Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy [1 ed.] 0754665577, 9780754665571, 9781315599656

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy

Federico Schneider

pastoral drama and healing in early modern italy

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy

federico schneider University of Mary Washington, USA

First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Federico Schneider 2010 Federico Schneider has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Schneider, Federico. Pastoral drama and healing in early modern Italy. 1. Pastoral drama, Italian—History and criticism. 2. Italian drama—To 1700—History and criticism. 3. Healing in literature. I. Title 852’.009321734—dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schneider, Federico. Pastoral drama and healing in early modern Italy / Federico Schneider. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-6557-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Pastoral drama, Italian—History and criticism. 2. Italian drama—To 1700—History and criticism. 3. Healing in literature. I. Title. PQ4153.P2S36 2010 852’.409358209734—dc22 2009020255 ISBN 9780754665571 (hbk) ISBN 9781315599656 (ebk)

Contents Acknowledgments   Preface    Introduction: Re-assessing the Issue of Morality in Pastoral Drama  

vii ix 1

1

The Art of Purging  

13

2

The Art of Teaching  

67

3

The Blueprint: the Aminta  

117

4

The Healing  

163

Epilogue: The Pastoral Pharmakon  

203

Bibliography   Author Index   Subject Index  

211 229 233

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Acknowledgments During the seven-year period from its conception to its completion, this book project benefited from the contributions of many people to whom I would like to express my gratitude. First, I would like to thank Giuseppe Mazzotta, whose inspiring vision has guided me since the days of graduate school at Yale. My sincere thanks also go to Paolo Valesio, Ellen Rosand, and Lino Pertile, whose insightful critique of my doctoral dissertation has become the foundation for this book project, and to Silvano Nigro, Kristin Phillips-Court, Arielle Saiber, Filippo Naitana, and Mauro Calcagno, for providing crucial feedback on my research, since the days we were all at Yale. I would also like to thank Dante Della Terza, Elvira di Fabio, Uberto Motta, Eraldo Bellini, Nina Cannizzaro, Andrea Malaguti, Paolo De Ventura, and Cinzia Scafetta, whose feedback and encouragement during my Harvard days allowed me to take another important step toward the completion of this project. I am sincerely grateful to Teresa Kennedy, Claudio Scarpati, Daniel Dervin, Giuseppe Pirola S.J., Elisabeth Hodges, and Angela Gosetti-Murrayjohn for the time they spent reading and commenting on the manuscript. A special thanks goes to Michele Filippo Fontefrancesco for also helping me to design the book’s cover and to compile the indexes. I finished this book project at the University of Mary Washington, which I would like to thank for awarding me the Jepson Fellowship 2007–2008 and sponsoring me with supplemental grants, so that I could attend important national and international conferences that have had great impact on my work. I would also like to express my appreciation for the assistance I have received from the Simpson Library staff, especially from Carla Bailey, Suzanne Crosnicker, and Charlotte Johnson Jones. Portions of earlier versions of the first chapter of this book have already appeared in print in “Pastoral Therapies for the Heartbroken in Guarini’s Pastor Fido and Monteverdi’s Book V” (Quaderni d’italianistica, 2008), and in “La catarsi nella drammaturgia guariniana” (Rime e lettere di Battista Guarini, 2008). This book also owes much to the loving support of my friends on both sides of the Atlantic, to whom I would like to extend my sincere thanks. I am especially grateful to the Cicogna Mozzoni and the Moscatelli Modespacher families, as well as to Maria Luisa Maggi for their lifelong friendship and loving support. A special thanks goes to my own family, and particularly to my mother, Angela Bevacqua, for holding up her arms. I dedicate this book to Eleonore Paar: schöne Seele in silent pain heartwrenching, … and more giving still.

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Preface Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1580 Draconi, 1581 Aldina) and Battista Guarini’s Pastor Fido (1589 princeps/90) represent the pinnacle in the development of Renaissance pastoral drama. Although these two works have been extensively studied in a comparative fashion in the past, this is the first attempt at a comparative reading with a new specific intent: to show that these two plays, despite their obvious differences, are both carefully engineered ‘medicaments’ that fulfill the well known therapeutic aspirations that late Renaissance poetics, in the wake of Aristotle’s resurgence, ascribe to poetry, and specifically to dramatic poetry. The vantage point chosen for this study is in the proximity of the Pastor Fido, whose documented theoretical background allows the reader to appreciate right away the crucial problems pastoral drama confronts in order to give artistic legitimacy and autonomy to its therapeutic aspirations. As the reader gets better situated in the poetics of pastoral drama, the textual analysis becomes increasingly more involved with the Aminta and its therapeutic aspirations. This gazing at the Aminta through the lens of the Pastor Fido may certainly be considered a somewhat unorthodox move, since it indeed completely reverses the traditional comparative approach to these two plays. The advantage is a refreshing perspective that emphasizes continuity, as opposed to just difference, in the comparative analysis. The result is a less polarized understanding that, while recognizing the specificities of each play, also illuminates a crucial common denominator: an aesthetics centered on the cathartic arousal of moral pity and fear, thus firmly rooted in tragedy.

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Introduction

Re-assessing the Issue of Morality in Pastoral Drama After more than 40 years of fruitful scholarship, the long held prejudice that Renaissance pastoral drama was nothing but a shallow form of divertissement has been conquered definitively. The general consensus is that by the time it reaches its prime—with Torquato Tasso’s Aminta and Battista Guarini’s Pastor Fido—the dramatic pastoral has become an art form with a moral or edifying function. The first, and more obvious, dimension of such edifying function is the well known therapy against love-sickness, also known as remedia amoris, which, as has been shown, is a consistent feature in the pastoral literary kind as a whole. Da Pozzo added an important socio-political dimension to that edifying function, when he characterized the pastoral poet as a spiritual doctor of sorts, who must “sweeten the pain of the court, attenuating the contrasts between the protest, the diversity, the alternative voice, on the one hand, and the unifying power of

Edification of the frustrated lover-courtier is, according to Della Terza, one of the principal goals of the pastoral. See D. Della Terza, “La corte e il teatro: il mondo del Tasso,” Il teatro del Rinascimento, ed. M. de Panizza Lorch (Milano: Comunità, 1980) 51. This idea is also echoed in Clubb’s description of the pastoral setting as the place “where the sick mind may be healed.” See L. G. Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 164. For the regenerating power of pastoral drama see C. Varese, “L’Aminta,” Pascoli politico, Tasso e altri saggi (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961) 140–141. For the specific kind of morality upheld in the Aminta and the Pastor Fido, see respectively M. Cerini, “L’ombra di un capolavoro,” Letterature moderne 8 (1957), and R. Alonge, “Appunti sul Pastor fido,” Lettere Italiane 23 (July–Sept. 1971). Also relevant to the issue of morality in pastoral drama are G. A. Niccoli, Cupid, Satyr, and the Golden Age. Pastoral Dramatic Scenes of the Late Renaissance (New York: Lang, 1989) and, more recently, L. Riccò, “Ben mille pastorali”. L’itinerario dell’Ingegneri da Tasso a Guarini e oltre (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004), and L. Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: the Making of a New Genre (London: Legenda, 2006).  Ovid himself had listed pastoral life among his remedies (Remedia amoris, 169– 98). For a comprehensive study of the therapeutic powers of the pastoral since antiquity, see S. F. Walker, A Cure of Love: A Generic Study of the Pastoral Idyll (New York: Garland, 1987). For an attempt at tracing the history of this heterogenous literary kind in the Renaissance, see M. Pieri, La scena boschereccia nel Rinascimento italiano (Padova: Liviana, 1983). 



Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy

the prince, on the other hand.” In this respect, one may certainly want to look at pastoral drama as a great socio-political therapy. Specifically with respect to the politics of the court, pastoral drama solves potential social conflicts, restoring and celebrating the political legitimacy of the prince, and providing a valuable way to exert influence on more powerful states. Such socio-political ramifications also pertain to the edifying function of pastoral drama. In this light, it is safe to say that the therapeutic scope one could attribute to this genre far exceeds the sphere of the remedia amoris; or, rather, that in pastoral drama the remedia amoris certainly also has a socio-political dimension. There is yet another dimension to this edifying function of pastoral drama, an aesthetic dimension. In this respect, edification may also be regarded as strictly contingent upon the specific formal features of pastoral drama. It can be viewed as  “Addolcire i motivi di dolore della corte stessa, nell’attenuare i contrasti tra la protesta, la diversità, la voce alternativa e il potere unificatore del principe.” See G. Da Pozzo, L’ambigua armonia. Studio sull’ ‘Aminta’ del Tasso (Firenze: Olschki, 1983) 96, my translation.  On the political aspects of the pastoral, besides the already mentioned study by Da Pozzo, see L. A. Montrose, “Of Gentlemen and Shepherds: the Politics of Elizabethan Pastoral Form,” ELH 50 (1983); C. Ossola, Dal ‘Cortegiano’ all’’uomo di mondo’ (Torino: Einaudi, 1987) 113–20; R. L. Entzminger, “Tasso’s Aminta and Milton’s Comus,” Milton in Italy: Contexts, Images, Contradictions, ed. M. A. Di Cesare (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1991); B. Guthmüller, “Herrschaftslegitimation im höfischen Festspiel,” Herkunft und Ursprung: historische un mytische Formen der Legitimation. Akten des Gerda-Henkel-Kolloquiums, Düsseldorf, October 13–15, ed. Peter Wunderli (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994); P. Castelli, “‘Quella che vedete è Roma.’ Scena e illusione alla corte dei Montefeltro,” Federico di Montefeltro. Lo Stato/Le arti/ La cultura (Roma: Bulzoni, 1986); L. Potter, “Pastoral Drama in England and its Political Implications,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell’Europa del Cinque-Seicento, ed. M. Chiabò and F. Doglio (Roma: Centro Studi sul Teatro Medievale e Rinascimentale, 1991); E. Graziosi, Aminta 1573–1580, Amore e matrimonio in casa d’Este (Pisa: Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2001).  It is worth mentioning that, although in the last decades of the sixteenth century Italian princedoms are confined to a limited sovereignty, and Italian politics are the result of often daring diplomatic relations they establish with major European powers—i.e. their political influence at the practical level is minor—it is still up to the Italian court to supply what Avellini calls the “exemplary scheme of the varied phenomenology of the ostentation of grandeur.” See L. Avellini, “‘Pelago e porto’: la corte e il cortigiano nell’epistolario del Guarini,” La corte e lo spazio: Ferrara estense, ed. G. Papagno and A. Quondam (Roma: Bulzoni, 1982) 684. In simpler words this means that, although it effectively has no particular political influence, the Italian court is still responsible for supplying the aesthetics of power. On this see also A. Godard, “La Premiere raprésentation de l’Aminta,” Ville et campagne dans la littérature italienne la Renaissance 2 (Paris: Université della Sorbonne nouvelle, 1977).  With regard to the question of aesthetic response, see W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978);

Introduction



the moral ‘effect’ brought upon by a strictly literary or formal ‘cause,’ as opposed to a series of sententious precepts. Then, one may conclude that the way pastoral drama is cast and crafted as a literary art form is also crucial in order to more efficiently address its edifying function and thus acquire ethical legitimacy; in other words, remedia amoris, as Ovid himself knew quite well, is a question of form, too. Something not to be overlooked in this respect, is the fact that in both the above-mentioned plays the traditional therapy against love-sickness is consistently presented in the form of a strictly medical therapy, as opposed to the more popular magic-alchemic process. In the Pastor Fido, for example, this happens when Silvio, momentarily wearing the doctor’s shoes, saves the life of love-wounded (or melancholic) Dorinda, by providing the right medicinal remedy. Here is Linco’s account of the incident: Il qual [Silvio], perciò nulla smarrito, disse: -Quinci uscirai ben tu, ferro malvagio, e con pena minor che tu non credi. Chi t’ha spinto qui dentro, è ben anco di trartene possente. […] D’un erba or mi sovviene, ch’è molto nota a la silvestre capra D. Newton-de Molina, ed., On Literary Intention: Critical Essays (Edinburgh, 1976); A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature. An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). For specific studies on pastoral drama grounded on such theoretical base, see Clubb, Italian Drama and R. Henke, Pastoral Transformations. Italian Tragicomedy and Shakespeare’s Late Plays (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997).  On this see G. B. Conte, “L’amore senza elegia: i remedia amoris e la logica di un genere,” Rimedi contro L’amore, ed. C. Lazzarini (Venezia: Marsilio, 1992).  It should be noted that Guarini’s and Tasso’s rational approaches to the art of healing love-sickness sharply contrast with the magic-alchemic approach traditionally followed in pastoral poetry. For example Sannazaro’s healing policy (Arcadia, X) is essentially a magical one and pertains more to the realm of the supernatural. The same thing goes for da Correggio’s Cefalo, and for Dionisso Guazzoni’s La Andromeda (1574)—for the latter, see E. Carrara, La poesia pastorale (Milano: Vallardi, 1907) 343. This Horatian approach to the art of healing love-sickness is in blatant violation of the Ovidian predicate (see Ovid, Remedia, vv. 249–90). Tasso and Guarini, on the other hand, completely neutralize the magic component of medicine in their plays (see Clubb, Italian Drama, 119), thus clearly opting for the rational Ovidian approach. On the highly intellectualized art of remedia amoris in the Renaissance, see P. Lorenzetti, “La bellezza e l’amore nei trattati del Cinquecento,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore Universitaria di Pisa, Filosofia e Filologia 28 (1922): 35. For the presence of magic in Agostino Beccari’s Il Sacrificio—performed in 1554, and considered to be the direct antecedent of Tasso’s and Guarini’s pastorals—and in Guazzoni’s Andromeda (1574), see A. Di Benedetto, “L’Aminta e la pastorale cinquecentesca in Italia,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 173 (1996): 491 and 505.



Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy quand’ha lo stral nel saettato fianco; (essa a noi la mostrò, natura a lei), né gran fatto è lontana —. Indi partissi; e nel colle vicin subitamente coltone un fascio, a noi sen venne; e quivi trattone succo, e misto con seme di verbena e la radice giuntavi del centauro, un molle empiastro ne feo sopra la piaga. Oh mirabil virtù! cessa il dolore subitamente ristagna il sangue; e’l ferro, indi a non molto, senza fatica o pena la man seguendo, ubbidiente n’esce. (5, 7, 1269–94) (Who [Silvio], seeing this, not in the least dismayed, / Spoke thus, “Pernicious arrow, I’ll remove thee / With much les pain than when you forced your way. The hand which caused your flight shall draw you forth. […] An herb well known to the Silvestrian goat / I now remember. When that creature’s wounded / And bears the rankling arrow in his flank, he flies to this and finds a speedy cure; Nature taught him, and he instructed me.” Thus having said, unto a neighb’ring hill / He ran with speed and cuts a little bundle / Of herbs, and in a moment he returned. / Soon then extracting all their juice, he mixed / Some verbain seed and centry root, whereof / A plaster he composed, and softly laid / The healing med’cine to the tender wound. / O wondrous virtue! Suddenly the pain was eased, the crimson stream of blood was stopped, / And thence, without the least delay or anguish, / Obedient to his hand the steel came forth.)

Similarly, in Aminta there is another interesting emphasis on medicine, as opposed to magic or alchemy, in the treatment of love-sickness, when the poet Elpino, while reviving the melancholy Aminta after his attempted suicide, mentions that he owes his art to Apollo, the same god who taught Alphesibius his “medical art:” Ma mentre procuriam di ravvivarlo con diversi argomenti, avendo in tanto già mandato a chiamar Alfesibeo, a cui Febo insegnò la medica arte, allor che diede a me la cetra e l’ plettro. (5, 1, 1926–30) (But while we were attempting to revive / him in our various ways—already we / had sent to summon Alphesibius, / to whom great Phoebus gave the healing arts / when he gave me the plectrum and the lyre.)

Introduction



The conflation of poetry and medicine during this climactic moment that signals the positive denouement of Tasso’s play is, of course, significant. Even more noteworthy is the fact that references to medicine are virtually ubiquitous in pastoral drama, at the level of its ex post facto theoretical normalization. To be sure, even a perfunctory reading of Battista Guarini’s theoretical work—i.e. the two Verati (1588, 1593) and the Compendio della poesia tragicomica (1601)—which can be considered as the ex post facto formalization of pastoral tragicomic dramaturgy, reveals an extensive deployment of medical analogies, and, most importantly, a clear acknowledgement that the actions represented on the pastoral stage are meant to have a therapeutic purpose specifically with respect to melancholy, a “terrible illness that makes people go mad and often drives them to suicide.”10 All this evidence, further corroborated by a documented interest on the poet’s behalf for Paracelsian theories,11 as well as homeopathic and allopathic medical theories, leaves little doubt on the fact that Guarini himself thinks of pastoral poetry as a sort of medical therapy.12 In fact, his Compendio actually begins with a reference to theriac—the famous antidote to the bite of poisonous animals.13 Thus, what is certainly extraordinary about the heyday of pastoral drama is its pervasive, self-professed medical healing agenda; in other words, it is the unique form in which this genre endorses the traditional remedia amoris. Pastoral drama vindicates its edifying function by essentially equating itself to a medicine—or rather to an antidote (this distinction is important). This self-proclaimed medicinal nature of pastoral drama still awaits to be thoroughly explored from an endogenous or aesthetic perspective, especially in the wake of the new fruitful interdisciplinary efforts in early-modern studies that have given the play/drug analogy a new impetus Guarini, Compendio della poesia tragicomica tratto dai duo Verati (Venezia: G. B. Ciotti, 1601) 22. 10 Guarini, Compendio, 15. Love-melancholy is never expressly mentioned, but it is certainly hinted at in a day and age when philosophers and scientists were becoming increasingly interested in exactly that particular kind of melancholy. It suffices to mention that the third book of Richard Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1632)—a summa of all the work written on this topic since ancient times—is devoted to the study of “Lovemelancholy” and that among the authorities cited by Burton one finds renowned Italian scholars in the field, such as Marsilio Ficino, Girolamo Cardano, and Tommaso Campanella (the latter two are contemporaries of Guarini and Tasso). For the close relationship between melancholia and love among both moralists and doctors, see Lorenzetti, “La bellezza,” 57–84. 11 L. Avellini, “Lettere sotto capi divise: il caso tipografico di Battista Guarini,” Schede Umanistiche, nuova serie 1 (1995): 53. 12 On the therapeutic aspirations of Guarini, see E. Sala di Felice, “Il Pastor Fido e la tragicommedia nella polemica Orsi- Bouhours,” Dalla tragedia rinascimentale alla tragicommedia barocca. Esperienze teatrali a confronto in Italia e in Francia. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio (Verona-Mantova 9–12 ottobre, 1991), ed. E. Mosele (Fasano: Schena, 1993) 73–4. 13 Guarini, Compendio, 11–12. 

Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy



by suggesting the idea of drama as Platonic pharmakon, with its poisonous and remedial properties.14 More specifically, what awaits more careful consideration is the relationship between the proclaimed medical healing agenda of pastoral drama and the highly artful process of poetic imitation or mimesis that goes into the crafting of this kind of poetry, and determines its therapeutic effect. If pastoral drama truly is a medical therapy, how does it actually heal? How exactly do the inner workings of the text cater to the healing? What socio-cultural conventions make the healing possible? What are the major problems that pastoral poetry as mimesis must overcome to make its healing morally legitimate? And finally, what aspirations are hiding behind this great challenge? All these questions still await careful consideration and discussion in the light of a proper historical context. Answering such questions is of paramount importance for a thorough understanding of the meaningfulness of pastoral drama as literary art form, and for the meaningfulness of sixteenth-century theater as a whole. Moreover, such an examination should pry a little further into the above-mentioned play/drug analogy, and thus add a new dimension to the edifying function of pastoral drama. A full understanding and appreciation of the new therapeutic aspirations that, as has been shown, pastoral drama vindicates by embracing a medical healing agenda demands familiarity with contemporary poetics, particularly with the well known cathartic or purging properties that such poetics, in the wake of Aristotle’s resurgence in the sixteenth century, ascribe to poetry, specifically to tragic poetry. As is well known, Aristotle, who essentially equated poetry and homeopathic medicine, introduced the notion that poetry has the power to move the affects (i.e. emotions)15 in order to purge them (just like the proper homeopathic medicament was thought to have the power to purge an overabundant humor), thus restoring the

A cliché in the study of early-modern aesthetics, the poetry/medicine analogy has recently experienced a much more scrupulous revisitation in the wake of Derrida’s seminal study on the Platonic pharmakon. See T. Pollard, “‘No Faith in Physic’: Masquerades of Medicine Onstage and Off,” Disease, Diagnosis, and Cure on the Early Modern Stage, ed. S. Moss and K. L. Peterson (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004); and by the same author the recent volume Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Pollard’s revisitation of the cliché has suggested that “theatrical interest in medical poisonings can be seen as responding to concerns about the dangers not only of medicine but also of plays themselves as a kind of drug”—see S. Moss and K. L. Peterson, “Introduction,” Disease, Diagnosis, and Cure on the Early Modern Stage, xii. Thus, for the first time the idea of plays as drugs is taken outside the strictly theoretical context, and addressed in a historical context as well. In light of these recent great strides, the question of how the poetry/medicine analogy actually works specifically in the text of the play, according to the particular aesthetics of the time, becomes even more urgent and meaningful. 15 Although a perfectly legitimate equivalent for the word ‘affect,’ the word ‘emotion’ does introduce an unnecessary anachronism in the context of this discussion. Therefore it is only used sporadically in this work, and never as a translation for the Italian ‘affetto’. 14

Introduction



necessary conditions for a virtuous or well-balanced conduct.16 The rationale for this medicinal use of poetry can be found in the Rhetoric, where it is explained that there is an immediate correspondence between the rhetorical imprint the author gives to a speech and the affects that, in turn, such speech arouses in the hearers (Rhet. I, 1.2).17 It can also be found in the Poetics, where the actual invention and crafting of the dramatic plot or the action—the true matter of poetic art—is said to be chiefly responsible for moving the moral affects of the audience.18 This direct correspondence between poetic/rhetorical means and psychological affects provides a compelling argument in favor of the medicinal function of poetry, which thus becomes the staple of Renaissance poetics.19 Acknowledging the existence of a medical healing agenda in pastoral drama means not only to understand the rationale for this agenda—that is, to place it within the appropriate theoretical framework; it also means to develop a critical approach that may be conducive to revealing what exactly grants pastoral drama its medicinal effect. In this respect, it may be helpful to recall that Tasso and Guarini’s plays were written at a time which, poetically speaking, is still concerned with the delectare and docere diatribe, and yet is already looking ahead to movere as For a discussion of Aristotle’s remedial notion of tragedy, see Pollard, Drugs and Theater, 14. 17 Aristotle devotes a substantial part of the second book of his Rhetoric describing different affects and how they may be aroused through the text in order to persuade the hearer (see Rhet. 2.2–2.11). In general, Aristotle argues that there are three means of persuasion that can be used in a speech; there are, in other words, three different ways one may generate affects by means of rhetoric. The first way is by setting a mood (pathos). The second is by expressing a virtuous character or ethos. The third way is by exhibiting a certain reasoning or logos: this is when the text seeks to demonstrate something by means of an argument by either resorting to the use of enthymeme, when the argument proceeds deductively or to the use of example, when the argument proceeds inductively. For an indepth discussion of the relevance of rhetoric in Renaissance aesthetics, see H. F. Plett, Rhetorik der Affekte. Englishe Wirkungsaesthetik im Zeitalter der Renaissance (Studien zur Englischen Philologie, XVII, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1975), and for a recent elaboration of this approach, see R. Cockcroft, Rhetorical Affect in Early Modern Writing. Renaissance Passions Reconsidered (New York: Palgrave, 2003). 18 “The most important of the six [parts of tragedy] is the combination of the incidents in the poetry. Tragedy is essentially an imitation not of the persons but of action and life, of happiness and misery. All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of activity, not a quality … In a play accordingly they do not act in order to portray the Characters; they include the Characters for the sake of the action. So that it is the action in it, i.e. its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of tragedy; and the end is everywhere the chief thing” (Poet. 6, 1450a, 15–24). On the centrality of the plot (μΰθος), and the nexus between plot and action (πράξις) in Aristotle’s Poetics, as well as in sixteenth century literary criticism, see P. Mastrocola, L’idea del tragico. Teorie della tragedia nel Cinquecento (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1998) 167–70. 19 For some useful background on the poetry/drug analogy, see Pollard, Drugs in the Theater, 9–19. 16



Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy

a fruitful middle-ground in the diatribe.20 Besides the characteristic truth-bearing mission, poetry must also take on another task: it must move the audience. No longer only a Prometheus, the poet must also become an Orpheus; no longer just a bearer of light to the intellect, he must bear the light by stirring the moral affects of its audience. Epidexis needs to become galvanizing, and, most importantly, purgative or cathartic.21 Rhetoric, the civilizing art of persuasion, fully capitalizes on the poetic means of formal organization—the inventio—thereby enhancing its affect-rousing power. Dramatic agency in pastoral drama is still based on what poetry says and does in order to persuade, and thus to civilize,22 but it is also increasingly more about moving the affects;23 and, most importantly, it eventually becomes all about purging the affects. Delightful purgation, as opposed to just persuasion, becomes a crucial factor in determining the efficacy of poetry. In this respect, what is usually understood as Guarini’s extrication of pastoral poetics from a rhetorical, civilizing function, in reality simply indicates a momentous shift that allocates the rhetorical function within the poetic means of pastoral poetry, 20 See C. Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica in Battista Guarini,” Studi sul Cinquecento italiano (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1982) 206. For an overview on sixteenth-century aesthetics, and particularly on the debate centered on dramatic poetry, see B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961); B. Hathaway, The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962); P. Rivoltella, “La scena della sofferenza. Il problema della catarsi tragica nelle teorie drammaturgiche del 500’italiano,” Comunicazioni sociali 2–3 (April– Sept. 1993); W. Tatarkiewicz, History of Aesthetics, ed. D. Petsch, vol. 3 (The Hague: Mouton, 1970–1974). 21 In this respect, evoking Aristotle’s rhetorical genus is indeed legitimate—see M. Galli Stampino, Staging the Pastoral (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005) 251–5—as long as the focus remains on the specificity of the momentous shift from docere to movere, and thus purgare, and on the far-reaching ramifications of that shift. In this respect, the approach used in this work, while taking into account that the principal rhetorical mode deployed in pastoral drama is indeed that of ethos—that is, the representation of a virtuous character (which, of course, confirms the epideictic nature of pastoral drama pointed out by Galli Stampino’s work)—focuses on the ultimate poetic end of such virtuous representation: the arousal of moral affects for the sake of purgation, and thus the temperament of affects. 22 On this see J. Tylus, “Purloined Passages: Giraldi, Tasso and the Pastoral Debates,” Modern Language Notes 99: 1 (1984). 23 For a perspective that rightly emphasizes the centrality of the affects in pastoral drama, in an attempt at underscoring the moral relevance of the staged performance, see Galli Stampino, Staging, 265–6. It is therefore not surprising to see that recent attempts at a history of the passions have been focusing expressly on pastoral drama. On this see V. Kahn, “The Passions and the Interest in Early Modern Europe: The Case of Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido,” Reading the Early Modern Passions. Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion, ed. G. Kern Paster, K. Rowe, and M. Floyd Wilson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) and, in the same volume, see J. Tylus, “‘Par Accident’: The Public Work of Early Modern Theater.”

Introduction



hence of theater, and, most importantly, that vindicates the therapeutic or cathartic effect of those means. This, in turn, requires a higher awareness of the “aesthetics of effect” (“Wirkungsästhetik”), and, more specifically, of affectivity in pastoral drama (i.e. the purposeful deployment of rhetoric for the purpose of moving the affects of the spectator);24 with a medicinal analogy one may call this affectivity the ‘chemistry’ of pastoral drama. Of course, in light of the well known conflation of poetics and rhetoric taking place in the sixteenth century,25 such “aesthetics of effect” also must include a keen sense of the poetic means deployed in the poetry (those pertaining to the inventio), and an understanding of how such means, specifically the structure or fabula and the poetic language or elocutio, coalesce in order to move the moral affects of the audience, and thus allow for catharsis.26 Thanks to such a composite (poetic/rhetorical) critical approach, this work hopes to achieve a thorough understanding of the essence and ultimate purpose of affectivity in pastoral drama, specifically within the context of the new medical therapeutic function that pastoral drama expressly vindicates for itself in the wake of Aristotle’s Poetics and more particularly with respect to a notion of movere that is conducive to purgare. The two fundamental questions I want to address are: 1. What exactly constitutes the affectivity of the dramatic pastoral? 2. How exactly does this affectivity allow pastoral drama to achieve its ultimate goal: that is, the purgation of melancholy? This, in short, is the particular kind of Wirkungsästhetik that characterizes this study of pastoral drama.27

24 For the term ‘Wirkungsästhetik,’ see Plett’s Rhetorik der Affekte, 1–12. For a discussion of Plett’s methodology, see Cockcroft’s Rhetorical Affect, 66–70. For the term affectivity as persuasive use of emotion or, more specifically, as fusion of “an ethical, empowering stance with a deliberate stimulation of feeling, working through intuitive or discursive thought,” see Cockcroft, Rhetorical Affect, 33. 25 Besides the already quoted work by Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica,” see also Plett’s Rhetorik der Affekte, 107–17, and Cockcroft’s Rhetorical Affect, 66–70. 26 For a critical perspective particularly keen on the affective aspects of inventio in pastoral drama see, C. Scarpati, “Il nucleo ovidiano nell’Aminta,” Tasso, i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995); E. Selmi, Classici e Moderni nell’officina del ‘Pastor Fido’ (Alessandria: Orso, 2001). 27 More specifically, this work wants to explore affectivity as both the product of rhetorical circumstance (mood, character, reasoning) and poetic circumstance—a dramaturgy (fabula), and a language and style (elocutio) specifically designed to reach a cathartic effect. Cockcroft’s complex rhetorical and poetic analysis already shows a clear commitment to taking the aesthetics of effect to a higher level of literariness (see Cockcroft, Rhetorical Affect, 179–85). What this study proposes in addition to that is the choice to particularly emphasize the cathartic purpose of affectivity.

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The very title of the first chapter, “the art of purging,” serves as the first crucial step in refocusing the critical perspective. Here the central issue of affectivity in pastoral drama is discussed not only with respect to the rhetorical category of ethos that pertains to the tragicomic genre (inasmuch as the particular circumstance that moves in pastoral drama is determined by an exemplary character); it is also discussed with respect to the pathos which pertains to the inventio, and more specifically to the crafting of the fabula. The fundamental contention with respect to this peculiar mix of pathos and ethos that defines the dramaturgy of pastoral drama is that it allows to accommodate a fully fledged cathartic effect (the arousal of pity and fear) as an integral part of an aesthetics that is essentially based on exemplarity, and thus ultimately designed to inspire admiration. The tempered laughter, which is the ultimate emotional product of such aesthetics, is therefore the result of a tragic-inthe-comic aesthetics; an aesthetics which includes a cathartic arousal of the moral affects pertaining to tragedy (pity and fear) at the core of a cathartic effect inspired by the admiration of an ethical character. Then, thanks to its particular complex dramaturgy pastoral drama achieves a form of affectivity that uses a tragic-like cathartic pathos as grounding for its cathartic ethos. The end result or physiological effect of this dramaturgy is the moral kind of laughter or tempered laughter by means of which tragicomedy cures the noxious affection of melancholy. Measuring the overall affectivity of poetry also entails a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive structures or socio-cultural conventions that frame such affectivity;28 in other words, it entails an understanding of the cognitive basis that frames and guides the deployment of poetic/rhetorical means in poetry. Thus, a complete study of the affectivity of pastoral drama must also take into account the rhetorical category of logos; and it must do so, in the light of the abovementioned conflation of poetics and rhetoric. From the perspective rehearsed here logos is tantamount to an extraordinary poetic enchantment that allows the fabula of the play to be transformed into the amazing therapeutic experience of temperament described above. It thus allows for the affects of pity, fear, and admiration to be commensurated to the particular lofty ethos of the play. This happens when the inventio is endowed with the poetic word, and thus when the fabula is given its proper allegorical resonance and, most importantly, when it is being fleshed out with the necessary artful language or elocutio. Exploring the logos of pastoral drama is the purpose of the second chapter, where the initial analysis of the “art of purging” in pastoral drama is integrated with an assessment of the particular pedagogic program (or form of reasoning) which underlies it and turns it into an extraordinary therapy with high moral aspirations. Such a pedagogic program is dubbed the “art of teaching” and pertains to all that which pastoral drama teaches its audience: through precepts, but, most importantly, through its allegorical resonance, metaphorical language and artful style. In this respect, the fundamental assumption this study is based on is that, although it is by the means of an Aristotelian aesthetic formula that pastoral drama vindicates See Cockcroft, Rhetorical Affect, 182.

