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Churchill, Kenneth
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Italy and English Literature 1764–1930.
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Symonds and De Sanctis: a Study in the Historiography of the Renaissance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Extract
Je. Spingarn was the first to observe the considerable influence exercised by Francesco De Sanctis (1818-1883), the Italian critic and literary historian, upon the work of John Addington Symonds. Reviewing in 1908 the new edition of De Sanctis’ study of Petrarch published by Benedetto Croce in 1907, Spingarn said:
The name of Francesco de Sanctis is virtually unknown to English readers. A few casual phrases in Symonds's ‘Renaissance in Italy,’ and a friendly but wholly inadequate notice in Saintsbury's ‘History of Criticism,’ are almost the sole references to his work in our language. But with his ideas English-speaking people are more familiar than they suspect; for from his pages much that is illuminating in Symonds's treatment of Italian literature (including many of the most personal ‘impressions’) seems to have been directly transferred.
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References
1 J. E. Spingarn, The Nation LXXXVI (16 April 1908), 355.
2 Croce, B., Gli scritti di F. De Sanctis e la loro varia fortuna, saggio bibliografico (Bari, 1917), P.89.Google Scholar
3 Giordano Orsini, G. N., ‘La storia del rinascimento di J. A. Symonds', La Cultura vi (1927), 408–413 Google Scholar, and ‘J. A. Symonds e F. De Sanctis', VII (1928), 358-366.
4 Marie Davis Cochrane, John Addington Symonds, Critic of Literature and Art (dissertation for the Ph. D., University of Wisconsin, 1954). As the title indicates, special attention is given to Symonds’ art criticism, but there is also a good chapter on his critical theories.
5 Mary Jane Loso, John Addington Symonds: Nineteenth-century Historian of the Italian Renaissance (dissertation for the Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1957). The bibliography is particularly rich in historians’ discussions of Symonds.
6 Wellek, Rene, ‘Francesco De Sanctis', Italian Quarterly 1 (1957), 5-43.Google Scholar
7 Symonds, J. A., The Revival of Learning (New York, Capricorn Books, 1960).Google Scholar This is vol. II (1877) of the work. Others are now following.
8 'Michelangelo's Catharsis', T.L.S., 27 January 1961.
9 In 1890 Ernesto Masi was to say that ‘the Italian language and literature have no secrets for Mr. Symonds’ ﹛Nuova Antologia, CIX, 1890, 665), which naturally gave great pleasure to Symonds: see H. F. Brown, Letters and Papers of J. A. Symonds (London, 1923), p. 236 (this work will henceforth be cited as Letters). In 1893 he was invited to lecture on Michelangelo in Florence: see La Vita italiana nel 500, conferenze tenute in Firenze nel 18gs (Milano, 1924), p. 329. The lecture was translated and read in Italian.
10 J. A. Symonds, II rinascimento in Italia: le belle arti. Traduzione di Sofia Fortini-Santarelli (Firenze, 1879). L'era dei tiranni. Prima versione italiana del conte Guglielmo de la Feld (Torino, 1900). Why Symonds’ third volume was translated before his first, and why there were two different publishers, I do not know.
11 Rassegna settimanale VII (1881), 375.
12 Giornale storico della letteratura italiana XXXVII (1901), 415-417.
13 L. Geiger, Rinascimento e umanismo in Italia e in Germania, traduzione italiana di G. Valbusa (Milano, 1891), p. 739.
14 A Guide to Historical Literature, ed. G. M. Dutcher and others (New York, 1931), p . 672.
15 The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature, ed. G. F. Howe and others (New York, 1961).
16 G. Saintsbury, A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe (7th impression, New York, 1950), III, 552.
17 Op. cit., in, 589-591.
18 Ferguson, W. K., The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston, 1948), pp. 203Google Scholar and 242. Cf. J. R. Hale, England and the Italian Renaissance, the Growth of Interest in its History and Art (London, 1954), p. 185.
19 Op. cit., p. 191.
20 P. Villari, ‘J- A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, Italian Literature', Nuova Antologia Lxn (1882), 215-227.
