Index
1827 Index
PNR Index
Danno del conoscere la propria età
Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura
PNR Index
Danno del conoscere la propria età
Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura
Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura
Not the beautiful absolutely, but the true, i.e. any kind of imitation of nature, is the proper object of the fine arts.
2-3
3
General tendencies in literature, with specific application to or examples from Italian literature.
3-4
On the literary vices of scholars from the good classical
centuries before they became common vices in the corrupt centuries.
5
Difficulty of avoiding affectation
and the vices of writing nowadays, compared to that of the ancients
and the classics.
5
Difficulty of performing artificially and willfully the
natural and ordinary functions of life; applied to the excessive art found
presently in literature.
8
Exaggerations in sentences or expressions familiar and
proper to the French language, style or its writers; given as a proof of the
affectation dominant in that nation.
9
Too much consideration of danger and the effort of avoiding
it brings it upon, or else nothing is done; how this applies to modern literature
in comparison with the ancient.
9-10
How should we interpret in translations certain words that
are either deliberately coined by the author or distorted from their
original meaning.
12
The most difficult art is hiding art and achieving
naturalness; applied to the discourse on romanticism.
20-21
You do not imitate nature unless you imitate it with
naturalness; observation applied to romanticism.
21
Parallel of the descriptive mode used by Ovid and by modern descriptive poets with the one used by Dante.
21
On Longinus' opinion on the defect of greatness in the
spirit and writing of his time. Its cause is established to be the progress of reason and
knowledge. This progress and the exile of the illusions produce barbarity. On
the feelings and behavior of Cicero, and the events in Rome following
Ceasar's death.
21-23
The most ancient and obscure centuries are considered the
most heroic with reason and not by whim.
23
Eloquence in lyric recognized in Petrarch, who is favored
in this respect over Horace and all others. The copiousness, simplicity,
familiarity, and generally the nature of Petrarch's style.
23
Images and accidental effects which sometimes are born from
the expressions of poets and other writers, without being sought by
them, like that of the sponge Protogenes threw on his Ialysos.
25-26
The most eloquent Italian pieces are certain Petrarchan
canzoni and various writings by Tasso. The eloquence of speaking about
oneself.
29-30
The flexibility of the French language serves to express
things, not to sculpt them, as the effectiveness of the Italian
language does.
30
The means of imitation proper to any art should not be
naturally discordant among themselves, nor poorly combined; otherwise art is barbarous in
itself. Opera in music. Tragedy in verse.
32
Monti: a poet by style, imaginative, unhappy in
feeling, translator and copyist in almost all of his original poems. His
"Musogonia".
36-37
A case in which it is barbarous to follow reason and
unreasonable to follow nature; religion in that case is on the side of
nature.
37
Reimbursing a great gift or benefit with a small one by ignorance or awkwardness; how detestable this is to the
benefactor and how much better it would have been to not remunerate in any way.
38
A saying by Bacon that all faculties reduced to art become
sterile; its application to poetry. Originality of the ancients; inevitable servility of modern poets.
39-40
41
On vernacular Latin. Very ancient Latin words unused by the
golden writers and used by those of the low period and by the vulgar
moderns.
42
The more we calculate time the less it seems we have; the more we neglect it, the more it seems that we have left.
43
Attic grace. The grace of a language is something different
from its other qualities. It can only be derived from a language actually
used in speaking.
43
Why those who are afraid tend to sing. The false courage of
many consists in dissimulating or diminishing suffering in their imagination.
The eὐφημία of the Greeks, the Latins and the Italians.
43-44
Parallel between the Greeks at the Thermopylae and our
sufferings, especially recently. Spartan mothers similar to the
Christian. The heroism of patriotism similar to the religious one. Religion
resurrects extinguished heroism.
44-45
The bad treatment by certain priests of their
novices. The envy I felt towards those who seemed to have easily attained
what I did after many efforts.
45
Habit seems nature, and so the bad taste in literary
matters and the poor manner of writing seem natural because of habituation.
Way of convincing oneself of the contrary. Difficulty nowadays of
following nature, which is no longer our habit; the ease of following
habit in every thing.
46
Opposition is often reason for wanting and doing more than
you would have done if there had been no opposition. A concrete
example.
