World Literature - Italian literatures

Italians look upon their past as having the oldest civilized country in the world and upon themselves as the direct heirs of Roman culture. They clung for many centuries to the traditions of the past, and culturally speaking, produced little. Yet, in spite of this trend, the Italian spirit has expressed itself to the greatest advantage in painting, music, literature, and in certain branches in the both natural, and the social science.

Italian literature began to bloom after the thirteenth century. Its first beginnings were at the court of Frederick II in Sicily. Its literature is partly rich in poetry, but the drama and fiction are not so well represented. Its “sweet new style” in poetry spiritualized love and made it ennobling influence. Many literature forms and literary fashions have come from Italy such as the sonnet, the pastoral poems, certain types of prose fiction and the movement known as neoclassicism.

Within a century three great names in the history of Italian letters appeared – Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Dante’s Divine Comedy is the acknowledged masterpiece of Italian literature. Petrarch, the first modern man inaugurated the Renaissance and excelled in lyric poetry. Boccaccio, a poet and humanist wrote the most famous collection of prose tales in his Decameron.

The Renaissance reached its climax in the sixteenth century characterized by the teeming intellectual and artistic life. Though literature represented only a fraction of this energy, noteworthy things were achieved.  A few of these who excelled were Ariosto with his worldly and satirical pieces, Tasso with his poetic and religious pieces, and Machiavelli with his famous treatise on statecraft The Prince, and Castiglione with his dialogue The Courtiers, on the ideals and quality of a gentleman.

Following the great outburst in literature came a long period of decline. It was a period of foreign political dominion. It was also a time of religious reaction which was hostile to independent thinking.

After the middle of the eighteenth century Italy began to shake off her national and literary lethargy. Fresh Intellectual influence came from France and England.

The predominant features of the recent Italian literature, whatever the literary mood, are its exclusive concern with some phase of contemporary life stirred into tragic activity fascism.