Metastasio, Goldoni, Parini, Alfieri, are the great writers of the Italian settecento. Pietro Trapassi, known under the hellenized name of Metastasio (1698-1782), was a facile versifier, and understood the human heart. His tragedies are still admired, and his mannerisms and stage arrangements so universally copied that, with slight alteration of names and appearances, his heroes and heroines still strut the stages of Europe. Carlo Goldoni (1707-95), in his 250 plays accomplished for comedy what Metastasio did for melodrama. His faithful presentations of life are seasoned with smiling humor and in dulgence and make no attempt at philosophic generalization, pathos or passion, while he rep resents this corrupt age with a delicacy that is not hypocrisy. He preserves the familiar figures of Arlecchino, Brighella, Colombina and the other maschere, but gives them new character istics, and observing the classic unities his plays move rapidly, with few episodes or secondary characters. Le Carufe ciozote, Pantalen de' Bisognosi and Tita Nane treat every rank of life with equal indulgence, and their serenity, gaiety and winged epigrams still amuse Italian audiences. In the second half of the 18th century the poet Giuseppe Parini (1729-99), preached the new gospel of humanity. In Parini's chief poem, 'II Gionto,) he satirizes the empty life of a fashionable dandy, whose morning occupation is the toilet; the second part, including the Giovin Signore's attendance on his fashionable mistress "La pudica d' altrui sposa a to enlarges the scene.
Alfieri (1749-1803) and the Tragedy.—When Alfieri read 'Plutarch's Lives,' and contrasted that early heroism with the pusillanimity of his own Italy, he shed bitter tears; and resolved to rouse his countrymen to a love of liberty and hatred of tyrants. He chose the theatre platform in order to reach the largest audience. Discarding all secondary personages, all epi sodical ornament, he surpasses his model, Corneille, in the simplicity of his composition; the dialogue is abrupt, long speeches being re served for declamation against tyrants and grandiloquent expressions of patriotism. Alfieri's tragedies all consist of contrasts between heroes and tyrants, as Don Carlos against Philip, David against Saul. This eloquent appeal came at the crucial moment, the closing years of the 18th century; it sounded as a resurrection trumpet to the Italian nation, and the dead became alive. Alfieri's writings possess literary qualities, but they are chiefly important for their patriotic purpose and political effect.
OrTOCENTO — 19TH CENTURY. CLASSIC — ROMANTIC — MODERN.
The revival of Italian letters was closely associated with those political events of the 19th century which changed a mere expression geographique into a great and independent nation. Never in the world's history has the reciprocal influence of literature and political events been greater than during the Italian Risorgimento. This literature was both child and parent of the Italian cry for freedom, both.
product and inspiration of the national revolt; the three periods of national evolution corre spond with three phases of literary development. A first period of "classicism" answered to the Napoleonic shadows of glory and dreams of universal empire (1800-20); following close on the disappointment of the Congress of Vienna and the restoration of the Austrian princes to their Italian thrones, the aroused spirit of re bellion assumed the literary form of "romanti cism* (1820-59). When the union of Italy was accomplished and reality failed to fulfil the promises of phantasy, came a third period, one of disillusion and depression, of which the lit erary expression was "realism"; followed finally by the Ter-a Italia in which republicans and neoguelphs became reconciled to the mon archy, and literature found its present natural and national channel. Classic with Carducci, zsthetic with D'Annunzio, religiously mystic with Fogazzaro; with as many divergent tend encies as there are masterful writers to indi cate new ideals, Italian literature has become an Art, worthy of the present, promising for the future.
Vincenzo Monti (1754-1828) represents the conflicting tendencies of the first period. 'La Bassvilliana,) written in 1793, echoes the gen eral reprobation of republican violence; 'Ritorno d'Astrea) welcomes even an inglorious peace after the horror of war. Monti gathered honey andperfume from every flower ; Shake speare, Alfieri and the Greeks, suggest the heroic note in his tragedies 'Aristodemo' and 'Cain Grace& ; his 'Bardo della Selva Nera' is imitated from Gray's ; and Klopstock's 'Messiad' furnished material for But Monti's assimilation and sensibility save his imitations from servility.
Foscolo, Niccolini, Manzoni sang the name of Italy. Their alarum rang out in the silence of a nation's night, they appealed to abstract ideals and aroused some emotion, but Ugo Foscolo's novel 'Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis) awakened the nation. Foscolo's nature was of pure Greek classicism,. yet when in this novel he attempted to imitate Goethe's (Werther,) his production thrills with a ro mantic passion for liberty. Though classic eloquence inspires the speeches of Ortis, the approaching wave of "romanticism" is felt in the sentimental story of the lovers. It was the of the duel between "classicism" and "romanticism," which was continued at Milan between the reviews La Biblioteca Italiana and II Coisciliatore; the former being paid and controlled by the Austrians to 'rec oncile Italians to their bondage, pretended teo defend classicism and the purity of the Italian language; while in the opposing review II Conciliatore, Pellico, Romagnosi, Melchirrone Gioia and other liberal writers strove to rouse their countrymen to a knowledge of foreign thought and literature. Their battlecry was aromanticism,p because romanticism meant re bellion against every literary, religious or polit ical yoke, and opposition to classicism and everything else favored by the Austrian op pressor.