47
It is reasonable to allow Italians to derive words
and moods from Latin, while denying them to do that from other sister languages. Barbarity of Greek words in modern languages. The French language considered
in this context. Republican words.
47-48
The fable of the peacock ashamed of its feet is contrary to
nature. The variety of the beautiful. There is no absolute ugliness, nor a
species of animals that seems ugly to itself, or disgusting and the like.
49
Which objectives and intentions should the poet or writer
hide in order to escape affectation; definition of the latter.
52-53
The artifice of many modern writers in hiding the true
reasons for many moral effects noted by them. Reducing things to their
principles. Simplicity and a small number of elementary things both in the moral
and in the physical worlds. Proposal for a system where all moral effects are
referred to their original causes.
53
The imitation of the Greeks hurt the originality of Latin
literature and poetry no less than the Italian was hurt by the imitation of
the Latins and the Greeks. The great field of originality that the Romans had.
Qualities added or substituted in the Greek style by the Latins.
54
Elementary sounds of speech are missing in our and in other
alphabets. On the Galic "u". A hypothesis on how it became adopted by the
French.
54-55
Few care to gain love at the price of hatred for
another. To what extent and why is hatred more effective than love.
55
Perhaps man would be happy living naturally. Proofs. But
today man is incapable of this happiness. Man is not deprived of instinct by
nature but loses it because of art. The difference between his life and that
of the other animals is the result of circumstances, not of nature.
56
Self-love directed towards oneself is the origin of vices,
when directed towards others - of virtues.
57
We don't read of any prince to have committed suicide
because of desperation with life, whereas it would befit princes to do so more than others.
57-58
Love increases the feeling of life and is the vivifying
principle of nature, as opposed to hatred.
59
Dante and Petrarch are much less superfluous and a lot
more spontaneous with rhymes than all of the authors from the 16th century.
59-60
In the battle of Isso, Dario placed the mercenaries in the
front, Alexander in the back. Both were Greeks. Reflections about this
incident.
62-63
The true and perhaps the only hopeful utility of comedy should be
to instruct the young, the inexperienced and the unreflective on the nature
of social life and of men.
63
How the Greeks and the Romans used to call a proper man,
considered to be telling of the opinions, state and character of those
nations.
64-65
Pain from misfortunes or the loss of goods is lightened by
the thought of necessity. The example of a child.
65
Hatred of life conjoined at the same time with the fear
of losing it and with the care to conserve it. My own example. That becoming aware of the unhappiness of being is something against
nature.
66
Pignotti's fables decline from the goal and nature of
Aesop's, and are rather little moral satires, as are many of Lucian's
dialogues and inventions.
67
Female birds are less pretty than the male. Also among
humans the male sex is actually more beautiful than the fair sex.
67
Love of glory, of freedom, and other such sentiments
are usually confused with the love of fatherland.
67-68
An observation showing that speaking is never divorced from
some bodily movement made solely because of speaking.
68
Being born is a mortal and great danger for man but not for
the other animals. A sign of our corruption.
68-69
Hatred is sweeter than indifference. The latter is extremely
rare in the natural state, but most common and almost constant in the
civil.
69
Difference between Petrarch's simplicity and that of the
Greeks. The familiarity of Petrarch's style.
70
Self-contempt is a great stimulus to suicide. The love of
life is nothing but the love of one's own good.
70-71
Perhaps the number of individuals in the animal species
is, naturally and generally speaking, in inverse proportion to their
greatness.
71-72
Crime is sometimes heroism; sometimes it promises well of
the person committing it. Also, the sacrifice of virtue by someone who values
it is a kind of heroism and greatness of spirit.
72
Revenge is so appreciated that often we want to be insulted
in order to take revenge. The same can be said of hatred, even without revenge.
72
Everything is nothingness, even the desperation that is
born from knowing and feeling this truth, even pain.
72
A thought by Madame de Staël who condemns the abuse by the
romantics of the terrible and of the extraordinary, which are not in harmony
with the habits and nature of almost any reader.
73-74
Variety and contrast of the qualities of each
individual of the Southern nations, and the reason for this
variety.
74-75
Pleasure of the vague is of such nature that it cannot
be satisfied, yet it is much greater than any defined pleasure: anyhow these are far from being able to satisfy and fulfill.
