Petrarch in Romantic England Also by Edoardo Zuccato
COLERIDGE IN ITALY THE RECEPTION OF S. T. COLERIDGE IN EUROPE (co-editor with Elinor Shaffer) Petrarch in Romantic England Edoardo Zuccato © Edoardo Zuccato 2008 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-54260-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.
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Zuccato, Edoardo. Petrarch in romantic England I Edoardo Zuccato. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-349-36016-1 1. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374-lnfluence. 2. Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374-Appreciation-England. 3. English literature-Italian influence. 4. English literature-18th century-History and criticism. I. Title. PQ4537.E5Z823 2005 851 '.1-dc22 2008011822
Transferred to Digital Printing 20 II Contents
Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations vii Introduction ix
1 Writing the Biography of Petrarch: From Susanna Dobson (1775) to the Romantics 1 1.1 Sade and Dobson 1 1.2 T. Warton, Gibbon, Tytler 6 1.3 The 1810s: Ginguene, Sismondi, H. Hallam 11 1.4 Hazlitt and Foscolo 14
2 'Englishing' Petrarch: The Translators' Role 25 2.1 Beginnings 25 2.2 Early translators and imitators 27 2.3 Sir William Jones and Charles Burney 34 2.4 John Nott 37 2.5 Three anthologies 40
3 Charlotte Smith and Anna Seward 52
4 The Della Cruscans and Mary Robinson 73 4.1 Mary Robinson 77
5 Charles Lloyd and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 94 5.1 The 1790s 94 5.2 Later developments 102
6 Epilogue: From Romantic to Victorian Petrarch 126 6.1 Displacing Petrarch 126 6.2 Re-placing Petrarch 135 6.3 Replacing Petrarch 144
Notes 157
Select Bibliography 218
Index 233
v Acknowledgements
A part of Chapter 1 of this book appeared in a different form in my article 'Writing Petrarch's Biography: From Susanna Dobson (I77S) to Alexan• der Fraser Tytler (1810)', in British Romanticism and Italian Literature, ed. L. Bandiera and D. Saglia (Rodopi, 200S). I am grateful to the publisher for allowing me to use it. In addition, the author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Oxford Uni• versity Press for The Poems of Charlotte Smith, ed. S. Curran (1993); Harvard University Press for Petrarch's Lyric Poems: The Rime sparse and Other Poems, trans. and ed. R. M. Durling (© 1976 by R. M. Durling, rptd 2001); Mon• dadori for F. Petrarca, Canzoniere, ed. M. Santagata (2004). Every effort has been made to trace rights holders, but if any have been inadvertently over• looked the publishers would be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. This book was begun 12 years ago and has come to completion with the help of several institutions and friends, who generously made research mater• ial available or gave me useful advice. Heartfelt thanks are due to Angela Bruschi, Julia Flanders and the Women Writers' Research Project (Brown Uni• versity), Roger Meyenberg, Uberto Motta, Chiara Prada, Giovanni Moscati, and all the staff of IULM University Library and the British Library. Special thanks are due to Tim Parks, Janice Giffin and Frances Hotimsky, who gave me some valuable advice, and to Jim Mays, whose generosity and learning have been as precious as ever. The project could not have been developed without the research grants of IULM University, Milan; equally important was the encouragement I received from some of its senior members, in par• ticular Patrizia Nerozzi, Sergio Pautasso and Gianni Puglisi. Last, but not least, my gratitude is due to my family - my parents Nando and Nanda, my sis• ter Barbara, and Rosi - and to Annalisa, who supported and encouraged me throughout.
