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Updated: May 9, 2025
The Faithful Shepherdess was the earliest, and long remained the only, deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of Tasso and Guarini in Italy.
The Italian writers, it is evident, even the most celebrated, have not reached the proper simplicity of thought and composition; and in Petrarch, Tasso, Guarini, frivolous witticisms and forced conceits are but too predominant. The period during which letters were cultivated in Italy was so short, as scarcely to allow leisure for correcting this adulterated relish.
When I once transport myself to this sphere I have no longer any care for them, and if I could I would not exact of them an allegiance which has no concern with them. For this reason I have always vastly enjoyed the artificialities of pastoral poetry; and in Venice I read with a pleasure few serious poems have given me the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini.
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.
Mr. Jacob tells us, that these Poems and Translations, shew the true spirit, and numbers of poetry, a delicacy of turn, and justness of thought and expression. They consist of Ecclogues; the Masque of the Virtues against Love, from Guarini; some translations from the French and Italians; Familiar Epistles, Odes and Madrigals. Her poetry has great warmth, and tenderness of sentiment.
The most curious, perhaps, is a play, I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance that centred round Roland and Launcelot.
The queen's pale face brightened more and more as she read; with joy and triumph she glanced from the paper at the chamberlain, and said, with a brilliant smile: "You are really a messenger of peace; a time will come when I can better reward your faithful services than by words. I beg you to open that door, and call Father Guarini." The chamberlain obeyed her command, and Father Guarini entered.
Her fear of death, however, stands in powerful dramatic contrast with the sudden courage she displays when her lover seeks to die in her place. Guarini was perfectly aware of the value of this contrast, for he placed the following lines in the mouth of the messo who reports the scene: Or odi maraviglia.
A true relation of what passed in the Palazzo Guarini may serve to show how just she had been. The Count had received news of his henchman's attendance with a nod, had kept him waiting two hours in the cortile, then remembered him and bid him upstairs. "Well, dog," said the young lord, from his dressing-table, "and why the devil are you so late to report yourself?"
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