21 Croce, Gli scritti di De Sanctis, p. 45. For a recent reaffirmation of the same view, see F. Simone, ‘Benedetto Croce et la litterature comparee en Italie', R.L.C. xxvn (1953),
22 Croce, Storia della storiografia in Italia nelsecolo decimonono (Bari, 1921, Scritti di storia letteraria e politico xv-xvi), n, 177.
23 R, rv, 7. With the abbreviation R, I will from now on refer to Symonds’ Renaissance in Italy. The editions I have used are as follows: for the first three volumes (1, The Age of the Despots, n, The Revival of Learning, andm, The Fine Arts), the second edition, London, 1880-1882; for the last four (iv, Italian Literature, 2 vols.) a reimpression of 1888 and (v, The Catholic Reaction, 2 vols.) the edition of 1886. S will represent De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana, ed. P. Arcari (Milan, 1919). This edition is very fully indexed and has other useful features.
24 9th ed., xi (1880), 256; cf. S, n, 90, and De Sanctis’ famous essay on Guicciardini.
25 B. Croce, ‘II De Sanctis e il Carducci', Una Famiglia dipatrioti (Bari, 1927), pp. 259-260.
26 The main sources for Symonds’ life and intellectual development are the compilations of his friend Horatio F. Brown: John Addington Symonds, a Biography compiled from his Papers and Correspondence (2d ed., London, 1903) (its first edition, 1895, contained some additional material, genealogical and iconographic), and the Letters and Papers (see note 9). Brown was another interesting type of British expatriate who lived in Venice and wrote learned books on the history of the city. See also Percy L. Babington, Bibliography of the Writings of John Addington Symonds (London, 1925).
27 G. Saintsbury, op. cit., m, 552.
28 The Renaissance, an essay, read in the Theatre, Oxford, June 17, 1863 (Oxford, 1863). Cf. Biography, pp. 153-155.
29 Pater, W., Uncollected Essays (Portland, Me., 1904), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar
30 Biography, p. 401. This passage, unlike most of those quoted in the Biography, is not reprinted in the Letters.
31 Letters, p. 231; only in part in Biography, p. 451. Other references to Pater's work, more or less critical in tone, are in Letters, pp. 89,192.
32 For his influence on French aesthetics, see Tronchon, H., Rotnantisme et preromantisme (Paris, 1930), pp. 153 Google Scholar, 162.
33 Cf. B. Fehr, ‘Walter Pater und Hegel', Englische Studien L (1917), 300-308.
34 See the new edition: G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen iiber die Asthetik, ed. G. Lasson (Leipzig, 1931).
35 Biography, pp. 258-259. The text has ‘trades, aesthetical,’ and I conjecturally omit the first comma. Other references to Hegel are on pp. 15, 84, 126, 278 and 324.
36 Frederic Harrison is one of the few who recognized their value: see his Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill and Other Literary Estimates (London, 1900), pp. 126-127. Symonds’ Essays will henceforth be quoted from the third edition (1907).
37 See B. Croce, ‘Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic', Philosophy IX (1934). 157-167. The original is in Ultimi saggi (1935).
38 Sketches and Studies in Italy (London, 1879), pp. 377-428.
39 See for instance Mayor, J. B., Chapters on English Metre(Cambridge, 1901), pp. 47–53.Google Scholar
40 Cf. F. Neri, ‘II De Sanctis e la critica francese', Storia epoesia (Torino, 1936), pp. 179- 185.
41 References to Quinet: R, III, 479; vi, vii; VII, 129 II. Cf. Pater, W., The Renaissance (London, 1922), p. 204 Google Scholar (essay on Winckelmann).
42 Op. cit., p. 185.
43 W. K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought, p. 117. Cf. B. Croce, ‘Le letteratura come “espressione della societa” ‘ (1904), Probletni di estetica (4th ed., Bari, J949), pp. 56-69, and his review of a paper by Baldensperger, Conversazioni critiche, m (Bari, 1932, Scritti di storia letteraria e politica xxv), 93-95. This view has been dubbed 'sociological’ both by Croce, he. cit., and by R. Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism (J955). 1. 196. This of course is not the current meaning of the term.
