United States or Ghana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Many good words are there engraved in black letters, epigrams reproving the curious, concetti, wittily turned farewells, rendezvous given at which only one side appears, pretentious biographies, glitter, rubbish and tinsel.
The concetti of the Italian, the figurative style of the Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard, the classical correctness of the French, are all modifications of genius, relatively true to each particular writer.
It is, also, the source of half the tales, novels, and plays, that have been written since. The 'Pastor Fido' of Guarini is so celebrated, that you should read it; but in reading it, you will judge of the great propriety of the characters. A parcel of shepherds and shepherdesses, with the TRUE PASTORAL' SIMPLICITY, talk metaphysics, epigrams, 'concetti', and quibbles, by the hour to each other.
Corneille was the restorer of true taste, and the founder of the French theatre; although rather inclined to the Italian 'Concetti' and the Spanish 'Agudeze'. Witness those epigrams which he makes Chimene utter in the greatest excess of grief. Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of fools.
If it be correct to express human thought by writing whole pages of vague and bald abstract metaphyric, and then trying to explain them by concrete concetti; which bear an entirely accidental and mystical likeness to the notion which they are to illustrate, then let the metaphysic be as abstract as possible, the concetti as fanciful and far-fetched as possible.
Andreini is incessantly offending against taste, and is infected with the vice of the Marinists, the pursuit of concetti, or far-fetched analogies between things unlike. His infernal personages are grotesque and disgusting, rather than terrible; his scenes in heaven childish at once familiar and fantastic, in the style of the Mysteries of the age before the drama.
"You would not wish, fair stranger," replied the Count, "that we should admit Teutonic barbarism amongst us that we should copy Young's Night Thoughts, and the Concetti of the Italians and Spaniards. What would become of the taste and elegance of our French style after such a mixture?"
Voiture has made several stanzas upon an accident of that kind, which happened to a lady of his acquaintance. There is a great deal of wit in them, rather too much; for, according to the taste of those times, they are full of what the Italians call 'concetti spiritosissimi'; the Spaniards 'agudeze'; and we, affectation and quaintness.
He speaks of 'Innocence, Simplicity, and whatever else has been laid down as distinguishing Marks of Pastoral. Again, the reader is informed that 'Whoever can bear these' namely, certain concetti from Tasso and Guarini 'may be assured he hath no Taste for Pastoral. We find the same pedantic and ignorant objections to Sannazzaro's piscatorials as were later advanced by Johnson: 'who can pardon him, loftily queries the censor, 'for his Arbitrary Change of the sweet Manners and pleasing objects of the Country, for what in their own Nature are uncomfortable and dreadful? An afternoon's idling along the cliffs of Sorento or the shore of Posilipo will supply a sufficient answer to such ignorant conceit as this.
He frequently exclaimed, "That's in bad taste; this man continually brings the Italian concetti on the stage."
Word Of The Day