CHAPTER V

GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI--ITALIAN POET

The prize of 1906 has been awarded:

Carducci, Giosuè, Professor in the History of Literature at the University of Bologna, born 1835, died February 16, 1907: “in consideration not only of his wide learning and critical research, but, in the first place, as homage to the plastic energy, the freshness of style, and the lyric strength that distinguish his poetry.”[45]

In 1906, when he was seventy years old, Giosuè Carducci, the greatest of living Italian poets of that time, for more than two score years professor at the University of Bologna, was announced the winner of the Nobel prize in literature. As in the case of Mistral, the choice had fallen upon a poet of patriotic influence, although the Italian was far more independent in spirit, with less sentimental devotion to his country. At different periods he had been a critic of both the Liberal and the Monarchial parties; sometimes he had seemed to be vacillating in his political convictions but he had always been an ardent patriot for Italy of the past, with hopes for a future of greater freedom and world influence.

Carducci was born at Val di Castello, July 27, 1835. His father, of a Florentine family, was a country doctor who had been imprisoned for political activities before the son was born. When Giosuè was three years old, the family moved to Bolgheri, in Tuscan Maremma; here the boy roamed about the hills and valleys for eleven years; he recalled some of his childhood memories in “Crossing the Tuscan Maremma.” He was educated, in the first place, at home; his father taught him Latin and his mother read to him from the poems of Alfieri. After the turbulent conditions of 1848 the family moved to Florence and he was sent to the Scuole Pie; at eighteen, he was writing _Sapphics and Alcaics_, in which he urged a return to classic meters and early ideals of Italy. His vein of satire was shown in mild attacks upon the church and its restrictions upon progress. Schiller, Byron, and Scott were his favorite authors during a part of this formative period.

In 1856 he was nominated as Professor of Rhetoric at the Gymnasium of San Miniato al Tedesco but he became involved in political and literary controversies. He was refused government sanction to teach in a position offered at Arezzo, so he returned to Florence. He was poor and lived in extreme self-denial, frequenting libraries, storing his mind with Greek and Latin literature and finding some employment with the publisher, Barbèra, for whom he wrote prefaces, notes, etc., for Italian classics. Two griefs came within a year--the suicide of his brother, Dante, and the death of his father. In memory of his brother he wrote the lines “Alla memoria di D. C.” Happier days came when he married the gifted daughter of his relative and friend, Menicucci. His home life was stimulating and sympathetic. He had four children; to a daughter he gave the symbolic name of “Liberty.” Again death came to crush his spirit; his little boy, Dante, three years old, died the same year as Carducci’s mother. The latter, of fine Florentine family, had been a loved comrade to her son; and although he was reconciled to her death in old age, he rebelled, in deep grief, at the loss of the little boy, declaring “three parts of his life” had departed. The elegiac stanzas, “Funere mersit acerbo,”[46] written in a mood of longing for the child, are pathetic.

His poems, as collected previous to 1870, showed political agitation and frequent bitterness and satire; many of these had appeared in the periodical, _Il Poloziano_. In 1860 he went to Pistoia as Professor of Greek and Latin; there he wrote his poem, “Sicilia e la rivoluzione,” celebrating Garibaldi’s Sicilian Expedition of that time. During the next ten years he passed through political changes of allegiance; when his _Hymn to Satan_[47] appeared, and “made him famous in a day,” (republished in 1869 over signature of “Enotrio Romano”) extolling the advance of Liberalism over the reactionary influences of both monarchy and church, he was declared to be an unqualified Republican. It was a daring _motif_ that the poet chose for his voice of “Revolt”; it required courage, at that time, to summon as witnesses to the progress of the “lord of the feast, Satan,” such names as Savonarola and Luther, Huss and Wycliffe. One reason for the immediate popularity of this poem may have been the flowing, almost lilting, form of four-line stanzas.

Seven years before the publication of _Hymn to Satan_, Carducci had become identified, as professor, with the University of Bologna; here he remained until his death--a period of forty-six years of educational service. The first offer from Mamiani, as Minister of Education, was to the Turin Lycée but the poet was unwilling to leave Tuscany. After a little delay the chair of elocution--and later of literature--was open to him at Bologna. His influence upon students of all types was stimulating, always conducive to individual expression and ambition. After the appearance of _Hymn to Satan_ he was in marked disfavor with the government. His liberal ideas were in high favor with the students, however, so that it seemed wise to “make a change” by offering him a position to teach Latin at Naples. Carducci refused on the ground that he was not qualified to teach Latin. He was prohibited from continuing classroom instruction at Bologna, on the ground of “constant opposition to the acts of the Government.” Affairs were quieted by a change of ministers and the poet, wisely, refrained from promulgating political doctrines in the University, or from giving dominance to them in his later volumes of poems, like _Levia grandia_, in 1867, and _Nuove poesie_, in 1873. Mr. Bickersteth has emphasized duly the more restrained, tender note in the later volume, following soon after the loss of his mother and his son. So different were the lyrics from his previous type, so surely did they show the influence of Goethe, Schiller, and Heine, in romanticism, that some critics accused Carducci of being a mere imitator, or even a plagiarist. This challenge aroused his ever-present spirit and he wrote the prose defense, with broad as well as personal comment, _Critica ed arte_.

