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035 - Mr Symonds' History of the Renaissance · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty four of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Cricket, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross,
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  Speaker 1: Section thirty four. Mister Symonds History of the Renaissance, Paumal Gazette,
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  Speaker 1: November tenth, eighteen eighty six. Mister Symonds has at last
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  Speaker 1: finished his history of the Italian Renaissance. The two volumes
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  Speaker 1: just published deal with the intellectual and moral conditions in
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  Speaker 1: Italy during the seventy years of the sixteenth century which
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  Speaker 1: followed the coronation of Charles the Fifth at Bologna, an
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  Speaker 1: era to which mister Symonds gives the name of the
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  Speaker 1: Catholic Reaction. And they contain a most interesting and valuable
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  Speaker 1: account of the position of Spain in the Italian Peninsula,
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  Speaker 1: the conduct of the Tridentine Council, the specific organization of
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus, and the
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  Speaker 1: state of society upon which those forces were brought to bear.
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  Speaker 1: In his previous volumes, mister Symonds had regarded the past
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  Speaker 1: rather as a picture to be painted than as a
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  Speaker 1: problem to be solved. In these two last volumes, however,
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  Speaker 1: he shows a clearer appreciation of the office of history.
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  Speaker 1: The art of the picturesque chronicler is completed by something
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  Speaker 1: like the science of the true historian. The critical spirit
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  Speaker 1: begins to manifest itself, and life is not treated as
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  Speaker 1: a mere spectacle, but the laws of its evolution and
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  Speaker 1: progress are investigated. Also, we admit that the desire to
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  Speaker 1: represent life at all costs under dramatic conditions still accompanies
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  Speaker 1: mister Symonds, and that he hardly realizes that what seems
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  Speaker 1: romance to us was harsh reality to those who were
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  Speaker 1: engaged in it. Like most dramatists, Also, he is more
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  Speaker 1: interested in the psychological exceptions than in the general rule.
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  Speaker 1: He has something of Shakespeare's sovereign contempt of the masses.
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  Speaker 1: The people stir him very little, but he is fascinated
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  Speaker 1: by great personalities. Yet it is only fair to remember
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  Speaker 1: that the age itself was one of exaggerated individualism, and
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  Speaker 1: that literature had not yet become a mouthpiece for the
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  Speaker 1: utterances of humanity. Men appreciated the aristocracy of intellect, but
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  Speaker 1: with the democracy of suffering, they had no sympathy. The
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  Speaker 1: cry from the brickfields had still to be heard. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Symonds's style, too, has much improved. Here and there. It
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  Speaker 1: is true we come across traces of the old manner,
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  Speaker 1: as in the apocalyptic vision of the seven devils that
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  Speaker 1: entered Italy with the Spaniard, and the description of the
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  Speaker 1: Inquisition as a beliel moloch, a hideous idol whose face
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  Speaker 1: was blackened with soot from burning human flesh. Such a sentence,
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  Speaker 1: also as over the dead sea of social putrefication floated
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  Speaker 1: the sickening oil of jesuitical hypocrisy, reminds us that rhetoric
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  Speaker 1: has not yet lost its charms for mister Symonds. Still,
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  Speaker 1: on the whole, the style shows far more reserve, balance
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  Speaker 1: and sobriety than can be found in the earlier volumes,
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  Speaker 1: where violent antithesis forms the predominant characteristic, and accuracy is
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  Speaker 1: often sacrificed to an adjective. Amongst the most interesting chapters
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  Speaker 1: of the book are those on the Inquisition, on Sarpi,
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  Speaker 1: the great champion of the severance of church from state,
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  Speaker 1: and on Giordano Bruno. Indeed, the story of Bruno's life
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  Speaker 1: from his visits to London and Oxford, his sojourn in
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  Speaker 1: Paris and wanderings through Germany, down to his betrayal at
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  Speaker 1: Venice and martyrdom at Rome, is most powerfully told, and
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  Speaker 1: the estimate of the value of his philosophy and the
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  Speaker 1: relation he holds to modern science is at once just
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  Speaker 1: and appreciative. The account also of Ignatious Loyola and the
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  Speaker 1: rise of the Society of Jesus, is extremely interesting. Though
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  Speaker 1: we cannot think that mister Symonds is very happy in
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  Speaker 1: his comparison of the Jesuits to fanatics laying stones upon
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  Speaker 1: a railway, or die minamiters blowing up an emperor or
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  Speaker 1: a corner of Westminster Hall. Such a judgment is harsh
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  Speaker 1: and crude in expression, and more suitable to the clamor
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  Speaker 1: of the Protestant Union than to the dignity of the
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  Speaker 1: true historian. Mister Symonds, however, is rarely deliberately unfair, and
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  Speaker 1: there is no doubt that his work on the Catholic
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  Speaker 1: Reaction is a most valuable contribution to modern history. So
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  Speaker 1: valuable indeed, that in the account he gives of the
