CHAPTER VIII.
ITALY AND GERMANY.
"secentismo." marino—'la lira'—'l'adone.' followers. chiabrera—the italian "canzone" and the classical ode—bernardo tasso—chiabrera's pindarics and "canzonette." testi. tassoni—criticism of aristotle and petrarch—'la secchia rapita'—prose—galileo—d'avila—bentivoglio. germany—late influence of renaissance. precursors. opitz—theory and practice. followers—fleming. hymns. drama—gryphius. satire—logau.
In studying the poetry of Italy[1] in the seventeenth century, one finds oneself face to face with a phenomenon Secentismo. to which that much abused term decadence can be more intelligibly and legitimately applied than to anything in English or French poetry of the same period. In the affectations of Marino and his contemporaries—and one may not except altogether Chiabrera and Tassoni—we see an art which, whatever its limitations, had
- ↑ Storia Letteraria d'Italia Scritta da una Società di Professori. Il Seicento, Antonio Bellini, Milano. D'Ancona e Bacci: Manuale della Letteratura Italiana, vol. iii., Firenze, 1904. For other histories with comments see Elton, Augustan Ages, p. 382, note, and add La Vita Italiana nel Seicento, an issue of "conferenze tenute a Firenze nel 1894." Important periodicals are Il Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, and La Nuova Antologia.