28

Introduction

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its new therapeutic function, it is only through Petrarch’s mastery (thus through the full exploitation of the pedagogical potential of Petrarch’s poetry) that such a function can actually be fulfilled. It is a Petrarch appropriately updated with the imagery and language of a self-conscious but also highly sensual post-Tridentine court; a Petrarch that is either humanized or idealized according to the different healing agenda of the playwright, and thus according to the particular notion of verisimilitude the playwright adopts. Thus, the new medical healing agenda of pastoral drama is fulfilled by means of a sophisticated process of Aristotelian purgation or catharsis that takes place under the aegis, or, rather, under the poetic enchantment of Petrarchism. Finally, acknowledging the existence of a medical healing agenda in pastoral drama not only requires an understanding of the theoretical underpinning that legitimizes such healing agenda, as well as an appreciation of the poetic/rhetorical inner workings (affectivity) that allow the healing agenda to fulfill its goals (temperament); it also requires an understanding of the specific healing that each pastoral drama strives for, and an awareness of the wide-ranging cultural implications that pertain to that healing effect (or at least of those cultural implications which still await thorough consideration). The third and fourth chapters, as well as the Epilogue, address these specific concerns: first, by shifting the focus on Tasso’s Aminta in order to underscore its fundamental, although never openly recognized, kinship with the Pastor Fido, in spite of its much different ‘chemistry’ (which, of course, is meant to serve a rather different healing agenda—a healing agenda with high moral aspirations, nevertheless). Second, by comparing and contrasting, on the one hand, the particular type of healing pastoral drama achieves—more specifically, the mediation of passionate and rational love through an affective plot—and, on the other hand, the increasingly polarized view of passionate and rational love that instead characterizes the official manifesto of courtly love (the love tract), thus signaling its decline and gradual substitution with pastoral drama. Third, and perhaps most importantly, by arguing that the sophisticated affectivity of pastoral drama, thus its major investment in the artfulness of its formal structure, is actually the means through which this genre really achieves the status of a moral philosophy iuxta propria principia (thus the idea of a “pastoral pharmakon” presented in the Epilogue) that vindicates its excellence on the basis of its ability to transform the potentially poisoning effect of poetic mimesis—that is, the potentially corrupting imitation of the good and the bad so much decried in Plato’s Republics—into an ethical temperament or catharsis, thanks to its extraordinary, and by all means remedial or antidote-like poetic/rhetorical substance. Welcome to ‘Aristotle’s pharmacy.’

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Chapter 1

The Art of Purging Guarini’s Concept of Purgation: Theoretical Implications, and Function of the Medical Paradigm As already mentioned, the therapeutic aspirations of pastoral drama are not only thematized in the text of both the Aminta and the Pastor Fido, they are also openly professed in Battista Guarini’s fully fledged theoretical discussion of tragicomedy—the dominant dramaturgic model adopted by pastoral drama. An examination of this theoretical discussion, and most importantly of the concept of purgation presented therein, allows to appreciate right away how the pastoral tries to fulfill its therapeutic aspirations and the crucial issues of artistic legitimacy and moral autonomy which are at stake. This chapter, thus, focuses on Guarini’s understanding of the concept of purgation, including its ends and means, as presented in his theory of tragicomedy. The discussion will be framed within the general debate on tragic purgation or catharsis that characterizes Renaissance literary criticism. As every good Aristotelian would do, Guarini assigns two ends to poetic imitation or mimesis: the “instrumental end” (“fine strumentale”), and the “architectonic end” (“fine architettonico”). The first end, as he explains, involves technique, and is fulfilled when the artist is able to endow the poetic matter with the desired form; the second end involves morals, and is fulfilled when the said form is also useful to man:  That tragicomedy, in its various shapes, forms, and colors is indeed the dominant dramaturgic model for pastoral drama is already clear since Giraldi Cinzio’s Discorso, where, referring to the Egle (1545/1547), the mixed tragicomic format is openly acknowledged. See G. B. Giraldi Cinzio, “Lettera overo Discorso sovra il comporre le satire atte alla scena,” Scritti critici, ed. Camillo Guarrieri Crocetti (Milano: Marzorati, 1973) 233. As is well known, the blueprint for that play is Euripides’ Cyclops, which, later on, also Guarini recognizes as the model for his tragicomedy. On this see E. Selmi, Classici e Moderni nell’officina del ‘Pastor Fido’ (Alessandria: Orso, 2001) 32 n80.  For other discussions of Guarini’s dramaturgy that are relevant to the particular approach presented here, see P. C. Rivoltella, “La scena della sofferenza. Il problema della catarsi tragica nelle teorie drammaturgiche del 500’ italiano,” Comunicazioni sociali 2–3 (April–Sept. 1993) 101–55; R. Henke, Pastoral Transformations. Italian Tragicomedy and Shakespeare’s Late Plays (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1997) 88–92 and 120–132; Selmi, Classici, 11–32; and L. Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy (London: Legenda, 2006) 129–41.

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L’uno, per cagione del quale, operando l’artefice, introduce nella materia ch’egli ha per mano quella forma ch’è fin dell’opera, l’altro per bene, et uso del quale la cosa, che vuol condurre a fine viene operata. Nel qual senso disse Aristotile, che l’uomo è fine di tutte le cose. L’uno di questi fini chiameremo noi strumentale, e l’altro con la voce medesima del Filosofo architettonico. (The first [technique], through which the artist shapes the material into that form which is the purpose of the work; the other, for whose sake and use that which he [the artist] wants to achieve is operated. In this sense Aristotle said that man is the end to everything. One of these ends we will call instrumental; the other, in the Philosopher’s own words, architectonic.)

Thus, the first purpose for poetic imitation is to shape or to give form to a certain concept through technique; the second is to achieve a specific moral end through that very shaped form. As is well known, Guarini specifically indicates such a moral end to be the purgation of melancholy. This, of course, raises the question of whether Guarini intends the “architectonic end” of tragicomedy to be a comic or a tragic one; a question that must be suspended, until a clear understanding of Guarini’s concept of purgation per se is reached, and until the complex ramifications of that very concept are thoroughly explored. By the time Guarini joins into the discussion, the issue of purgation is already the object of an ongoing debate, which had begun roughly 40 years earlier, with Francesco Robortello’s seminal commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics (Explicationes, 1548). This debate represents a crucial moment in the history of Renaissance poetics: here Plato’s condemnation of tragedy is finally conquered through the authority of Aristotle’s Poetics, and specifically through the new understanding of purgation in ethical terms marshaled in that text. As poetry vindicates a new legitimacy for itself, on the basis of the purging virtues that Aristotle’s ascribes to B. Guarini, Compendio della poesia tragicomica tratto dai duo Verati (Venezia: G. B. Ciotti, 1601) 14. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Guarini’s prose works are mine. In all citations from the 1601 edition of the Compendio, I follow the original, with only very minor changes in the spelling and punctuation, for the sake of clarity.  Guarini, Compendio, 22–3.  As is well known, Plato’s condemnation of tragedy was conquered by sixteenthcentury literary criticism on the grounds of the purging virtues that Aristotle’s ascribed to tragedy in the Poetics. The principal aim of such an appeal was that of promoting an understanding of purgation, in ethical terms, as the utile (useful) of tragedy (that which Plato had denied). See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 126ff. Claudio Scarpati talks about a “battle” engaged by sixteenth-century neo-Aristotelians against Plato’s bashing of poetry in the Republic. See C. Scarpati, “Icastico e fantastico. Iacopo Mazzoni fra Tasso e Marino,” Dire la verità al principe. Ricerche sulla letteratura del Rinascimento (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1987) 242. On this subject, see also B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961) 1: 251. 

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tragic poetry, the question of the exact meaning to be assigned to the word purgation obviously takes center stage: is purgation to be understood as the obliteration or the moderation of affects? A crucial question indeed, since Robortello, rigorously following Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, had indicated pity as one of the objects of tragic purgation, thus creating a potentially serious conflict of interest for a culture based on Christian ethics. Neo-Platonists such as Vincenzo Maggi and Agnolo Segni try to solve the issue by opting for an understanding of purgation strictly in terms of obliteration of negative affects (via remotionis)—a view also shared by Guarini’s ‘arch-rival’ Giason De Nores. Neo-Aristotelians such as Pietro Vettori, Alesssandro Piccolomini, and Francesco Riccoboni instead argue in favor of a moderate form of purgation that aims only to restoring the natural balance of affects (via moderationis). All these views will be discussed more extensively in the course of the chapter. Underlying this debate, like any other literary speculation in the Renaissance, is, of course, the conflict between two opposite views on the nature of virtue and the means by which it may be instilled through poetry; and the option for the via remotionis obviously implied a much stricter control on the affects to be aroused by poetry in order to achieve that goal. In this light, it is evident that a  For an overview of the Guarini-De Nores controversy, see G. Toffanin, “Le polemiche sul Pastor Fido,” La fine dell’umanesimo (Torino: Bocca, 1920) 141–51; N. J. Perella, The Critical Fortune of Battista Guarini’s ‘Pastor Fido’ (Firenze: Olschki, 1973) 9–17; Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 672–84 and 1074–106; M. Guglielminetti, “Manierismo e Barocco,” Storia della civiltà letteraria italiana, ed. G. Bárberi Squarotti, vol. 3 (Torino: UTET, 1990) 526–8; G. Cavazzini, “Padova e Guarini: la Poetica di Aristotele nella teoria drammaturgica prebarocca,” Il diletto della scena e dell’armonia. Teatro e musica nelle Venezie dal ‘500 al ‘700”. Atti del IIIciclo di Corsi estivi di Musicologia del Conservatorio “A. Buzzolla”, Adria 1986–1988, ed. I. Cavallini (Rovigo: Minelliana, 1990); and Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 129–34.  For a thorough discussion of the via remotionis vs. via moderationis, see Rivoltella, “La scena,” 126–33.  Hathaway rightly points out that the conflict between the two different concepts of virtue—the Platonic one, where knowledge of goodness is obtained through contemplation of the good; and the Aristotelian one, where the knowledge of good demands also a knowledge of evil—is central to all literary speculations in the Renaissance. See B. Hathaway, The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962) 217–18.  A perfect example in this respect is Francesco Robortello, who, in matters of purgation, seems to be a neo-Aristotelian of Platonic bent. In fact, he holds that whereas Aristotle supported multiplicity in imitation for its purging effects, Plato cast out poetic imitations because of their multiplicity (poikilia), and because he believed only manly passions should be excited. According to Robortello’s reading of Plato, poikilia meant “when both the good and the bad are imitated and the continent and incontinent together.” Plato, according to Robortello, disapproves of poikilia, since poetry should look to the utility and education of men, and therefore it should imitate nothing but good and wise men. See Hathaway, The Age, 217–18.

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subscription to the via moderationis implied a vindication of the autonomy of poetry, with respect to a potentially domineering and restrictive moral discourse; a moral discourse that tended, with the authority of Plato, to put poetry under the vigilance of moral philosophy, thus sensibly confining the freedom of the poet’s imitative efforts. Hence, if on the one hand the Aristotelian movere had allowed Renaissance poetics to finally claim an ethical function for poetry in the fruitful middle ground between delectare and docere,10 the fact that the very end of that movere, according to the Poetics, was meant to be purgation, placed the newly vindicated ethical function of poetry on a potential collision course not only with Christian ethics but also with moral philosophy. It is probably not a coincidence that, in his highly influential commentary of the Poetics (Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizata e sposta, 1570) Castelvetro, who is rightly recognized as an advocate of the ethical function of tragedy,11 focuses his interest not on the purging effect of tragedy but rather on the “oblique pleasure” deriving from the self-awareness of one’s own morality, through the experience of the moral affects of pity and fear: Adunque il piacere nascente dalla compassione e dallo spavento, che è veramente piacere, è quello che noi di sopra chiamammo piacere oblico; ed è quando noi, sentendo dispiacere della miseria altrui ingiustamente avvenutagli, ci riconosciamo essere buoni.12 (Then the pleasure deriving from compassion (i.e. pity) and fear is the abovementioned oblique pleasure: that is, the pleasure that we have from feeling upset about other people’s unjust misery.)

This interesting move allocates the utility of tragedy, thus its ethical function, in the sphere of pure intellectual pleasure. The Aristotelian healing agenda, originally centered on catharsis, evolves into a highly intellectualized moral agenda, where the emphasis is on aesthetic fruition of moral affects for intellectual pleasure. Delight and purgation in poetry, dulce and utile, eventually become increasingly more difficult to reconcile,13 forcing Renaissance poetics to seek their autonomy C. Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica,” 206. For Castelvetro’s morality of delight and its impact on late Renaissance poetics, see

10 11

Rivoltella, “La scena,” 106–11. Although this discussion has been informed and stimulated by Rivoltella’s study of catharsis in the late Renaissance, it reaches a rather different conclusion with respect to Guarini’s actual investment in purgation. 12 L. Castelvetro, Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposta, ed. W. Romani (Bari: Laterza, 1978) 391. Also relevant to this end is a discussion of the pleasures of tragedy that occurs earlier in the text (167). 13 This conflict clearly manifests itself in the debate, where the juxtaposition between the harsh purging function of the catastrophic events represented on stage is often opposed to the delightful fruits the audience is supposed to reap from the fruition of the poetry.

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in the sphere of aesthetics—the sphere of an ethical, yet purely speculative, intellectual delight. Thus, defending the autonomy of the ethical function of purgation paradoxically leads Renaissance poetics toward a form of aesthetic purgation that somehow taints the orthodoxy of Aristotelian purgation. Having mapped the landscape of the extant debate on purgation, it is time to return to Guarini and to his tragicomedy. In the Compendio Guarini approaches the issue of purgation right at the outset. In a very dense passage he defines purgation as a process through which the poet acts upon unbalanced passions, not by eradicating, but by reducing them to their normal balance: Et prima ch’altro s’intenda è da sapere che la voce purgare ha duo sensi. L’uno di spengere affatto, e’n questo caso l’usò il Boccaccio là dove disse. I peccati che tua hai infino all’ora della penitenza fatti tutti si purgheranno. L’altro è di purificare, et mondare. E’n tale senso disse il Petrarca, Vergine i’ sacro, e purgo, Al tuo nome, e pensieri, e’ngegno, e stile, perciocché quivi non vuole spegnere le peccata, ma di sgombrarlo di ogni viltà, et farlo in sua natura perfetto. In questo secondo significato si de’ prendere il purgare della Tragedia, come altresì lo prendono i Medici, i quali quand’essi voglion purgare poniam caso la collera, non hanno intenzione di spegnerla, o di radicarla affatto dal corpo umano. Che cotesto sarebbe un volere uccidere, et non sanare, levando alla natura tutto un’umore, ond’ella si serve per temperamento degli altri, ma di levarne sol quella parte, che traboccando fuor de’ termini naturali corrompe la simetria della vita, onde poi nasce l’infermità. Non purga dunque il poema Tragico alla stoica, spiantandogli totalmente da’ nostri cuori, ma moderandoli, et riducendoli a quella buona temperie, che può servire all’abito vertuoso.14 (And lest one understands otherwise, one ought to know that the term purging has two meanings. The first is to completely extinguish; and in this particular way it was used by Boccaccio, when he wrote “all the sins you have committed up to the time of your repentance will be purged.” The other meaning is to purify and cleanse; and such is the meaning that Petrarch had in mind when he said “Virgin, in your name I consecrate and purge thoughts, mind, and style,” since this is not about extinguishing sins but rather about eliminating every vile element in order to render something perfect according to nature. This is the meaning that one ought to assign to the kind of purging which pertains to Tragedy. This is also the meaning given to this word by doctors, who when they want to purge, for instance, the choleric humor, do not want to extinguish it or eradicate it completely from the human body–since this would mean wanting to kill, not heal, taking away from nature a whole humor that she uses for the temperament of others—but to take away only that part which, by exceeding the natural limit, corrupts the symmetry of life, thus causing disease. Thus the Tragic poem does not purge [affects] in a stoic way, by totally eradicating them from our heart, but

Guarini, Compendio, 17–18.

14

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by moderating and reducing them to that right proportions, which can be helpful for a virtuous conduct.)

Guarini’s preference, then, goes to a moderate form of purgation; and most importantly, it focuses on a form of purgation that, as he clearly states, is analogous to the process of equalizing of humors that doctors refer to as “temperamento” (“temperament”). In this respect, it is clear that the Giraldian issue of modern taste, while certainly relevant here,15 only tells part of the story. In fact, besides acknowledging and accommodating the latest trends in entertainment, Guarini’s option for “temperamento” implies a strategic alignment with the neo-Aristotelian side of the ongoing debate on tragedy; the side of Francesco Riccoboni’s via moderationis.16 This subscription, as already mentioned, implies a vindication of the autonomy of poetry, with respect to a potentially domineering and restrictive moral discourse, that either stoically obliterates affects,17 or confines the freedom of a poet’s imitative efforts. It is worth noting that this choice is also perfectly coherent with the ethical universe ushered in, if not by Guarini himself, by the character Guarini, in Romei’s Discorsi: Apportano gli affetti all’homo, magggior beneficio di quello che si facciano alli irrationali; perchè senza gli affetti, l’huomo sarebbe senza virtù: non sendo altro la virtù che un’habito dalla dritta ragione impresso nell’anima nostra concupiscibile, et irascibile, per il qual facilmente tutti gli affetti sono ridotti a mediocrità: e però, come dice Agostino Santo: Al Cristiano è necessaria la concupiscenza e l’ira, per essercitar la temperanza, la continenza, la tolleranza,

With his Selene (1583), Giovan Battista Giraldi Cinzio introduces the lieto fine (happy ending) in the tragic format, advocating a new, less harsh method of purgation, better suited to the refined taste of modern audiences. Guarini follows in his footsteps, arguing that modern poets, like modern doctors, must seek alternative ways to reach their therapeutic goals; ways that are more suited to the new sensibility of their patients. See further, B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, vol. 2 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961) 1086. For a general discussion of Giraldi Cinzio’s dramaturgy and poetics, see Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 912–18, and Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 12–60. For a comparative analysis of the poetics of Guarini and Giraldi Cinzio, see Selmi, Classici, 16–19. 16 Following in Pietro Vettori and Alessandro Piccolomini’s footsteps, Francesco Riccoboni’s Poetica (1583) signs another critical point in the debate on purgation taking place between neo-Platonists and neo-Aristotelians. On Riccoboni, see G. Toffanin, La fine dell’umanesimo (Roma: Veccchiarelli, 1992) 126–40. For the connection between Guarini and Riccoboni, see G. Mazzacurati, La crisi della retorica umanistica del Cinquecento (Napoli: Libreria Scientifica, 1961) 11–22. 17 The reference to the stoics in the above-cited text is quite significant in this respect. On the moralizing positions of De Nores and Mazzoni, see Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 713. 15

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e la fortezza. Et il medesimo nel 14. lib. della Città di Dio, afferma, che li affetti avvengono alli amici di Dio: dicendo; i Cittadini della Città Santa, che nel peregrinaggio di questa vita vivono secondo Dio, temono, si adirano, sono cupidi, s’attristano, e si allegrano: ma perché in questi è l’Amor ben ordinato, hanno tutte queste perturbationi moderate e buone; La onde quella chiara tromba di verità, diceva: Iratevi, ma non vogliate peccare.18 (The affects are far more beneficial to humans than they are to animals, because without affects humans would be without virtue—since virtue is nothing else but the habit imprinted by right reason in our soul, which is concupiscent and irritable, by means of which all the affects are reduced to a happy medium. Thus St Augustine says: “the Christian needs concupiscence and ire in order to exercise temperance, continence, tolerance and fortitude.” The same author, in Book 14 of the City of God, affirms that affects occur to the friends of God, saying that the citizen of the Holy City, who in the pilgrimage through this life live according to God, fear, become irate, desire concupiscently, and experience sadness and happiness; but since in such individuals a well-ordered love is dominant, all such perturbations are moderate and good. Thus, that bright trumpet of truth said: “get irate, but do not sin.”)

It is thus quite clear that Guarini’s option for “temperamento” ushers in the idea of poetry as an art based on imitation that relies on the same purgative virtues that Aristotle’s Poetics ascribes to tragic poetry; most importantly, it vindicates the poet’s freedom to capitalize on all the affects that poetry is able to arouse in order to purge, not only on those that were considered fit by the moral philosopher or by the politician.19 Purgation, the ethical function of poetry, thus becomes a matter that hinges on the freedom of imitation. In this light, it is safe to say that Guarini’s famous contention that poetry should not “imitate the good,” but rather “imitate well,”20 only apparently abdicates the ethical function of poetry; in reality it confirms that function of poetry in more proper terms, by inscribing it in the rhetorical sphere—the sphere of movere. In fact, by imitating well (i.e. moving the affects), poetry predisposes to virtue, through the temperament of the affects. This logic brings to bear the full moral import of Jacopo Zabarella’s groundbreaking defense of rhetoric and poetics,21 18 A. Romei, Discorsi del Conte Annibale Romei; gentil’huomo Ferrarese di nuovo ristampati, ampliati e con diligenza corretti, divisi in sette giornate nella quali tra dame e cavaglieri tagionando, con la risposta a tutti i dubbi che in simil materie proponer si sogliono (Venezia: Appresso Bortolomeo Carampello, 1594) 79. 19 For the divorce of poetry from moral philosophy and politics in Guarini’s poetics, see Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 679–89. 20 See Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 680. 21 In his Opera logica (1578) Iacopo Zabarella defines the fabula as a form of induction directed toward action; the poet, by imitating well—that is, by creating good

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as it focuses on the powerful new tool that Aristotle’s Poetics was putting in the hands of the poet-rhetorician: the art of purging. Guarini’s insistence on purgation as the “architectonic end” of tragicomedy, then, suggests the adoption of a comprehensive, more rigorously Aristotelian category (purgare)22 that actually subsumes all the other ends of poetry (docere, delectare, movere): A che rispondo che quanto ho detto è verissimo, perciocché, chi purga, non insegna i costumi, ma tempera gli affetti, e se ben poi da questi temperati seguita, che i costumi s’imparino, non è però una medesima cosa il purgare, e l’insegnare, perché tra loro è quella differenza ch’è tra l’educatore e il filosofo. Ho detto dunque che il poema drammatico diletta e giova, perché dispone, e non perché insegni; ma non giova insegnando i costumi rappresentati nei personaggi, ma disponendo o co’l terrore o co’l riso, gli animi a quel temperamento ch’è utile a chi vuole apprender buoni costumi e bene operare.23 (To this I respond that what I have said is very true, in that he who purges does not teach proper customs, but tempers the affects; and, if from this very temperament comes that one still learns proper customs, one thing is teaching and another thing is purging, since there is the same difference between them that there is between an educator and a philosopher. I said, then, that the dramatic poem delights and is useful not because it teaches, but because of the disposition it prompts; but it does not help by teaching the customs the characters act out on stage, but by moving, with either terror or laughter, to the kind of temperament of the spirit that is useful to whom wants to learn proper customs and operate well.)

The message is clear: rather than being openly declared through a series of precepts, the ethical end of poetry is achieved through a purposeful deployment of rhetorical/ poetic affect, which, in turn, is supposed to prompt a specific affective response in the audience: an affective response that, and this is important, delights and tempers the affects. This logic not only assimilates the full moral import of Castelvetro’s fictive examples—may persuade the spectator to imitate the good and to shun evil. See C. Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica in Battista Guarini,” Studi sul Cinquecento italiano (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1982) 210–11. 22 In this respect, Guarini is certainly not far from Antonio Sebastiano Minturno’s therapeutic moral understanding of purgation presented in the De Poeta (1559). On this see H. F. Plettt, Rhetorik der Affekte. Englishe Wirkungsaesthetik im Zeitalter der Renaissance (Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1975), 114. Weinberg indicates that this conception represents the conflation of the effects of rhetoric (movere-docere) and poetics. See Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 739–40. 23 B. Guarini, Il Verrato ovvero difesa di quanto ha scritto Messer Giason De Nores contra le tragicommedie e le pastorali, in un suo discorso di poesia. See Delle opere del Cavalier Battista Guarini (Verona: G. A. Tumermani, 1737–1738) 2: 263–64. From now on, I will refer to this work as Il Verrato primo.

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hedonistic agenda;24 it actually re-elaborates that agenda into a healing agenda, thereby achieving a better synthesis between a hedonistic highly moral delectare and an ethical purgare—strategically redefined as “temperamento.”25 Guarini’s stance on the issue of purgation, then, provides what seems to be the necessary frame of reference for his entire theoretical reflection. To be sure, the querelle with Denores in defense of rhetoric—a rhetoric freed from the heavy yoke of morals and politics26—is perfectly congruent with that stance. Conversely, the “escapist” argument often rehearsed in the past, on the base of his ambiguous attitude toward poetry in the theoretical tracts as well as for his openly declared hedonistic agenda,27 is clearly incongruent with the high moral stakes that, as has The reference here is to the above-mentioned “oblique pleasure” (“piacere oblico”). Although this discussion has been informed and stimulated by Rivoltella’s excellent study of catharsis in the late Renaissance, it reaches a rather different conclusion with respect to Guarini’s actual investment in purgation. 25 In this respect, Guarini is clearly more aligned with Piccolomini than he is with Riccoboni, who, very much like Castelvetro, separates the utility from the delight of catharsis. On Piccolomini’s conception of purgation as both useful and delightful see Rivoltella, “La scena,” 132–3. As a matter of fact Piccolomini seems to take a position that reverses the hierarchy established by Castelvetro, moving purgation (the utile) to the top and indicating delight as an auxiliary means. See A. Piccolomini, Annotazioni nel libro della Poetica d’Aristotele (Venezia: Guarisco, 1575) 100–106. 26 Perella clearly illustrates how this compels Guarini to a double task. The first is to argue the divorce of poetics from moral philosophy, by calling on the Aristotelian and Thomistic distinction between the realm of active habit (prudence), which pertains to morality, and the realm of operative habit, which pertains to poetry. The second task is that of releasing poetry from the jurisdiction of politics and assigning it to that of rhetoric. See N. J. Perella, “The Autonomy of Poetry in Battista Guarini’s Polemical Tracts,” Forum Italicum 7 (1973). 27 Perella makes it quite clear that it is not Guarini’s intention to dodge the issue of virtue in poetry, but simply to opt for a realistic conception of virtue—the one Aristotle suggests in his Poetics and Rhetoric—over the idealistic one of the Ethics and Politics. See Perella, “The Autonomy,” 348–9. However, one can’t help feeling somewhat of a contradiction when he defines Guarini an “escapist,” thus attributing the moral value of the Pastor Fido merely to the possibility it offers to escape from the difficulties of everyday life. While Perella’s seminal essay brings to bear a fundamental issue of Guarini’s poetics— that is, his defense for the autonomy of poetry—it is ultimately still a product of the limited understanding of hedonism that afflicted much of the extant scholarly work at that time. See, for example, G. Toffanin, “Le polemiche sul Pastor Fido,” La fine dell’umanesimo (Torino: Bocca, 1920); K. Vossler, “Tassos Aminta und die Hirtendichtung,” Aus der Romanischen Welt, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Haag-Drugulin, 1940); B. Croce, “Sensualismo e ingegnosità nella lirica del Seicento,” Saggi sulla letteratura italiana del Seicento (Bari: Laterza, 1948); F. Flora, “Guarino e i madrigalisti del Cinquecento,” Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. 3 (Milano: Mondadori, 1953); D. Petrini, “Guarini e il Pastor fido,” Dal Barocco al Decadentismo, vol. 1 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1957); G. Folena, “La mistione tragicomica e la metamorfosi dello stile,” La critica stilistica e il Barocco letterario. Atti del II Congresso 24

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been shown, pertain to that stance. It thus has been rightly challenged by more recent scholarship.28 The ensuing discussion of the dramaturgy of the Pastor Fido, and the unique kind of purgation it aims to achieve, builds on this recent trend in scholarship, showing how Guarini’s theoretical reflection on tragicomedy actually assimilates the full moral import of the Aristotelian tragic tradition,29 and also solves the paradox between autonomy of purgation and Aristotelian orthodoxy. There are two additional very important things that Guarini does as he makes his pledge for purgation as “temperamento” in the above-cited passage. First, he establishes a kinship with Petrarch, the poet that the sixteenth century had celebrated far more than any other. The choice of Petrarch over Boccaccio is quite significant in this respect; and even more significant is the fact that Petrarch is chosen as the most effective example of purgation. This is, in fact, the contention implied in the juxtaposition of the famous Canzone to the Blessed Virgin (RVF, 366) and Boccaccio’s story of don Felice and frate Puccio (Decameron III, 4). Guarini is not simply comparing two single incidents in two different texts, but rather two entirely different ethics of purgation. The message seems to be quite clear: poetry, particularly the love-lyric of the Canzoniere—is the literary model of choice, in that it represents a powerful form of affect-rousing moral discourse. Which essentially reiterates and consolidates a point Tasso had already clearly made in a dialogue between his fictional alter-ego—the Forestiero Napolitano— and the young courtier Gianlorenzo Malpiglio: Internazionale di Studi Italiani (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1958); D. Battaglin, “Il linguaggio tragicomico del Guarini e l’elaborazione del Pastor fido,” Lingua e strutture del teatro italiano del Rinascimento (Padova: Liviana, 1970). Perella understands one very important thing about Guarini: that it is necessity that drives him to opt for the hedonistic agenda; the necessity to escape from the snares of De Nores’ moralizing argumentation. However, where Perella seems to miss the point is when he fails to place Guarini’s hedonistic agenda within the right framework: that is, the framework of Castelvetro’s highly moral aesthetics of delight. This crucial connection between Castelvetro and Guarini on the issue of delight informs Rivoltella’s sweeping study on catharsis in sixteenth-century literary theory (here profusely referenced)—which rightly includes Guarini’s tragicomedy—and is recently receiving more attention. See Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 138–41. 28 Guarini’s alleged “escapism,” defied for the first time in a seminal yet isolated essay by Ferruccio Ulivi—see “La poetica del Guarini e il Pastor fido,” Humanitas 6 (1951)—, has been systematically challenged by more recent scholarship. Besides the already referenced works by Scarpati, Henke, Selmi and Sampson, see also D. Ortisi, “La poesia del Pastor Fido del Guarini,” Convivium 35 (1967); M. Guglielminetti, “Introduzione,” Opere, by B. Guarini, ed. M. Guglielminetti (Torino: UTET, 1971); L. Avellini, “‘Pelago e porto’: la corte e il cortigiano nell’epistolario del Guarini,” La corte e lo spazio: Ferrara estense, ed. G. Papagno and A. Quondam (Roma: Bulzoni, 1981). 29 In this respect, this work should be considered as an attempt to fully elaborate on Rivoltella’s provocative argument, while at the same time suggesting that Guarini’s option for a hedonistic agenda may not, as he holds, necessarily exclude purgation of emotions. See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 145.

The Art of Purging F. N. Com’è possibile che, leggendo il Petrarca, il quale avete assai spesso fra le mani, non pensiate di lui e non ve l’immaginate su la riviera di Sorga scrivere pensier leggiadri e alti al suon de l’acqua e sotto l’ombra d’un lauro, o vero a la sinistra del mar Tirreno, Dove rotte dal vento piangon l’onde, cadere in uno ruscello ascoso da l’erbe, o pur navigar per lo Rodano e pregarlo che passi inanzi a portar la novella de la sua venuta, o per questo fiume, che se ne portava la scorza con sue possenti e rapide onde? E sempre che leggete alcuna cosa di lui, mi par necessario che l’abbiate nel pensiero e ne l’immaginazione: perché l’immaginazione è senso interno. G. M. Questi sono piacevoli pensieri, ma quelli di Scipione erano gravi. F. N. E piacevolissimi quegli altri, quando vi s’appresenta davanti quella pastorella alpestra e cruda, Posta a lavare un leggiadretto velo, Ch’ a l’aura il vago e biondo capel chiuda; o quel vasel d’oro, pieno di candide rose e di vermiglie, il qual somiglia a la sua donna, o quelle altre tante somiglianze descritte ne l’istessa canzona o pur in tutto quel leggiadrissimo canzoniero; ma specialmente quando leggete: In mezzo di due amanti, onesta, altera Vidi una donna, e quel signor con lei Che fra gli uomini regna e fra gli dei; E da l’un lato il sole, io da l’altro era. Laonde, così fatte cose imaginando, dovete rallegrarvi co’l Petrarca alcuna volta. G. M. Mi rallegro senza dubbio. F. N. Ma non sete voi minaccioso con esso lui quando avete sotto gli occhi que’ versi: O misera ed orribil visione; o quegli altri: Che debbo far? che mi consigli, Amore? Madonna è morta, ed ha seco il mio core; E volendo seguire,

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Interromper convien questi anni rei? G. M. Sono. F. N. E con lui v’empiete anco d’affanno, leggendo: Discolorato hai, Morte, il più bel volto Che mai si vide, e i più begli occhi spenti, Spirti più accesi di virtute ardenti; Del più leggiadro e più bel corpo è sciolto. G. M. Umana cosa è l’aver compassione de gli afflitti. F. N. Co’l Petrarca dunque vi rallegrate e dolete e temete ancora e sperate. G. M. Così par ch’avvenga. F. N. Tuttavolta con gli altri lirici similmente sentite gli stessi affetti: laonde oltre una multitudine di sensi interiori e d’imaginazioni avete, o più tosto abbiamo ne l’animo un gran numero di passioni (Il Malpiglio secondo overo del fuggir la moltitudine).30 (F. N. How is it possible that, reading Petrarch, who you do have often in your hands, you would not think of him and imagine him on the banks of Sorga, writing gracious and high thoughts, while listening to the sound of the water, in the shade of a laurel; or else on the left hand side of the Tyrrhenian sea, “Where wind broken waves weep,” lie down at a brook, hidden by grass; or navigating on the Rhodanus while praying to him that he may run ahead to bring the news of his arrival or on this very river that used to carry him around with its powerful and swift waves? And whenever you read anything of him, I believe it is necessary that you have him in your thoughts and imagination, because the imagination is an internal sense. G. M. These are pleasant thoughts, but those of Scipio were grave. F. N. And very pleasant those others, when you see in front of you that “little shepherdess / Alpine and cruel, / Leaning down to wash a graceful veil, / Letting her vague and blond hair blow in the wind;” or that golden vase, filled with white and red roses, that resemble his woman, or those many other resemblances described in that Canzone or in all that very lovely Canzoniere; but especially when you read: “A lady, chaste and proud, I once beheld / Between two lovers, saw with her that lord / Who rules

T. Tasso, Dialoghi, ed. E. Raimondi, vol. 2, pt 2, 570–572 (translation is mine; when the Canzoniere is being quoted I have used Cook’s translation). See F. Petrarch, Songbook, trans. J.W. Cook (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995; italics are mine). 30

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among men and among the gods; / On one side was the sun, the other I.” Thus, imagining such things, you must rejoice with Petrarch sometime. G. M. No doubt, I am rejoicing. F. N. Conversely aren’t you menacing with him when you read those verses: “O woe! Unhappy vision horrible;” or those other ones: “What must I do? What do you counsel, Love? / My lady’s dead; she has with her my heart, / And I, who’d follow it, / Must interrupt his round of evil years”? G. M. I am. F. N. And with him you also are filled with distress while reading: “You, Death, have painted dark the fairest face / Ever beheld, put out the finest eyes / That soul with burning virtues most alight / You’ve freed from its most lovely, graceful bond.” G. M. It is a humane thing to feel compassion for those who suffer. F. N. With Petrarch, then, you rejoice and grieve, and also fear, and hope. G. M. This is what seems to be the case. F. N. Every time with other lyric poets you similarly feel the same affects: thus, besides a multitude of interior senses and imaginations you have, we have, rather, a great number of passions in our heart.)