vi Abbreviations
Anti-Jacobin Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, 1799 (Oxford and New York: Woodstock, 1991) AR (CC) S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, ed. J. Beer (London: Routledge; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) BC The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction with Other Mem• orabilia, compiled by P. Kelley and B. A. Coley ([Waco, TX): Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University; London: Mansell, 1984) BL (CC) S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, ed. J. Engell and W. J. Bate, 2 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983) BLJ Byron's Letters and Journals, ed. L. A. Marchand, 12 vols (London: Murray, 1973-82) CC The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, gen. ed. K. Coburn (London: Routledge; Princeton: Princeton Univer• sity Press, 1969-2001) CL Collected Letters ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. L. Griggs, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-71) CLP 'Capel Lofft Page', ed. Roger Meyenberg,
vii viii Abbreviations
Friend (CC) S. T. Coleridge, The Friend, ed. B. E. Rooke, 2 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969) Histoire P. L. Ginguene, Histoire litteraire d'Italie, 9 vols (Paris: Freres, 1811-19) Laura C. Lofft (ed.) Laura: or An Anthology of Sonnets (on the Petrarchan Model,) and Elegiac Quatorzains: English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German, 5 vols (London: Taylor, 1813-14) (cited by volume and poem number) Lects 1808-1819 S. T. Coleridge, Lectures 1818-1819: On Literature, ed. (CC) R. A. Foakes, 2 vols (London: Routledge; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987) Life The Life of Petrarch, Collected from Memoirs pour la vie de Petrarch, trans. S. Dobson, 2 vols (London: Buckland, 1775) LS (CC) S. T. Coleridge, Lay Sermons, ed. R.]. White (London: Rout• ledge & Kegan Paul; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) Memoires J. F. P. A. de Sa de Memoires pour la vie de Fran~ois Petrar• que, tires de ses ceuvres et des auteurs contemporains; Avec des Notes ou Dissertations, et les Pieces justificatives, 3 vols (Amsterdam: Arskee et Mercus, 1764) P Lects (CC) S. T. Coleridge, Lectures 1818-1819: On the History of Phil• osophy, ed. J. R. de]. Jackson, 2 vols (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) PC F. Petrarca, Canzoniere, nuova edizione aggiornata, ed. M. Santagata (Milan: Mondadori, 2004) (cited by poem number) PEL Poems by Eminent Ladies, vol. II (London: Baldwin, 1755) Prose F. Petrarca, Prose, ed. G. Martellotti, P. G. Ricci, E. Carrara and E. Bianchi (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1955) PWBLC The Poetical Works of Bowles, Lamb, and Hartley Coleridge, ed. William Tirebuck (London and Newcastle: Walter Scott, 1887) PW (CC) S. T. Coleridge, Poetical Works, ed. J. C. C. Mays, 3 vols (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) Sappho M. Robinson, Sappho and Phaon, in Robinson 2000a SW&F(CC) S. T. Coleridge, Shorter Works and Fragments, ed. H. J. Jackson and J. R. de J. Jackson, 2 vols (London: Routledge; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) TBC The Brownings' Correspondence, ed. P. Kelley and R. Hudson (Winfield, KS: Wedgestone Press, 1984-) Introduction
Petrarca is again in sight Paul Celan
Petrarch in Romantic England? Surely that must be a misprint for Renaissance England. Few readers, or even scholars, would think of Romanticism as a Petrarchan age. And they would be right for every European country except England. The Petrarchan revival in late eighteenth-century England was a unique phenomenon which involved an impressive number of scholars, translators and poets. Its effects on poetry, fiction and scholarship were mani• fold and continued to make themselves felt right up to the 1830s. Though a small number of Romanticists are indeed aware of the length and depth of this fashion, a complete study of its impact on literary culture has never been attempted. The importance of Petrarch for the Romantic age has been obscured by other writers, like Dante and Sappho, whose revivals have long been con• sidered more relevant. So much has been written on the Romantic rediscovery of Dante that even scholars often forget that at the turn of the century he was far less popular than Petrarch. There are several reasons for this forgetfulness. In the first place, the influence of Dante was crucial for all of the Canonic Six with the exception of Wordsworth who disliked the Italian poet. The reception of Dante has been studied in several excellent essays, but his influ• ence looks significantly less important when compared to the reception of Petrarch in the same period. It is striking that virtually all the best women poets of the time were involved in the revival of Petrarch and the sonnet, whereas they generally disliked Dante.1 While Dante was a territory for males only, Petrarch attracted men and women alike. A comparative analysis of the translations and imita• tions from Petrarch, which have so far languished in the wasteland of minor verse, will help us define the character of those versions made by women poets. The situation looks strangely similar to the sixteenth century, when both men and women were involved in a Petrarchan vogue, interpreting source texts in very different ways. Dante and Petrarch offered not only two alternative poetics; they were two radically different types of poet and intellectual. Dante was a major model of the prophet-poet; Petrarch was a model of the scholar-poet and melancholy lover. Dante was a politician and an exile, a man of ideological certainties
