The Humour of Italy
9781465683069
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Italian humour, says Mr. J. A. Symonds, died with Ariosto; and, in the face of such a declaration, any attempt to bring together a collection of specimens, some of which at any rate belong to a more recent date, would seem to savour of presumption. Yet, even at the risk of differing from such a recognised authority on Italian literature, we venture to think that a good deal has been produced since the age of Ariosto which may legitimately be defined as humour, though, for various reasons presently to be detailed, there are peculiar difficulties connected with its presentation in a foreign tongue. It may as well be said at once that the professed humorist, the writer who is comic and nothing else, or, at any rate, whose main scope is to be funny, is all but unknown in modern Italian literature. Strictly speaking, he is perhaps a Germanic rather than a Latin product. The jokes in Italian comic and other papers are not, as a rule, overpoweringly amusing; and if we do come across a book which sets itself forth asUmoristico, the chances are that it turns out to be very tragical mirth indeed. But in novels and tales, even in essays and descriptions, which have no specially humorous intention, you often come across passages of a pure and spontaneous humour, inimitable in its own kind. Italian humour may be said to fall into two great divisions, or rather—for it is impossible to draw hard and fast lines—to present two main characteristics, which are sometimes present together, sometimes separately. The first of these is what we may call the humour of ludicrous incident—a very elementary kind indeed, comprising what is usually known as “broad farce,” and finding its most rudimentary expression in horse play and practical jokes of the Theodore Hook kind. The early stages of all literatures afford abundant examples of this; indeed, there are some stories which appear to be so universally pleasing to human nature that they reappear, in various forms, all the world over, sometimes making their way into literature, sometimes surviving in oral tradition to the present day. Boccaccio and his predecessor, Franco Sacchetti, with numberless other writers of the “novelle” or short stories in prose, which very early became a striking feature in Italian literature, afford plenty of examples. Such are the tricks played on the unlucky Calandrino, the various “burle” (historical or not) ascribed to the painter Buffalmacco, and the story of the wicked Franciscan friar, who, after having been caught in his own trap and, as was confidently hoped, exposed before a whole congregation, had the wit to turn the situation to his own profit after all, and preached a most eloquent sermon on the incident. The same tendency is also seen in the “Morgante Maggiore” of Pulci, which in its turn gave birth to a large number of “heroico comic” poems, most of them celebrating the adventures of some more or less fabulous hero, and also, it must be confessed, somewhat heavy and long winded, the cumbrous ottava rima contributing not a little to this result. Ariosto’s great poem, of course, though having some points in common with these—(he had two predecessors in his treatment of the Roland legend in epic form)—stands on an entirely different footing.