It is worth noticing the fact that Tasso’s unmistakable reference to the introduction of the Decameron, at the end of the cited passage (“Umana cosa…”), seems to stage, in a more veiled way, exactly the same confrontation between Boccaccio and Petrarch that appears in the Compendio; and most importantly, with exactly the same outcome: a subscription to Petrarch’s affect-rousing poetry, this time with Boccaccio’s blessing. The second important thing suggested by Guarini’s pledge for “temperamento” is his instrumental use of the medical analogue in order to further reinforce his claim. As is well known, it is Aristotle himself who invites the poetry/medicine analogy into literary discourse when, in his Poetics, he purposefully uses the medical term “catharsis” in order to refer to the kind of purgation of pity and fear that tragedy is supposed to achieve: “A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself … with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions” (Poet., 6, 1449b, 25).31 The auctoritas of Aristotle legitimizes the extensive deployment of the medical paradigm in sixteenth-century literary criticism, particularly with respect to the issue of purgation. Even a perfunctory review of the large body of work produced in the field of literary criticism, during the second half of the sixteenth century, shows that the deployment of the medical analogy is quite common. So common that, all too often, scholars tend to dismiss it merely as a form of mannerism or, at best, consider it a clever rhetorical move that vindicates the morality of poetry.32 In Guarini’s case however, as pointed out Aristotle, Works, ed. W. D. Ross and J. A. Smith, vol. 11 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908–1952). 32 See P. Mastrocola, L’idea del tragico: teorie della tragedia nel Cinquecento (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino) 39–46. For a similar position, see also Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, and Hathaway, The Age. For a new perspective on the 31

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above, the use of the medical analogy is instrumental for his claim to a specific form of purgation (“temperamento”) and, in turn, for his open subscription to Petrarch’s poetry. To be sure, in the above-cited passage from the Compendio, what at first glance may appear as the usual, trite reference to the medical paradigm (“In questo secondo significato si de’ prendere il purgare della Tragedia, come altresì lo prendono i Medici”), actually serves an important larger purpose. It legitimizes a form of purgation that capitalizes on all the affects and suppresses none, equating its effect to that obtained by an authoritative science that capitalizes on all the humors, and suppresses none, in order to restore health. At the same time the medical analogy allows Guarini to advocate the validity of the particular poetic model (Petrarch’s Canzoniere) which allows to practically implement such an approach to purgation. In this respect, it is clear that, while the emphasis on medicine is typically a trait handed down to Guarini in an extant interpretative tradition of Aristotle’s Poetics, the author of the Compendio certainly deserves to be credited for taking the discussion on purgation—and the medical analogy that pertains to it—from the space of pure theoretical speculation to that of poetics. His reference to the two crowns, in the passage above, is symptomatic in this respect, and so is the reference to doctors, made immediately thereafter: the first leaves no doubts about Guarini’s intentions to confront the great literary tradition, and to align himself with Petrarch’s moral enterprise; the second indicates the very pragmatic—or militant, rather—intent that characterizes the deployment of the medical analogy within that confrontation. The message is quite clear: poetry, especially Petrarch’s poetry—and particularly the love-lyrics of the Canzoniere—entails a legitimate and autonomous form of purgation, based on the criteria of medical science, and thus constitutes a model for any autonomous form of purgation—tragicomedy included. The medical paradigm will turn out to be quite useful to our author for yet another very important task he has set out for his theoresis: determining which affects tragedy is supposed to purge. This is indeed the ‘million dollar’ question for literary critics in the second half of the sixteenth century; and Guarini, as will be shown later, solves it brilliantly, by adopting the medical paradigm of homeopathic medicine. As a preliminary conclusion, then, one might argue that the author of the Pastor Fido takes a clear stance for a form of purgation that consists in the temperament of affects, as opposed to their obliteration, thereby making a claim for a moderate form of purgation of affects which is also ethical and autonomous. Moreover he singles out Petrarch’s lyric poetry as a model of affect-rousing moral discourse through which such purgation may best be achieved, and brilliantly supports his contention with the authority of medicine.

subject, see S. Moss and K. L. Peterson, eds, Disease, Diagnosis, and Cure on the Early Modern Stage (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), and T. Pollard, Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

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The cluster of crucial theoretical issues synthesized in the above-cited passage from the Compendio, not only shows the maturity of Guarini’s theoresis; it also sheds some light on the high-profile intellectual and poetic militancy exercised through such theoresis. Having become aware of the increasing moral and political constraints that were pressuring poetry in times of Counter-Reformation,33 Guarini, following Castelvetro’s lead (but in a more orthodox way),34 is able to offset them not by giving up moral aspirations, but by buying a ticket in the debate (the allencompassing Aristotelian bid for a delightful purgare) that could best safeguard these moral aspirations from any extrinsic influence. Medicine—a crucial constituent of that ticket35—with its ethics of temperament, provides a useful model in this respect. It is in fact by capitalizing on the medical paradigm that Guarini is able to support and legitimize his plan to divorce purgation from an ethics of obliteration of affects, thus placing poetry in the realm of an autonomous poetic/ rhetoric affectivity, which he then specifically associates with Petrarch’s poetry. One last thing needs to be said in order to adequately frame Guarini’s stance on purgation: that is, the unusually harmonious interplay between arts and sciences that characterizes it. Guarini’s theoretical musing reveal a Weltanschauung where both humanistic and scientific cultures still survive,36 and where the interrelationship of poetry and science, by then categorically denied in scientific discourse (Galileo was about to definitely reject Aristotelianism), is instead vindicated in a poetics steeped in Aristotelianism.37 The long humanistic dispute of the arts is finally transformed 33 Significant in this respect is the phenomenon of Jesuit dramaturgy which characterizes late sixteenth-century theater. See F. Tateo, “La letteratura della Controriforma,” Storia della letteratura italiana, ed. E. Malato, vol. 5 (Roma: Salerno, 1997) 138. On the political ends of catharsis, see A. Battistini and E. Raimondi, Le figure della retorica. Una storia letteraria italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1990) 132. For the increasing pressure exercised by the Roman Inquisition on late Renaissance drama, after 1569, see Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 139. 34 It may be worthwhile reminding that, in 1560, the Holy Office officially condemned Castelvetro as a heretic. See G. Patrizi, Ludovico Castelvetro, Dizionario biografico degli italiani 22 (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1979) 8–21. 35 In line with the Peripatetic school, the university of Padua maintained a close relationship between philosophy and medicine. All throughout the sixteenth century, a good number of works belonging to the ancient medical tradition (Galen, Celsus, Avicenna) were printed in Venice and distributed among the Paduan academic community. In this period Padua was a major center of medical research, yielding a number of groundbreaking works that radically change the Aristotelian-Galenic tradition. The ideology which underlies such works is a combination of natural philosophy, classic philology, and empiricism. See Cavazzini, “Padova e Guarini,” 138, n5. 36 Mazzacurati speaks about “incredible survivals” (“incredibili sopravvivenze”) of humanistic and scientific cultures in late Renaissance, see Mazzacurati, La crisi, 15–16. 37 In the Prefazione to Mazzacurati’s above-mentioned work, Toffanin underscores how, in the sixteenth century, the decline of Aristotle in the sciences coincides and coexists with his rebirth in literary theory, and that this peculiar phenomenon signs the beginning of equally significant moments for these two disciplines. See Mazzacurati, La crisi, 7.

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into a necessary peaceful coexistence.38 Medicine, once frowned upon by poets,39 becomes poetry’s best friend on its road to a painstakingly fought autonomy and, to be sure, to an unprecedented therapeutic efficacy. Ends and Means of Purgation These few introductory considerations about the theoretical implications of Guarini’s concept of purgation were meant to situate his poetics in the context of sixteenth-century literary criticism. The following will provide a better understanding of Guarini’s purgative methodology, by defining its ends as well as its means. As already mentioned, Guarini states that the “architectonic end” of tragicomedy is to purge melancholy. In the same breath he also claims that this particular purpose definitely pertains to the aesthetic jurisdiction of comedy, as opposed to that of tragedy. Dico per tanto che la Tragicommedia, si come l’altre anch’essa ha due fini: lo strumentale, ch’è forma risultante dell’imitazione di cose Tragiche et Comiche miste insieme; et l’architettonico, ch’è il purgar gli animi del male affetto della maninconia. Il qual fine è tutto Comico, et tutto semplice, ne può comunicare in cosa alcuna col Tragico, perciocché gli effetti del purgare son veramente oppositi infra loro: l’un rallegra, et l’altro contrista; l’un rilascia et l’altro ristringe. Moti dell’anima ripugnanti: concio sia cosa che l’uno va dal centro alla circonferenza, l’altro camina tutto all’opposito, et questi sono quei fini che nel dramatico si possono chiamare contradittori.40 (Thus I say that Tragicomedy, like the others [Comedy and Tragedy] also has two ends: the instrumental, which is the form resulting from the imitation of tragic and comic things mixed together; and the architectonic, which consists

Speaking about Riccoboni’s cultural world, Mazzacurati remarks that it was a world where the polemic between the studia humanitatis and natural science had become impossible. See Mazzacurati, La crisi, 88 n4. 39 One may only want to think about Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s views on poetry as an alternative to the failures of medicine. The former, in his Invective contra medicum quendam (1352–1353), questions the legitimacy of medicine outside of the strictly mechanical realm of the human body, and in his De Remediis utriusque fortune (1353–1366) proposes the art of rhetoric as the only way to effectively cure the maladies of the mind. See G. A. Throne, “‘You Lie Like a Doctor!’: Petrarch’s Attack on Medicine,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 70 (1997). The latter, writing in the aftermath of the Black Death, acknowledges the uselessness of doctors and medicine, and proposes the art of storytelling as remedy against melancholy. On Boccaccio’s critical attitude toward medicine, see G. Mazzotta, The World at Play in Boccaccio’s Decameron (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) 21ff. 40 Guarini, Compendio, 22–3. 38

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in purging the soul from the evil affect of melancholy. That end is all comic and all simple, nor is it in anyway akin to the tragic end, for the reason that the effects of [tragic and comic] purging are truly one the opposite of the other: one relaxes while the other tightens. These are opposite movements of the soul, as one were to move from the center to the circumference and the other in the opposite direction, and such ends, in drama, we may call contradictory.)

As Guarini categorically asserts, purging melancholy is not the business of a tragic poet, it is instead that of a comic one; which apparently places tragic purgation or Aristotelian catharsis proper (purgation of fear and pity by means of catastrophic events) definitively outside Guarini’s aesthetic jurisdiction, and explains the general tendency to emphasize the comic aspects of the Pastor Fido in much of the extant scholarship.41 However, there are still a few open questions to be addressed. First of all, there is the fact that, as discussed above, Guarini shapes his very concept of purgation on the basis of the ongoing debate over Aristotelian catharsis. Secondly, if the ends of tragedy and tragicomedy are really meant to be “contradictory,” as Guarini claims, why devote more then one-third of the entire Compendio (which formalizes the tenets of tragicomedy) specifically to Aristotelian catharsis, not only challenging current theories but also engaging Aristotle’s own definition of tragedy? Most importantly, why refer to tragic delight as the very point of departure for tragicomic delight?42 These questions certainly justify other critical efforts, that have instead chosen to emphasize the tragic aspects of Guarini’s tragicomedy.43 So, if the ends of tragicomedy still allow for a certain ambiguity, why not consider the means? Since Guarini repeatedly indicates laughter as the means through which purgation of melancholy is accomplished in tragicomedy, it would be certainly right to argue that his preference focuses on a generally comic purgation—which apparently reinforces the claim to comedy rather than to tragedy in the Compendio. However the laughter Guarini refers to is not any laughter, but rather a particular kind of laughter—a “tempered laughter” (“riso temperato”).44 41 See Hathaway, The Age, 272. A view shared by Weinberg, who holds that the architectonic end of Guarini’s tragicomedy is “exclusively comic” (Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 660), and also Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 140. For a critical perspective that particularly emphasizes the comic aspects in Guarini’s tragicomedy, see F. Bulega, “La ‘fabula’ tragicomica attraverso le polemiche sul Pastor Fido,” Comunicazioni Sociali VI (April–June 1984): 47–68; L. Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 1–26 and 92–123. 42 See Guarini, Compendio, 23. For the specific relevant passage in this respect, see the quote from the Compendio that immediately follows in my discussion. 43 See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 142–5; Selmi, Classici, 32–74. Henke discusses the “tragicity” of Guarini’s pastoral (see Henke, Pastoral, 88–92) and also speaks of the deployment of a “potentially tragic theatergram” in the Pastor Fido (161). 44 Guarini, Compendio, 38.

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This is indeed a crucial distinction, particularly in light of the previously discussed connotation assigned to “temperament,” and most importantly in light of the very context that pertains to the debate wherein that term is coined. In this respect, the “tempered laughter” Guarini has in mind is arguably related to a form of purgation of affects that is typically comic, although not necessarily only comic. This would lead one to infer that Guarini’s methodology of tragicomic purgation, although generally more akin to comedy in its ends, may indeed include a tragic component in its means; more specifically it would lead one to infer the possibility of Guarini’s deployment of tragic catharsis within the complex methodology of tragicomic purgation. How may this catharsis be achieved? In other words, how might the tragic affects be aroused in Guarini’s tragicomedy? Specifically through a masterful use of the fashionable peripetia,45 cleverly inscribed, within a general dynamics of danger, where probable death is substituted for actual death. Thus Guarini’s significant distinction between “actual” and “potential” tragic delights; the first resulting from the tragic “affect” itself (terror), the second only from the tragic “force” (fear): Quale è il diletto Tragico? L’imitare azione grave di persona illustre con accidenti nuovi et non aspettati. Or lievisi il terrore, et riducasi al pericolo solo, fingasi nuova favola, et nuovi nomi, et tutto sia temperato col riso, refleterà il diletto dell’imitazione, che sarà Tragico in potenza, ma non in atto e rimarranne la forza sola ma non l’affetto.46

Peripetia (or peripeteia, as Aristotle calls it in the Poetics) consists in a sudden reversal of fortune purposefully devised in order to arouse pity and fear. Malatesta Porta mentions peripetia among the things that determine “l’illustre” (“the illustriousness”) of tragedy: “venendo quello [l’illustre] della tragedia dall’avvenimento di cose grandi, e dalle subite peripetie, che misericordia muovo[no], e recano spavento” (“in that it [the illustrious of tragedy] comes from the great things, and unforseen turns of fortune that take place therein and that move to pity, and arouse fear”). See Il Rossi Ovvero Del Parere sopra Alcune Obiettioni, Fatte dall’Infarinato Academico della Crusca. Intorno alla Gierusalemme liberata del Sig Torquato Tasso (1589) 4, qtd in Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 1046 (my translation). In Sperone Speroni’s controversial tragedy, Canace (1542), peripetia is used twice, and becomes one of the staples of late Renaissance dramaturgy. Handed down to Tasso and to Guarini it becomes a device of primary importance in Mannerist dramaturgy, where, as Cavazzini argues, it serves primarily to elicit meraviglia (marvel), as a potentially tragic fate is turned into a happy one (see Cavazzini, “Padova e Guarini,” 142). Guarini clearly refers to peripetia when he lists the “new and unforeseen accidents” among the essential elements that tragicomedy inherits from tragedy (Compendio, 23). As the ensuing discussion will show, Guarini’s use of peripetia incorporates the Mannerist element of marvel with the more traditional elements of pity and fear. For a general overview on the subject of peripetia, see Toffanin, La fine, 65–81; and Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 912–53. 46 Guarini, Compendio, 23. 45

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(What is tragic delight? Imitating grave actions of illustrious people, with new and unforeseen accidents. Well, remove terror, and reduce it to mere danger; feign a new tale, with new names; and temper everything with laughter: this will effect the ensuing delight of the imitation, which will be potentially Tragic, but not actually Tragic, as only the Tragic force will have remained, but not the affect.)

Guarini, then, concedes that tragic affects may indeed be aroused in tragicomedy— particularly in those moments of tragic potentiality following the peripetia (“accidenti nuovi et non aspettati”)—provided that they be eventually tempered by laughter; a laughter that is both “tempered” (decorous end-result) and tempering (momentary comic relief to tragic tension). Horror, which arises from actual tragic events, must be avoided at all costs, since it overwhelms the audience and nullifies catharsis altogether. However fear, which arises from potentially tragic events, is welcome. To a plot that purges too much (“Tragichissimo”), Guarini prefers one that “purges less,” thus suggesting that purgation of pity and fear may indeed occur in tragicomedy: Non può essere già difetto né di giudizio, né d’arte, l’amar più tosto di vedere una favola men purgante, che una, per così dire, Tragichissima, tutta piena di lagrime perciocché egli ci son degli animi nobilissimi, i quali l’arte ottimamente intendono della Scena, e pure non han vaghezza delle favole tanto Tragiche, e come quelli, che di sì fatte purgazioni non han bisogno, sommamente le fuggono, e abborriscono.47 (It can’t be a defect either of judgment or of art to prefer to watch a tale that is less purging, instead of one which is, in a manner of speaking, utterly tragic, filled with tears, because there are some very noble spirits, who perfectly understand the art of the stage, and yet are not fond of tales that are so tragic; and, just as those who don’t need such forms of purgation, they shun and abhor them.)

Impending peril is thus a key element in Guarini’s dramaturgy. A powerful affective trigger, it is by itself able to arouse fear and pity; and by remaining as such—peril, that is, and not tragic epilogue—it safeguards its efficacy as a purging device. The cathartic function of a very similar kind of purging formula had already been defended by Lorenzo Giacomini, in a famous lecture on tragic purgation held at the Accademia degli Alterati in 1586: Quel dubbio piuttosto è da rimuoversi, come possa quella tragedia, di cui fine sarà lieto da miseria a felicità, compire questa purgazione, non rappresentando caso doloroso, onde la compassione si tragga; e la risposta non è malagevole a darsi, e dopo essa sarà giunto a riva il ragionamento, perciocché diciamo anche 47 Guarini, Il Verato secondo, 119, qtd in Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 1086 (translated by Weinberg).

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in tragedia tale aver luogo il compatimento e lo spavento, poiché il male vicino, che senza speranza di scampo è per accadere, dall’anima è considerato come presente, e come tale muove compassione; perché Ifigenia pronta, secondo la barbara legge, ad uccidere il fratello non conosciuto, è attissima a muovere pietà poco minore, che se lo avesse ucciso, e l’apparecchio degl’instrumenti di miserabile morte vicina in azione vera, o imitata, così muove compassione, quanto l’aspetto di morte seguita, la quale si può talora appresentare così terribile, e dolorosa con tanto ritiramento di spiriti al principio della vita, che proibendo la compassione, ed il pianto induca stupore, e quella insensatezza, della quale disse Dante: “I’non piangeva, sì dentro inpietrai.”48 (Instead what needs to be removed is any doubt as to whether a tragedy with a happy ending, that turns misery into felicity, may indeed be able to achieve this kind of purgation, without representing the kind of painful events that arouse compassion; and the answer is not difficult, and with it we shall bring this argument to a close: for compassion and fear can also take place in such tragedy—in that the imminent evil, which is about to happen, without any possibility to escape it, is considered by the soul as a present one, and as such moves compassion. For this reason, when Iphigenia is preparing to kill her brother, whom she does not recognize, she is able to move to a pity that is only slightly weaker than the one it would have moved to, had she actually killed him; and the preparation of the instruments of a miserable death in an action that is real, as well as imitated, so much moves to compassion, as much as the death that follows does, which can sometimes be so terrible and hurtful, with such retraction of the spirits to the principle of life that, inhibiting compassion and tears, it may induce the stupor and that lack of sensitivity which Dante described when he said: “I could not cry, so much was I turned into stone inside.”)

L. Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, “Lezione di Lorenzo Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini sopra la purgatione della Tragedia,” Prose fiorentine raccolte dallo Smarrito [Carlo Dati] accademico della Crusca, pt 2, vol. 4 (1729) 249–50. While the translation follows a more literal approach, translating “compassione” with “compassion” and “pietà” with “pity,” it is noticeable that for Giacomini these two words don’t necessarily have different meanings. However, at times it seems that he uses “compassione” when he wants to refer to the pity that is aroused by the potentiality of death; as opposed to “pietà,” which he tends to associate to actual death. In this slight nuance one could perceive how great of a problem the whole idea of purgation of pity continued to be for late Renaissance poetics. With regard to the relevance of Giacomini’s theoretical thought, see Hathaway, The Age, 251–61; Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 1: 523–8; Rivoltella, “La scena,” 114– 19. With regard to Giacomini’s fundamental contribution to the aesthetics of melodrama, see C. V. Palisca, “The Alterati of Florence, Pioneers in the Theory of Dramatic Music,” Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); B. Russano Hanning, “Pathos, Homeopathy and Theories of the Affection,” On Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980). 48

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Thus, while tactically dismissing tragedy,49 Guarini undeniably adopts a purging methodology which capitalizes on the affective trigger of danger, and thereby directly recalls the frame of reference of tragedy.50 This shows that the particular tempered affective state that ensues from tragicomic purgation is also achieved through the arousal of the tragic affects of pity and fear, revisited in a Mannerist dramaturgy. It is, to be sure, a different kind of catharsis, that Guarini has in mind; yet, as the ensuing discussion will show, by no means a less theoretically impeccable nor a less effective one; and most importantly, by no means a less delightful one. Guarini’s “tempered laughter” is, then, the outward expression of an acquired moral behavior specifically related to a comic purgation of affects that includes a typically tragic kind of affective response. In this respect, his reiterated denial of any purging effect of tragicomedy, other than the comic one, and even his unwillingness to use the word “purgare” (purge) with respect to the affects of fear and pity, is to be understood as a way of distancing himself, not necessarily from the idea of tragic purgation per se, which he undoubtedly subscribes to, but rather from an idea of tragic purgation that is unacceptable to him—De Nores’ idea of purgation as obliteration.51 The Question of Homeopathy vs. Allopathy In light of what has emerged so far, it is safe to say that catharsis is indeed a relevant component of Guarini’s purging methodology. This explains why the discussion of the cathartic principle is given such prominent space in the Compendio. What exactly this principle is, and how it compares to other theories of catharsis is going to be the object of study of the next pages.52 The first relevant question in this respect is whether Guarini understands catharsis as purgation of excessive affects by means of similar ones, or rather as purgation of excessive affects by means of

49 Some of the tactical reasons for Guarini’s dissmissal of tragedy will be discussed in the final part of the chapter. 50 “Questo è finalmente tutto quello, che si può fare di tragico nella Poesia tragicomica; conducendo gli accidenti miserabili non alla morte; ma solamente al pericolo” (“This is ultimately all that is tragic about tragicomic poetry: conducting miserable events not to death, but only to danger”). See B. Guarini, Annotazioni al Pastor fido (Verona: Tumermani, 1737) 107, qtd in A. Gareffi, La questione del ‘Pastor Fido’ (Roma: Vecchiarelli, 1997) 107. 51 See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 146. 52 For a detailed discussion of Guarini’s cathartic principle, see Hathaway, The Age, 268–73. This discussion has been informed and stimulated by Hathaway’s discussion, even though it eventually reaches a different conclusion. For another perspective on the issue, see A. H. Gilbert, Literary Criticism, Plato to Dryden (New York: American Book Company, 1940).

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their opposites. In other words, whether he fashions his cathartic principle after the homeopathic or the allopathic methods.53 The answer to this question requires a few preliminary observations on one of the most authoritative works on the subject, Lorenzo Giacomini’s previously cited Sopra la purgazione della tragedia. This work not only represents the most cogent articulation of late sixteenth-century theories of catharsis; it is also chronologically contiguous to Guarini’s Verati, and Compendio. More importantly, as noted above, it demonstrates some very interesting consonances with those works, including at times a striking resemblance in argumentative strategies; specifically, an instrumental, pervasive use of the medical paradigm. For these reasons Giacomini’s work supplies a very interesting theoretical context with which to frame Guarini’s perspective on catharsis.54 Like every serious scholar in the field, Giacomini summarizes the three major theories of catharsis generated within contemporary literary criticism.55 The first is the so-called Mithradatic principle: tragedy purges Allopathy and homeopathy are two contrasting methods adopted in early-modern medicine. The first counteracts disease by means of opposites (relaxation, for example, against constipation; or cold against inflammation, etc.). The second cures by means of substances called purgatives (rhubarb, aloe, hellebore, etc.), that have a certain affinity with the overabundant humor. Hathaway has noted that literary forms of purgation throughout the Renaissance are often related to their medical analogue. See The Age, 210. On this subject see also Russano Hanning, “Pathos,” and Palisca, “The Alterati.” On the deployment of homeopathy and allopathy in early-modern dramaturgy, see Pollard, Drugs, 1–7. 54 There is still a lot left to be said about Guarini’s relationship with Giacomini. For now it will suffice to say that they corresponded on more than one occasion. In a first letter (Al Sig. Lorenzo Giacomini, 4/4/1586), Guarini thanks him for an “amorevole ufficio” (“kind service”), which is not more clearly specified. He also openly voices his esteem for “cotesti nobilissimi Signori suoi Accademici” (“these very noble fellow academics”)—particularly for Leonardo Salviati, the great censor of Italian language who contributed to the revision of the Pastor Fido—and his intention to stay in touch with them. From the documents I have examined, there is sufficient proof to say that Giacomini played an important mediating role in connecting Guarini to Salviati, and in all likelihood to Florentine academic circles. Guarini mentions him in a letter by Guarini to Salviati (Al Signor Cavalier Salviati, 6/2/1586); and in one by Salviati to Guarini (26/4/1586). Knowing how influential Giacomini’s theoretical thought was to his contemporaries, it is rather unlikely that a close acquaintance and an authority in dramaturgy himself like Guarini would have ignored it. This especially if we think that, since late 1587, upon his acceptance to join the Florentine Accademy (see Al Console dell’Accademia fiorentina, 12/11/1587) and, shortly after, in 1588, the Accademia della Crusca (see V. Rossi, Battista Guarini ed il ‘Pastor Fido’. Studio biografico-critico con documenti inediti (Torino: Loescher, 1886) 88), Guarini maintained close relations with Florence, where besides seeking recognition among his fellow intellectuals, he was aspiring to a secretarial carrier with the Gran Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici. See Guarini, Lettere del Signor Cavalier Battista Guarini Nobile Ferrarese … da Agostino Michele raccolte et al Serenissimo signore Il Signor Duca D’Urbino dedicate con privilegio (Venezia: G. B. Ciotti, 1596). 55 Giacomini, Sopra la purgazione della tagedia, 214–19. 53

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pity and fear by representing horrendous and pitiful circumstances. The resulting effect is that the spectator gradually grows numb to fear and pity, becoming less fearful and less compassionate, and hence stronger.56 The second is an allopathic theory of catharsis: tragedy purges not pity and fear, rather by means of pity and fear it purges opposite affects such as envy, hate, rage, and excessive cheerfulness and self-confidence. The third theory argues that tragedy, representing the frailty and mutability of all human things and the dominance of a capricious fortuna over them, has the effect of moderating all human passions whose excess leads humans to their ruin. Giacomini ends up taking issue with all three theories. Against the first, he argues that purgation of fear and pity is not what Aristotle wanted from tragedy: it is affects “like” those of pity and fear (“tali affetti”) that tragedy intends to purge, not pity and fear themselves. To the second he replies that, if the affects to be purged by tragedy were actually the opposite of fear and pity, Aristotle would have used the word “contrary” to refer to them, instead of “like.” Finally he challenges the third by arguing that the meaning of the word purgation (“purgazione”) can’t possibly mean both removal of contrary and moderation of similar affects, since these are two completely different things. It is worth noting here that the different theories of catharsis that Giacomini contends with were formulated in the second half of the sixteenth century and entailed different interpretations of Aristotle’s “difficult passage”.57 This somewhat problematic definition gave way to quite a debate in order to establish what the goal of tragedy was exactly, and, more importantly, what affects fear and pity were supposed to purge. The first theory, the Mithradatic theory, championed by Robortello, and essentially subscribed also by Catelvetro,58 held that tragedy purged specifically fear and pity by means of fear and pity. From the technical point of view it should be considered only a pseudo-homeopathic method, since purging and purged affects are identical. The second one, spearheaded by Vincenzo Maggi—also followed by Bartolomeo Lombardi and Agnolo Segni, among others—argued that the goal of tragedy was not purgation of pity and fear, but through pity and fear. Maggi in particular held that pity and fear were “agents” that purged opposite affects. Also Giacomini understood fear and compassion as “agents” of purgation; and yet, as will be explained later, his homeopathic method distances itself from that of Maggi and others, who were essentially allopaths.59

Besides the above-mentioned ‘numbing’ effect, originally intended for soldiers to overcome fear of death and excessive pity, another important effect ascribed to Mithradatism was that of building moral strength in order to endure hardship in life. 57 I am referring to already quoted passage from the Poetics (Poet., 6. 1449b, 25). 58 See Castelvetro, Poetica, 161–3. 59 For a more thorough discussion of the different theories of catharsis, see Rivoltella, “La scena,” 106–49; Hathaway, The Age, 205–63; see also the voice “purgation,” in Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 1178. 56

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At this point the stage is clear for Giacomini to lay out his theory of purgation, which he essentially derives from the ancient Greek medical practice of homeopathy: L’atto di medicare si fa o per mezzo de’contrarij, o per mezzo di purgazione con medicamenti purganti, i quali muovono gli umori, che per sé non si muovono. Questa spezie di medicatura è da’ Greci chiamata χαθαρσις, cioè purgazione, ed il medicamento, che in sé ritiene tal virtù, è detto purgativo, ed opera non come contrario, ed inimico, ma come simile, ed amico all’umore, perciocché il reobarbaro, o l’aloe, o il nero elleboro ricevuto nello stomaco, diffondendo per le membra la virtù sua dal nativo calore destata per naturale similitudine, che ha col collerico, o flemmatico, o melancolico umore, ha forza, come la calamita il ferro, e l’ambra la paglia, d’attrarlo a sé non solo dalle vicine vene, ma dalle più remote parti del corpo … e di condurlo al luogo, ove egli sta diffondendo la virtù sua, dico allo stomaco, onde la natura gravata, e stimolata lo discaccia. Confermarsi quel che detto abbiamo coll’autorità de’ Principi de’ medici Ippocrate, e Galeno, e col testimonio di Alessandro del ciquantottesimo problema del secondo libro.60 (The act of medicating is performed either by means of contraries or by means of purgation with purging medicaments, which move the humors that do not move on their own. That kind of medication is called catharsis by the Greeks, that is, purgation; and the medicament which retains such virtue is called purgative, and operates not as a contrary and an enemy, but as similar and friend of the humor. Therefore rhubarb, aloe or hellebore—that diffuse throughout the body their own virtues summoned by the natural warmth of the body—for their natural similitude with the choleric, phlegmatic or melancholic humors have the force, as do magnets with iron or amber with straw, to attract them [the humors], not only from the neighboring veins, but from the most remote parts of the body …, and to conduct them to the stomach, where nature, weighed down and stimulated, rids itself of them. What we have just said is confirmed by the authority of the Princes among doctors Hippocrates and Galenus, and by the testimony given by Alexander Magnus in the fifty-eighth problem of the second book.)