As lecturer, he became yearly more popular and students from distant places hastened to come under his inspiration. He was one of the noteworthy exponents of Dante. When Rome established a chair of Dante Exigesis, Carducci was appointed as professor. Although sorry to lose him at Bologna, the whole country applauded the honor. He hesitated, because he was not in accord with those who interpreted Dante by contemporary political conditions, those who had founded the chair at Rome. Later he became one of “four leading Dante scholars” who gave short courses of lectures each year. At his first lecture there was an effort to make a political demonstration by the anti-Papal party. Among his sentences at this first discourse he said, “Papacy and Empire, their discord and their power, were passing away when Dante was born--Dante who does not pass away.” In an earlier sonnet, published in essays in 1874, he had interpreted what he believed were Dante’s views and the reason for his immortal fame:[48]

Dante, whence comes it that my vows and voice, Adoring thy proud lineaments I raise; That, o’er thy verse, which made thee lean and wan, The sun may set, the new dawn finds me still?

I hate thy Holy Empire; with my sword I should have thrust the crown from off the head Of thy good Frederick in Olona’s vale. O’er church and Empire, both now ruins sad, Thy song soars up, and high in heaven resounds-- Though Jove may die, the poet’s hymn remains.

With one of those marked changes in his impulses and convictions which ever characterized Carducci, he broke away from tendencies towards German Romanticism and declared a “literary revolution” as his purpose in writing his most familiar odes, _Odi barbare_, 1873-1877. Back to the poetry of Greece and Rome he would lead the people, away from the romanticists and “sickly sentimentalism.” To his friends, Chiarini and Targioni, who were critics of these odes, he declared that the world’s greatest poets had been Homer, Pindar, Theocritus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes.[49] There was a great variety of meter in this collection; several poems that lacked rhymes seemed, to the hackneyed critics, unconventional in form. Mr. Bickersteth has informing comments upon Carducci’s _Metres in the Barbarian Odes_ and other poems, in his Introduction to his _Selection of Poems_, already cited. Among the examples of the Italian poet at his best, his most simple, flexible, and musical lines, one recalls from this collection such verses as “The Ideal,” “The Mother,” and “By the Urn of Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Addressing one of his imaginary Greek women, Lalage, he unfolds his own deep, loving appreciation of the English poet in such couplets as these:[50]

Vain are the joys of the present, they come and they fade like a blossom, Only in death dwells the truth and loveliness but in past days.

Lo, on the mount of the centuries Clio hath nimbly descended, And bursts into song as she spreads her magnificent wings to the sky.

* * * * *

O heart of hearts, o’er this urn, thy cold, uncongenial prison, The warm spring blossoms again with the fragrance of flower and fruit.

O heart of hearts, thy divine great father, the Sun, hath arisen, And lovingly bathes thee in light, poor heart that forever art mute.

This poem, inspired by the grave of Shelley, is one of the most beautiful and appealing of the odes; to him the English poet was, in truth, “Poet of liberty,” with a “spirit Titanic.” In spite of the simplicity and directness of Carducci’s diction his poems have defied many translators, especially in English. It is interesting to note that two of his German translators have been winners of the Nobel prize in literature, Paul Heyse and Theodor Mommsen.

In this same volume, _Odi barbare_, was a poem which attracted wide attention in Italy and aroused some indignation among the former friends of Carducci who had Republican principles. It was the tribute entitled “To the Queen,” dated November 20, 1878. While it was essentially an effusion to the grace, beauty, and literary gifts of Queen Marguerite as an individual, it resounded with the Hail! (“Long Live!”) which has come down from Hebrew days for king and queen. Although a Liberal to the end of his life, Carducci relinquished his antagonism to monarchy as he grew older and gentler in spirit. The influence of his friend in political life, Crispi, caused a reaction in Carducci from alliance with Republicanism, which veered towards Socialism, and an alignment again with the monarchical party. The final pledge of this political change was chronicled in the tribute to King Albert Charles in the poem, “Piedmonte,” in 1890. In the same year the poet was elected as senator and served for a brief time. To him Liberty now became an ideal for art, literature and religion, as well as for the State.

Although the more serious interpreters of Carducci’s political fluctuations trace the gradual, and reasonable, steps from hatred of monarchy to acceptance and even poetic homage, there are other commentators who give a romantic flavor to the change of attitude. They declare that the new allegiance may be explained by a visit that the King and Queen made to Bologna. Carducci was lame and disinclined to meet people socially; he was immersed in his books and a few friends, outside his University classes. The story runs that Queen Marguerite, who was a literary critic and sponsor of the arts, invited the poet to an audience. Such an invitation is a summons but Carducci went unwillingly. He came away, however, from the visit inspired by the Queen’s appreciative sympathy and her literary insight. Thenceforward she was to him “Eterno femminino Regale.” Letters passed between the Queen and the poet. Their friendship has been compared to that of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, in inspirational quality.