ix x Introduction and unshakable principles; Petrarch was a friend of many princes, a well• to-do scholar who knew how to arrive at a reasonable compromise with polit• ical power. It is easy to understand why, after the French Revolution, many male Romantics identified with Dante and denigrated Petrarch. On the other hand, it is natural that most women poets preferred Petrarch to a masculine, muscular figure like Dante. It took almost a century before, largely thanks to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante and Beatrice replaced Petrarch and Laura as the most popular couple of medieval lovers. The meaning of Ros• setti's revival of stilnovo and pre-Petrarchan poetry cannot be fully understood if we know little or nothing - as we have done so far - about the Petrarchan fashion which preceded it. The images of Dante as an indomitable fighter for justice and Petrarch as an erudite weakling, of Dante as emphatically masculine and Petrarch as effeminate, are inseparable from the idea that Dante had a lot to say about everything, whereas Petrarch was monotonous and limited. Hostile readers have always stressed that Petrarch was an excellent stylist who could only talk of himself, an idea repeated over the centuries by many formalist scholars of different schools. This view is quite astonishing if we consider the role of Petrarch in Italian and European culture. As Nicola Gardini pOints out, Petrarch and Petrarchism played the central role in establishing the norms of sexual behaviour in Italian culture. No less. Gardini recalls that Petrarch's heterosexuality was defined as 'a form of terrorism' by Pier Paolo Pasolini, a gay writer who was impliCitly comparing it to the bisexuality of many Greek, Latin and Middle Eastern love poets.2 So it was not just that the form of Petrarch's poems established a stylistic norm over several centuries; equally crucially their content fixed an influential norm which is still far from obso• lete. Petrarch is not as varied a writer as Dante, but he is far from being a poet with no content. What kind of role did Petrarch play in England? Of course, here Petrarchism was not as influential as in Italy. In England a function of the same kind was performed by the eighteenth-century novel. However, the role of the Petrarchan tradition is far from negligible. There is Renaissance Petrarchism, which was pivotal in the formation of English lyric, though it was nearly forgotten by the mid-eighteenth century; and there is the eighteenth-century revival of Petrarch, whose important role in the poetry of SenSibility and Romanticism has remained largely undefined. Certainly, few of the eighteenth-century British Petrarchans were attracted only by Petrarch's style. They took the content of Canzoniere very seriously, even though they tended to concentrate on certain aspects of Petrarch's poetry at the expense of the rest. Their approach was mainly biograph• ical and focused on a limited number of Petrarch's love poems. What they liked most of all was the romantic Petrarch, the poems where a lovelorn 'I' meditates alone while wandering in the countryside. Sonnets like 'Solo et pensoso', 'Vago augelletto', 'Quel rosignuol', and above all 'Zephiro torna' Introduction xi were the core of Romantic Petrarchism, even though moral meditations like 'Voi ch'ascoltate' and 'La gola e 'I somno' were also popular. Such interest in the poems cannot be separated from an attention to Petrarch's life. The great popularity of biographies and essays like Susanna Dobson's Life of Petrarch, which gave momentum to the revival, confirms that the British approach was essentially biographical. The complex con• sequences of this attitude are examined in Chapter 1, but here it is worth pointing out that the formal difference between a novel of Sensibility and a biography like Dobson's was very small. Both told stories of melancholy love using prose interspersed with poetry. In form and content, biographies were the link between poetry and the novel of Sensibility, the genre which played the central role in the sentimental education of eighteenth-century readers. Despite such biographical interest, few British poets and translators paid any attention to the entire Canzoniere. For example, there were translations of the poems that describe Petrarch's religious repentance of his sentimen• tal obsession, but they were neither admired nor discussed nor imitated. The same happened with many of the sonnets that are rich in conceits and mytho• logical references. In other words, the British readers of the Romantic age treated Canzoniere as though it were a collection of 'scattered rhymes'. None of them understood the impressive structure of Canzoniere as an exemplary autobiography. It had taken Petrarch the work of a lifetime, not to mention a good deal of fabrication, to construct a Stoic and Augustinian progress that went from the scattered rhymes of his early, fragmented self and his love for Laura, to his later ego, whose regained