Giacomini, Sopra la purgazione della tragedia, 224. According to Hathaway, Giacomini “caught the spirit of the total complex of the Greek mind and made it accessible to his contemporaries.” See Hathaway, The Age, 256. In this respect, his enterprise was in alignment with the endeavors of medical humanists to recover the full heritage of Greek medicine. See N. G. Siraisi, “Medicine, Physiology and Anatomy in Early SixteenthCentury Critiques of the Arts and Sciences,” New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought. Essays in the History of Science, Education and Philosophy: in Memory of C. B. Schmitt, ed. J. Henry and S. Hutton (London: Duckworth, 1990) 222. 60

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Just like the ancient doctor would cure unbalanced humors by administering purgatives akin to the humors in excess in order to purge them, so the tragic poet uses the affects of pity and fear to purge affects that are akin to them. Thus we have the following equivalence: purging affect ———————  purged affect

=

purgative ————————— overabundant humor

As Giacomini underscores the “natural sympathy” between purging and purged affects—that is, between subjects and objects (agents and recipients) of purgation—he also subtly points out their substantial difference. Pity and fear are the subjects of catharsis—the means by which tragedy purges—not its objects. Homeopathic catharsis, he implies in the following passage, is indeed based on an affinity between subjects and objects of purgation, yet also on the substantial difference between the two: Perciocché è chiaro, che siccome per mezzo de’ medicamenti purganti per la naturale simpatia e convenienza, che hanno con l’umore da purgarsi, si move e sfoga il detto umore, così nell’anima gravida di concetti mesti di timore, e di compassione per mezzo della pietà, e dello spavento si muovono, e si purgano concetti tali.61 (Therefore it is clear that, just as humors are moved and purged by means of purging medicaments, due to the natural sympathy and convenience that exists between them, thus in the soul pregnant with melancholy concepts of fear and compassion, by means of [the affects of] pity and fear, alike concepts are moved and purged.)

With this subtle distinction implied in the word “tali” (a word that, as one can see, carries a lot of weight in his arguments), Giacomini claims the substantial difference between purging and purged pity and fear,62 and opens the way for an ethical function of tragedy that overcomes its fundamental incompatibility Giacomini, Sopra la purgazione della tragedia, 234 (italics are mine). Giacomini never actually specifies what exactly are these “concepts of fear, and compassion” (an issue that, as will be seen, Guarini confronts more directly as he conceives his idea of catharsis). 62 “Se avesse voluto Aristotile, che la tragedia purgasse della compassione e dello spavento, non avrebbe detto di tali affetti, ma degl’istessi, poiché la voce tale importa simiglianza, non identità” (“If Aristotle had wished for tragedy to purge compassion and fear, he wouldn’t have said of alike affects, but of same, for the word alike implies resemblance (likeness), not sameness”). See Giacomini, Sopra la purgazione della tragedia, 216. In this respect, Giacomini follows Vettori and Piccolomini. On their views on this issue, see Rivoltella, “La scena,” 129–33. 61

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with the Christian doctrine while still remaining true to the spirit of Aristotle’s times.63 His epistemological enterprise conducted on the solid ground of philology signals without a doubt a crucial moment in late sixteenth-century aesthetics,64 and constitutes a springboard for later developments. With this in mind it is now time to turn to Guarini’s modus operandi. His interpretation of Aristotle’s famous ‘passo difficile’ seems to clearly indicate pity and fear as the objects of catharsis—an interpretation apparently closer to the Mithradatic principle, which necessarily puts him at odds with Giacomini’s discrimination between purging and purged affects. However it doesn’t take long to see that his understanding of catharsis is a much more sophisticated one, and that he too insists on the distinction between purging affects and purged ones. The purging fear or “terrore purgante,” he holds, is the fear of the death of the soul; the purged one, or “male affetto peccante,” is the fear of the death of the body. The former, due to its ‘occult’ similitude with the latter, attracts and completely eradicates it, thus creating the foundation of virtue: Qual’è dunque il terrore purgante nella Tragedia? Quel della morte interna, il quale eccitato nell’animo di chi ascolta, per l’immagine delle cose rappresentate, tira, per la similitudine, che l’un timore ha con l’altro, a guisa di calamita, il male affetto peccante; inde poi la ragione ch’è natura, et principio della vita dell’anima, aborrendolo, come suo capital nemico, et contrario, lo spinge fuori di sé, lasciadovi solo il buon timor della ’nfamia, et della morte interna, fondamento della vertù.65 (What is, then, the purging terror of Tragedy? The terror of the interior [moral] death, which, having been aroused in the soul of the listener by means of the image of the things represented, attracts like a magnet—due to the similarity that one fear has with the other—the bad sinful affect [the terror of physical death]: thus reason, which is nature, and the beginning of the life of the soul, abhorring it [the sinful affect] as its capital enemy, and being opposed to it, pushes it out, leaving only the good fear of infamy and of interior death, which is the foundation of virtue.)

63 The ethical function of tragedy had been seriously impaired primarily by the fact that pity was considered a fundamental value in Christian ethics. Consequently, purging pity could never be conceived as useful to man. The resulting aphoria was eventually solved by allopaths such as Maggi and others, who, however, had to compromise on the philological rigor of their hermeneutic approach to the Poetics, somehow distorting what had been the original meaning of catharsis intended by Aristotle in that text. 64 See Hathaway, The Age, 251–9. 65 Guarini, Compendio, 18. Note that the purgative/magnet analogy is also used by Giacomini. See Sopra la purgazione della tragedia, 224.

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The same dynamics pertain to the purging of pity: the purging compassion, or ‘good pity,’ is that which we feel for the suffering resulting from sinful behavior; the purged compassion, or ‘bad pity,’ is that which we feel for those who suffer rightfully (for the right cause). Once again the former eradicates the latter.66 The difference between the affect that pertains to the moral sphere and its inferior correspondent is the same as that existing between the purgative and its corresponding humor in medicine: they have an “occult similitude” and yet are altogether different: Quando dunque il terrore purga il terrore, non fa come se giugnesse collera a collera, ma come il Rabarbaro, il quale tutto che habbia similitudine occulta con quell’umor ch’egli purga, in quanto al fine vero però gli è sommamente contrario, perciocché l’uno sana, et l’altro corrompe.67 (Thus when terror purges terror, it is not as if adding choleric humor to choleric humor, but as if adding rhubarb, which, although it has a concealed [occult] similitude with the humor that it purges, it is, with respect to its true end, greatly opposed to it, inasmuch as one heals while the other corrupts.)

It doesn’t take too long to realize that Guarini exploits the homeopathic paradigm, adapting it to what is essentially a form of moral purgation: just like the purgative attracts and purges the corresponding humor by means of a similitude that exists between the two, so does the purging affect (A)—that which pertains to the moral sphere—with its kindred yet inferior purged affect (a). Once again we can synthesize the process with a medico-poetic equivalence: purging affect (A) purgative –——————— = ————————– purged affect (a)  overabundant humor

Thus, it is evident not only that Guarini, like every good neo-Aristotelian, “relies heavily on the medicinal and humoral analogue,”68 but that he also capitalizes on the homeopathic principle introduced by Giacomini.69 Guarini, Compendio, 20. Guarini, Compendio, 18. Note that Giacomini uses exactly the same example. See

66 67

Giacomini, Sopra la purgazione della tragedia, 224. 68 See Hathaway, The Age, 269. 69 Hathaway’s definition of Guarini as an allopath underscores the substantial difference between purging and purged affects argued by the author himself. However, what Hathaway fails to point out is that Guarini’s theory of catharsis is based on the very same subtle apparent contradiction which characterizes Giacomini’s homeopathic principle: the difference and the occult affinity of purging and purged affects. This makes both Giacomini and Guarini essentially homeopaths. The former claims the similarity of purging and purged

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With respect to Giacomini, who is essentially concerned with catharsis as an outlet for affects (thus probably more correct, philologically speaking), Guarini’s notion of catharsis is instead based on a very clear distinction between rational affects, and subconscious ones, the former exercising a purging effect on the latter. In short, one may say that Guarini conceives two kinds of moral affects that tragedy is supposed to arouse: they are essentially the fear and pity for sinful actions. By means of these two moral affects (A) the soul of the beholder—wherein usually resides an unhealthy mixture of rational and subconscious affects—is purged homeopathically of its hampering subconscious fear and pity for the death of the body (a), and thereby restored to its original healthy affective temperament. Such a condition, as Guarini mentions, is the necessary predisposition for a virtuous habit. Guarini’s theory of affects is thus one which contemplates subconscious affects (a) as agents that alter the natural (or rational) affective state (A); the result is an affective complex (a+A) where the subconscious affective component (a) has become predominant. Tempering the affects means to arouse through poetic imitation the rational or moral affects (A) so that only the subconscious affects (a) may be removed, thereby restoring the natural (or rational) affective balance in the soul: that is, where the overpowering affects are the moral fear and compassion for spiritual death (A). How does this obliteration of “bad” affects (a) square with the above-mentioned poetics of “temperamento”? In this respect, it is important to underscore that the obliteration of “bad” affects by means of the purging moral affects (A) aroused in the play, is meant to be conducive to the temperament of the overall affective complex (A+a), and not to its entire obliteration; it is thus perfectly coherent with the above mentioned option for via moderationis and with the more complex understanding of the word purgation as “temperament.” What Guarini seems to be mostly interested in is having the magmatic underworld of the subconscious subjected to an overpowering moral ratio. Quite typically for a man of his time, he thinks that passions ought to be purged through reason of their hampering effects.70 However, the originality of his approach to the theory of affection lies in the idea that the fruition of rational affects aroused by poetry may indeed exercise a tempering effect on the general psychological state affects, while underscoring their substantial difference—for the obvious reasons discussed above; the latter claims the substantial difference of purging and purged affects, while underscoring their occult affinity. Thus, both of them underscore one thing: the substantial difference and essential similarity of purging and purged affects. In this respect, they both uphold the true spirit of medical homeopathy. 70 In the Verato secondo, Guarini says that it is through the excitement of reason that all passions are purged. See B. Guarini, Il Verato secondo ovvero replica dell’Attizzato Accademico Ferrarese in difesa del Pastor fido, contro la scrittura di Messer Jason De Nores. See Opere del Cavalier Battista Guarini (Verona: G. A. Tumermani, 1738) 3: 80–81. From now on, I will refer to this text as Il Verato secondo. Another important advocate for the prominence of reason in catharsis is Antonio Minturno (L’arte poetica [1564]), who holds that catharsis is achieved by means of a process of reasoning out the causes of the viewed misfortune. See Hathaway, The Age, 226.

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of a melancholy individual. Reasoned fruition of affects through poetry is thus not only delightful, as Castelvetro had it, it is also, in more proper Aristotelian terms, strictly therapeutic. Therefore he subscribes to a homeopathic cathartic principle based on the substantial difference and essential similarity of subconscious and rational affects which allows the obliteration of selfish fear and pity through the delightful arousal of moral fear and pity. What is left after such a process of temperament is the natural (i.e. reasonable) predisposition of man to achieve virtue. In this respect, Rivoltella is right in claiming that Guarini’s theoretical reflection recognizes all the moral import of the Aristotelian tradition, while clearly maintaining its originality and independence.71 This independence lies in the fact that Guarini’s conception of catharsis offers what is essentially a perfectly coherent Christian re-elaboration of Aristotelian catharsis; it therefore fulfills what had been considered as the principal aspiration of late Renaissance theory of catharsis, since Robortello.72 Fundamental in this respect is Guarini’s adoption of the classical Aristotelian homeopathic model to usher in a rational cathartic principle that capitalizes on a very Christian fear of, and pity for, sin—arguably another great example of Guarini’s classically-minded modernism.73 The Tragic-in-the-Comic Formula It is now time to leave the theoretical realm behind in order to look at the actual plot line of the Pastor Fido, and see how, through its particular poetic/rhetoric matter or affectivity, it actually manages to accomplish the kind of tragicomic purgation described so far. In the principal action of the play (the Amarillis-Mirtillo plot) Mirtillo is a poor shepherd of low lineage, who is in love with Amarillis—a nymph of much higher social status and, most importantly, already betrothed to the son of the high priest, Silvio. According to a prophecy, the prospective marriage of the two is supposed to break an ancient tragic spell cast by Diana in the form of a deadly plague, and is therefore anxiously anticipated by the entire community. However, Mirtillo continues to aggressively pursue Amarillis, who loves him secretly, but can’t reciprocate for obvious reasons. The situation takes a sudden turn when the two lovers are caught together in a cave, in what appears to be flagrant adultery, and Amarillis is swiftly sentenced to death (act 4, scene 5). This is when the first peripetia occurs. Ergasto’s pathetic outcry,74 which interrupts the joyful celebration for Silvio’s successful hunt; the tragic story of adultery and death that he bears witness of; See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 145. See Toffanin, La fine, 42. 73 For Selmi’s extensive and erudite discussion of Guarini’s conservative modernism, 71 72

see Selmi, Classici, 32­–74. 74 “Oh sciagura dolente! Oh caso amaro! / Oh piaga immendicabile e mortale! / Oh sempre acerbo e lagrimevol giorno!” (4, 3 282–4). “O sad misfortune! O most bitter hap / O

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and finally the inquisition-like arraignment which follows two scenes later, are all quite clear textual indicators that this is indeed great a coup de scène carefully orchestrated by Guarini, with the purpose to arouse tragic affects in his audience— the above-mentioned moral tragic affects, that is. A purpose that the author himself openly admits: Questa scena, che rappresenta la cattività d’Amarilli creduta adultera, per essere stata colta nella spelonca con l’amante Mirtillo, è tutta tragica, in modo che s’ella non fosse in favola tragicomica … sarebbe atta a purgare il terrore e la commiserazione, che in lei si move … Nasce la commiserazione dal vedere una donzella sì nobile, e si felice, cader in tanta miseria, che stia in pericolo manifesto, e poco meno che certo di perdere l’onore, e la vita. Nasce parimenti il terrore dal considerare la sua innocenza per malvagità di fortuna non esser consciuta, né accettata per sua difesa; intanto che la liberi dalla morte … E però con gran giudicio il poeta nostro induce questo Nicandro suo conduttore a giustificare la cattura di lei; ond’ella abbia occasione di mostrare la propria innocenza, e rappresentare il suo stato tanto più misero.75 (This scene—which represents the captivity of Amarillis, who, having being found in the cave in the company of her lover Mirtillo, is believed to be adulterous—is all tragic; so much so that, had it not been part of a tragicomic tale … it would have been apt to purge the terror and the commiseration that are moved in it … Commiseration is aroused in us when we see such noble and happy lady fall in such misery that she is in manifest, and almost certain danger of losing her honor and life. Terror is also aroused in us, if we consider that, due to her ill fortune, her innocence can neither be known, nor be accepted as a defense, so that she may be spared from death … Thus with good reason our poet has Nicandro conduct the indictment to justify her capture; so that she may have the chance to show her own innocence and represent her much more miserable state.)

The potential death of Amarillis is thus staged in all its pathetic poignancy for what we must anticipate as a truly cathartic moment. It is, to be sure, a ‘domesticated’ catharsis; one that Guarini is quick to distinguish from what somebody like De Nores would understand by that term (i.e. a process of purgation where the moral affects of the spectator are purged by means of terror), in order to present it as a day forever to be spent in tears!” Unless otherwise stated, for the English translation of all cited passages from the Pastro Fido, see R. Hogan and E. A. Nickerson, eds, The Faithful Shepherd. A Translation of Battista Guarini’s ‘Il Pastor Fido’ by Dr. Thomas Sheridan (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989). 75 Guarini, Annotazioni 106, qtd. in Gareffi, La questione, 106 (my italics). Note that in his tragedy Il tradimento per l’onore (1664) Andrea Cicognini quotes fragments of this very scene just moments before the adulterous wife Alouisia is slain by the betrayed husband. See F. Angelini, Il teatro Barocco (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1975) 214–16.

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process whereby the moral affects of the spectator are simply aroused by the fear of what may happen.76 We are nevertheless at a climactic moment in the play, whose extraordinary pathos is not only achieved through the fine intertextuality the text purposefully establishes with Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis;77 it is also achieved through the distinct Petrarchan overtones that, as will be illustrated in the next chapter, resonate throughout the entire Amarillis–Mirtillo plot. Hence, what the audience is supposed to be contemplating, at this level of the play, is not only the potential sacrificial death of an innocent victim of tragic circumstances but also the potential death of a Petrarchan Laura, with all the far-reaching moral implications this emblematic death could possibly have for an audience steeped in Petrarchism. And it is exactly through the mix of moral tragic affects (A) of fear and pity, which are set in motion by the profound significance of this death, that the subconscious affects of fear and death for the potential death of the body (a) are purged in the audience, according to the previously illustrated homeopathic process. Moreover, it is exactly through the ensuing fruition—that is, the actual self-awareness—of the above-mentioned tragic affects that this cathartic moment is also endowed with the kind of aesthetic pleasure that Castelvetro calls “oblique.” Thus, it is safe to say that, at the level of the first peripetia, Guarini creates the circumstances for an affective response that is conducive to a perfectly legitimate cathartic and delightful moment in the play, and that he does so by achieving the highest degree of tragic intensity allowed in the tragicomic format he has chosen for his play. Indeed the ‘doom and gloom’ at the end of the fourth act is such that Guarini will have to call for the reassuring intervention of the chorus to lift up the spirits of his audience: Speriam ché il mal fa tregua talor, se speme in noi non si dilegua. Speriam, ché ’l sol cadente anco rinasce, e ’l ciel, quando men luce, l’aspettato seren spesso n’adduce. (4, Chorus, 1457–61)

This is, in fact, the sense of Guarini’s apologetic conclusion that we find in his notes pertaining to this scene: “Ma siccome veggiamo che il Sole di primavera muove gli umori, e non gli risolve, così la persona di questa Ninfa, quantunque ridotta a termine di fortuna tragica, muove ben gli affetti detti di sopra ma non gli purga, per mancamento delle altre parti che ci concorrono” (“But, as what happens with the springtime sun that moves the humors without resolving them, so this nymph undergoing a tragic fortune does indeed move the above mentioned affects, but does not purge them, because of the lack of other parts that would be necessary to that end”). See Guarini, Annotazioni 106, qtd in Gareffi, La questione, 106. It is obvious that Guarini here wants to distance himself from a certain conception of tragic purgation: that which is associated to the above-mentioned supporters of the via remotionis, who, as mentioned earlier, tend to associate purgation with obliteration, as opposed to those like Guarini who instead embraced the via moderationis, thus the idea of movement of affects for the purpose of temperament. 77 See Selmi, Classici, 61. 76

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(Let’s hope, for, ills give respite / at times, if hope does not fade in us / Let’s hope, for the setting sun still rises, /and the skies, when they are least bright / often bring forth wished clear.)78

To be sure, the sun will eventually get to shine again on the gloomy Arcadia of act four; but only after a complex process which takes place in the final act, and which includes a second peripetia. Instrumental to this end is the enlightened and enlightening role of the Messenger who, in the second scene of the fifth act (which is actually when the second peripetia occurs), informs Titiro that his daughter has been miraculously saved by Mirtillo himself, who has offered to die in her place. His dramatic account of the latest developments prompts Titiro—and the audience with him—to contemplate what could be truly considered yet another “new and unexpected occurrence:” the positive proof of Mirtillo and Amarillis’ untainted virtue; a virtue that, needless to say, had been seriously compromised by their accidental meeting in the cave, and officially indicted in the course of Nicandro’s prosecution against Amarillis. It is probably not a coincidence, but rather the art of a fine psychologist, that this totally unexpected good news is related directly to he who more than anyone else is grieving for the tragic circumstances that had taken place in the previous act: the father of the dishonored daughter: MESSO: Giunta dinanzi al sacerdote (ahi, vista piena d’orror!) la tua dolente figlia, che trasse, non dirò dai circostanti, ma, per mia fé, da le colonne ancora del tempio stesso e da le dure pietre, che senso aver parean, lagrime amare; fu quasi in un sol punto accusata, convinta e condennata. TITIRO: Misera figlia! E perché tanta fretta? MESSO: Perché de la difesa eran gli indici troppo maggiori; e certa sua ninfa, ch’ella in testimon recava de l’innocenza sua, né quivi era presente, né mai fu chi trovar la sapesse. I fieri segni intanto e gli accidenti mostruosi e pieni di spavento e d’orror, che son nel tempio, non pativano indugio, tanto gravi a noi quanto più nuovi, e più mai non sentiti dal dì che minacciâr l’ira celeste,

My translation.

78

The Art of Purging vendicatrice dei traditi amori del sacerdote Aminta, sola cagion d’ogni miseria nostra. Suda sangue la dea, trema la terra, e la caverna sacra mugge tutta e risuona d’insoliti ululati e di funesti gemiti, e fiato sì putente spira, che da l’immonde fauci più grave non cred’io l’esali Averno. Già con l’ordine sacro, per condur la tua figlia a cruda morte, il sacerdote s’invïava, quando, vedendola Mirtillo (oh, che stupendo caso udrai!), s’offerse di dar con la sua morte a lei la vita, gridando ad alta voce: — Sciogliete quelle mani! (ah, lacci indegni!) ed invece di lei, ch’esser dovea vittima di Diana, me traete agli altari, vittima d’Amarilli —. TITIRO: Oh di fedele amante e di cor generoso atto cortese! MESSO: Or odi meraviglia. Quella, che fu pur dianzi sì da la tèma del morire oppressa, fatta allor di repente a le parole di Mirtillo invitta, con intrepido cor così rispose: — Pensi dunque Mirtillo, di dar col tuo morire vita a chi di te vive? Oh, miracolo ingiusto! Su, ministri, su! che si tarda? omai menatemi agli altari —. — Ah che tanta pietà non volev’io!— soggiunse allor Mirtillo. Torna cruda, Amarilli, ché cotesta pietà si dispietata troppo di me la miglior parte offende. A me tocca il morire —. —Anzi a me pure — rispondeva Amarilli,— ché per legge son condennata —. E quivi

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy si contendea tra lor, come s’a punto fosse vita il morire, il viver morte. Oh anime bennate, oh coppia degna di sempiterni onori! Oh vivi e morti gloriosi amanti! Se tante lingue avessi e tante voci quant’occhi il cielo e quante arene il mare, perderien tutte il suono e la favella nel dir a pien le vostre lodi immense. Figlia del cielo, eterna e gloriosa donna, che l’opre de’ mortali al tempo involi, accogli tu la bella istoria e scrivi con lettre d’oro in solido diamante l’alta pietà de l’uno e l’altro amante. (5, 2, 253–99) (MESSENGER. Thy mournful daughter was before the priest / Conducted (wretched spectacle indeed!). / From all who stood to see the moving sight, / Tears flowed abundant, and not only they / Had weeping eyes, but, on my faith I swear, / The very marble pillars, the hard stones, / As if they felt compassion melted also. / There in a moment’s time, no father warning, / She was accused, convicted and condemned. / TITIRO. My poor afflicted child! And why such haste? / MESSENGER. Because the evidence was plain against her, /Too strong for her defense. A nymph beside, / Who was a witness of the innocence, / Could not be found. Such monstrous omens followed / Of dread and horror, filling all the temple, / That no delay could be; so much the more / Tremendous, as they were unknown before. / The like we never knew, not since the day / That heav’n revenged the love of scorned Amintas, / A priest, from whence our great misfortunes sprung. / The Goddess sweated blood, an earthquake followed, / The sacred cavern, bellowed from within. / Uncommon howlings and expiring groans / Came forth from thence, and such a dismal scent / That, from the filthy jaws of foul Avernus / A scent so nauseous never was exhaled. / Now did the priest appear in sacred pomp / To lead thy child a sacrifice to death, / When seeing her Mirtillo (now prepare / to hear a wonder) offered to lay down / His life for hers, and loudly thus he cried: / “Those hands unbind (ah, too unworthy chain), / And in her stead, who is designed to be / Diana’s victim, drag me hence with speed, /And let my blood atone for Amarillis.” / TITIRO. O gen’rous action of a faithful heart! / MESSENGER. Prepare thyself to hear a thing as strange. / She, who before at death was much dismayed, / Undaunted grown by what Mirtillo said, / Spoke thus with courage, and her lover answered: / “Think you, Mirtillo, you by death can give / A life to her who lives for you alone— / ’Tis without precedent, unjust! Ye priests / Away—Proceed, and lead me to the altar.” / Then answered he: “This love is too excessive! / I seek it not. Return, my Amarillis; / for this thy cruel pity much offends / My nobler part. My duty

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is to die.” / “No,” said the nymph, “to die is rather mine, / Who by my country’s law stand here condemned.” /And then between them such a strife arose / As if ’twere life to die, to live mere death. / O glorious souls the matchless pair of lovers, /Worthy to live forever in records / Of high renown, whether ye live or die. / Had I as many tongues and voice for each, / As heav’n has eyes, or as the ocean sands, / Their words, and sounds all joined, would be too little / To eternize your too unbounded glory. / Eternal fame, daughter of mighty Jove, / Who dos’t communicate great acts to time, / Collect this beauteous history, and write / With golden letters in a di’mond page, / The unexampled passion of these two.)

With this final momentous lyrical suspension—clearly reminiscent of one of Tasso’s most moving yet problematic love stories in the Gerusalemme liberata (1581)79—Guarini prompts the audience to behold a new, sublime picture:80 a true miracle of love by which a man, by sacrificing his life, saves the life and honor of his beloved and ultimately saves his soul as well;81 and a woman who, inflamed by such heroism, becomes heroic in her own right. In short: at the level of the second peripetia Guarini presents his audience with an example of virtue to the second degree, in a manner of speaking, as well as one which is indeed extraordinary for an Arcadia where virtuous women are always chaste, but hardly heroic. 79 The reference here is to the famous Olindo and Sofronia episode from the second Canto of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (II, 1–53), which, by the way, Tasso eventually emends from his Conquistata. See M. T. Girardi, Tasso e la nuova Gerusalemme. Studio sulla ‘Conquistata’ e sul ‘Gudicio’ (Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2002) 251–2. 80 Note that Robortello’s first edition of pseudo-Longinus’ famous tract on the sublime is published in 1554, see M. Lollini, Le muse, le maschere e il sublime. G. B. Vico e la poesia nell’età della “ragione spiegata” (Napoli: Guida, 1994) 193. The first Italian translation by Niccolo da Falgano is published in 1560. On this see W. Hamilton Fyfe, “Introduction,” Longinus. On the Sublime, translation by W. H. Fyfe, revised by D. Russel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965) 155. On the reception of pseudoLonginus in sixteenth-century Italy, see G. Costa, “Pietro Vettori, Ugolino Martelli e lo Pesudo Longino,” Da Longino a Longino. I luoghi del Sublime, ed. L. Russo (Palermo: Aesthetica, 1987) 65–79; and from the same volume also see E. Mattioli, “Il sublime e lo stile: suggestioni cinquecentesche,” 55–64. On Marc’Antoine Muret and his instrumental role in the dissemination of pseudo-Longinus in Italy, see Selmi, Classici, 264; M. Fumaroli, Eroi e oratori. Retorica e dramaturgia secentesche (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). On the subject of the sublime and its critical fortune, see also Il Sublime. Fortuna di un testo e di un’idea, in Atti del congresso 27–30 settembre 2006, Roma Istituto Svizzero, ed. E. Matelli (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2007). 81 The question of Mirtillo’s potential spiritual death is much too extensive to be addressed here and will be dealt with in Chapter 2. For now it will suffice to mention the poignant reply of the messenger to Titiro’s questioning about the outcome of the lover’s battle for self-sacrifice: “Vinse Mirtillo (oh mirabil guerra, dove del vivo ebbe vittoria il morto!)” (5, 2, 336–7) (“Mirtillo conqered. A most wondrous war / Is that wherein the dead subdues the living”).

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Most importantly, with this unexpected turn of events, Guarini completely changes the moral landscape of the play, prompting an important affective readjustment for the audience. Significant in this respect is the extent of the affective scope that characterizes the part of the Messenger cited above: from the pathetic onset describing Amarillis’ arraignment (“Thy mournful daughter was before the priest / conducted (wretched spectacle indeed!)”) to the magnificent tone of awe and admiration of the final lyrical suspension. Also significant is the fact that this affective readjustment coincides with the climactic moment of marvel in the play—“Now prepare to hear a wonder” (5, 2, 299)—which in turn coincides with the revelation, in unmistakable Petrarchan oxymoronic terms (“Oh vivi e morti gloriosi amanti!”),82 that what the audience will be contemplating, from now on, is not the death of the protagonist, but rather his death to a new life. The result is that, from now on, the audience beholds the ensuing possible and indeed probable death of the protagonist, as well as the desperate anguish of his equally heroic beloved, in completely different terms: the audience no longer experiences moral pity and fear— since, as we have seen, moral pity and fear can be aroused only by the threat of spiritual death—but rather admiration.83 To be sure, the man who is about to be put to death is now no longer a ‘villain,’ one who “in vain is a faithful lover”84 whose incontinence is a threat to himself and to others;85 he is instead a “buon pastore” (5, 2, 337), who has managed to save his beloved’s honor. Although the threat of death is real, it is a death that is, as the Messenger demiurgically points out, a death to a new life; thus, it is no longer meant to elicit moral fear and pity, but totally opposite affects, such as those usually associated to admirable things. Guarini’s Petrarchan ethos, colored until the end of the fourth act with a growing sense of pathos with explicit yet decorous cathartic aspirations, is hereby elevated, on marvel’s wings, to the sublime ethos which characterizes the rest of the fifth act.86 In this respect, the slightly more Petrarchan “Of high renown in life and death” would possibly be a better translation than Sheridan’s “Of high renown, whether ye live or die.” 83 On the aesthetics of admiration in the poetics of Trissino, Giraldi Cinzio, and Scaliger, see Plett, Rhetorik, 110–16. 84 My translation for “amante invan fedele” (1 Chorus, 1121). This is how Mirtillo is characterized at the beginning of the play. 85 As already mentioned, the issue of Mirtillo’s difficult path to continence will be dealt with more extensively in Chapter 2. For now it will suffice to keep the following things in mind: first, that the reason of his journey to Arcadia is to heal himself from lovesickness: “Tu sai che ’l mio dolcissimo Mirtillo, / che ’l Ciel mi die’ per figlio, infermo, / venne qui per sanarsi” (5, 1, 56–8) ( “Thou knows’t my only son, my son Mirtillo, / The gift of heav’n has for his health come hither”); second, that in the fourth act Mirtillo is about to commit homicide and suicide, and that he also almost kills the high priest Nicandro as he is fighting to prevent Amarillis’ arrest (4, 3, 455–82). 86 A thorough investigation of the sublime style deployed in the fifth act would be beyond the scope of this study. However, even a perfunctory reading of the final recognition 82

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We are dealing with a dramaturgy capable of handling rhetorical modules that are not easily assimilated; a sophisticated dramaturgy that mixes different affectrousing categories with remarkable skill and psychological intelligence. In fact, the sense of admiration aroused by the second peripetia actually builds and capitalizes upon the awareness of the potentially tragic outcome ushered in with the first peripetia. Such crucial tragic awareness actually legitimates an admiration for a redeeming sacrifice that would otherwise stand on very thin psychological ice; in other words, it is the very aesthetics of tragedy that grounds the ensuing aesthetics of comic admiration, which holds sway over the audience for the remainder of the play. Emblematic in this respect is, in the above-cited passage, the fact that Guarini does indeed graft the sublime ethos of Mirtillo’s sacrifice exactly onto the tragic pathos of Amarilli’s death sentence. Almost a great synopsis of the whole dramaturgic structure of the play, this dialogue is intended to take the audience to the heights of awe and admiration by recalling, in all its cathartic potential, the tragic depths into which the audience had been purposefully plunged at the end of the fourth act. All this, of course, makes perfect sense from the point of view of the therapeutic effect that pertains to the affective response in the play. Without the purging moral fear and pity experienced for the death of the Petrarchan beloved, in act four, there could be no verisimilar sense of admiration for the sublime sacrifice of the Petrarchan hero, in act five. Guarini, then, builds his way to a therapeutic, verisimilar sublime ethos upon the affective experience of a tragic pathos. In act four he sets in motion a mix of moral tragic affects of fear and pity in order to homeopathically purge the audience of the subconscious passions of fear and pity; and then, on the basis of that first crucial response, he stages the sublime story of a redeeming self-sacrifice that is supposed to take his audience to the heights of admiration and thus complete the complex purging process pertaining to the play, reaching the desired tragicomic “temperamento.” Having underscored the indispensable function of a cathartic pathos in the edifying dramaturgy of the Pastor Fido, what remains to consider is how this play finally reaches its ingenuous conclusion. After beholding a new, enlightened picture of the lover’s erotic initiation,87 the audience, galvanized with admiration, is now ready to be taken through the steps of a process of collective harrowing of death. Guarini uses all the expedients a great playwright has at his disposal to keep his audience emotionally involved and at the same time intellectually enlightened, as to the affective response this involvement is supposed to beget. In order to do so, he stages the death of his “pastor fido,” while also tapping into deeper archetypal narratives: on the one hand, he activates the tropological scheme pertaining to the figura Christi—the innocent Lamb of God sacrificed for the redemption of scene (act 5, scene 6) reveals an extensive use of anaphora and hyperbaton—two rhetorical figures that Longinus specifically mentions as features of the sublime style. On this see Hamilton Fyfe, “Introduction,” 150–51. 87 Mirtillo’s Petrarchan erotic initiation will be the subject of the next chapter.

