88).
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Italian Romanticism: Myth vs. History
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