unity was represented by the harmo• nious construction of a book where everything is in its right place, including the final, religious recantation of his juvenile errors. This construction went unnoticed in Romantic England, although readers of the time should not be treated too harshly. The structure of Canzoniere had already been lost to sight in the Renaissance, which was as blinkered as the Romantic age in its imitation of Petrarch. However limited, the Romantic Petrarch is nevertheless liberating for an Italian reader. Petrarch's style was not the only interest of British writers, and even the traditional opposition with Dante - a tedious obsession of Italian culture - was given a different, political meaning. One of the most surprising things is that Petrarch, who in Italian literature is the emblem of the arch• canonical, conservative writer, mainly attracted various types of marginal poets in Romantic England: women poets, like Mary Monk early in the eight• eenth century and Mary Robinson; sexually eccentric poets like Gray and Nott; and poets of the radical circles later in the century. Of course, this is an artificial division, as these categories often overlap. For instance, sev• eral women poets were considered as sexually eccentric in comparison to the accepted norms of the age, and more often than not they were involved in political radicalism. Foscolo's observation that Petrarch was a model used by the clergy to teach the Italian youth political quietism sounded quite out of xii Introduction place in England, where Petrarch was really only admired outside the estab• lishment. However strange it may sound, Capel Lofft, a Unitarian radical, was simultaneously the most ardent champion of both Petrarch and Napoleon at the turn of the century. Though Gothic romances and novels of Sensibility were the main forms where amorous discourse was developed in the late eighteenth century, poetry also played an important role in the process. Poetry was not as popular as the novel, but it was attributed greater intellectual prestige. It is important, then, to find out how the ideas of love and desire were developed in verse, in order to define, among other things, how women poets acquired a space of their own in this most prestigious literary genre, a genre whose tradition was predominantly male. The social prestige of poetry and the increasing presence of women on the literary scene are unquestionable facts of Romantic culture. One need only recall, for example, that Charlotte Smith's son asked her to send him some copies of her collections of sonnets, rather than any of her novels, since her poems had been the most effective means of introducing him to the best society in Quebec. Charlotte Smith's literary career was proverbially arduous but, as Judith Phillips Stanton has noted, the interesting point is that, despite her difficulties, her life demonstrates that 'it was possible for a woman of her class to write from the provinces with the most irregular support and patronage, to achieve a measure of respectability, to gain a reputation, and to earn a living, however modest.'3 Statistically, the number of books published by women poets increased constantly from 1770 and peaked with nearly 80 collections in 1808.4 This certainly deserves critical attention, though we should never forget that in poetry the most relevant element is not quantity, but quality. Large numbers are sociologically interesting, but they need not be aesthetically interesting. Women writers, as Stuart Curran has noted, were active in all literary genres, but they were most closely associated with the revival of the son• net and the metrical tale.s The sonnet and Petrarch were synonyms at that time, and they were inseparably linked to love poetry. In fact, Petrarch was one of the three figures - the other two being Sappho and Werther - around whom love poetry revolved in the late eighteenth century. Sappho's and Werther's roles, of course, have received far more attention than Petrarch's.6 In particular, in recent years there has been a tremendous surge of interest in Sappho, and the study of her works has turned into a sort of industry. It's hardly surprising that women's studies and feminist criticism have concen• trated on the revival of Sappho, a subject which lends itself to their interests and ideology. Statistics that feminist scholars brought forward as evidence of the importance of women in Romantic writing have been quickly laid aside in this case. It would be difficult to deny that there were many more transla• tions, imitations, adaptations and re-writings of Petrarch than Sappho. Most women writers had some knowledge of the Italian language, which was part Introduction xiii of a girl's education at the time, whereas hardly any of them knew Greek. Besides, Petrarch's texts were easily available, whereas only a few fragments of Sappho - far fewer than at present - were known at that time. It might be argued that this ignorance of Sappho's texts was actually an advantage, since it was easier to reinvent her character at will in what have come to be called 'fictions of Sappho'. As it turned out, the wealth of material both by and about Petrarch was no obstacle to people's imagination, not only in poetry, but in scholarship too. Fictions of Petrarch, in prose and verse, were so