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the sins of the world;88 on the other hand, he activates the Classical tragic scheme of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex through a complicated referential web,89 while at the same time turning that scheme upside down, and doubling it, as he stages a son about to be killed at the hands of his biological father, Montano, in front of a powerless stepfather, Carino. To be sure, as the Messenger had announced in the second scene, what the audience is witnessing at this point in the play is indeed not a tragic death, but a death to a new life—a harrowing of death; yet not one without a sensible pathetic tinge. Mirtillo’s moving prayer to the father that is about to slay him is significant: Padre, ché padre chiamarti, ancora che morir debbia per tua man mi giova, lascio il corpo a la terra e lo spirito a colei ch’è la mia vita. (5, 3, 415–18) (Father for still that name must give pleasure / Since I’m to fall a victim by your hands, / I leave this body to my mother earth, / And give my soul to him who gave me life.)

One should also mention that, shortly before, in the aftermath of Mirtillo’s heroic act, Amarillis, who had initially risen to her lover’s heroism, eventually plunges in the deepest despair, and possibly even contemplates taking her own life: Poi comandò che la donzella fosse sì ben guardata, che ’l dolore estremo a disperato fin non la traesse. (5, 2, 343–5) (And gave strict charge, she should be closely guarded / Lest, through excess grief, she might perform / Some desp’rate execution on herself.)

Thus, there is an undeniable underlying element of pathos that characterizes the whole sublime ethos of sacrifice in the final part of the play.90 And, once again, the choral framework, with its jubilant shepherds who sing hymns to Diana, is called upon to reassure the audience that, despite all appearances, this sacrifice is one that indeed pleases the goddess; thus, it is indeed a righteous sacrifice, and the signs N. J. Perella, “Heroic Virtue and Love in the ‘Pastor Fido,’” Atti del Real Istituto veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 132 (1973–1974): 698. 89 With respect to the complex intertextuality that characterizes act five, specifically the Sophoclean recognition of Mirtillo, see Selmi, Classici, 89–120. 90 For the relationship between sublimity and terribleness in baroque literature, see J. A. Maravall, Culture of the Baroque. Analysis of a Historical Structure, translated by T. Cochran (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986) 211–13. 88

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of doom and redemption that are equally disseminated in the action are meant to underscore the sublime atmosphere, full of suspense, in which this sacrifice takes place, until the play reaches its happy ending. A happy ending, which is reached in a topsy-turvy way typical of a postTridentine sensibility, where tragic fate is inscribed within a Providential scheme. Thus, Mirtillo is first recognized as the son of Montano (5, 3, 415–18), only to see his predicament tragically worsened by a false interpretation of the oracle. This is the beginning of yet another coup de scène which, as the author openly admits, is supposed to be an imitation of Oedipus’ recognition in the Sophoclean tragedy, and that is going to be completed two scenes later, with an outcome that completely turns Oedipus’ recognition on its head, while still extensively capitalizing on it.91 This happens when the sage and blind (or rather sage because blind), Tirenio, finally correctly interprets the oracle and re-recognizes Mirtillo (5, 5, 825) as the messianic figure of the “pastor fido”—the one destined, according to the oracle, to amend the “ancient error” that drove Amintas and his unfaithful shepherdess to suicide. Thus, the final obstacle is removed, Mirtillo’s life is finally saved, and the plot can swiftly unfold to its happy ending. Mirtillo can fulfill a desire that is now safe from any potential transgression of incontinence and be bound in marriage to his beloved Amarillis, for the benefit of an Arcadia that is finally joyful, freed from its plague, and happy ever after. As to the therapeutic effect that pertains to the particular affectivity of the final part of this play, it was mentioned before that, through the demiurgic intervention of the Messenger, the audience undergoes an important process of affective readjustment, from the pathetic to the sublime. Once that affective readjustment has been completed the audience still willingly remains subjected to the affect-rousing power of the dramatic fiction, and thus continues to participate empathically to the unjust death of innocent Mirtillo, with the fear and pity that pertain to that potentially catastrophic epilogue; but only to definitely rid itself of those no longer morally relevant affects and substitute them completely with admiration, now that the true meaning of that epilogue is clear. Exposed to this sublime ethos the audience experiences another catharsis; one that is completely opposite to the one discussed above. This catharsis is one where the temperament of moral tragic affects of fear and pity (A), resulting from the previous cathartic experience, easily subjugates whatever subconscious affects of fear and pity for the potential death of the body (a) the audience may still experience. The audience thus becomes entirely subjected—without any overpowering interference from 91 In this respect, it would be fair to say that Guarini’s adoption of the Sophoclean process of recognition is at the same time a validation of Classical tragedy as gnoseological instrument and a re-conception of Classical tragedy within the Christian economy of Providence; it is thus a validation of Classical tragedy as epistemology and a re-conception of the moral economy within which such epistemology operates. Analogously, Guarini’s investment in catharsis is at the same time a validation of the Classical affect-rousing mode of pathos and a re-conception of it, through the affect-rousing mode of Christian ethos.

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the subconscious—to the particular Petrarchan-Christian sublime ethos that holds sway in the final part of the play, and thus fully experiences the unfettered kind of admiration that such affectivity is supposed to arouse. Finally, in the aftermath of the comic denouement, that leads to the interpretation of the oracle and the marriage of the couple, the audience is eventually left with a smile on its face: the kind of decorous laughter that, as mentioned before, purges the evil disposition of melancholy. And this is how the tragic-in-the-comic aesthetic formula of the Pastor Fido reaches its intended “architectonic end.” Through two opposite, yet psychologically perfectly coherent affective responses prompted by the complex affectivity of a staged Petrarchan ethos, eventually charged with strong Christian overtones, Guarini compels his audience to the kind of cathartic “tempered laughter,” that is meant to purge melancholy.92 With a medical analogy, then, one could say that, not unlike analgesia, which is the effect that results from the impact of a drug’s active ingredients on the organism (it is a medicinal-induced effect),93 the “tempered laughter” of Guarini’s tragicomedy is a catharsis-induced effect, by the active ingredients of moral fear and pity, onto which is grafted an equally (but totally opposite) cathartic effect, induced by the admiration for virtue. Not unlike the medicinal-induced effect of analgesia that ultimately eliminates pain, Guarini’s induced tempered laughter ultimately eliminates melancholy. In this light, it is evident that Guarini’s art of purging is characterized by a complex form of affectivity that combines the particular rhetorical pathos, that prompts for a ‘domesticated’ cathartic experience (that contemporary dramaturgy vindicates as no less effective than its Hellenic cousin), with the particular rhetorical sublime ethos that prompts for a typically Christian cathartic experience. This heterogeneous mixture of pathos and ethos (or, better, this ethos permeated with pathos), which characterizes the dramaturgy of the Pastor Fido, despite its problematic implications,94 represents a coherent move toward a goal that Guarini seems most interested in pursuing: the syncretism of Classical and Christian cultures.95 In fact, with a cathartic principle hinging on the Christian fear and pity for sin, as its base, and the combination of the affect-rousing function of potential fatal death (pathos) with the affect-rousing function of a self-sacrifice that redeems For a formalistic approach to the affective response in this play, see Henke, Pastoral,

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131–2.

See the term “analgesia” in C. B. Clayman, The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine (New York: Random House, 1989). 94 As Hathaway points out: “The world Guarini lived in was one where the ethos of a stage character so modified and determined the audience’s pathos that a theory of catharsis in which the man in the audience was overwhelmed by pity and fear was hard to come by” (Hathaway, The Age, 273). My reading of Guarini’s dramaturgy, while acknowledging the inherent difficulty of a mix of pathos and ethos, obviously reaches a different conclusion. 95 See C. Scarpati, “Il nucleo ovidiano nell’Aminta,” Tasso, i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995) 103–4. The above-mentioned juxtaposition of Oedipus and Christ is quite symptomatic in this respect. 93

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that death (ethos), the Pastor Fido indeed accomplishes a perfectly post-Tridentine revisitation of the cathartic dynamics of tragic fate within a Christian redemptive economy; a revisitation which, it is important to note again, is perfectly coherent with Guarini’s unique, classically-minded artistic modernism. The ultimate aesthetic experience prompted by this complex hybrid of Classical and Christian affectivity is the medicinal effect of “temperamento;” a term that, in the light of this discussion, can now be fleshed out as follows: the poetic/rhetoric “disposition” induced by a verisimilar imitation of a Petrarchan ethos that is both pathetic and sublime, whereby moral pity and fear are restored to their natural balance and then galvanized. This “disposition” is not only therapeutic or more specifically ethical; it is also delightful, in as much as it is based on the fruition of moral affects through the means of poetic imitation. In this respect, the therapeutic movere pertaining to the Pastor Fido is one that includes delight as an essential part of its ethical function; thus, it is, in and of itself, a fruitful middle ground in the diatribe between delectare and docere. Which explains why Guarini talks of “occult delight,” significantly relating it to the fundamental category of dispositio—the crafting of the rhetorical plot: La favola in somma è, come disse il maestro, l’anima del poema. Questa è il centro … Dall’artificio di questa vien finalmente quella cara Catena, che lega l’amimo di chi vede, et ascolta, ma (quello che stima tanto Aristotele) di chi legge: quell’occulto diletto che inebria l’ascoltatore, e ’l lettore, et nol sazia mai; di maniera, che sempre torni a leggere, et ascoltare, et non gli paia di trovar sempre nuove bellezze.96 All in all the plot is, as the master said, the soul of the poem. It is the center … From its artifice finally comes that dear chain that binds the mind of those who watch and listen, but [also] of those who read (which is what Aristotle estimates so much): that occult delight that inebriates the listener and the reader, and never satiates him; so that he may always go back to read, and listen, and that he may be surprised to always find new beauties.

Symptomatically extending its sphere outside of the theatrical space and into the privacy of the home, Guarini ushers in an understanding of delight that is intimately tied to the kind of poetic/rhetoric affectivity that serves his healing agenda; in other words, the crafting of the plot for the sake of movere, and thus purgare, is intimately tied to the occult delectare the plot is supposed to yield. This intimate connection between delight and utility in poetry, whose ramifications will be further explored, represents yet another momentous contribution the Pastor Fido makes to sixteenth-century poetics.97 Guarini, Compendio, 64. Significant in this respect is the fact that Guarini’s stronger investment in catharsis

96 97

will later be echoed by Pomponio Torelli who, in Vernazza’s view, will claim that the

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The ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ that Makes the Medicine Go Down Having thoroughly discussed the affective substance of Guarini’s tragic-in-thecomic aesthetic formula as well the therapeutic effect that to it pertains, one should recall that, since Lucretius, poets knew that an efficacious poetic therapy must necessarily come with a little ‘spoonful of sugar’ which lures the patient to take the medicine.98 So, if tragicomedy is the medicine, then what is the ‘spoonful of sugar’ that goes along with it? This is a complex question indeed, and there might be more than one ‘spoonful of sugar’ in Guarini’s medicine. However, music is closely linked to his poetic practice.99 As has been argued elsewhere, music was an integral part of pastoral dramaturgy since Tasso’s Aminta.100 What is unique about Guarini is that he pushes the idea of music in pastoral poetry beyond previously established boundaries; beyond the strictly verbal “sweetness” of Sannazaro and Tasso101—where music is essentially generated by rhyme and meter— towards a new form of sung speech designed to respond to the loftier rhetorical aspirations of late Renaissance theater.

ultimate end of poetics is not delight, but rather the moderation of passions that in turn allows for virtue. See C. Scarpati, “Tragedie di fine secolo,” Dire la verità al principe. Ricerche sulla letteratura del Rinascimento (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1987) 204. 98 Guarini himself mentions the Lucretian metaphor (Compendio, 24). A very similar idea can be found in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata: “Sai che là corre il mondo, ove più versi / di sue dolcezze il lusinghier Parnaso; / e che’l vero condito in molli versi, / i più schivi allettando ha presuaso: / così a l’egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi / di soavi licor gli orli del vaso: / succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve, / e da l’inganno suo vita riceve” (1, 17– 24) (“You know the world delights in lovely things, / for men have hearts sweet poetry will win, / and when the truth is seasoned in soft rhyme / it lures and leads the most reluctant in, / as we brush with honey the brim of a cup, to fool / a feverish child to take his medicine: / he drinks the bitter juice and cannot tell—but it is a mistake that makes him well.”). English translation quoted from T. Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, trans. and ed. A. Esolen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 99 Besides the above-mentioned works by Folena, Battaglin, and Flora, see C. Calcaterra, “Discussioni sul ronsardismo italiano,” Poesia e canto (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1951) 209–12. 100 See F. Luisi, “Note sul contributo musicale alla drammaturgia pastorale avanti il melodramma,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell’Europa del Cique-Seicento, 111–16. On the melic character of Tasso’s poetry, see C. Calcaterra, “Le meliche di Torquato Tasso,” Poesia e canto. For another view on Tasso’s relationship to music, see L. Ronga, “Tasso e la musica,” Torquato Tasso (Milano: Marzorati, 1957). Along the same lines of Ronga’s much more cautious approach on the issue, see M. G. Accorsi, “Musicato, per musica, musicale. Riflessioni intorno ad Aminta,” Torquato Tasso e la cultura estense 3. Il Teatro del Tasso, ed. G. Venturi (Firenze: Olschki, 1999). 101 In his Arcadia, Sannazaro calls it “dolce suono” (10, 3); whereas Tasso uses the expression “dolci carmi”—see Gerusalemme liberata (VII, 56).

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In the Compendio, after having asserted the intrinsic tie between poetry and music—“musica ad un parto medesimo nata con la poesia” (“music at once born with poetry”)102—Guarini calls on the historical authority of Polybius (Book IV) in order to prove that in Arcadia musical and poetic practice were natural to the shepherds, who were well trained in both: Che tutti gli Arcadi eran poeti che’l principale esercizio loro era quel della musica; che l’apparavano da fanciulli, che le leggi a ciò fare li costringevano. che i Cori de’ loro fanciulli avvezzavano a celebrare col canto le lodi dei loro Iddii. Che’n questa professione hebbero per maestri i più famosi musici della Grecia. che tutta nei canti e ne’ versi la vita loro, la loro industria spendevano.103 (That all the Arcadians were poets; that music was their principal artistic exercise; that they were musically trained as children; that this was mandated by their laws; that the choirs of their children were used to celebrate with songs the praise of their gods; that they had the most famous musicians of Greece teaching them this profession; that they spent all their lives and all their energy singing and writing verses.)

From the mythical realm of Theocritus, Virgil, Sannazaro, and Politian, Guarini moves to the historical realm of Polybius, providing relevant evidence supporting the verisimilitude of singing in a dramatic pastoral setting. In doing so, he clearly recycles a lot of ideas by earlier music theoreticians—such as Girolamo Mei, Vincenzo Galilei and other members of the Florentine Camerata—who advocated melodrama.104 However, whereas the latter were actually vindicating the intrinsic tie between poetry and music, essentially espousing the humanistic cause of reviving ancient tragedy,105 Guarini does something quite different: looking at the here Guarini, Compendio, 9. Guarini, Compendio, 33. 104 In his Dialogo della musica antica et moderna (1581), Vincenzo Galilei had 102

103

already mentioned that the shepherds used to cultivate the arts of music and poetry. See A. Carapetyan, “The Concept of imitazione della natura in Sixteenth Century,” Journal of Renaissance and Baroque Music 1 (1946): 64. Among other possibly relevant sources, for Guarini’s defense of music, I shall also mention Girolamo Mei’s De modis musicis antiquorum di G. Mei (1573), a momentous study on classical tragedy and the role of music therein. The fourth book of this treaty contains an extended commentary on catharsis and its musical and medical significance. On this see Palisca, “The Alterati,” 423. On Girolamo Mei, see also Accorsi, Musicato, 906–8. 105 For a general discussion of the aesthetics of the Florentine Camerata, besides the above-mentioned works of Palisca and Russano Hanninng, see also N. Pirrotta, “Tragédie et comédie dans la Camerata Fiorentina,” Musique et Poésie au XVI siècle (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1954); and by the same author “Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata,” Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque: A Collection of Essays, trans. D. Morgenstern (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

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and now, he argues for the legitimacy of a modern genre (pastoral tragicomedy), and defends singing in theater specifically on the grounds of the most sacred principle of Aristotelian verisimilitude: pastoral drama, since it imitates actions of shepherds, necessarily has to be sung; otherwise it would not be verisimilar, and would thus fail to purge.106 Hence, he resorts to Polybius’ authoritative word, in order to sustain his argument. With this momentous move, not only does he assess the sisterly bond between music and poetry, he goes much further, pointing to pastoral drama as a new artistic territory where the presence of music—the music of notes,107 to be sure, with all its cathartic potential—is not only welcome but also lawful, and even indispensable: Chi vorrà dire che gente avvezza a non discorrere, a non pensare, a non esercitare non altro che nobilissimi canti e leggiadrissime poesie … non favellassero più di quello, che dir si possa altamente, e spiritosamente, ogni volta che veniva alcuna grande occasione di farlo … perché non farà lecito a noi di fare ornatamente parlare i Sacerdoti e gli Eroi, la cui professione e per costume e per legge non era altro che musica e poesia?108 (Who would want to argue that people accustomed to do nothing but speak, think, exercise the most noble songs and finest poetry would not speak more than highly and spiritedly every time a great occasion to do so came along? … why then shouldn’t we be allowed to have these high priests and heroes speak in an ornate fashion, since their profession by custom and by law was nothing else but music and poetry?)

Pastoral poetry must be sung for the mere reason that singing is verisimilar (i.e. likely) in a pastoral setting: a simple yet quite convincing argument. Guarini’s innovative approach to the defense of music neither follows the Pythagorean logic of the music of the spheres, nor is it based on Ficino’s metaphysics of music, nor does it espouse the classicist antiquarian agenda that wants to revive ancient tragedy by exploiting the mythical cathartic power of music. Instead, it follows University Press, 1985); B. Russano Hanning, “Rinuccini and the Power of Music,” On Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980); H. M. Brown, “How Opera Began: An Introduction to Jacopo Peri’s Euridice,” Opera I (New York: Garland, 1985). 106 Note that, since Robortello, the pragmatic effectiveness of tragedy (i.e. catharsis) is strictly related to the credibility of what is represented; in other words the very end of tragedy depends on verisimilitude. This Aristotelian theme is recurring in all Renaissance commentators. See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 112. 107 It is a fact that the Pastor Fido required instrumental and vocal music. See L. Sampson, “The Mantuan Performance of Guarini’s Pastor Fido and Representations of Courtly Identity,” The Modern Language Review 98 (2003): 76. 108 Guarini, Compendio, 33.

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the pragmatic logic of a playwright with a poetic agenda. In this respect, it is important to point out that Guarini manages to make music or sung speech an integral part of a comprehensive theory of modern drama, thereby reversing a general movement toward the gradual exclusion of music in the development of a classicizing literary theater.109 Moreover, he brings to completion what music theoreticians were already working on, yet without fully succeeding at it. In fact, it is well known that the arguments of the Camerata in favor of music in theater were only based on the grounds of the aesthetic value of the musical word, not on its verisimilitude in a dramatic setting. At this point it is clear that behind Guarini’s skillful rhetoric in favor of sung speech there is not only the seasoned entertainer, who is trying to yield to the growing demands of a music-loving court.110 There is also the experienced playwright and moralist, who knows how to exploit all the elements of dramatic discourse, including music in order to accomplish his aesthetic goal. His defense of the likeliness of singing in pastoral drama is thus directly related to the pragmatic effectiveness of the therapy: the ‘spoonful of sugar’ not only makes the medicine go down, it also makes it work.111 In this light, it is easy to see how such defense could have provided a more solid aesthetic foundation for the development of early opera.112 While Tasso had inspired composers to express the most sincere 109 Gerbino points out how the development of a classicizing literary theater entails the expulsion of music from the dramatic action. See G. Gerbino, Orpheus in Arcadia: The Creation of Pastoral Mode in the Sixteenth-century Madrigal (dissertation, Duke University, 2001/Ann Arbor, UMI, 2001) 167–75. 110 That music is in the back of Guarini’s mind as he formulates his dramaturgy is quite obvious, judging from the following passage: “sperando pur che dovesse la poesia correre una fortuna medesima con la musica sua sorella, che nella nostra corte ha pur trovato il suo premio” (“hoping also that poetry may share a similar fortune with her sister, who in this court has found her prize”). See Lettere del signor cavaliere Battista Guarini nobile ferrarese sotto capi divise da Agostino Michele et in questa ultima impressione accresciute e corrette con ogni diligenza (Venezia: Battista Ciotti, 1615) 98. At that time, with The Three Ladies of Ferrara (Lucrezia and Isabella Bendidio, and Laura Peperara and later Guarini’s daughter Anna), and the musical direction of Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Tarquinia Molza, music had become one of the favorite forms of entertainment of Alfonso II. On this see Rossi Battista Guarini, 34, and also 50ff. On the fruitful artistic relationship existing between Luzzaschi and Guarini, see E. Durante and A. Martellotti, “Il cavalier Guarini e il Concerto delle Dame,” Guarini la musica, i musicisti, ed. A. Pompilio (Lucca: LIM, 1997). 111 This discussion has been purposefully restricted to the elements of poetry and music. On the relevance of visual or scenographic elements in pastoral dramaturgy (indeed a ‘spoonful of sugar’ in its own right), see A. Cavicchi, “Immagini e forme dello spazio scenico nella pastorale ferrarese,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell ‘Europa del Cinque-Seicento, ed. Maria Chiabò and Federico Doglio (Roma: Centro Studi sui Teatro Medioevale e Rinascimentale, 1991) 45–52. 112 N. Pirrotta, “Inizio dell’opera e aria,” Li due Orfei. Da Poliziano a Monteverdi (Torino: Einaudi, 1975).

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form of human sentiment through musical means,113 Guarini now gives them the necessary theoretical groundwork to claim the ethical value of the musico-poetic expression of that very sentiment. Only a few years before the experimental works of Peri, Caccini, and Monteverdi, sung speech is given a legitimate ethical space: the pastoral stage, where the word set to music is verisimilar and thus indeed cathartic. What had been a purely theoretical contention, based on the ancient ethical function of music originally vindicated by Aristotle, with Guarini becomes a reality, supported by with the full force of sixteenth-century literary theory. By the turn of the century music is officially made part of the complex language of theater. No longer wishful thinking, Monteverdi’s famous vindication of the purging power of music—“Io la musica son, ch’ai dolci accenti / so far tranquillo ogni turbato core” (“I am music, who in sweet accents / can calm each troubled heart”)114— is now, thanks to Guarini, finally a matter of fact. In this light, one may say that the Pastor Fido is much more than just the product of an artistic environment highly appreciative of music. It is indeed the product of an artistic environment that, under the influence of Aristotle’s Poetics, is becoming particularly keen on the poetic implications of a new composite art form.115 This eventually leads to the development of a form of theater which effectively synthesizes the research on melodrama and pastoral poetry conducted respectively by the Florentine Camerata and by Tasso.116 It has been noted repeatedly that the Pastor Fido represents a crucial moment in the actualization of this new form of theater.117 This discussion corroborates that contention; but most importantly, it tries to give a clear understanding of the aesthetic import that pertains to such actualization. Placing musico-poetic language on the dramatic stage is indeed a remarkable thing to do, especially if it works; thoroughly exploiting the Aristotelian theoretical apparatus in order to make this musico-poetic language legitimately therapeutic—thus turning musico-poetic discourse into a powerful form of moral discourse—is arguably even more remarkable. Finally, it is also important to mention that, if music is indeed the ‘spoonful of sugar’ that makes Guarini’s art of purging work, it is also an important argument in favor of Guarini’s often criticized, artful, and thus problematic, understanding of verisimilitude. The necessity of music on the pastoral stage, for reasons of 113 See L. Ronga, “La nascita del melodramma,” Teatro del Seicento (Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1956) 43. 114 C. Monteverdi, Orfeo. For the text of the Orfeo, see the Appendix in Russano Hanning, On Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of Opera. 115 Cavazzini, “Padova,” 138. 116 F. Angelini, Il Pastor fido,” Letteratura Italiana, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa, Le Opere, 4 vols (Torino: Einaudi, 1992–1994) 717. 117 See A. Cavicchi, “Teatro monteverdiano e tradizione teatrale ferrarese,” Claudio Monteverdi e il suo tempo. Atti dell’omonimo congresso internazionale, Venezia-MantovaCremona 3-7 maggio 1968, ed. R. Monterosso (Verona: Stamperia Valdonega, 1969); A. A. Abert, “Tasso Guarini e l’opera,” Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 4: 5 (1970).

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verisimilitude, gives Guarini an excellent reason to justify the kind of lyrical (i.e. musical) poetic language that characterizes the Pastor Fido—a language which, as shall be discussed in Chapter 2, is absolutely crucial to his poetic enterprise. Without music such an artificial imitative choice would be hardly justifiable and almost impossible to defend. Guarini’s advocacy of the legitimacy of music in pastoral drama, then, is also an advocacy of the controversial lyrical option he has made; another compelling argument against his many critics. The ‘Paragone’ of the Genres With its unique dramaturgy that takes musical catharsis into the aesthetic domain of comedy, Guarini’s mixed-genre pastoral represents an effective response to a series of problems experienced by the two dominant dramatic genres of the time: tragedy and comedy. It is probably not a coincidence that in a passage of the Verato secondo, Guarini symptomatically juxtaposes tragicomedy, tragedy, and comedy in a sort of paragone of the genres: Da che risulta un poema d’eccellentissima temperatura, non solo molto conforme all’umana complessione, che tutta solamente consiste nella temperie de’ quattro umori, ma della semplice Tragedia, e Commedia, molto più nobile, si come quello, che non ci reca l’atrocità de’ casi, il sangue, e le morti, che sono viste orribili, ed inumane, e non ci fa dall’altro canto dissoluti nel riso, che pecchiamo contra la modestia e il decoro d’huom costumato.118 (Whence there results a poem of most excellent temperament, not only very fitting to the human complexion—which as a whole consists only in the temperate mixture of the four humors—but much more noble than simple tragedy and comedy, as a poem which does not bring us the atrocity of misfortune, blood and deaths, which are horrible and inhuman sights, and on the other hand does not make us so dissolute in laughter that we sin against modesty and against the decorum of a well-behaved man.)

Tragedy, on the one hand, is too horrifying and thus clashes with modern sensibility. Comedy, on the other hand, possibly elicits dissolute laughter that leads to moral degradation. Tragicomedy, with its tempered mixture of tragic and comic generic features, provides the perfect third way: the “tempered”119 way. Guarini’s statement about tragedy and comedy is undoubtedly a critical one; and, despite his obvious vested interest, it is also a fair assessment of the actual 118 Guarini, Il Verato secondo 156, qtd. in Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism, 2: 1087 (translation by Weinberg). 119 For a discussion of tragicomedy as a “tempering” of comedy and tragedy, see Henke, Pastoral, 159–61.

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state of paralysis experienced by contemporary dramaturgy.120 Comedy, since the heydays of Bibbiena, Machiavelli, and Ariosto’s imitations of Terence and Plautus, had degenerated to a dissolute form of entertainment, hardly suited for a poet with lofty moral aspirations such as Guarini.121 Even more problematic was the state of tragedy, whose ethical function, challenged by Boccaccio,122 was still the object of the above-mentioned strife between via remotionis and via moderations. Moreover, there was the already mentioned problematic separation between “utility” (purgation) and “delight” (intellectual fruition) that Castelvetro had introduced, thereby ultimately driving a wedge between the ethics and the aesthetics of tragedy: Ora non ha dubbio niuno che Aristotele intese per la voce ήδουή, la purgazione e lo scacciamento dello spavento e della compassione dagli animi umani per opera di queste medesime passioni, nella guisa che abbiamo di sopra al largo dichiarato. La quale purgazione e lo quale scacciamento, posto che procedessero, sì come egli afferma, da queste medesime passioni, veggasi quanto propriamente si possano domandare ήδουή cioè “piacere” o “diletto,” dovendosi dirittamente chiamare “utilità,” poiché è sanità d’anima acquistata per medicina assai amara. Adunque il piacere nascente dalla compassione e dallo spavento, che è veramente piacere è quello che noi di sopra chiamammo piacere oblico; e è quando noi, sentendo dispiacere della miseria altrui ingiustamente avenutagli, ci riconosciamo essere buoni, poiché le cose ingiuste ci dispiacciono; la quale riconoscenza, per l’amore naturale che noi portiamo a noi stessi, ci è di piacere grandissimo. (Poetica, 391)

Selmi, Classici, 17–18. Guarini gives a fully-fledged statement on the dire state of contemporary comedy in

120 121

the Prologue of his comedy Idropica (Venezia: Ciotti, 1613). On the problems that affected also the more decorous commedia grave and commedia erudita, see Henke, Pastoral, 20. For a contextualization of Guarini’s criticism to the excesses of the Commedia dell’Arte, see R. Tessari, “Il mercato delle Maschere,” Storia del teatro moderno e contemporaneo, ed. R. Alonge and G. Davico Bonino (Torino: Einaudi, 2000) 1: 119–24. 122 As is well known, Boccaccio had raised a series of objections on the legitimacy of purgation of pity. Guarini is obviously well aware of them. As a matter of fact, he expressly refers to the author of the Decameron in the part of Il Verrato primo, where he defends the legitimacy of purging pity. See Guarini, Delle opere 2: 248. For another important reference to Boccaccio in the context of the discussion on purgation, see the passage of the Compendio cited at the beginning of this chapter. In the persona of Boccaccio, Guarini identifies a long tradition, still well represented by the likes of Maggi, that, based on the standards of Christian morality, raised serious doubts on the propriety of purging compassion in tragedy. For this aspect of Maggi’s poetics, see Hathaway, The Age, 221–4. With regard to the paragone between epic and drama in late Renaissance literary theory, specifically with regard to the issue of purgation, see Rivoltella, “La scena,” 119.

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(Now there is no doubt that by ήδουή (delight) Aristotle intended the purgation and the chasing off of fear and compassion from the human soul, by means of these same passions, in the way that we have already discussed at length. Such purgation and chasing off, given that they proceed, as he holds, from the very same passions, one can see how appropriately they may be inquired as ήδουή, that is, pleasure or delight, since they should be correctly named “utility,” because it is sanity of the soul acquired through bitter medicine. Then, the pleasure that comes from compassion (pity) and fear, that truly is pleasure, is that which above we have named oblique pleasure; which occurs when we, feeling sorry for the misery that has unjustly occurred to others, recognize ourselves to be good, since unjust things displease us; that recognition, for the natural love that we have for ourselves, pleases us greatly.)

Tragedy, however, did not only pose a problem from the point of view of poetics; it was also posing problems at the level of dramaturgy. In fact, not withstanding the fact that in the wake of Gilardi Cinzio’s Orbecche (1541) and Sperone Speroni’s Canace (1542) tragedy had indeed become a crucial experimental ground for the future evolution of early modern drama as a whole,123 the heated debate that ensued the publication of Speroni’s play transformed this genre into the object of a bitter academic contention.124 Finally, little did it help that Tasso, the author with whom Guarini was directly competing, had essentially assimilated tragicomedy to a tragedy with a happy ending, thus clearly implying that it was from tragedy that he had drawn, while writing his tragicomedy ante litteram:125 the Aminta (see Chapter 3). In short, tragedy had become an extremely controversial, although not fruitless, genre; which may possibly explain why Guarini systematically chooses to deny

See Selmi, Classici, 89–136. On the heated debate developing in the aftermath of Speroni’s Canace, see

123 124

Mastrocola, L’idea, 187–237. 125 According to Ingegneri, it is indeed Tasso who is responsible for establishing what he calls the “third species” of drama: “Dietro a costoro venne d’acuto ed elevato intelletto lo Speroni, e additò per aventura colla sua Canace la strada, per la quale camminando poi più felicemente nell’Aminta il giudiciosissimo Tasso, non pure egli eccitò (come s’è detto) molti sublimi ingegni alla composizione di diverse tragedie, commedie e pastorali, ma egli ebbe in sorte di stabilire questa terza spezie di drama, prima o non ricevuta o non apprezzata od almeno non posta nella guisa in uso che s’è fatto d’allora in qua” (“After them came Speroni, who, with his acute and elevated wit, had the chance to break the path with his Canace; a path which was later to be followed more succesfully in the Aminta by Tasso, who not only excited many bright minds to compose numerous tragedies, comedies, and pastorals but also had the chance to establish this third species of drama, which had either not been well received or appreciated or fashioned in the way it has been then on”). See A. Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Ferrara: Edizioni Panini, 1989) 4 (my translation).