As the years passed the Queen was able to serve both the poet and her country, for Carducci’s health and finances became impaired. In 1899 he suffered a stroke of paralysis which crippled him somewhat but he continued his work at the University, assisted by his favorite pupil, the poet Severino Ferrari. That he might not be obliged to sell his valuable library the Queen purchased this, with the arrangement that he might use it during his life. After his death she purchased his home, also, and gave this to the Italian people as a memorial, “Casa Carducci,” with a beautiful garden, adorned with statuary that symbolizes some of his poems. In 1904 the government gave him a pension and the University students honored him with a celebration. The next year the sudden death of his assistant, Ferrari, was a terrible loss to him and left him enfeebled in body and spirit. When the Nobel prize was awarded the next year, he was unable to leave his chair to receive it; the King of Sweden sent a deputy to Bologna to give the testimonial in person to the aged poet. He lived only two months after this honor; his funeral at Bologna was attended by thousands. Because of his Florentine descent and his literary rank, the city of Florence offered for him a tomb in Sta. Croce, the Italian Pantheon, but his family preferred a burial place just outside Bologna.

As a poet Carducci mingled vigor and grace to an unusual degree. He was an artist both in his conceptions and his forms; he never left a poem unfinished. His historical odes, resultant from his classical studies, are less impressive than such lyrics as “Night,” “Fiesole,” “Idyll of the Maremma,” “Before San Guido,” “Virgil,” and “Primo Vere” which are found in translations by Mrs. Maud Holland.[51] A wistful sadness is found in many of his poems of nature and life, a sensitiveness to insincerity, a change from a mood of hopefulness to that of longing and question. Such poetic traits are marked in the poem, “Primo Vere,” a delicate spring-song with gentle sadness;

Behold! from sluggish winter’s arms Spring lifts herself again; Naked before the steel-cold air She shivers, as in pain, Look, Lalage, is that a tear In the sun’s eye that shines so clear? Today my spirit sleeps and dreams, Where do my far thoughts fly? Close to thy beauty’s face we stand And smile, the spring and I: Yet, Lalage, whence come those tears? Has Spring, too, felt the doom of years?[52]

In his old age Carducci declared that “his guiding principles had been three--in politics, Italy before all things; in art, classical poetry before all things; in life, sincerity and strength before all things.”[53] As he mellowed in his political opinions, so he became less vehement against the church and Christianity in later writings. In truth, it was not Christianity but asceticism and bigotry which he combated. Like many poets he regretted the loss of some of the best marks of pure paganism; he found in it truth and freedom, in contrast with many evidences of falsehood and slavery in the Christian world of his day. He did not always get a vision of life as a whole, only a segment which was sometimes distorted in perspective. He was more interested in historical and poetic figures than in creative types. Italy of the past and her classic literature were his ideals in his later writings. Rejecting romanticism as exotic, he pleaded for “the representation of reality with truth.” In summary of his aim and its fulfillment, Mr. Bickersteth has written with lucidity: “Carducci’s conception of reality, considered from the artistic point of view, controls his treatment of all the chief themes of his poetry, as will at once become apparent if we examine any of these at all closely. Man, Nature, Liberty, for instance--he held it incumbent upon the poets of his own time to deal mainly with these three, and they constitute accordingly a large portion of the subject-matter of his own verse.” It is difficult to identify the word idealism with much of Carducci’s poetry about women--for he was strongly realistic in his love poems, in general, often compared to Walt Whitman in his emphasis of the physical attractiveness of woman. Again, he too often failed in his efforts to adapt old Latin forms to modern themes and reflections. In spite of such defects, however, Carducci’s poetry at his best, his earnest patriotism and his hopes for Italy, reflects his country, says Mr. Bickersteth, “in her purest and serenest aspect, and her ideals linked on to many, if not all, the most cherished traditions of her past.”[54]

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Inscription with the Nobel Prize Award in Literature, 1907.

[46] Found in original and translation in _Carducci: a Selection of His Poems_, etc. by G. L. Bickersteth, London, 1913, p. 141.

[47] _Ibid._, p. 8.

[48] _Italian Influences: Carducci and Dante_ by Eugene Schuyler, New York, 1901, p. 24. By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[49] _Impressioni e ricordi_ by Chiarini, p. 237.

[50] _Carducci: a Selection of His Poems_ by G. L. Bickersteth, Copyright by Longmans, Green & Co., London and New York, 1913. By permission of Longmans, Green & Co.

[51] _Poems by Giosuè Carducci_: with an introduction and translations by Maud Holland, New York, 1907.

[52] _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1909. By permission of Leonard Scott Publication Co.

[53] _Ibid._, “The Poetry of Carducci.”

[54] _Carducci: a Selection of His Poems_ by G. L. Bickersteth, London and New York, 1913. By permission of Longmans, Green & Co.

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