DOI article:
Garnett, Richard: The love-story of Luigi Tansillo
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20196#0255
By Richard Garnett
249
disillusioned as his editor thinks. If the poems do not relate to
Maria d'Aragona, we have no clue to the ultimate nature of his
feelings towards her.
A generally fair estimate of Tansillo's rank as a poet is given
in Ginguene's "History of Italian Literature," vol. ix., pp. 340-343.
It can scarcely be admitted that his boldness and fertility of Imagi-
nation transported him beyond the limits of lyric poetry—for this
is hardly possible—but it is true that they sometimes transcended
the limits of good taste, and that the germs may be found in him
of the extravagance which so disflgured Italian poetry in the
seventeenth Century. On the other hand, he has the inestimable
advantage over most Italian poets of his day of writing of genuine
passion from genuine experience. Hence a truth and vigour
preferable even to the exquisite elegance of his countryman,
Angelo di Costanzo, and much more so to the mere amatory
exercises of other contemporaries. After Michael Angelo he
Stands farther aloof than any contemporary from Petrarch, a merit
in an age when the study of Petrarch had degenerated into slavish
Imitation. His faults as a lyrist are absent from his didactic
poems, which are models of taste and elegance. His one unpar-
donable sin is want of patriotism ; he is the dependant and
panegyrist of the foreign conqueror, and seems equally uncon-
scious of the past glories, the actual degradation, or the prospec-
tive regeneration of Italy. Born a Spanish subject, his ideal of
loyalty was entirely misplaced, and he must not be severely
censured for what he could hardly avoid. But Italy lost a
Tyrtaeus in him.
The Yellow Book—Vol„ I.
249
disillusioned as his editor thinks. If the poems do not relate to
Maria d'Aragona, we have no clue to the ultimate nature of his
feelings towards her.
A generally fair estimate of Tansillo's rank as a poet is given
in Ginguene's "History of Italian Literature," vol. ix., pp. 340-343.
It can scarcely be admitted that his boldness and fertility of Imagi-
nation transported him beyond the limits of lyric poetry—for this
is hardly possible—but it is true that they sometimes transcended
the limits of good taste, and that the germs may be found in him
of the extravagance which so disflgured Italian poetry in the
seventeenth Century. On the other hand, he has the inestimable
advantage over most Italian poets of his day of writing of genuine
passion from genuine experience. Hence a truth and vigour
preferable even to the exquisite elegance of his countryman,
Angelo di Costanzo, and much more so to the mere amatory
exercises of other contemporaries. After Michael Angelo he
Stands farther aloof than any contemporary from Petrarch, a merit
in an age when the study of Petrarch had degenerated into slavish
Imitation. His faults as a lyrist are absent from his didactic
poems, which are models of taste and elegance. His one unpar-
donable sin is want of patriotism ; he is the dependant and
panegyrist of the foreign conqueror, and seems equally uncon-
scious of the past glories, the actual degradation, or the prospec-
tive regeneration of Italy. Born a Spanish subject, his ideal of
loyalty was entirely misplaced, and he must not be severely
censured for what he could hardly avoid. But Italy lost a
Tyrtaeus in him.
The Yellow Book—Vol„ I.