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any direct association with the cothurnus,126 even as he is crafting a dramaturgy that is undeniably involved with it. His solution to the paralysis of the two main dramatic genres instead comes from the uncharted territory of tragicomedy—the mixed genre. It does not specifically intend to substitute either tragedy or comedy,127 but shows an awareness of their respective problems and, most importantly, a clear plan to overcome them by means of a new “meta-genre” of dramatic poetry: a third autonomous choice,128 As already mentioned, Guarini makes every possible effort to avoid to associate tragicomedy with tragedy, even that with a happy ending. At the voice “The tragic affects do not pertain to tragicomedy unless they are bridled” (“Gli affetti tragici non entrano della Tragicommedia se non rintuzzati”), Guarini writes: “la Tragicommedia non ha gli affetti tragici accompagnati col riso, può bene havere alcune parti, che sono atte a muoverli, ma non a purgarli, ne tragici dir si possono, se non purgano: et se si adimamdasse, se questi affetti sarebbono essi per se bastevoli a purgare, se’l riso se ne levasse, direi di no mancando loro la compagnia dell’altre parti, che possano star col riso, le quali [parti pertinenti alla tragicommedia] senza dubbio non forano per se sole sufficienti a purgare gli affetti tragici. La onde si conchiude che la Tragicommedia non è Tragedia ridente; non essendo in verun modo Tragedia” (“Tragicomedy does not have the tragic affects accompanied with laughter: it can have some parts that may move them [the tragic affects] but can not purge them; nor can they be called tragic, if they are not purging; and if one were to ask if these affects, in and of themselves, are sufficient to purge, if one were to remove laughter, I would say no, since other parts that could be with laughter are missing. Those parts [pertaining to tragicomedy] by themselves are certainly not sufficient to purge the tragic affects. From this we may conclude that tragicomedy is not a Tragedy with laughter, since it is not in any way a Tragedy”). Guarini also argues that tragicomedy should by no means be compared to the Aristotelian Tragedia doppia, since the comic effect aims at tempering the tragic effect in the latter, instead in the former it intends to entirely destroy it. Furthermore the Tragedia doppia chastises the bad guys, tragicomedy instead doesn’t, thus remaining on the comic end of the dramatic spectrum. See Guarini, Compendio, 38–40. Guarini’s firm dissociation from tragedy should also be placed in the context of his attempt at providing a history of pastoral drama that, in contrast with that provided by Ingegneri, would disclaim its ties to the tragic canon. For a comparative study of Guarini and Ingegneri’s approaches at tracing the history of pastoral drama, see L. Riccò, “Ben mille pastorali”. L’itinerario dell’Ingegneri da Tasso a Guarini e oltre (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004) 17–26. 127 Baldassarri holds that Guarini’s main objective was not to substitute tragicomedy with tragedy, but to “equate the first to the second.” He thus speaks of tragicomedy as a “metagenere teatrale” (“theatrical meta-genre”), fully updated to modern criteria. See G. Baldassarri, “Introduzione,” II Pastor Fido, by Battista Guarini, ed. Elisabetta Selmi (Venezia: Marsilio, 1999) 19. Selmi nicely compares and contrasts Guarini’s sensible update of the Aristotelian archetype and Giraldi Cinzio’s modernistic stance in favor of the ‘romanzo’ over classic epic. See Selmi, Classici, 18–19. 128 The idea of pastoral drama as a third autonomous way that specifically conflates the aesthetics of tragedy and comedy can be found in Giovanni Savio’s apology to the Pastor Fido: “chi mira le persone e il nodo della favola pieno di terrore e di compassione, la terrà per tragedia; ma chi rivolge gli occhi … allo scioglimento … lieto e festoso, dirà ch’ella è Commedia: ma se meglio ogni cosa … comparando vorrà farne giudizio, s’avvederà non 126

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which not only allows for the necessary “exploratory transgressions;”129 it also allows for the fulfillment of the lofty moral aspirations vindicated by sixteenthcentury literary theory, in the wake of Aristotle’s Poetics. Thus, one could think of tragicomedy as a clever solution to a critical state of affairs in late Renaissance poetics and dramaturgy;130 a solution that, as has been shown, entails the fusion of the constitutive formal elements of both comedy and tragedy. The resulting mix of “fine lieto” (“happy ending) and “fine luttuoso” (“sorrowful ending”) is the difficult format it breeds:131 a compromise, not only between two genres at a critical time but also between two different forms of rhetorical modes (pathos and ethos); however, a compromise with a competitive edge, ultimately aimed at defending the legitimacy of early-modern drama,132 and to establishing its excellence vis-à-vis essere né pura Tragedia, né pura Commedia, ma un terzo misto, che tragicommedia si appella” (“he who looks at the characters and at the plot of the tale full of terror and compassion, will consider it a tragedy; but he who turns to the denouement merry and festive, will say that it is a Comedy: but if one were to carefully consider it with respect to both Tragedy and Comedy, one will realize that it is neither pure Tragedy nor pure Comedy, but a third [mixed] genre, which goes by the name of Tragicomedy”). See Giovanni Savio, Apologia (1601), qtd in Cavazzini, “Padova,” 163. Savio’s statement essentially echoes Guarini’s definition of the Pastor Fido: “una favola sola di pastorali persone, di Tragedia e Commedia, ma tessuta comicamente ch’è un sol poema” (“a tale of pastoral characters, of Tragedy and Comedy, but spun comically, which is one whole poem”). See Guarini, Compendio, 52. Also, about the autonomy of the mixed genre of tragicomedy (“il misto”), as opposed to the double-genres of ‘tragedia doppia’ or ‘a lieto fine’ (“il doppio”), Guarini significantly points out that: “Il primo [il misto] si può paragonare al favoloso Ermafrodito … Il secondo [il doppio] è simile di uomo che si abbracci con donna” (“the first is mixed, and you can compare it to the fabulous hermaphrodite … The second [the double] resembles a man hugging a woman”). See Guarini, Compendio, 6. Thus, Guarini significantly underscores the legitimacy and autonomy of tragicomedy with respect to both comedy and tragedy. On the difficult history of this third choice, see M. Treherne, “The Difficult Emergence of Pastoral Tragicomedy: Guarini’s Il pastor fido and its Critical Reception in Italy, 1586–1601,” Early Tragicomedy, ed. S. Mukherji and R. Lyne (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007) 28–42. 129 See L. G. Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 13. 130 For a more extensive evaluation of Guarini’s contribution to sixteenth-century dramaturgy, also with respect to the querelle between the classicists and the modernists, see Selmi, Classici, 11–74. 131 Scarpati speaks about an integration of “fine lieto” and “fine luttuoso” in the Pastor Fido, underscoring also the audacity of such a solution. See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 101. To be sure, Castelvetro had openly rejected the happy ending for tragedy. See Castelvetro, Poetica, 383. 132 The legitimacy of dramatic poetry, particularly of comedy, had been dismissed by Augustine, Boethius, Petrarch, and, with some exceptions, also by Boccaccio. See L. Panizza, “Italian Humanists and Boethius: was Philosophy for or against Poetry,” New Perspectives on Renaissance Thought. Essays in the History of Science, Education and Philosophy: in Memory of C. B. Schmitt, ed. J. Henry and S. Hutton (London: Duckworth, 1990) 58–60.

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other literary genres: at the level of content—for the new thematic riches it could bear133—, but most importantly at the level of purgation, for the efficacy of its new tragic-in-the-comic purging formula. In this respect, Guarini’s tragicomedy is an effective hybrid that capitalizes on both the “utility” and the “delight” of tragedy in order to rescue the dignity of comedy. Its “tempered laughter,” which combines cathartic arousal of moral pity and fear, on the one hand, and purgation of melancholy through laughter, on the other hand, accomplishes the architectonic ends of both comedy and tragedy. So, by formally rejecting tragedy, while allocating the full ethical mission that sixteenth-century poetics had vindicated for it in the comic space, tragicomedy carefully avoids to be bogged down in the vexed question of tragic purgation and tragic stylistics; at the same time, it brilliantly solves that very question by effectively synthesizing tragic and comic forms of purgation and style. Guarini, then, combines what Rivoltella rightly calls the evasive perspective of decorous laughter and the strictly ethical perspective of catharsis.134 The fusion of these two perspectives makes up the particular edifying aesthetics of the Pastor Fido; and the staple of such edifying aesthetics, the “tempered laughter,” significantly bespeaks that fusion, even at the etymological level. Preliminary Conclusions Guarini’s art of purging is the art of inducing tragicomic “temperamento” by means of a composite affectivity that combines pathos and ethos. This transforms the poetry of the Pastor Fido into an extraordinary therapy against melancholy. The staple of that therapy is a catharsis-based “tempered laughter” that also legitimately capitalizes on music. The study of the tragic-in-the-comic formula, which this particular form of laughter is the result of, has suggested that in Guarini’s notion of tragicomic purgation, besides the upfront claim for comedy, there’s an equally strong investment in tragedy. This somehow dissimulated investment is implied in Guarini’s very notion of purgation as “temperamento,” as well as in his serious interest in catharsis proper that characterizes particularly the Compendio; a catharsis essentially conceived according to a homeopathic principle—very much in line with that of his friend and fellow theorist Lorenzo Giacomini—which Guarini effectively reinterprets on the basis of a Christian ethics. Moreover, Guarini’s investment in tragedy is also implied in his masterful 133 Scarpati notes that through the “tale of salvation” (“favola di salvazione”) that underlies the Pastor Fido, Guarini intended to ignite the a-temporal space of the pastoral with an “‘heroic’ design of epic nature” akin to that of the Gerusalemme liberata, which would allow it to compete with the “symbolic resonances” present in Tasso’s epic. See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 101. This suggestion is further elaborated by Selmi, who calls the Pastor Fido a μΰθος of salvation, thereby emphasizing its Classical capital. See Selmi, Classici, 122–3. 134 See Rivoltella, “La scena,” 144.

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use of the fashionable peripetia, cleverly inscribed within a general dynamics of danger where probable death substitutes actual death. Thus, it is safe to say that Guarini’s art of purging remains greatly indebted to the neo-Aristotelian school, and specifically to the defense of the utile of tragedy; an utile that Guarini is painstakingly trying to maintain at the discretion of the poet/philosopher, not of the politician or the theologian; and most importantly, an utile that Guarini is able to place under the aegis of a more orthodox Aristotelian ήδουή (pleasure) that combines aesthetic fruition or delight with ethical purgation. With this newly found harmony of ethics and aesthetics, the Pastor Fido aims at reassessing that very same excellence of dramatic poetry vindicated by the Philosopher himself,135 and thus to seriously challenge Plato’s repudiation of poetry. In its difficult equilibrium of “tragedic” and “comedic”136 lies to a certain extent its curse,137 as well as the key to its great future success, throughout the seventeenth century, all the way to Metastasio’s melodrama.

135 “Et però considerando il grande Aristotile, che l’unità maravigliosa, et necessaria parte d’ogni poema, riesce tanto maggiore, et più artifiziosa quant’ella, a guisa di ricca gemma, in corpo picciolo si restringe, non dubitò d’anteporre la Tragica all’Epica poesia maggior di corpo certo, et di tempo, ma di diletto, et d’artifizio di gran lunga minore” (“thus, having Aristotle observed that the marvelous unity—a necessary part of every poem—is that much greater and artificious the more it is resctricted to a small body, as it happens with rich gems, I don’t have any doubts to put tragic poetry in front of epic poetry, which is certainly a larger body of work and more time consuming, but way inferior with respect to the artifice”). Guarini, Compendio, 64. 136 Traditionally scholars tend to emphasize the “comedic” in Guarini’s tragicomedy. This is the case of the above-mentioned works by Weinberg and Hathaway. It is also the case of Clubb’s suggestive tropological analysis of themes and “theatergrams” of comedy in the Pastor Fido (see Clubb, Italian Drama, 1–26, 92–123), Ricco’s above-mentioned comparative study of Ingegneri and Guarini’s attempts at a history of pastoral drama, and Sampson’s discussion of the poetic background of Guarini’s pastoral (see Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 134–41). This work, rather than contradicting these views, seeks to shed a little extra light on the “tragedic” of Guarini’s tragicomedy, thereby following up on a line of enquiry convincingly established in the above-mentioned works by Rivoltella, Henke, and Selmi. For the “comedic” and “tragedic” terminology, see Henke, Pastoral, 16–17. 137 It suffices to think about the almost 20-year long academic controversy that develops around it; a controversy, I should mention, that ultimately will end up on the table of the Inquisition. On this see Toffanin, La fine, 141–58. For the problematic political implications of tragicomedy, see Henke, Pastoral, 166–8. On the relevance of the Pastor Fido in the Italo-French debate on tragicomedy developing in the course of the eighteenth century, see E. Sala di Felice, “Il Pastor Fido e la tragicommedia nella polemica Orsi-Bouhours,” Dalla tragedia rinascimentale alla tragicommedia barocca. Esperienze teatrali a confronto in Italia e in Francia. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio (Verona-Mantova 9–12 ottobre, 1991), ed. E. Mosele (Fasano: Schena, 1993).

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Chapter 2

The Art of Teaching The previous chapter has shown that Arcadia is indeed the designated place in the collective imagination where the affects of heartbroken lovers are purged as they sympathize or affectively respond to the accurately crafted musical grieving and rejoicing of their pastoral counterparts. The dramatic pastoral, then, not only claims to be a therapy it is actually built to be one. The analysis conducted so far has allowed a first appreciation of affectivity in pastoral drama, in the context of late Renaissance neo-Aristotelian aesthetics; it thus has allowed to discuss the poetic/rhetorical matter of pastoral drama as specifically conducive to a therapeutic function. Temperament in pastoral drama, however, does not only result from dramaturgic wit per se. A scrupulously designed plot with a specific purging vocation, in and of itself, hardly constitutes a powerful therapy (i.e. lesson in morals), unless it is also able to tap into deeper cognitive structures or socio-cultural conventions that are crucial for the arousal of moral affects in the audience. This is exactly what Clubb implies, when she reminds us that Arcadia is also the designated place where heartbroken lovers learn about love and are taught how to love properly; but most importantly, when she reminds us that Arcadia is the place where the dramatized action of love’s motions in all its psychological mutations and developments is staged for pedagogic purposes. In this light, it would be safe to say that temperament in pastoral drama is the effect induced by a poetic/ rhetorical matter (or affectivity) that moves, and thus tempers the affects of the audience, inasmuch as it teaches. Temperament is therefore an effect based on the persuasiveness and affect-rousing potential of an artful matter (affectivity) which is inherently pedagogical. Following up on this fundamental assumption, this chapter intends to properly integrate the critical analysis conducted so far in order to bring to the fore the synergy of dramaturgy and pedagogy that characterizes “temperamento” in pastoral drama. In evaluating the pedagogical implications that pertain to poetic imitation, it is important to keep in mind that the Renaissance dramatic pastoral not only  See L. G. Clubb, “The Pastoral Play: Conflations of Country, Court and City,” Il teatro italiano del Rinascimento, ed. M. Panizza Lorch (Milano: Comunità, 1980) 73. On the pragmatic aspects of Guarini’s literary craft, see F. Angelini, Il Teatro barocco (RomaBari: Laterza, 1975) 10.  See L. G. Clubb, Italian Drama in Shakespeare’s Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 14. For another compelling interpretation of Arcadia as allegory of academic life, see M. Fumaroli, “Académie, Arcadie, Parnasse: trois lieux allégoriques du loisir lettré,” L’École du silence (Paris: Flammarion, 1994).

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capitalizes on the great doctrinal wealth produced by a century particularly keen on love matters, it also relies on the poetic means through which such a doctrine is being imitated since Pietro Bembo’s Asolani. It is such poetic means that transform the neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy of the pastoral into an extraordinary poetic enchantment with momentous therapeutic aspirations. Petrarch’s mastery will thus prove to be as crucial as Plato’s or Ficino’s. Therefore a few introductory words on sixteenth-century Petrarchism are in order. Petrarch’s Mastery It is well known that the Canzoniere was absorbed by Cinquecento lyric poets not only in its so called “abstract emanation” as an example of language and style, but also as an essential experience of ethical and religious regeneration through love and death. It is also known that Petrarchists did certainly not overlook or  On the relevance of the neo-Platonic philosophy of love in Tasso’s Aminta, see G. Da Pozzo, L’ambigua armonia. Studio sull’’Aminta’ del Tasso (Firenze: Olschki, 1983) 130–142. Angelini holds that the Pastor Fido concludes a century of discussions, tracts, dialogues, and lyric poetry focused on the nature and quality of love, such as Bembo’s Asolani, Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, Betussi’s Raverta, as well as the dialogues of Tullia of Aragon, Varchi, Speroni, Sansovino, Gottifredi, Piccolomini, and Firenzuola. See Angelini, Il Teatro, 17.  For a nice survey on the pervasiveness of Petrarchism in Renaissance pastoral drama, see R. Gigliucci, “‘Al sommo di ogni contentezza’: petrarchismo e favola pastorale,” I territori del petrarchismo. Frontiere e sconfinamenti, ed. C. Montagnani (Roma: Bulzoni, 2005) 117–31.  Di Pino sees Petrarchism essentially as a selection and consolidation of Petrarch’s formal values: in Bembo the focus is more on meter and sound (the phonic norm); in Della Casa on language (the rhythmic norm). See G. Di Pino, “L’interpretazione del Petrarca nella lirica del Bembo e del Casa,” Studi petrarcheschi 7 (1961): 171–2. His analysis, however, leaves the moral norm, that is, the pedagogic issue, untouched.  For a critical approach particularly keen on the formal aspects of Petrarchism, see E. Bigi, “Petrarchismo ariostesco,” Dal Petrarca al Leopardi (Milano-Napoli: Ricciardi, 1954). For the relevance of Petrarchism in Tasso’s Aminta, see C. Varese, Torquato Tasso: Epos— Parola—Scena (Firenze: D’Anna, 1976) 155ff. For the relevance of the Petrarchan model in the Pastor Fido, see D. Battaglin, “Il linguaggio tragicomico del Guarini e l’elaborazione del Pastor fido,” Lingua e strutture del teatro italiano del Rinascimento (Padova: Liviana, 1970); and N. J. Perella, “Heroic Virtue and Love in the Pastor Fido,” Atti del Real Istituto veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 132 (1973–1974): 705ff. For a comprehensive study, and extensive bibliography on Petrarchism, see A. Quondam, Petrarchismo mediato (Bulzoni: Roma, 1974).  See P. V. Mengaldo, “La lirica volgare del Sannazaro e lo sviluppo del linguaggio poetico rinascimentale,” La Rassegna della letterarura italiana 66 (1962): 439. For Benedetto Varchi’s paradigmatic Platonic reading of Petrarch, see L. Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo italiano nel Cinquecento (Padova: Liviana, 1974) 79ff. Notwithstanding

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underestimate the psychological implications pertaining to such experience. Thus, it is safe to say that the sixteenth century perfectly acknowledged the formal value of the Canzoniere as well as the Platonic allegory of initiation into Love that was already embedded—even if possibly ultimately downplayed—in its original structure,10 and that it proceeded to assimilate both through a process of humanistic imitatio of style and life.11 As pointed out in the previous chapter, the sixteenth century was also perfectly aware of the affective potential of Petrarch’s rhymes, and was eager to fully capitalize on it. Moreover, there is also proof that lyric poetry was considered as a wordy means of purgation—a means through which temperament could be achieved. The following sonnet by Antonio Montecatini is quite emblematic in this respect: Quello Spirito, Signor, che n’allontana Dal corpo, e all’alta mente vi conduce Dimostrandovi ’n Lei ciò che produce Ogni bellezza, ogni bontà mondana, Egli è che spande sua virtù sovrana Per le vostre alte rime; e ’n lor riluce Onde esse pregne di divina luce Risuonan altro che pur voce humana. his polemic with Varchi, even Castelvetro acknowledges the Platonic resonances in the Canzoniere, see E. Raimondi “Gli scrupoli di un filologo: Lodovico Castelvetro e il Petrarca,” Rinascimento inquieto (Palermo: U. Manfredi, 1965) 103–5.  See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 54.  See U. Dotti, “Introduzione,” Canzoniere, by Francesco Petrarca (Roma: Donzelli, 1996). 10 “Petrarch is first freed from despair, then from the carnal desire of Laura’s real body by death. Between that death and the final group of poems … the liberation or purification proceeds, under Laura’s influence, exerted through the apparitions in three stages. Petrarch is first freed from despair, then from carnal desire of Laura, finally from identifying his summum bonum with Laura, whether carnally or spiritually considered.” See K. Foster, Petrarch: Poet and Humanist (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984) 81. With regard to the pedagogic aspects of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, see M. Santagata, Dal Sonetto al Canzoniere (Padova: Liviana, 1979) 148. On the issue of redemption in Petrarch, see G. Gorni, “Metamorfosi e redenzione in Petrarca. Il senso della forma Correggio del Canzoniere,” Lettere italiane 30 (1978). 11 For the issue of imitatio vitae and imitatio stili, see Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 50ff.; Mengaldo, “La lirica,” 440; G. Regn, “Torquato Tassos zyklische Liebeslyrik und die petrarkistische Tradition,” Studien zur ‘Parte prima’ der ‘Rime’ (1591/1592) (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1987) 36. For a discussion of Petrarch’s influence on the code of courtly love, see A. Sole, “L’amore e la corte: la concezione dell’amore nel Cortegiano fra esemplarità petrarchesca e attualità cortigiana,” Il gentiluomo-cortigiano nel segno del Petrarca (Palermo: Palumbo, 1992).

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy Et s’egli a voi nelle vergate carte Lo stil move, e’l pensier, e lo intelletto A dir quanto il gran Padre gli comparte Per che non dee purgar dal suo imperfetto Col chiaro ardror, la miglior nostra parte Debil potenza a si eccellente oggetto?12 (That Spirit, Sir, that takes you away / from the body and leads you to the high intellect / that shows you what every beauty / and every modern goodness produces / It is He who spreads every sovereign virtue / Among your high rhymes, and shines through them / So that they, ripe with divine light, / Resonate with more than just a human voice. / And if He, through the engraved papers, / Moves style, and thought, and intellect / To say that which the great Father shares with Him / Why shouldn’t He, with clear ardor, purge from its imperfections / our better part, which is such weak power to such an excellent objective?)13

It is easy to see how this important therapeutic function of Petrarch’s rhymes, which is already recognized in Sylvano da Venafro’s commentary (1533),14 could have easily been enhanced, by reducing the traditional fragmentary nature of the Canzoniere form. An important first step in this direction had already been taken by Bembo, whose successful attempt at setting Petrarch’s erotic initiation within the framework of an epic-didactic genre is well known.15 This signaled the beginning of a tradition that even Tasso didn’t seem interested in breaking. In fact, we know that, since his youthful attempts during his association with the Accademia degli Eterei, Tasso’s lyrical activity (of which the Aminta is considered the logical extension16) was already characterized by a distinctive narrative sense, which got even more clearly defined and thematically enriched by the time it

12 See Ferrara Biblioteca Ariostea, ms. I 502, vol. 3, qtd in A. Corsaro, Percorsi dell’incredulità (Roma: Salerno, 2003) 133–4. 13 My translation. 14 See W. J. Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) 55. 15 See A. Noyer-Wiedner, “Lyrische Grundform und episch-didaktischer Überbietungsanspruch in Bembos Einleitungsgedicht,” Romanische Forschungen 86 (1974). Clear references to the Homeric and Vergilian diegetic model can be found already in Giovan Andrea Gesualdo’s famous commentary on Petrarch’s Canzoniere. On this see F. D’Alessandro, Petrarca e i moderni: da Machiavelli a Carducci (Pisa: ETS, 2007) 116–30. For an interesting Freudian reading of Bembo’s Rime as an epic of self-effacement, see Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch, 82–113. 16 See R. Fedi, “Torquato Tasso,” Storia della letteratura, ed. E. Malato, vol. 5 (Roma: Salerno, 1997) 256.

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culminated with the Chigiano codex;17 a narrative sense that, as openly declared in the introductory sonnet, had a didactic character: “Or con l’esempio mio gli accorti amanti, / leggendo i miei diletti e‘l van desire, / ritolgano ad Amor de l’alme il freno” (“Now, following my example, those who are careful lovers, / having read of my delights and my vain desire / should take back the bridle of their souls from Amor”).18 In this light, it is impossible not to see that, for sixteenth-century poets, imitating Petrarch also entailed the crafting of an affect rousing love-epic in lyrical format, with a specific didactic purpose. What kind of Petrarchan love-epic? Hardly that which modern readers are used to today: the story of the passionate earth-bound poet scolded by St Augustine, who finds in his difficult, fragmented human condition the inspiration for a poetry of memory as true introspection.19 Instead it was rather an epic of sublimation of desire and ascent to a higher love.20 A significant sign in this direction comes from Casterlvetro’s fairly linear reading of Petrarch’s initiation into Love: Prima ragiona del desiderio amoroso: pone la scusa o la cagione di questo desiderio e dalla disposizione di sua natura inchinata a amare e dall’essempio di nobilissime persone che sono state vinte da Amore e dalla bellezza di Laura … Poi pone le cagioni che l’hanno indutto a pentirsene, che sono la vita e la morte di Laura. La castità di Laura mentre visse fu sempre cagione d’incomportabile noia; il dolore sentito per la morte di Laura. Per le quali cose, e per un ragionamento di Laura apparentegli dopo morte, si sveglia, e s’avede d’aver fatto male ad aver amato e fermata la sua speranza in cosa mortale.21

17

See A. Martini, “Amore esce dal caos. L’organizzazione tematico-narrativa delle Rime Amorose del Tasso,” Filologia e critica 9 (1984); also see Regn, “Torquato,” 14ff. 18 See B. T. Sozzi, Opere, by T. Tasso, vol. 2 (1956; Torino: UTET, 1974) 693–4 (my translation). 19 As is well known, Dotti reads the Canzoniere as an unresolved struggle between redemption and perdition, a “via crucis” where only form and linguistic timbre function as harmonizing elements. See Dotti, “Introduzione,” 52. For the opposite hermeneutical perspective, see B. Martinelli, “L’ordinamento morale del Canzoniere,” Petrarca e il Ventoso (Bergamo: Minerva Italica, 1977) 217–300. For yet another reading of the Canzoniere that focuses on the issue of love as pleasurable suffering (dolendi voluptas) in Petrarch, see Regn, “Torquato,” 29ff. 20 Santagata’s reading of the Canzoniere as the story of a fulfilled itinerary of spiritual ascent still basically reflects this perspective. See M. Santagata, I frammenti dell’anima. Storia e racconto nel ‘Canzoniere’ (Bologna: Mulino, 1992). 21 L. Castelvetro, Le rime del Petrarca brevemente sposte, qtd in E. Bigi, “L’interesse per le strutture tematiche nel commento petrarchesco del Castelvetro,” Poesia latina e volgare nel Rinascimento italiano (Napoli: Morano, 1989) 399 (my translation). For a detailed discussion on Tasso’s interest for Castelvetro’s commentary of Petrarch, see G. Baldassarri, “Per un diagramma degli interessi culturali del Tasso. Le postille inedite al commento petrarchesco del Castelvetro,” Studi Tassiani 25 (1975).

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(First he discusses loving desire: as excuse or cause of such desire he posits his natural disposition to love, the example of very noble people that have been won over by Amor, and Laura’s beauty … Then he posits the reasons that have induced him to repent from that loving desire: which are the life and death of Laura. The chastity of Laura, while she was alive, was always reason of unbearable anguish for him; the grief for the death of Laura. For these reasons and for a line of reasoning brought forth by Laura, who had appeared to him after his death, he awakens, realizes that he had made a mistake to place his love and hopes in a mortal matter.)

It is important, however, to keep in mind that Petrarchists in general tended to read Petrarch’s allegory of initiation into Love as a “romance of love,” featuring a dialectic among different psychological states: from the moment when reason is subordinated to the senses; to the moment when the loss of hope gives way to the taedium vitae, hence to the desire for death; finally to the moment of new-found hope in God.22 Thus, notwithstanding the undeniable spiritual telos, sensual and pathetic overtones were not only contemplated but were meant to resonate periodically. The Petrarchan erotic initiation remained a fundamentally contradictory experience, also from the affective point of view, beginning with passionate love, and only eventually culminating with redemption. Sure enough, the Asolani—to pick one of the most orthodox examples of imitatio Petrarcae—with its three-step initiation from passionate, to spiritual, to mystical love (respectively personified by the melancholic Perottino, the philosophizing Gismondo, and the ascetic Lavinello) indeed represents the typically contradictory nature of the Petrarchan spiritual world it is modeled after.23 Only later, when self-consciousness reached its peak due to the growing interference of the Inquisition, the loveromance permeated with passion that characterized earlier lyrical experiences was completely emended and transformed in an entirely mystical experience. Thus, we have the peculiar literary phenomenon that we have come to know as the ‘spiritual Petrarch,’ so very appreciated in the sixteenth century, and so very frowned upon by modern criticism.24 Petrarch’s love-drama had been completely transcended at that point. However, as is well known, this extreme rewriting ultimately misfired, since it only managed to retrieve the powerful overtones of the code it was trying to obliterate.25 Indeed, throughout the sixteenth century the ‘spiritual’ character of Petrarch’s tale resonates with ‘heretic’ overtones.26 The consistent effort to See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 52. See G. Mazzacurati, Il Rinascimento dei moderni (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985) 85ff. 24 See F. Erspamer, “Petrarchismo e manierismo nella cultura lirica del secondo 500’,” Storia della cultura veneta, ed. G. Arnaldi and P. Stocchi, vol. 4 (Vicenza: Ponza, 1983) 189ff. 25 See A. Quondam, “Riscrittura - Citazione - Parodia del Codice. Il Petrarca spirituale di Girolamo Malipiero,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 17 (1978). 26 The reference here is not only to the anti-Counter-Reformation aspects of Petrarchism pointed out by Erspamer—see F. Erspamer, “Il canzoniere rinascimentale come 22 23

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de-humanize or transcend this tale by the radical Christian militancy is echoed by an equally strong effort to humanize it, emphasizing its biographical character, thus aiming at filling the gap between daily life and literary experience.27 The abovementioned new awareness with respect to the affective potential of Petrarch’s lyrical experience perfectly fits into this latter aim. Another important clarification about the epic-didactic aspirations pertaining to the imitation of Petrarch’s lyric poetry in the sixteenth century concerns the moral status of the Petrarchan heroic figure featured in the Canzoniere. In this respect, it is important not to forget that, while the Canzoniere continues to be consistently quoted or referred to as an example in most formal discussions of love throughout the mid to late sixteenth century, it is also often targeted by the more rigid censors of the Counter-Reformation, who consider its author a “dux et magister spurcarum libidinum” (“leader in, and teacher of dirty and lecherous things”).28 In Romei’s Discorsi, to pick a poignant example, the Canzoniere is extensively quoted as a model of behavior, and almost in the same breath condemned or defied.29 It is thus clear that the kind of poet-hero Petrarch has come to represent by the second half of the sixteenth century, the so called “specchio di vita”30 (“mirror of life”) to imitate in writing as well as in life, is definitely not one free of contradictions. testo o come macrotesto: il sonetto proemiale,” Schifanoia, Notizie dell’Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali di Ferrara 4 (1987)—but also to a constituency of Petrarchists (Cornelio Castaldi, Antonio Brocardo, and others) which was more keen on the sensual aspects of the poetic expression, thus closer to the Petrarchan archetype. See E. Bonora, Retorica e invenzione (Milano: Rizzoli, 1970) 94ff. 27 With different nuances this is the position of commentators such as Vellutello, Daniello, Dolce and even Castelvetro. See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 62ff. On Castelvetro see ibid., 157–69; but also, for a more generous evaluation of Castelvetro, see G. M. Anselmi, L. Avellini, and E. Raimondi, “Il Rinascimento padano,” Letteratura italiana. Storia e geografia. L’età moderna, ed. A. Asor Rosa, vol. 2 (1) (Torino: Einaudi, 1993) 577ff. For a thorough discussion of the political implications underlying the effort to emphasize the biographical character of Petrarch’s love experience described in the Canzoniere, see W. J. Kennedy, The Site of Petrarchism: Early Modern National Sentiment in Italy, France, and England (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003) 40–54. 28 See G. Fragnito, “‘Li libbri non zò rrobba da cristiano’ la letteratura italiana e l’indice di Clemente VIII (1596),” Schifanoia, Notizie dell’Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali di Ferrara 19 (1999): 125. An increasingly critical or anti-Petrarchistic attitude, even though not so extreme, has also been noted in commentators such as Castelvetro, and particularly Cresci. See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 157ff. 29 In one instance Petrarch and Ariosto are referred to as even having “l’anima inferma” (“a sick soul”). See A. Romei, Discorsi del Conte Annibale Romei, gentil’huomo Ferrarese di nuovo ristampati, ampliati e can diligenza corretti, divisi in sette giornate nelle quali tra dame e cavaglieri ragionando, con la risposta a tutti i dubbi che in simil materie proponer si sogliono (Venetia: Appresso Bartolomeo Carampello, 1594) 64. 30 See C. P. Brand, “Petrarch and Petrarchism in Torquato Tasso’s lyric poetry,” MLR 62 (1967): 256.