75[e di nuovo ivi.] [and there again.]
The happiness available to man consists in a
tranquil life animated by a certain and quiet hope for future well-being
and engaged in a serene manner.
76
Civilization introduced labors that are harmful and discontinued those useful to the health of the body and of the human
faculties.
76
Ancient pain. Its great difference from the modern. Whether
poets and artists should or can fittingly treat ancient subject matters where there is emphasis on the passions. Sensitivity was not proper to the ancients; it is a
natural effect of our modern circumstances, but it is not innate in us: it is a
remedy prepared by compassionate nature for our present, although not
natural, unhappiness. How unreasonable it is to accuse ancient poets and
writers of lacking feeling and to devalue the ancients because they
lacked it. They did not, however, lack other noble and sweet passions, nor
other great delights of the spirit which we lack. The consolation of the
ancients was not in misfortune itself, as it is in some way for us.
76-79
Music imitates feeling in person; compared to poetry and to
architecture. A passage by Staël on the subject.
79-80
Christianity has made men worse when, without extinguishing
the passions, it placed them in too much opposition with the principles.
The nature of wickedness in the middle ages differs from the ancient and from that in recent times. This difference is partially attributed to
Christianity.
80-81
Ignorant and cold men usually do not feel envy towards
genius ones, because they do not esteem them nor believe them superior to
themselves, bur rather inferior. They will envy them only when they see them
esteemed, which cannot happen in small and ignorant places. The kind of
passions that men of genius awaken in others in such places. Refer to
the cited book in Corinne.
83-84
Influence and relations of the physical and the metaphysical systems and doctrines. The example of the Copernican
system.
84
Bored and discouraged with life I did not have the force to
cry and to suffer, except when I was more cheerful than usual.
84
Superficial or weak sensations of enthusiasm are willingly
communicated with the hope to increase them; communicating profound ones is
avoided, nor is it possible.
85-86
A passage in Corinne condemns the ignoble poetizing of the
romantics and the excessive truthfulness and minuteness of their imitation.
86-87
Progress of the effects of misfortune in the individual.
The self-hatred to which they lead. Evil joy and smiling about one's own
evils and about death itself; final result of desperation.
87
Painful or terrible or unpleasant thoughts and sensations:
why they are often sought and accepted voluntarily. A passage from
Corinne.
88-90
The idea and horror that the ancients had of destiny; where
it comes from. It explains the same effect in the magnanimous and
imaginative men of modernity.
90-92
The epigrammatic of French spirit and conversation is
necessarily communicated to all their writings, whose character it forms.
French style is not capable of any other naturalness than that of their
conversation, which is not among the most natural. The praised naturalness
and grace of La Fontaine. French language is exalted as very simple, but it is
incapable of translating Xenophon and some of the most simple and plain
classical authors. Translations by Amyot. Perhaps more easiy to understand
for an Italian than for an uneducated Frenchman.
92-94
Knowledge of several languages helps the facility,
clarity and precision of thinking, of conceiving, of fixating and determining
one's ideas to oneself.
94-95
Joy, feelings and enthusiasm are the proper effects of
passing vigor. The ancients' bodily strength must have given rise to many
spiritual pleasures and feelings of enthusiasm, especially in the
educated.
96-97
Unpleasantness of not being able to participate in
conversations that interest us or are about things that we know as much or
better than those speaking in our presence.
97
It is false that the moment when others rejoice is not
suited for obtaining anything except for favors that can be done instantly or granted. It is rather most inopportune for everything else, and the reason why. Neither the times of joy nor of pain predispose us to compassion or to
interest in someone else, but rather the times of indifference, and even more so
those of enthusiasm without a definite objective or of joy without a
specific cause.
97-99
Making someone interested in our misfortune, who is in a
similar state, is not just not easy, but impossible. Perhaps it is
easier to make interested someone who has experienced it in the past.
99
Property of ancient poets to leave a lot to the
reader, which is, among other things, reason for the great beauty of their
poetry, descriptions, images and ideas, i.e. the beauty of the indefinite
and the vague. The opposite effect is created by the modern and romantic
exactitude in making descriptions.
100