44 Hegel, Philosophy of History, tr. Sibree (Dover reprint), p.431. Croce notes the influence of this idea on De Sanctis (Saggio sullo Hegel, Bari, 1913, pp. 396-397).
45 F. Neri, op. cit., pp. 182-183.
46 See G. N. G. Orsini, Benedetto Croce: Philosopher of Art and Literary Critic (Carbondale, 1961), pp. 168-169.
47 See P. De Sanctis, Saggi critici, ed. P. Arcari (Milan, 1921), II, 25. This edition will be henceforth cited as Saggi.
48 S, 1,329.
49 S, 1,1, 296; II, 154, 306.
50 Croce, Problemi di estetica (Bari, 1910), pp. 449-457.
51 This paragraph is based on Croce, Letteratura della nuova Italia, 1, 367.
52 On Heroes and Hero Worship (London, 1895), I, 86.1 called attention to this and other borrowings from Carlyle in a note in the Giornale storico delta letteratura italiana XCII (1928), 200-202. As Prof. R. Wellek kindly informs me, in the second edition of the book on Dante (1890, p. 156) Carlyle is duly quoted.
53 9th ed., xvm, 711; F. De Sanctis, Saggio sul Petrarca, ed. B. Croce (4th ed., Naples, 1918), especially chapter v.
54 Scritti vari inediti o rati, ed. B. Croce (Naples, 1898), 1, 304-308.
55 Margaret Symonds, Out of the Past (London, 1925), p. 264.
56 Croce, , Ariosto, Shakespeare e Corneille (Ban, 1920), p. 60.Google Scholar
57 See the note appended to the edition of the Maccaronee by A. Luzio (Bari, 1911), II, 364-365.
58 See Hale, op. cit., pp. 174-177. What Symonds could not understand in the writers of the Renaissance was their jocular attitude towards homosexuality: see his comments on Berni (v, 367).
59 See Croce's edition of De Sanctis’ History (Bari, 1912), n, 436-437. Symonds was also acquainted with Chasles (v, 388 n.) as well as with Mazzucchelli (v, 384 n., 399 n., 401 n.), Chasles’ authority on Aretino.
60 F. Harrison, op. cit., p. 140.
61 The use that Symonds made of Burckhardt was assessed accurately by Hale, op. tit., pp. 185-188.
62 The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, based on studies in the archives of the Buonarroti family at Florence (London, 1893), II, 92-93.
63 The derivation from De Sanctis was not noted even in the acute discussion of E. Max Bram, Die italienische Renaissance in dent englischen Geistesleben des lg.Jahrhunderts, im besonders hex John Ruskin,]. A. Symonds und Vernon Lee (Zurich diss., 1932); see pp. 53- 57 for Symonds’ volumes on Italian literature. I cannot find reference to De Sanctis in Symonds’ most finished and scholarly contribution to Italian studies, his translation of Carlo Gozzi's Memoirs (London, 1890). He might have found in De Sanctis ideas relevant to the critical problems he discussed in Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, e.g., the relations between literature and music, pp. 335-344; cf. Saggi, n, 98. But apparently he did not make the connection.
64 For references on this point see my book on Croce (cited above in n. 46), p. 352, n. 37. Symonds’ attempt to write an evolutionary history of English drama—Shakespere's Predecessors in the English Drama (London, 1884)—was the subject of a devastating critique by J. Churton Collins, Essays and Studies (London, 1895), pp. 90-106.
65 These brief remarks are not intended to cover all the questions involved in the problem of periodization in literary history. For further comment and references see my book on Croce, cited above, pp. 185-186 and n. 31 and 32 thereto.
66 See Croce, , Saggio sullo Hegel (Bari, 1913), pp. 397–405.Google Scholar For help in the preparation of this article for the press I am indebted to my graduate assistant, Mr. James Lethcoe.
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