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Baldacci notices that for the sixteenth century the Canzoniere represented much more than a ‘how to’ book on love, it was a source of meditation upon exemplary errors as well as exemplary virtues31—which reflects quite well the ambiguity that, as modern and not so modern scholars have shown, is already at the core of the original poetic experience of the Canzoniere itself.32 Doubleness not only characterizes Petrarch’s moral attitude toward love,33 it also characterizes his particular psychological or affective state of mind,34 making the chronicle of his love-story—the Canzoniere—not only a particularly effective pedagogic instrument but, as the Forestiero Napolitano claims (Chapter 1), also one quite suited for the affective engagement of the reader. The Petrarchan Allegory of Initiation into Love in the Pastor Fido Given the popularity of the epic-didactic structure in lyric poetry, and especially the increasing interest in applying the Aristotelian norms of the fabula to Petrarch’s poetry in order to prove its aesthetic excellence,35 it is quite obvious that pastoral authors, especially those more keen on the lyrical quality of their plays, would feel inspired to adopt at least themes or fragments of the ‘macrotext’36 of the Canzoniere

See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 60. See U. Bosco, Francesco Petrarca (Bari: Laterza, 1961) 83–100. See also Bonora, Retorica, 113. 33 In this respect, one must believe that Foscolo’s romantic warning that the idea of Petrarch’s Platonic love was a dangerous prejudism—on this see G. Santangelo, “Il Petrarchismo del Bembo,” Studi Petrarcheschi 7 (1961): 339— would have certainly found a sympathetic response among more than one sixteenth-century lyricist. 34 Regn talks about the antinomic-paradoxical affective structure (“antinomischparadoxale Affektenstruktur”) of the Canzoniere. See “Torquato,” 30. 35 See Bigi, “L’interesse,” 373–7. 36 The expression ‘macrotext’ is used with a full awareness of the problems it has raised for contemporary scholars (see F. Erspamer, “Il canzoniere,” 109–11). By implying that in the Cinquecento the Canzoniere was indeed often considered and appropriated as a macro text by the Petrarchists, I do not intend to make a critical statement on the Canzoniere itself, nor do I intend in any way to deprive the Renaissance offspring of its very own specificity and historicity; instead I simply suggest a sort of Urgestalt—we may call it Petrarch’s loveromance—which, as has been convincingly argued, constitutes the narrative structure of the typical Petrarchist songbook form, from Sannazaro to Bembo all the way to Tasso. In this respect, besides the above-cited work by Mengaldo, see also V. Martignone “Tasso lirico fra tradizione e innovazione: i sonetti liminali del canzoniere Chigiano,” Torquato Tasso quattrocento anni dopo. Atti del Convegno di Rende 24/25 maggio, 1996, ed. A. Daniele and F. Walter Lupi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1997). On the notion of ‘canzoniere’ see also G. Gorni, “Le forme primarie del testo poetico,” Metrica e analisi letteraria (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993). 31 32

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(the so called “Petrarchan story” or “petrarkistische Geschichte”)37 in their plays, in order to provide it with a deeper meaningfulness, which would have certainly heighten the pedagogic import of their works. The Canzoniere would have then provided the pastoral not only with a ‘dictionary’ but also with an educational love-story of great affective impact (especially if one considers the above mentioned peculiar ambivalence of the story itself, and that of its protagonist) from which one could extrapolate individual motives. This idea is certainly not far fetched, if one considers the extant scholarship. Varese, for example, whose work is fundamental in this respect, has eloquently argued that Tasso’s Aminta dramatizes several Petrarchan motives, including that of love-death.38 Further important indications have been provided by Perella’s extensive study on the issue of heroic virtue in the Pastor Fido that rightly underscores the relevance of the Petrarchan linguistic, stylistic, as well as thematic repertoires.39 To say nothing of Scarpati’s work, which clearly underscores the epic-didactic implications of both the Aminta—which he defines as a Bildungsroman—and the Pastor Fido, properly linking such aspirations to the strong Petrarchan resonance that characterizes these two texts (Canzoniere and Triumphi in particular), and even going to the extent of suggesting, particularly with respect to Guarini’s work, a possible competition with the symbolic resonance of the Gerusalemme liberata.40 Varese, Perella, and Scarpati’s highly suggestive and convincing arguments on the issue of Petrarchism in the dramatic pastoral remain crucial to this day.41 Any further study of the pedagogical aspects of the pastoral is bound to reiterating them 37

See Regn, “Torquato,” 32–6. See C. Varese, “L’Aminta,” Pascoli politico, Tasso e altri saggi (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961), and the already cited Varese, Torquato Tasso, 164. Specifically on the theme of love-death, see C. Varese, “Introduzione,” Aminta, by T. Tasso (Milano: Mursia, 1985) 12. On this particular issue, see also Da Pozzo, L’ambigua armonia, and G. M. Anselmi, “Aminta di Torquato Tasso,” Letteratura italiana. Le Opere, ed. A. Asor Rosa, vol. 2 (Torino: Einaudi, 1993). On Tasso and Petrarch, besides the above-mentioned work by Anselmi, see also B. T. Sozzi, “Il Tasso estimatore del Petrarca,” Studi tassiani 11 (1961); C. P. Brand, “Petrarch and Petrarchism in Torquato Tasso’ s lyric poetry,” MLR 62 (1967); and Da Pozzo, L’ambigua, 194–202. 39 See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 705–6. More generally, on the relationship between Guarini and Petrarch, see ibid., 702ff. 40 See Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica in Battista Guarini,” Studi sul Cinquecento italiano (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1982) 223ff.; and, by the same author, “Il nucleo ovidiano nell’Aminta,” Tasso, i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995). 41 In her recently published edition of the Pastor Fido, Selmi reiterates and corroborates Scarpati’s hypothesis of a broader and more ambitious literary competition between Tasso and Guarini, as she focuses on the painstaking editorial process of the Pastor Fido. See E. Selmi, “Nota al testo,” Il Pastor Fido, by B. Guarini, ed. E. Selmi (Marsilio: Venezia, 1999) 48ff. Furthermore, her contention with respect to the relavance of the Canzoniere and the Triumphi in the Pastor Fido again confirms Scarpati’s suggestions with regard to the pedagogical aspirations of Guarini’s pastoral. See ibid., 59. 38

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to some extent. The ensuing discussion is certainly not an exception; however, it also will shed some more light on the extraordinary magnitude of the Petrarchan resonance in the Pastor Fido and the Aminta, and address a number of not yet discussed related pedagogical issues. There are two major arguments that this discussion intends to elaborate on. The first is that both the Pastor Fido and the Aminta (whose discussion will follow in Chapter 3) assimilate not only fragments or motives of the Canzoniere but the whole complex epic-didactic structure underlying it—the whole allegory of initiation into Love in all its ambiguity and redemptive potential. The second, which is even more important, is that the “new type of pastoral hero”42—the “vicious hero”43—featured in both Guarini and Tasso’s pastorals is entirely modeled after Petrarch himself: the ambiguous Petrarch of the Canzoniere in particular. In this respect, one may conclude that the core love-story in both plays is a Petrarchan “romance of love,” with its final spiritual resolution, but most importantly, with its dialectic between different psychological stages, and its double exemplariness of virtue and sin; “eurhythmic form” being its tempered substance;44 emotional turmoil being its underlying, yet no less characteristically Petrarchan, unsettling essence.45 In the first page of his Annotazioni, after giving us a little too politically correct allegorical reading of his hero, Mirtillo,46 Guarini makes a sudden turn: a casual, yet much more significant reference to the ambiguous figure (to say the least) of the “fedel nocchiere” (“trusty pilot”) in Petrarch’s Canzone to the Virgin Mary.47 And here is the passage of the Canzone that Guarini is referring to: 42

See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 662. Ibid., 657ff. 44 I am referring to the enthusiastic attitude of Petrarchism for Petrarch’s formal eurhytmy as a harmonizing device with respect to the contrasting passions that characterize the love-story. See Bigi, “Petrarchismo,” 50. The formal aspects of Guarini’s Petrarchism have been thoroughly explored in Battaglin’s already cited work. 45 Baldacci emblematically defines the peculiar image of Petrarch assimilated by the Petrarchists in the following terms: “platonico-cristiano e spirituale amante contrastato fra opposti afffetti” (“a Platonic-Christian, spiritual lover torn between opposing affects”). See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo, 160. 46 “Esso [Mirtillo] con la fede sostien gli affanni, resiste alle lusinghe, vince gli impedimenti, sprezza la morte, incontra le sue nozze, gode l’amata donna, libera la sua patria, di che niuna laude può esser maggiore al mondo” (“He [Mirtillo] through faith endures hardships, resists flattery, overcomes impediments, defies death, manages to get married, enjoys his beloved, frees his homeland, for which he can’t be commended enough”). See Guarini, Annotazioni 1 (my translation). It should be noted that critics have since long questioned the credibility of such a statement. See M. Cerini, “L’ombra di un capolavoro,” Letteraure moderne 8 (1957): 471. 47 “Aggiunto che [il titolo di fedele] serve al nome di Pastor, con quella proporzione, con la quale il Petr. chiamò fedele, il nocchiere nella Canc. della Verg. e ‘n molti altri luoghi del Canzoniere. E tanto basti del nome [Pastor Fido]” (“It should be added that [the qualifier ‘faithful’] serves the noun ‘Shepherd’ according to the same criteria by which in Petrarch’s 43

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Vergine chiara e stabile in eterno, di questo tempestoso mare stella, d’ogni fedel nocchier fidata guida, pon mente in che terribile procella i’ mi ritrovo sol, senza governo, ed ò già vicin l’ultime strida. (RVF, 366, ll.66–71) (O Virgin bright and fixed forevermore / Above this ocean tempest-tossed the star—/ For every trusty pilot, trusted guide / take heed in what a dreadful hurricane / I find myself and rudderless; / My final cries already are at hand.)48

Even more explicit, with respect to the Petrarchan narrative Guarini has in mind for his pastoral “nocchiere,” are the following comments to the fifth Chorus, where he illustrates what seems to be a process of erotic initiation which is anything but linear: Siccome la natura umana acquista l’uso dell’intendere col progresso del tempo, e colla sperienza de molte cose, così non può far acquisto della virtù morale, se non con la frequenza di molti atti, e col far resistenza, come s’è detto, alla voluttà, ed al dolore. Onde nascon tre gradi: uno ch’è vizioso, l’altro ch’è virtuoso, e’l terzo, che non è in tutto buon, né in tutto cattivo. Al secondo son rarissimi quelli, che arrivino senza passar per quello, che partecipa, così dell’uno, come dell’altro. E certo, cecché si dica Aristotele, io son d’oppenione, che ciò non sia possibile, se non per mera grazia divina. Tutti gli uomini dunque passano per lo terzo. E quei che resistono, si chiamano continenti; e quelli che cedono, incontinenti, finecche anno acquistato l’abito o buono o cattivo; perciocché allora non ànno più contrasto; ed i cattivi si chiamano intemperanti, ed i buoni temperanti, e virtuosi. Quelli son tanto abituati nel male, che non sentono repugnanza di coscenza, questi ànno consolidato per modo l’abito nel far bene, che non sentono repugnanza d’irragionevole, e disordinato appetito. Dovendo dunque l’uomo, se vuol esser felice, passar prima per gli stimoli della incontinenza alla continenza, e poi da questa all’abito virtuoso; né potendo in tutto questo passaggio fuggir l’incontro del piacere, e del dispiacere, come di Canzone to the Virgin Mary, and in many other instances in the Canzoniere, the qualifier ‘faithful’ serves the noun ‘pilot’. And this should suffice as an explanation of the term [Pastor Fido]”). See Guarini, Annotazioni 1 (my translation). On the pervasive presence of Petrarch in the Annotazioni, see C. Molinari, “La parte del Guarini nel Commento al Pastor fido,” Il commento al testo lirico. Atti del convegno, Pavia, 25–26 ottobre 1990, Schifanoia 15/16, ed. B. Bentivogli and G. Gorni (Ferrara: ISR-Panini, 1995) 147. 48 Unless otherwise stated, all the quotes from Petrarch’s Canzoniere are from Petrarch’s Songbook, trans. J. Wyatt Cook (Binghamton, New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995).

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sopra col testimonio di Aristotele abbiam mostrato; ed avendo l’abito virtuoso anch’egli il suo peculiare, e proprio piacere, ed essendo questo dell’animo, e quel del corpo: quello della ragione, e questo del senso; l’uno impuro, e l’altro sincero, se mentre è nello stato di continenza si lascia vincer da quel piacere, che l’appetito gli somministra, e non aspetta di goder quello, che vien dall’abito virtuoso, comincia a retrocedere, e dallo stato di continenza, si riduce a quello d’incontinenza; e da questo finalmente a quello d’intemperanza, e così a poco a poco diventa vizioso e schiavo del piacer sensuale.49 (Since human nature acquires understanding with time and experience of many things, likewise it cannot acquire moral virtue without a number of repeated acts, and by resisting, as previously said, to pleasure and pain. Thus, there are three levels [in this process]. The first is vicious, the other virtuous, and finally the third, which is not entirely virtuous nor entirely vicious. It is extremely rare to reach the second level without going through the level that partakes of the first two levels. Surely, whatever Aristotle may say, my opinion is that this is impossible, if not by divine grace. Every man, then, goes through the third stage. Those who resist are called continent; those who give in are called incontinent; until they either have acquired a good or a bad habit—for at that point they no longer perceive contrast within themselves and the bad ones are called intemperate, and the good ones are called temperate and virtuous; the former are so used to evil that their conscience no longer shuns from it, the latter have consolidated the habit of doing well, thus no longer feel any pull deriving from unreasonable or disorderly appetite. Therefore, since it is necessary for man to go from incontinence to continence in order to reach happiness, and in turn from continence to a virtuous habit; and since it is impossible to avoid pleasure and pain during this transition (as demonstrated above with the authority of Aristotle); and since the virtuous habit also does have its peculiar and proper pleasure—which is that of the soul, not that of the body: this pertains to reason while that pertains to the senses; this is impure while the other is sincere—if while he is in the state of continence he is won over by the pleasure that comes from fulfilling the appetites and does not wait to enjoy the pleasure that comes from a virtuous habit, he begins to fall from the state of continence into that of incontinence, and eventually into that of intemperance, and thus he slowly becomes vicious and enslaved by sensual pleasure.)

Such a particular moral landscape—where trial seems to be an essential element, and where fall, as long as it doesn’t become pernicious, seems to be part of a rising process that ultimately happens by the grace of God—not only sets the stage for a markedly Aristotelian approach to the issue of virtue (with all its momentous

Guarini, Annotazioni, 204–5 (my italics).

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theoretical and poetic implications),50 it also sets the stage for a peculiar story: one that, rather than the linear ascent from incontinence to continence to virtue, represents the “dangerous progression of incontinence,”51 the possible lapse into intemperance, and only finally a miraculous ascent to virtue. In this respect, the allegoric pathway to virtue that Guarini proposes here is one that, instead of ascending in a linear fashion from incontinence, to continence, to virtue, recursively recedes from continence to intemperance, thus possibly to vice; then marvelously soars to virtue. Such a topsy-turvy perspective where the good is often reached through the bad, the comic resolution is often anticipated by a potentially tragic one, and the itinerary to virtue, to continence, often starts with an itinerary to incontinence is thus the very expression in rhetoric/poetic terms of the above-mentioned moral landscape. The kinship with Petrarch’s romance of love is not even worth mentioning, and certainly not casual, suggesting that it is indeed Petrarch’s erotic initiation that provides the logical cognitive structure for the kind of difficult balance between pathos and ethos, that, as has been shown in Chapter 1, characterizes the affectivity of the Pastor Fido. However, Guarini’s pastoral goes even beyond this. It not only gives a compelling interpretation of Petrarch’s romance of love in all its complex affectivity; it also manages to combine it with an equally compelling romance of faithfulness in love52 in an all-encompassing romance of Love and Fidelity that, as we shall see, ends with truly faithful or unconditional love. Coupling what, according to the code of courtly love, are the two more intimately connected passions, the Pastor Fido gives a powerful statement not only about how they dynamically relate to one another but also about the intrinsic nature of each. In this respect, Guarini certainly upgrades Tasso’s strictly neo-Platonic reading of Petrarch’s romance of love in the Aminta (Chapter 3) to a reading of Petrarch’s romance of love with a more complex resonance, that includes courtly and even religious elements.53

50

Aristotelian and Platonic conflicting perspectives on the morality of multiplicity in poetic imitation have already been referenced (see Chapter 1). 51 See D. Boillet, “Guarini réinventeur de lieux comuns: la grotte de Vénus dans le ‘Pastor Fido’,” Culture et societé en Italie du Moyen-Age à la Renaissance, vol. 13 (Paris: Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1985): 414 (my translation). 52 For the issue of fides in the Pastor Fido, as fidelity in love, see Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 99ff. Also Niccoli has observed that around Mirtillo revolve a corollary of episodes all related to the issue of faith. See G. A. Niccoli, Cupid, Satyr, and the Golden Age. Pastoral Dramatic Scenes of the Late Renaissance (New York: Lang, 1989) 80. I would, therefore, not rule out the possibility of a religious resonance in Mirtillo’s faithful love. 53 In this respect, one may notice a certain kinship, of course mutatis mutandis, with later readings of Petrarch’s Canzoniere: specifically those highly moralizing ones developed by members of the Barberini circle. On this see E. Bellini, “Petrarca e i letterati barberiniani,” Petrarca in Barocco. Cantieri petrarchistici. Due seminari romani, ed. A. Quondam (Bulzoni, 2004) 185–6.

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Going back to the issue at hand, it is now time to find the Petrarchan ‘silver lining’ in the fabula of the Pastor Fido and thus show the extent to which the ambiguous Petrarchan romance of love plays out in the text, providing an important cognitive structure for the affective response of the audience outlined in the previous chapter. In its first demiurgic intervention, at the end of the first act, the collective voice of the Chorus clearly outlines the two major impediments that are preventing Fate (i.e. Divine Providence) to make its way over Arcadia— impediments of Fate that become the driving forces of the dramatic action. They are “cieco Amore” (“blind Love”), and its other side of the coin, “cieco Sdegno” (“blind hate”).54 The latter is epitomized by Silvio, who is the “enemy of love and pity,”55 the former by Mirtillo, the “lover in vain faithful.” Ecco, d’amore e di pietà nemico, garzon aspro e crudele, che vien dal cielo e pur col Ciel contende; ecco poi chi combatte un cor pudico, amante invan fedele, che ‘l tuo voler con le sue fiamme offende. (1117–22) (Behold a fierce and cruel boy, / Averse to love’s transporting joy, / Who from heav’n his race descends / Yet impiously with heav’n contends. / Behold a modest heart again, / Faithful and true, but all in vain / Against they will who vainly tries / To gain the nymph, for pity cries.)

The text presents us with two very ambiguous heroes, dwelling in a moral landscape where love is coupled with vain faith, and pity is eclipsed by fierceness: in short, a complete subversion of courtly and Christian ethics. In this analysis I shall focus on Mirtillo, the “amante invan fedele” (“vainly faithful lover”), who is clearly the Petrarchan heroic figure in the play.56 In this respect, it is probably worth noticing right away that the characterization “in vain faithful lover” clearly echoes the “vane speranze” (“vain hopes”) and the “van dolore” (“vain woe”) lamented by Petrarch in the opening sonnet of the Canzoniere (RVF, 1).57 The connection with Petrarch Guarini, Il Pastor Fido (1, Chorus, 1138). On Silvio as the embodyment of an inhumane form of religious ascetism, see Angelini, Il teatro, 18. For a detailed analysis of Silvio’s epic of love and its metaphoric association to the topos of the hunt, see G. Bárberi Squarotti, “Il ‘far grande’ del Guarini,” Critica letteraria 22 (1994): 427–32. 56 For a thorough analysis of other heroic characters in the Pastor Fido, I will refer the reader to the above-mentioned works by Selmi, “Nota al testo,” Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” Boillet, “Guarini,” and Bárberi Squarotti, “Il ‘far grande’ del Guarini.” 57 For a better understanding of Petrarch’s ubiquitous presence in the literary memory of a sixteenth-century reader, see G. Ferrazzi, “Bibliografia petrarchesca,” Enciclopedia dantesca, vol. 5 (Bassano, 1877) 747–8. 54

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is therefore established right away. Just like Petrarch’s autobiographical hero—the “altr’uom” (“other man”) dwelling in the “giovenile errore” (“youthful error”)— Guarini’s hero, Mirtillo, is identified as an ethical problem right from the outset. His initiation begins with the classic enamourament, which takes place during the spring, as Amarillis is vacationing in his hometown, Elide.58 A quite astonishing twist on the paradigmatic love at first sight poignantly described in Petrarch’s famous sonnet Era il giorno che al sol si scoloraro (“It was the day in which the sun’s rays paled,” RVF, 3), this is indeed a very elaborate process of courtly enamourament, which occurs after a quite intricate scheme of encounter, travesty, and deceit, finally culminating with the fatal stolen kiss during a quite emblematic kissing game. A process which Mirtillo meticulously relates to his confidant Ergasto in the second act, and which, besides exploiting a number of topoi from Petrarch to Boccaccio,59 virtuosistically enlarges the descriptio yielding a fully fledged fresco of courtly love that already foreshadows Marino’s erotic phenomenology.60 And if there is no question that such phenomenology would turn out to have no small entertainment value for the audience, it is also clear that knowledge was supposed to be its ultimate purpose: full and thorough knowledge of the complex dynamics of love and ultimately of the society that was practicing it. In this respect, one should keep in mind that the theme of love—from the formal discussion on courtly love, to the stil novo, to Petrarch, to Ficino, all the way to the Asolani, was conceived as a metaphor for a broader reflection on the cognitive function of poetry,61 and that this is exactly why such a theme could aspire to be pedagogical. Form the stage of enamourament, Mirtillo’s Petrarchan journey then continues with the stage of unrequited love. Once again, Guarini’s imitatio of Petrarch turns out to be anything but slavish. In fact, as a poor shepherd of low lineage, Mirtillo’s love for the beautiful Amarillis—who is of much higher social status and, most importantly, already betrothed to Silvio—is not only against all odds, and against honor, it is, as we know, against destiny itself. In brief, Mirtillo doesn’t stand the ghost of a chance with Amarillis: their love is against the law of man and against the law of God. However, in front of the classic hurdles of betrothal and upcoming wedding, Mirtillo doesn’t respond as he should: in other words he does not attempt to sublimate his desire in order to ensure a Platonic continuation to his love. Instead he continues to aggressively pursue his beloved who, caught between duty and passion (as is well known, she is secretly in love with Mirtillo), and 58 Petrarch’s erotic initiation also starts with the enamourament, continuing with an acurate description of the pene d’amore (“love pains”), all the way to the climactic death of Laura. See Dotti, “Introduzione,” 30ff. 59 See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi (Venezia: Marsilio, 1999) 334–5. 60 In this respect, Scarpati has rightly noticed that from the Aminta to the Pastor Fido, via Cesare Cremonini’s Le pompe funebri, ovvero Aminta e Clori (1590), the pastoral increasingly capitalizes on the phenomenological aspects of love. See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 94ff. 61 See G. Mazzacurati, Il Rinascimento dei moderni, 67–8.

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naturally having chosen the former, gets trapped in the game of simulating hate and dissimulating love. Mirtillo picks up the expensive cost of rejection, which paradoxically, of course, feeds the fire of his passion even more. Melancholy rapidly sets in. Thus the famous love lamentation, which, not surprisingly, will linger for a long time in the top-40 of contemporary madrigalists: Cruda Amarilli, che col nome ancora, d’amar, ahi lasso!, amaramente insegni: Amarilli, del candido ligustro più candida e più bella, ma de l’àspido sordo e più sorda e più féra e più fugace; poi che col dir t’offendo, i’ mi morrò tacendo; ma grideran per me le piagge e i monti e questa selva, a cui sì spesso il tuo bel nome di risonare insegno. Per me piangendo i fonti e mormorando i venti, diranno i miei lamenti; parlerà nel mio volto la pietate e ’l dolore; e, se fia muta ogn’altra cosa, al fine parlerà il mio morire, e ti dirà la morte il mio martìre. (1, 2, 272–91) (O cruel Amarillis, in whose name / The bitter pains of love are legible, / My Amarillis, much more bright and fair / Than the white lily, yet to me you seem / More shy, more cruel than the deafened adder / If words give such offence, I’ll then complain / No more, but rather choose to die in silence. / But then the hills and mountains all around / Will cry aloud, and tell the world my grief. So shall this grove, which I so oft have taught / To speak thy lovely name. The springs shall weep, / And murm’ring winds shall speak my lamentations. / Grief and compassion both shall plead my cause / In downcast looks and a distressed face. / But should this world be mute when life is fled, / my death at last must speak and ease my pains, / The fatal pains that caused your lover’s death.)

Nurtured by melancholy, Mirtillo’s love is necessarily bound to lead to a sterile death: a death of the body and, even worse, of the soul. Quite appropriately indeed, the love-death topos62 here is not only implied in his avowal for silent

62 For the relevance of the love-death poetic topos in this madrigal, see Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 298.

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death;63 it is also significantly underscored by the Petrarchan pun Amarillisamar,64 as well as by the dominance, throughout the madrigal, of the rhetorical figure of the oxymoron, which Selmi describes as follows: L’ossimoro governa l’intero contesto, inscrivendo nell’antitesi generativa dell’amore-morte un gioco più soffuso di contrappunti fra il parlare e il tacere, la pietà (della natura) e la ferinità (della donna), secondo quella logica dei contrari che si rivela cifra peculiare della psicologia del protagonista. (The oxymoron governs the entire context, introducing within the generative, lovedeath antithesis a more subtle counterpoint between speaking and remaining silent, pity (of nature) and cruelty (of the woman), according to a logic of contraposition which reveals itself as a peculiarity of the psychology of the protagonist.)65

Trapped in his ambivalent selfish desire, the faithful shepherd is, for now at least, a shepherd of blind love and faith:66 a melancholy lover who dies of and lives through pain, thereby nurturing his vain hopes. This, however, does not necessarily exclude some typical Petrarchan moments of self-awareness, which are frequent throughout the play. On Guarini’s pastoral stage melancholy is not only a static psychological frame of mind meticulously explored in its essence. Instead it becomes a dramatic force that propels the action forward, setting the stage for the deceitful works of Corisca (who easily manipulates Mirtillo, as she works out an ingenious and diabolic plan to eliminate her rival Amarillis) and ultimately even for the tragic climax of the play. Indeed, it doesn’t take long before death starts to cast its first dark shadows on Mirtillo’s exemplary erring. This happens in the eighth scene of the third act when, led to believe that Amarillis is having a secret rendezvous with another shepherd in Venus’ cave and fearing for the loss of her honor, he prepares himself to confront his rival, kill him, and finally even kill himself as well: Muoia dunque l’adultero malvagio, ch’a lei l’onore, a me la vita invola! Ma se l’uccido qui, non sarà il sangue 63 The same conceit can be found in RVF, 171: “Giunto m’à Amor fra belle e crude braccia / che m’ancidono a torto; e s’io mi doglio / doppia ’l martir: onde pur, com’io soglio, / il meglio è ch’io mora amando e taccia” (“Love’s clasped me in a fair, and cruel embrace, / Which kills me wrongfully; if I lament / My torture doubles; thus, as usual / It’s best that I die loving and keep still”). 64 This pun, although in more simple terms, recalls Petrarch’s complex paranomasia: Laura – l’aura – l’oro – lauro – laurea. 65 See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 299 (my translation). 66 For the final word with respect to the issue of blindness in the Pastor Fido, see N. J. Perella, “Fate, Blindess, and Illusion in the Pastor Fido,” Romanic Review 49 (Dec. 1958).

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy chiaro indizio del fatto? E che tem’io la pena del morir se morir bramo? Ma l’omicidio, alfin fatto palese, scoprirà la cagione; onde cadrei nel medesmo periglio de l’infamia che può venirne a questa ingrata. Or entra ne la spelonca e qui l’assali. È buono, questo mi piace. Entrerò cheto cheto, si ch’ella non mi senta. E credo bene che ne la più segreta e chiusa parte, come accennò di far ne’ detti suoi, si sarà ricovrata, ond’io non voglio penetrar molto a dentro. Una fessura, fatta nel sasso e di frondosi rami tutta coperta, a man sinistra a punto si trova a pie’ de l’alta scesa; quivi più che si può tacitamente entrando, il tempo attenderò di dar effetto a quel che bramo. Il mio nemico morto a la nemica mia porterò innanzi: così d’ambi duo lor farò vendetta; indi trapasserò col ferro stesso a me medesmo il petto e tre saranno gli estinti, duo dal ferro, una dal duolo. Vedrà questa crudele de l’amante gradito, non men che del tradito, tragedia miserabile e funesta. (3, 8 ,1243–73) (Then let the base adult’rer die, who has / Robbed her of honor and robbed me from life, / But if I slay him her, will not his blood Be an undoubted witness of the murder? Why should I dread the laws for this, since I / with so much eagerness desire my death? / But after all the murder will discover / The curst occasion, and th’ungrateful nymph / runs the same risk to lose her reputation. / Enter the cave—‘Tis best—And here attack him. / This pleases me—so softly will I tread, / She shall not in the least hear me coming. I know he lies in the most secret part; / For there to meet she made her assignation. / I shall not enter far; just at the foot / Of the ascent there is a cloven rock, / Covered with shrub, where I can wait a while, / Till I can safely execute my vengeance. / Then will I case his carcass to my foe. / Thus I’m revenged of both. I’ll stab myself / With the same dart, and three shall die together. / Two by their bleeding wounds, and one by grief. / Then shall the cruel fair behold no less / The tragedy of him she loved, but shall / Behold the tragedy of me betrayed.)

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A remarkable soliloquy indeed, where the Petrarchan love-death motive hovers around its lowest notes,67 and exposes the darker sides of human psychology. Hit by the final blow of a suspected betrayal and even more by the thought of a possibly dishonored beloved, Mirtillo’s melancholy reaches a low point in the play as it begets jealousy; and with jealousy the feelings of rage and revenge. Thus, the murder of his rival is carefully and rationally plotted out.68 The reference to tragedy is obvious,69 and, in Guarini’s own words, “verisimilar.”70 With the last symptomatic words—“O Corisca, Corisca / or sì m’hai detto il vero, or sì ti credo” (“O my Corisca all you said is true”)—that underscore his utter blindness to truth, Mirtillo’s soliloquy ends, as the last phase of the dangerous progression into incontinence is about to begin. The ensuing events—the discovery of the lovers in flagrante adultery, thus Amarillis’ death sentence—sign the tragic climax of what could be called a contemporary translation of the Petrarchan romance of love in the self-conscious world of the post-Tridentine court. Laura’s death, the one that leaves the author of the Canzoniere in a “tenebroso orrore” (“dark horror,” RVF, 276),71 is creatively translated by Guarini into Amarillis’ loss of honor, or moral death, with its quite verisimilar devastating consequences for the Petrarchan hero, who, as we have seen, only moments before was ready to kill in order to preserve it. Laura’s death, of course, is also the turning point of the Petrarchan romance of love; it is the means through which the poet is finally able to achieve redemption through a poetic or cognitive apprenticeship72 placed under the auspices of Amor, who in a famous Canzone addresses the poet as follows: Pon freno al gran dolor che ti trasporta; ché per soverchie voglie si perde il cielo ove il tuo core aspira, dove è viva colei ch’altrui par morta, e di sue belle spoglie seco sorride e sol di te sospira; 67

The abundance of words that pertain to the semantic field of death in the abovecited passage (“muoia,” “uccido,” “morir,” “omicidio,” “assali,” “morto,” “trapasserò,” “estinti”) is quite significant in this respect. 68 See Guarini, Annotazioni, 78–84. 69 Boillet calls for a “contextualization tragique” (“tragic contextualization”) of this scene, which she identifies as topical of the crime of passion. See D. Boillet, “La mise en scène du langage figurè dans le ‘Pastor fido’ de Battista Guarini,” Figures à l’italienne. Metaphores, equivoques et piontes dans la littérature maniériste et baroque. Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Renaissance italienne, 23 (Paris: Université Paris III Sorbone Nouvelle, 1999) 146. 70 See Guarini, Annotazioni, 84. 71 My translation. 72 For a description of Petrarch’s complex cognitive experience through poetry see the famous ‘canzone delle metamorfosi’ (RVF, 23).

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy e sua fama che spira in molte parti ancor per la tua lingua, prega che non estingua, anzi la voce al suo nome rischiari, se gli occhi suoi ti fur dolci né cari. (RVF, 268) (Check that great grief which carries you away / For your desires too great / Will lose that Heaven where your heart aspires, / Where she who, seeming dead to others, lives. / About her fair remains / She smiles within, but sighs on your behalf. / And her renown, which still your words breathe forth on every side, / She prays you won’t extinguish; / Her name instead make brighter with your voice, / If her eyes precious were, or sweet to you.)

Analogously in the Pastor Fido, the death of Amarillis (or rather the threat of it) is the means through which Mirtillo achieves his own redemption with the sacrifice of his life; a redemption that is prompted by a classic Platonic cognitive experience: the descent in Venus’ cave. And in order to see how very present Plato is in Mirtillo’s Petrarchan initiation into Love, one only needs to put the Pastor Fido and the Republic side by side.73 First off, Venus’ cave, very much in keep with Socrates’ description,74 is more wide than it is deep—“A mezzo dello speco, / ch’è di forma assai lunga e poco larga” (3, 5, 756–7) (“Halfway into the long and narrow cave”); and is lit from up above—“a cui dà lume un piccolo pertugio / che d’alto s’apre” (763–4) (“And with a little chink above for light”). Secondly, Socrates talks about the sense of pain and confusion that pertain to the process of education taking place in the cave, significantly equating it to a healing process: Now consider, I said, what their release and healing from the bonds and folly would be like … Take a man who is released and suddenly compelled to stand up, to turn his neck around, to walk and look up towards the light; and who, moreover, in doing all this is in pain and, because he is dazzled, is unable to make out those things whose shadows he saw before. What do you suppose he’d say if someone were to tell him that before he saw nothings, while now, because he is somewhat nearer to what is and more turned towards beings, he sees more correctly … Don’t you suppose he’d be at loss and believe that what was seen before is truer than what is now shown? (7, 515d)

Sure enough, Mirtillo’s healing process in the cave not only begins with the utterly painful sight of his lover’s false accusation and apprehension; it is also characterized by a moment of great confusion during which faithful love turns into murderous rage. 73 For Castelvetro’s Platonic reading of Petrarch’s love in the Canzoniere, see Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch, 10. 74 See Plato, Republic 7, 514a.

