GUARINI, gwa-re'ne, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1538-1612). An Italian poet, born at Ferrara. On the termination of his studies at the univer sities of Pisa, Padua, and Ferrara, he was ap pointed to the chair of literature in the last, and soon after the publication of some sonnets ob tained for him
As a poet he is remarkable for refined grace of language and sweetness of sentiment, while his defects are occasional artificiality, due to an unnatural quintessence of conceit, a too constant recurrence of antithetical imagery, and an affect ed dallying with his pleas. Ilis chief and most popular work, Il pastor fido, is regarded in Italy as a standard of elegant pastoral composi tion, and obtained a high measure of popularity on its appearance. The writer designed it as a tragicomic pastoral; its first dramatic represen tation was in honor of the nuptials of the Duke of Savoy and Catharine of Austria (1585). It was not published until 1590, at Venice, and Guarini continued to make changes in it until the twentieth edition appeared at Venice in 1602.
Altogether, some 120 editions of this favorite work have been issued; the best is that of G. Casella (Florence, 1866), containing an essay on the poet, which is also to be found in vol. ii.
of Casella's Opere (Florence, 1884). Transla tions of the Pastor fido have appeared in very many modern languages. In its kind, the play has been surpassed only by the Aminta of Tasso. In editorial work Guarini prepared the Scelte delle rime of Tasso, published at Ferrara in 1582. Mention may be made, among Gua rini's other works, of his Compendia della poesia tragicomica, published in 1601, and again in the 1602 edition of the Pastor fido; his dialogue, Il segretario (1594), on the duties of a secretary, and on matters of logic, rhetoric, etc.; the prose comedy La idropica, written about 1584 (published 1613) ; his Let tere (1593) ; the Trattato della politica Jiberta (first published in Venice, 1818). Consult: Rossi, Battista Guarini ed. Il pastor fido (Turin, 1886) ; Cian, in Archivio veneto, second series, vols. xxxii, and xxxiii. (Venice, 1886) ; Ruggieri's life of Guarini, published in the edition of the Trattato della politica, /iberta (Venice, 1818) ; Saviotti, •tariniana (Pesaro, 1888) ; M. W. Shelley, Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, vol. ii. (London, 1835).