United States or Svalbard and Jan Mayen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The design was a laudable one. In the poem itself we feel the want of some principal event, on the development and issue of which the interest of the whole may turn; as in those patterns of the mock-heroic, the Secchia Rapita, the Lutrin, and the Rape of the Lock; an advantage, which these poems in some measure derive from having been founded in fact; for however trifling the incident by which the imagination of the poet may have been first excited, when once known or believed to be true, it communicates something of its own reality to all the fictions that grow out of it.
'I named Boileau's Lutrin, and Tassoni's Secchia Rapita, which I had read, and knew Dryden had borrowed some strokes from each. ''Tis true, said Dryden, 'I had forgot them. A little after Dryden went out, and in going spoke to me again, and desired me to come and see him next day.
Many fine thoughts and fine expressions reward the toil of reading. Still it is a toil. The Secchia Rapita, in some points the best poem of its kind, is painfully diffuse and languid. The Animali Parlanti of Casti is perfectly intolerable. I admire the dexterity of the plot, and the liberality of the opinions.
Tassoni and Boileau have left us the best examples of this way in the "Seechia Rapita" and the "Lutrin," and next them Merlin Cocaius in his "Baldus." I will speak only of the two former, because the last is written in Latin verse. The "Secchia Rapita" is an Italian poem, a satire of the Varronian kind. It is written in the stanza of eight, which is their measure for heroic verse.
Although the great scene of the controversy was France, the question had been expressly raised by an Italian, no less a person than Alessandro Tassoni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical poem, "La Secchia rapita," which caricatured the epic poets of his day.
Il Matrimonio Inaspettato, a composition of PAESIELLO, is likewise in rehearsal, as well as Le Nozze di Dorina, by SARTI, and La Vilanella Rapita, by BIANCHI. MOZART too will soon enter the lists; his Dom Giovanni is to be speedily brought forward. The orchestra of the Opera Buffa, though far from numerous, is extremely well-composed.
I accompanied M. de Voltaire to his bedroom, where he changed his wig and put on another cap, for he always wore one on account of the rheumatism to which he was subject. I saw on the table the Summa of St. Thomas, and among other Italian poets the 'Secchia Rapita' of Tassoni. "This," said Voltaire, "is the only tragicomic poem which Italy has.
I have a longing for amusement, I should like to invite everybody to the house, to give a dinner, a ball, a supper, a reception, to have some sort of diabolical carnival I should like to have everybody, everybody. I am not ill-natured at heart, I am only a little crazy. Ah! son felica! Ah! son rapita Dio Virgina Sanctissima.
What amuses me is to see a serious woman play pranks with me. This morning we had a call from a Sister T . She left two visiting cards. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd. I took one, added P.P.C. and, with an address written on it, sent it to Tour. Saturday, December 25th, 1875. Ah! son felica! Ah! son rapita! Find me a language which expresses thought with so much enthusiasm.
I accompanied M. de Voltaire to his bedroom, where he changed his wig and put on another cap, for he always wore one on account of the rheumatism to which he was subject. I saw on the table the Summa of St. Thomas, and among other Italian poets the 'Secchia Rapita' of Tassoni. "This," said Voltaire, "is the only tragicomic poem which Italy has.
Word Of The Day