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  Speaker 1: Inquisition in Venice, it would be well worth his while
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  Speaker 1: to bring the picturesque fiction of the text into some
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  Speaker 1: harmony with the plain facts of the footnote on the
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  Speaker 1: poetry of the sixteenth century, mister Symonds has, of course
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  Speaker 1: a great deal to say, and on such subjects he
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  Speaker 1: always writes with ease, grace, and delicacy of perception. We
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  Speaker 1: admit that we weary sometimes of the continual application to
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  Speaker 1: literature of epithets appropriate to plastic and pictorial art. The
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  Speaker 1: conception of the unity of the arts is certainly of
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  Speaker 1: great value, but in the present condition of criticism, it
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  Speaker 1: seems to us that it would be more useful to
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  Speaker 1: emphasize the fact that each art has its separate method
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  Speaker 1: of expression. The essay on Tasso, however, is delightful reading,
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  Speaker 1: and the position the poet holds towards modern music and
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  Speaker 1: modern sentiment is analyzed with much subtlety. The essay on
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  Speaker 1: Marino also is full of interest. We have often wondered
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  Speaker 1: whether those who talk so glibly of Euphuism and Marinism
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  Speaker 1: in literature have ever read either Euphus or the adone
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  Speaker 1: to the latter. They can have no better guide than
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  Speaker 1: mister Symonds, whose description of the poem is most fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: Marino like many greater men, has suffered much from his disciples,
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  Speaker 1: But he himself was a master of graceful fancy and
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  Speaker 1: exquisite felicity of phrase. Not of course, a great poet,
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  Speaker 1: but certainly an artist in poetry, and one to whom
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  Speaker 1: language is indebted. Even those conceits that mister Symonds feels
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  Speaker 1: bound to censure have something charming about them. The continual
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  Speaker 1: use of paraphrases is undoubtedly a grave fault in style,
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  Speaker 1: Yet who a pedant would really quarrel with such periphrases
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  Speaker 1: as Sirena de Bowski for the Nightingale, or il novella
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  Speaker 1: Dimone for Galileo. From the poets, mister Symonds passes to
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  Speaker 1: the painters, not those great artists of Florence and Venice,
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  Speaker 1: of whom he has already written, but the eclectics of Bologna,
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  Speaker 1: the naturalists of Naples and Rome. This chapter is too
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  Speaker 1: polemical to be pleasant. The one on music is much better,
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  Speaker 1: and mister Symonds gives us a most interesting description of
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  Speaker 1: the gradual steps by which the Italian genius passed from
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  Speaker 1: poetry and painting to melody and song, till the whole
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  Speaker 1: of Europe thrilled with the marvel and mystery of this
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  Speaker 1: new language of the soul. Some small details should perhaps
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  Speaker 1: be noticed. It is hardly accurate, for instance, to say
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  Speaker 1: that Monteverdi's Orpheo was the first form of the recitative opera,
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  Speaker 1: as Peris Dafne and Eurydici and Cavaliere's Raplesentazione preceded it
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  Speaker 1: by some years. And it is somewhat exaggerated to say
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  Speaker 1: that under the regime of the Commonwealth the national growth
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  Speaker 1: of English music received a check from which it never
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  Speaker 1: afterwards recovered, as it was with Cromwell's auspices that the
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  Speaker 1: first English opera was produced thirteen years before any opera
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  Speaker 1: was regularly established in Paris. The fact that England did
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  Speaker 1: not make such development in music as Italy and Germany
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  Speaker 1: did must be ascribed to other causes than the prevalence
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  Speaker 1: of Puritan opinion. These, however, are minor points. Mister Symonds
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  Speaker 1: is to be warmly congratulated on the completion of his
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  Speaker 1: history of the Renaissance in Italy. It is a most
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  Speaker 1: wonderful monument of literary labour, and its value to the
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  Speaker 1: student of humanism cannot be doubted. We have often had
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  Speaker 1: occasion to differ from mister Symonds on questions of detail,
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  Speaker 1: and we have more than once felt it our duty
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  Speaker 1: to protest against the rhetoric and over emphasis of his style.
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  Speaker 1: But we fully recognize the importance of his work and
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  Speaker 1: the impetus he has given to the study of one
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  Speaker 1: of the vital periods of the world's history. Mister symonds
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  Speaker 1: learning has not made him a pedant. His culture has widened,
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  Speaker 1: not narrowed his sympathies. And though he can hardly be
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  Speaker 1: called a great historian, yet he will always occupy a
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  Speaker 1: place in English literature as one of the remarkable men
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  Speaker 1: of letters of the nineteenth century. Citation Renaissance in Italy
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  Speaker 1: the Catholic Reaction in two parts by John Addington Symonds, Smith,
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  Speaker 1: Elder and Company. End of section thirty four. Mister Symonds
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  Speaker 1: History of the Renaissance