numerous that despite all the many essays being written about him, Foscolo was able to complain that there were no biographies of Petrarch's life, only romances.? As might be expected, the relation women had with Petrarch was more complex than their relation with Sappho, and feminists today find it more difficult to absorb it into their view of literary history. In most cases, women writers both identified with and distanced themselves from Petrarch. Their attitude to Laura was equally important and contained a similar mixture of identification and distancing. It was a complicated reception, more nuanced and problematic than their response to Sappho - which may explain why feminist scholars have so far ignored it. But did Sappho and Laura ever meet in Romantic England? Before Mary Robinson's Sappho and Phaon, Sappho and Laura appeared together in two dialogues, published anonymously in 1773, which are free translations from Fontenelle's Nouveaux dialogues des morts. In this text, Laura represents the cautious though determined lover, while Sappho is the incontinent, aggres• sive partner overwhelmed by a passion that disrupts normal social relations.8 The dialogue opens with Laura, who notes that their amours have been accompanied by the muses but that, while Sappho sang her own love, Laura had verses made about hers. Sappho agrees and adds that she was a vio• lent lover, whereas Laura was violently loved.9 Laura tells Sappho that she was too aggressive and spoke out her paSSion explicitly, whereas 'it is the woman's province, to act out upon the defensive.' Sappho replies that she was provoked by that 'impertinent custom' which restrains women's 'natural liberty' - a concept added by the English translator. Men left women 'the hardest part; for it is much easier to attack, than defend'. Laura replies that a woman's part has its advantages, as the besieged 'may surrender at discre• tion, but the besiegers cannot carry the fort when they please'. Sappho argues that men attack women because they have an inclination to behave like that, whereas women's modesty is not natural behaviour but, as the English trans• lator added, the product of custom. Laura notes that compliments paid to women show how highly men value' a hard-won heart'. Sappho answers that being obliged to resist 'soft addresses' for a long time is a torture. Men's pleas• ure in being loved 'is their triumph over the person that loves them'. Laura concludes the first part of the dialogue by noting that Sappho 'would have a law made' that women should attack men so as to add, as the translator specified, the pride of conquest to the pleasure of love. 10 xiv Introduction
Sappho opens the second part of the dialogue with a reasonable remark: why cannot men and women, rather than behaving as though involved in siege warfare, 'meet one another half way, and love upon the square?'. Laura answers that love would be impoverished by such behaviour: 'courtship is so agreeable a commerce, that we should spin it out as long as we can.' Saying yes immediately would destroy all the polite attention, the 'inexpressibly delightful mixture of pleasure and pain, which is the soul of an amour', for, as the translator added, 'there is nothing more insipid than plain love for love.'ll In short, Laura's point of view is that sex devoid of courtship and emotion is tedious. Sappho's reply is sarcastic. In a passage entirely added to the French original, she cries that Laura's story is 'excellently adapted to the Platonic ideas of your poetical lover, the harmoniously insipid Petrarch'. Her own lover, the 'voluptuous Alcceus', was completely different. He was a sort of hog, who, 'while devouring an acorn, is eying another' .12 Going back to the original text, Sappho notes that if love is a battle, it is better to attack than defend all the time. 13 Laura specifies that resistance must not be absolute, and this time Sappho agrees with her. As the translator added, resistance must be used only to whet 'the appetites of the men'. Laura agrees cautiously: 'Perhaps it may; but it is likewise a salvo to our pride, and the foundation of our self• esteem. One would not be so weak as to surrender at first Sight, nor so stout as not to surrender at all.'14 However much we speculate on love, 'we shall find, at the foot of the account, that things are much better as they are; and that, in attempting to mend them, we should spoil them entirely.' In the English text, the last word is left to Sappho the Amazon, who agrees with Laura and adds: 'I had always such a violent inclination to attack, and so little will to resist, that I would gladly have custom on my side.' Men, however, would defend too well and the love game would be impossible. Let men remain 'in posseSSion of their proud prerogative, since we should have been losers by the alteration. They conquer,-only to be vanquished!,15 This dialogue shows clearly how Laura and Sappho were perceived before the Petrarchan revival. Sappho was the oversexed, aggreSSive woman at odds with eighteenth-century morals; Laura stood for a conventional lady who accepted the dominant morality, even though she clearly saw its limitations and its artificial nature. Within a few years the Petrarchan revival changed such neat opposition, making the figures of Laura and Petrarch as problematiC as that of Sappho.