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che subito v’accorse, ma non saprei già dirvi onde s’uscisse, l’animoso Mirtillo, e per ferir Nicandro, il dardo, ond’era armato, impetüoso spinse, e se giungeva il ferro là ‘ve la mano il destinò, Nicandro oggi vivo non fora. (4, 3, 463–71) (but straight flew forth / (But whence I cannot say) the brave Mirtillo / Who, brandishing a dart with all his force, / Aimed at Nicandro, had it reached the part / Which was intended y the hand that threw it, / This day he would have lain among the dead.)

Thirdly, Socrates underscores that even when man eventually makes it out of the world of shadows into the world of light and beings, he is still prone to confusion until he finally gets “accustomed” to this new state of mind (7, 516a). Sure enough, Mirtillo practically disappears from the play after the above-mentioned scene, only to resurface seven scenes later; when his sacrifice is announced by the Messenger; and if, on the one hand, this conspicuous dramatic suspension in the play is skillfully exploited by Guarini in order to up the dramatic charge of his play—with the highly pathetic arraignment of Amarillis, as well as with Dorinda’s wounding by Silvio—on the other hand it also serves the purpose of making Mirtillo’s healing verisimilar, and his heroism truly admirable. Quite fittingly for a sixteenth-century reading of Petrarch’s romance of love, the Platonic cognitive experience becomes an essential part—even though maybe not the ultimate goal75—of the Petrarchan initiation into Love. At this point the Petrarchan hero is ready to complete his process of redemption through the sacrifice of his life. The already discussed crucial implications of this sacrifice completely change the moral landscape of the play as fear and pity are being replaced by marvel and admiration in the affective economy of the play.76 To be sure, as triumphantly proclaimed by the Messenger, at this point in the play Mirtillo has finally managed to relinquish selfish desire, thus to become virtuous in love and in faith. The miracle of love has taken place: the Petrarchan hero has overcome his human essence thanks to the power of Love and Beauty, and the good omen of the Chorus is finally manifested.

75 Baldacci contends that it was the Christian character of Petrarch’s spiritual journey in the Canzoniere rather than the neo-Platonic one which the Petrarchists intended to underscore. 76 On the affect of admiration in the Pastor Fido, see Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 695ff.

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Ma che la tua beltate vinca con l’uomo ancor l’umanitate, oggi ne fa Mirtillo a chi nol crede meravigliosa fede. E mancava ben questo al tuo valore, donna, di far senza speranza amore. (3, Chorus, 1408–10) (And if this truth should be denied, / ’Tis in Mirtillo verified; / Before, no nymph among the fair / Could make one love, though in despair.)

Hence, the threat for Amarillis’ loss of chastity, thus of an irreparable damage to her honesty, is replaced by the certainty of her glory.77 Mirtillo’s initiation finally culminates with his own death to a new life of true Fidelity and Love—or, as the Chorus has it, to a love “senza speranza” (“hopeless”), yet faithful (IV, Chorus, 1410).78 A ‘death’ that, as pointed out in the previous chapter, takes the fabula to an even higher plateau. From this moment on the Petrarchan hero transcends into a figura Christi as he embarks in his ultimate task, the one that through the sacrifice of his own life will lead to the redemption of Arcadia.79 As already mentioned, at this point other archetypes become active in the play, taking the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love from an individual to a collective redemptive experience;80 one that, as has been illustrated in the previous chapter, caters primarily to a collective Christian cathartic experience. For now it will suffice to say that, at its core, of the fabula of the Pastor Fido indeed features the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love with its dangerous progression of incontinence, its possible lapse into intemperance and its final ascent to virtue; and that the love-death dynamic that characterizes the first two stages eventually resolves in the love-death/life dynamic that characterizes the final stage thanks to the momentous eye-opening experience which takes place in Venus’ cave. Mirtillo’s erotic initiation indeed maintains both the spiritual telos, as well as the earthly sensuality that characterize the typical sixteenth-century romancelike reading of Petrarch’s initiation, with its dialectic between contrasting affective states. Moreover, it is an initiation which—it can not be stressed enough—also creatively expands, in a ‘theme and variations’-like fashion, the Petrarchan model, by integrating it with the great complexity of a late sixteenth-century phenomenology of love. The variety of love-games presented (from the kissing 77

See Boillet, “La mise,” 134. The theological implications that pertain to this conclusion, and particularly to the idea of faithfulness as hopeless faith thereby suggested, are, I believe, momentous and should be considered as Guarini’s own religious elaboration on the Petrarchan model. 79 For the Christological narrative interwoven in the Pastor Fido, see Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 698ff. Relevant in this respect is Castelvetro’s reformed reading of Petrarch’s itinerary as “redemption per crucem.” See Gorni, “Metamorfosi,” 10. 80 About the story of Amarillis and Mirtillo, Selmi has insightfully observed that it is a resolution of a Petrarchan story of love and death which, combined with Greek archytypes, turns into a collective redemptive rite. See Selmi, “Nota,” 45. 78

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game to the game of blind man’s buff) as well as the theme of the homicide—not to mention the coherently developed theme of marriage—are quite significant in this respect. So, if from Giraldi Cinzio to Beccari one indeed witnesses an “active co-optation in Arcadia of the feminine element,”81 with Guarini, via Tasso (see Chapter 3), it is Petrarch’s love-epic of the Canzoniere—to be sure, a pastoral story within itself 82—to be actively and creatively co-opted into the complex narrative structure of the Ferrarese pastoral.83 Moreover, since such an epic of love is accurately inscribed within a general heterosexual experience of love culminating with marriage,84 the pastoral is also able to supply the court with a viable secular pedagogic model promoting matrimony, as well as spiritual ascent; a pedagogic model which synthesizes the shepherd and the Petrarchan “nocchiere” (“pilot”) thus successfully translating the Petrarchan romance of love in all its poetic poignancy into the self-conscious world of the post-Tridentine court. In this respect, it should be mentioned that pastorals such as Giraldi Cinzio’s Egle or Beccari’s Il Sacrificio, whose active model is still the satyresque drama, feature a much more basic form of erotic initiation: the chaotic close encounter of a nymph with a sexually exuberant Satyr. This rather simple form of initiation is essentially meant to persuade woman to yield to the pleasures of decorous love, after having experienced the threat of bestial love. With Tasso and Guarini, instead, the pastoral develops a much more complex form of erotic initiation, whose blueprint is Petrarch’s erotic initiation: from the captivity of Eros, to the death of the beloved as a real possibility, all the way to the death/re-birth of the lover himself to a higher and worldly form of love. It is in face of this particular topsy-turvy display of virtue that woman, who, by the way, is called to a far more active role in the erotic initiation, is now compelled to yield to the pleasures of decorous love. The Subliminal Language of Spiritual Love Guarini’s personal interpretation of the Petrarchan erotic initiation is, as has been shown, a major constitutive element of the fabula of the Pastor Fido. It thus provides an important cognitive structure for the particular affectivity of the play. But affectivity in the Pastor Fido is a question of speech as much as it is a question of plot line; it is a question of elocutio as much as it is a question of fabula. In other words, speech or, better yet, logos—a broader term that in the context of this 81

See A. Bruscagli, “Ancora a proposito delle pastorali ferraresi del ‘500: la parte del Lollio,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell’Europa del Cinque-Seicento, ed. M. Chiabò and F. Doglio (Roma: Centro Studi sul Teatro Medioevale e Rinascimentale, 1991) 34. 82 On Petrarch’s pastoralism in the wake of Vergil and Horace, see Foster, Petrarch, 79. 83 I have chosen to focus only on the particular Petrarchan epic-didactic structure of the Pastor Fido. For a discussion of Silvio’s Herculean epic of virtue, see Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 667–8. For Amarillis’ epic of chastity, see ibid., 674ff. 84 See Boillet, “La Grotte,” 423.

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discussion pertains both to reasoning and to speech85—is also a crucial component of the affectivity of the Pastor Fido. To be sure, Mirtillo is not only the protagonist of a successful redemptive narrative based on an extraordinary mix of pathos and ethos, mostly grounded, as has been shown, in a Petrarchan sensibility; he is also the protagonist of a remarkable linguistic accomplishment or logos that mirrors the redemptive narrative at the cognitive level. Indeed, as the following discussion will show, the language he speaks combines sensuality and spirituality in one allencompassing poetic language; a language that explores the most sensual and at times even titillating aspects of love, never failing to point to their spiritual referent; finally a language that re-proposes the love-death dynamic of passionate love and resolves it internally, thus mirroring at the level of language the same cathartic resolution that has just been outlined in the narrative. Perella has rightly noticed that there is in the Pastor Fido a language of love whereby a religio-philosophical vocabulary is added to the expression of a kind of love that is sensually grounded.86 In fact, for almost the entire play, even at the early stages of his initiation, Mirtillo’s language has at least two referents: one lies in the metaphysical sphere, the other in the physical one. This should hardly be a surprise, given the fact that the formal excellence of the pastoral lies exactly in the ‘double entente,’ in the pun between the lyric simplicity of the words and their implicit semantic richness.87 What is surprising—or rather remarkable—is how well these two levels of discourse coexist and integrate one another in Guarini’s poetry. A significant example is the theme of the kiss, which is extensively dealt with in the second act. In the very first scene we have a detailed account of Mirtillo’s ‘stolen’ kiss to Amarillis. Guarini deploys all the seductive power of his poetry, as he elaborates a synesthesia that combines the senses of sight, taste, hearing, and smell in a staggering crescendo of sensual delight, with no subtle erotic undertones.88 Prompted by Ergasto’s slightly voyeuristic “Ma dimmi come ti sentisti allora che di Tasso understands logos as the synthesis of both speech and reasoning. On this see T. Tasso, Discorsi del poema eroico, T. Tasso, Prose, ed. E. Mazzali (Milano, Napoli: Ricciardi, 1959) 659–60. This view is essentially shared also by Guarini, who employs the word “favella” with the same all-inclusive intent. See Guarini, Compendio della poesia tragicomica tratto dai duo Verati (Venezia: G. B. Ciotti, 1601) 1. In this respect, their understanding of affect is both poetic and rhetorical. 86 See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 691. 87 “The measure of good pastoral is always the gap between the lyric simplicity of words and the mutliplicity of the sense they suggest.” See R. Cody, The Landscape of the Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) 66. 88 On the erotic quality of this passage, see E. Sala di Felice, “Il Pastor Fido e la tragicommedia nella polemica Orsi- Bouhours,” Dalla tragedia rinascimentale alla tragicommedia barocca. Esperienze teatrali a confronto in Italia e in Francia. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio (Verona-Mantova 9–12 ottobre, 1991), ed. Elio Mosele (Fasano: Schena, 1993) 81–3. In her analysis the author rightly relates such erotic quality to Guarini’s specifically crafted elocutio. 85

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baciar a te cadde la sorte?” (“But tell me, when the lost had fall’n to you, / Were you not quite transported from your senses?”), Mirtillo replies: Su queste labbra, Ergasto, tutta sen venne allor l’anim mia; e la mia vita, chiusa in così breve spazio, non era altro che un bacio, onde restâr le membra, quasi senza vigor tremanti e fioche. E quando io fui vicino al folgorante sguardo, come quel che sapea che pur inganno era quell’atto e furto, temei la maestà di quel viso. Ma, da un sereno suo vago sorriso assicurato poi, pur oltre mi sospinsi. Amor si stava, Ergasto, com’ape suol, ne le due fresce rose di quelle labbra ascoso. E mentre ella si stette con la baciata bocca, al baciar dellla mia, immobile e ristretta, la dolcezza del mèl sola gustai. Ma poi che mi s’offerse anch’ella e porse l’una e l’altra dolcissima sua rosa, (fosse o sua gentilezza o mia ventura, so ben che non fu Amore), e sonar quelle labbra e s’incontrâro i nostri baci (oh caro e prezioso mio dolce tesoro t’ho perduto, e non moro?) allora sentii de l’amorosa pecchia la spina pungentissima soave passarmi il cor, che forse mi fu renduto allora per poterlo ferire. Io, poi ch’a morte mi sentii ferito, come suol disperato, poco mancò che l’omicide labbra non mordessi e segnassi; ma mi ritenne ohimé!, l’aura odorata

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy che, quasi spirto d’anima divina, risvegliò la modestia e quel furore estinse. (2, 1, 195–238) (Upon her lips, Ergasto, all my soul / Collected stood; my life in a small compass / Was so contracted it became one kiss. / Hence my lips had lost their pow’r and use; / Their nerves unbraced were trembling, weak and faint, / When I approached her eyes which darted light’ning, / As being conscious of my secret crime, / How was I struck with her majestic face. / ’Till son emboldened by a smile, / serene I ventured on, Ergasto, then did love / Hide in her lips like a luxurious bee / Nestling between two new-blown roses joined. / While she unmoved united her lips to mine, / Nought but the sweets of honey then I tasted, / But when she first displayed one fragrant rose / and then another (whether it was through / Her tenderness or my good hap, I know / It was not love) and pressed her balmy lips / To mine (O heav’ns, my only joy, and treasure, / Have lost thee and do not die?). How soon / I felt the pleasing sting transfix my heart! / Which only there was fixed to wound again. / When I perceived the wound she gave was mortal, / Like one quite desp’rate grown, resolved to bite / The lips that gave it; but their sweet perfume / That like a spirit of a soul divine, / Awakened modesty, extinguished fury.)

However, before all this is said and done, Mirtillo does not fail to give his overjoyed pal what seems to be bit of a cold shower, when he clearly states that, although sweet, a stolen kiss is only half as delightful than a reciprocated one: Dolci sì, ma non grati, perché mancava lor la miglior parte de l’intero diletto: davagli Amor, non gli rendeva Amore (188–92) (Sweet, but ungrateful (i.e. not gratifying); for the better part / Was wanting still, the inward soul’s delight; / For though love gave them, love returned them not.)

It is a cold shower which at first sight may look like your typical tongue-in-cheektype suspension, before splurging in the sensual apotheosis of the account of the kiss. However, this conceit of a love that kisses, yet may not necessarily kiss in return (which, as will be shown later, significantly resurfaces in the chorus that concludes the second act in a slightly corrected form) implies rather a sudden moment of selfawareness, a red flag for the speaker himself, and for the audience. It is, to be sure, not a sententious, moralistic moment but an exegetic one; an exegetic moment which clearly serves to open (rather than close, as it is the case for parody) the horizon of meaning pertaining to the account which is about to follow in order not just for the sensual to cohabit with the spiritual but for the sensual to usher in the spiritual. How is this accomplished? Technically speaking it is accomplished by a thorough reconstruction of the Petrarchan metaphorical apparatus which

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necessarily pertains to a lofty language of love. It suffices to take a look at the particular descriptio of the beloved’s mouth which occurs just a few moments before the above-mentioned dramatic narration of the kiss: quella bocca beata, quella bocca gentil che può ben dirsi conca d’Indo odorata di perle orientali e pellegrine; e la parte che chiude e che apre il bel tesoro, con dolcissimo mèl pupura mista. (2, 1, 171–7) (Those blessed lips, those lips so gently soft, / They might be justly called an Indian shell, / Of orient pearls exhaling fresh perfumes, and when they open and shut their hoarded treasure, / and find the purple with the honey blended.)89

Starting with the adjectives “beata”90 (“blessed”), and “gentil”91 (“gentle”), continuing with the exotic Pakistani “Indo”92 and its well known fertile “conca” (“valley”), all the way to the oriental “perle pellegrine”93 (“[rare] pearls”), and the 89 The word, “blessed,” in italics, has been substituted to the less meaningful “happy” of Sheridan’s translation. 90 See RVF (28, 1), (31, 4), (264, 48), (336, 14), (345, 6), (366, 38). Particularly significant is the instance where “beata” is used with a direct reference to the act of speaking, thus to the mouth of the beloved: “Beata s’è, che pò beare altrui / co la sua vista, over co le parole, / intellette da noi soli ambedui: ‘Fedel mio caro, assai di te mi dole, ma pur per nostro ben dura di fui’ / dice, et cos’ altre d’arrestare il sole” (341, 9–14) (“How blest is she who can bless others with her semblance or her conversation, which / Is understood by just the two of us: / ‘My faithful, dear one, much I am grieved for you, / Though with you I was stern for both our good,’ / She says, and other things to stay the sun”). 91 See RVF (27, 9), (31, 1), (53, 1), (53, 74), (60, 1), (64, 9), (72, 1), (72, 66), (77, 6), (98, 12), (105, 7), (109, 12), (126, 4), (146, 2), (158, 6), (194, 1), (224, 3), (266, 12), (270, 13), (270, 83), (299, 9), (323, 8), (332, 16), (351, 5), (366, 28). Particularly significant is the following sonnet, where “gentil” is also directly associated to the act of speaking and in turn to the mouth of the beloved: “L’atto d’ogni gentil pietate adorno / e ’l dolce amaro lamentar ch’ i’ udiva; / fecean dubbiar, se mortal donna o diva / fosse che’l ciel rasserenava intorno. / La testa òr fino, et calda neve il volto, / hebeno i cigli, et gli occhi eran due stelle, / onde Amor l’arco non tendeva in fallo; / perle e rose vermiglie, ove l’accolto / dolor formava ardenti voci e belle; / fiamma i sospir’ le lagrime cristallo” (157, 5–14) (“Her manner, with all noble mercy graced / And bitter-sweet laments I listened to, / Made me unsure if mortal lady she / Or goddess were, who brightened heaven all round. / Her head was purest gold, her face warm snow, / Her eyebrows ebony, her eyes two stars / In which Love did not aim his bow amiss; / Pearls and vermillion roses, where that woe / Was gathered, shaped those ardent, lovely words; Her sighs were flame, and crystalline her tears”). 92 See RVF (148, 2). 93 See RVF (220, 5).

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utterly sweet “mél”94 (“honey”), Mirtillo’s description of Amarillis’ mouth is but a compendium of Petrarchan metaphors. A compendium of Petrarchan metaphors that Guarini manages to creatively enrich through the sheer virtuosism of his mind-boggling synesthesia. As the mouth of the beloved becomes a fragrant exotic valley, and her lips become a delicious mix of red and honey, the metaphysical semantic horizon of Petrarch’s poetry is fully recovered and re-experienced even more poignantly through all the senses, as the utterly sensual mouth starts speaking “things to stay the sun” (RVF 341, 14). The result is a highly spiritual language charged with sheer sensuality; a Platonic discourse on love ignited with hedonism.95 Most importantly, the result is a discourse on love, whose sensual overtones highlight the ultimate spiritual referent, rather than clouding it. Seen from this perspective, Mirtillo’s above-cited sententious pause (“Sweet, but ungrateful (i.e. not gratifying); for the better part / Was wanting still, the inward soul’s delight; / For though love gave them, love returned them not”) obviously does not wipe out the possibility of a thorough fruition of sheer sensuality on the audience’s part. On the contrary, it paradoxically ascertains the thorough fruition of sensuality, using it as a bait in order to ‘hook’ (to use Cappellanus’ etymological explanation of love as amus) the audience and take it to the higher moral plane, where the audience is actually meant to be taken.96 To be sure, moralizing—intended as chastising or censoring—has really nothing to do with what is going on at this particular point in the play. Instead, what is happening here is something along the lines of what Fassò had brilliantly described as Guarini’s “wooing art” (“arte maliosa”).97 A wooing, and this is important, that chiefly aims at conquering the antinomy of the sensual and the spiritual in the discourse on love. And the indisputable proof that this is indeed not a conflict but a happy marriage of sensuality and spirituality expressed in the form of a new forma mentis comes soon afterwards, through the voice of the collective consciousness embodied in the Chorus that closes that same act. Guarini retrieves the theme of the kiss, and manages to strike an even stronger balance between sensuality and spirituality,

See RVF (215, 14), (360, 24). The interplay of sensuality and spirituality is rightly underscored by Selmi, who notes how the above-cited passage is essentially a poetic rendition of the neo-Platonic theory of the kiss exposed in the Cortegiano (IV, 64) filtered thorough sixteenth-century sensibility. See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 338. With respect to the particular mix of Platonism and hedonism in the Pastor Fido, see D. Petrini, “Guarini e il Pastor fido,” Dal Barocco al Decadentismo, vol. 1 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1957) 38–40. 96 Perella rightly perceives a superimposition of neo-Platonism and “sensualistically grounded eroticism,” but unfortunately draws the wrong conclusions when he calls it a “somewhat incongrous” superimposition which “desecrates” the neo-Platonic interpretation of the kiss. See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 689. 97 See L. Fassò, “Introduzione,” Opere, by B. Guarini (Torino: UTET, 1950) 16. 94 95

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endowing the most erotically charged of languages with a remarkable spirituality, without really disqualifying either: Ben è soave cosa quel bacio che si prende da una vermiglia e delicata rosa di bella guancia. E pur chi ’l vero intende, com’intendete vui, avventurosi amanti che ’l provate, dirà che quello è morto bacio, a cui la baciata beltà bacio non rende. Ma i colpi di due labbra innamorate, quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca e che in un punto scocca Amor con soavissima vendetta l’una e l’altra saetta, son veri baci, ove con giuste voglie tanto si dona altrui, quanto si toglie. Baci pur bocca curiosa e scaltra o seno o fronte o mano: unqua non fia che parte alcuna in bella donna baci che baciatrice sia, se non la bocca ove l’un’alma e l’altra corre e si bacia anch’ella, e con vivaci spiriti pellegrini dà vita al bel tesoro de’ baciati rubini, sì che parlan tra loro gran cose in picciol suono, e segreti dolcissimi che sono a lor solo palesi, altrui celati. Tal gioia amando prova, anzi tal vita, alma con alma unita, e son come d’amor baci baciati gli incontri di duo còri amanti amati. (2, Chorus, 1036–67) (Kiss the vermilion and the rose / Of blooming cheeks, some will suppose / That ev’n a kiss like this inspires / the lover with delicious fires. / But they, who are so blessed to know / what joys from real kisses flow / Esteem them dead, if not returned / By that fair nymph for whom they burned. / But when an am’rous war they wage / When lovers lip to lip engage, / and each at once their arrows dart / With sweet revenge into the heart, / ’Tis perfect love, while thus they wake / The joys at once they give and take. / The hand, the forehand or the breast / You kiss, but are not half so blest / As when you steal the ruby sweet / From lips where

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy both your spirits meet, / and seem to wander forth as they / Would souls into those lips convey. / That by degrees their kisses prove / A living language formed for love; / In secret murmurs which they use / The tend’rest passion to infuse, Revealed but to themselves alone, / To all the world beside unknown. / Such is the bliss, I mean the life, / When soul to soul is thus at strife, / When kiss for kiss is closely pressed / And hearts encountering breast to breast.)

Once again, we have the extensive deploying of synesthesia which clearly aims at wooing the audience. Once again, before the long lyrical contemplation of the kiss, there is a red flag for the audience that seems to say: “go ahead, enjoy, yet not blindly!” The spiritual referent is thus clearly indicated before the audience is showered in sheer sensuality: Le ricchezze e i tesori son insensati amori. Il vero e vivo amor de l’alma, è l’alma: ogn’altro oggetto, perché d’amare è privo, degno non è de l’amoroso affetto. L’anima perché sola è riamante, sola è degna d’amor, degna d’amante. (1029–35) (Riches and treasures can impart / No love to the adorning heart; / They’re senseless trifles, feel no pain, / They know not how to love again. / But when two souls to meet incline, / The heav’nly passion they refine. No other objects have a right / To love or give the heart delight / The soul alone to this has claim / Because it can repay the flame.)

Thus, while supplying total gratification of the senses, Guarini’s rhetorical craft is a constant reminder for the audience that the ultimate referent of his poetry is the spirituality of love.98 The hyperbolic image of the “bacio baciato,” in its exaggeration in the direction of the truth, poignantly expresses how the hedonistic and spiritual dimensions are intertwined, and most importantly, how the hedonistic dimension is but a prelude to the spiritual one. To be sure, with Guarini the language of the spirit takes on flesh and blood and, in all its seductive force, strives for the higher plane. The mouth becomes the poetic place were this marvelous displacement takes place; the mouth which for the stilnovisti disclosed words of salvation, and for the neo-Platonists of the early Renaissance was the cold and pure vehicle of spiritual ascent, here becomes the locus delitiae where sensual enjoyment preludes and prompts spiritual ascent.99 The kiss becomes the prelude

98 Also note that the ‘red flag’ is not only found in the text preceding the sensuallycharged passage, it is also within the passage itself. 99 See Boillet, “La mise,” 163.

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to the “kissed kiss;” the cold spiritual sphere of the Cortegiano is swept through by the warm breeze of sensuality.100 As Mirtillo’s subliminal language of spiritual love is echoed, a few scenes later, by the voice of collective consciousness, it is validated as a new form of discourse on love conflating sensuality and spirituality with a clear pedagogical intent. At this point it is time for one observation. In the wake of Perella, critics have come to embrace the idea that sensuality in the Pastor Fido is only selfserving, and at best awkward—if not downright profane—with respect to the spiritual overtones of the topoi it handles.101 This has often led to calls for an alleged underlying parodying intent of this play, particularly with respect to the lofty neo-Platonic aspirations characteristic of the Renaissance.102 The argument proposed here instead holds that the Pastor Fido is not the poetic place where the dichotomy between sensuality and spirituality is sanctioned, thus the parody of the latter legitimized; on the contrary, it is the place where this dichotomy is conquered as a new integrated language of spiritual and sensual love is coined. Such language may be a ‘profanation’ in some respect, but, to be sure, only in order to restore the efficacy of the language of spirituality—from Plato’s metaphysics to Christian theology and liturgy.103 In this light, calling Guarini sensualism “gallant” does hardly do it justice.104 Perella’s initial intuition was indeed correct, when he underscored the neo-Platonic and theological “undertones” in the sensual language of the Pastor Fido; however, stifled by his time’s somewhat myopic view of Guarini’s sensualism,105 he ended up not being able to unearth the serious spiritual implications of those undertones. Underscoring the actual recovery of Petrarch’s wide-ranging poetic lesson may be a way to reconsider Guarini’s sensualism as a much more fruitful feature; one that is strictly connected to the pedagogical aspirations of pastoral drama. Such semantic surplus in Guarini’s sensualism not only pertains to the more titillating passages of the play; it also pertains to some of the more pathetic ones. Case in point is the famous partenza amorosa (lover’s departure) of which Monteverdi has left a memorable and moving setting in his Fourth Book of Madrigals. Mirtillo has finally managed to get to talk to his beloved who, alas, has just declared that they are positively done with one another, and now invites 100 In this respect, we may want to compare the above-cited passage with Bembo’s neo-Platonic dissertation on the kiss in the Cortegiano (IV, 64). For the link between the two texts, see Perella, “Fate,” n17; and also Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 362. 101 See Perella, Fate, 260ff. 102 See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 362. 103 I am referring to what Boillet calls the “vocabulaire du sacrifice” and to the liturgical ‘contaminations’ which pertain to it. See Boillet, “La mise,” 165–77. 104 See Perella, Fate, 260, n14. 105 Here I am referring to De Sanctis as well as Croce, since they both misunderstood Guarini’s sensualism: the first reduced it to a form of sexual titillation; the second to a sort of cold, and purely intellectual, aesthetic delight.

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him to leave and never try to see her again. Mirtillo, after having commented on his pitiful predicament as that of one who can neither live nor die, departs from his beloved with the following words: Ah, dolente partita! Ah, fin della mia vita! Da te parto e non moro? E pur io provo la pena de la morte e sento nel partire un vivace morire, che dà vita al dolore per far che muoia immortalmente il core. (3, 3, 498–505) (Ah woeful parting! O my life’s sad end! / Shall I then go from thee and must not die? / Too sure I feel that lab’ring pangs of death, / A living death I feel at my departure, / Which gives such life to these my growing pains, / That my poor heart must be forever dying.)

The conceit here is that of departure as death, in that it entails the separation of the lover from his soul—i.e. his beloved. The inherent paradox in this conceit is the fact that the lover does indeed survive this separation of body and soul, in other words that he does not die, and instead lingers in this painfully split condition until he may see his beloved again. This, if one reads the madrigal literally. However, this madrigal also poignantly describes another conceit: that of spiritual ascension as death to a new life of the soul, thus a way of “morire immortalmente” (“immortally dying”). On the one hand, we have the Petrarchan love-death motive that characterizes the kind of immanent experience of sensual love as painful split often found in the “in life of Lady Laura” poems of the Canzoniere. On the other hand, we have the love-death/life motive that characterizes the Petrarchan transcendent experience of spiritual love often found in the “in death of Lady Laura” poems of the Canzoniere. Once again, both levels of reading are readily available by the audience, which is delighted for the pointy nature of a poetry that not only actually says much more than what it seems to be wanting to say but also conflates the spiritual and sensual experiences of love, making the former available through the latter. Hence, it is safe to say that the pointedness or acutezza of Guarini’s poetry—in this case the paradoxical ending “per far che muoia immortalmente il core”—is the poetic space where the sensual and spiritual dimensions of the poetry don’t clash but instead playfully engage one another in a typically Baroque way.106

106 In this respect, Perella rightly notices that not even for the two most heroic characters of the Pastor Fido, Amarillis and Mirtillo, does a Platonic or virtous inclination suppress the demands of the flesh. See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 692.

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Mirtillo’s subliminal language of spiritual love, then, indeed reflects at the level of logos the Platonic love-death/life idea which, as has been shown, also characterizes the particular initiation into Love that he is undergoing in the play. Such language is thus a perfect poetic mimesis of the existential experience described in the fabula. To be sure, the doubleness which, as has been argued earlier, is inherent in Guarini’s treatment of the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love, with its difficult mix of pathos and ethos, is echoed at the level of logos by a language of sensuality that constantly summons spirituality; and ultimately by a language of love-death that constantly summons love-death/life: a language of Eros that touches and bypasses Tanatos in order to reach Amor. In fact, even in Mirtillo’s soliloquy in front of Venus’ cave, when the presence of tragedy is clearly felt on the stage, as homicide and suicide are being evoked, thus when the love-death motive reaches its most unsettling heights, and the language of love, as we have seen, essentially becomes the language of death itself; even then, we can already feel the subtle presence of the subliminal language of spiritual love, and for a moment the vicious murderer vanishes (in a manner of speaking)—and with him his alleged rival, who doesn’t actually exist—and the soliloquy turns into a true monologue, that is, the staging of an interior conflict, the sudden moment of self-awareness of a lover preparing himself to die to himself in order to leave the “maggior mal” (“greater pain”) and transcend to a new life of the soul: Ma che tardi, Mirtillo? Colei che ti dà vita, a te l’ha tolta e l’ha donata altrui. E tu vivi, meschino? e tu non mori? Mori, Mirtillo, mori al tormento, e al dolore, com’al tuo ben, com’al gioir se’morto. Mori, morto Mirtillo: hai finita la vita, finisci anco il tormento. Esci, misero amante di questa angosciosa morte, che per maggior tuo mal ti tiene in vita. (3, 8, 1190–202) (But why dos’t thou delay, Mirtillo? She, / Who gave thee life, has now deprived thee of it / And to another giv’n it. / Yet you live! / Abandoned wretch! / Why this delay to die? / Die then Mirtillo—die to grief and pain, thou’rt already dead to ev’ry joy. / Die, dead Mirtillo, since thy life is ended. / Finish each torment of thy soul at once. / Depart, afflicted lover, from this hard, / This death of anguish, which for greater pain / Reserves thee still alive.)

Thus, the dramatic suicidal-homicidal soliloquy, here still dramatically highly charged, subliminally already points to a prospective transcendence to a higher life and love which will be prompted by the ensuing descent in the cave.

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The moment of jealousy that preludes to disaster is, then, paradoxically indeed, also the moment where true love is manifested at a subliminal level, and becomes another step of the initiation to love.107 Hinted in between the lines of the evoked love-death motive this monologue makes extensive use of, one already catches a slight glimpse of the implied love-death/life motive, which eventually will replace it in the end. For the actual harrowing of death through death, however, the audience will have to wait until act five, when the moment of death/life will be ecstatically announced by the Messenger. This happens in the famous scene of the certamen virtutis which has been extensively discussed in the first chapter, when Mirtillo and Amarillis, paradoxically indeed,108 find each other competing not for their lives but for their voluntary death, as if their lives were at stake—“come s’a punto / fosse vita il morire, il viver morte” (V, 2, 319–20) (“as if ’twere life to die, to live mere death”). As the Messenger takes us through the motions of this great coup de scène, with the skill of an experienced ‘melodramatist,’ he suddenly shifts from a dramatic recitative-like mode to a lyrical aria-like mode and declares: Oh anime bennate, oh coppia degna di sempiterni onori! Oh vivi e morti gloriosi amanti! Se tante lingue avessi e tante voci quant’occhi il cielo e quante arene il mare, perderien tutte il suono e la favella nel dir a pien le vostre lodi immense. (5, 2, 321–7) (O glorious souls the matchless pair of lovers, / Worthy to live forever in records / Of high renown, whether ye live or die. / Had I as many tongues and voice for each, / As heav’n has eyes, or as the ocean sands, / Their words, and sounds all joined, would be too little / To eternize your too unbounded glory.)

This poignant paradoxical juxtaposition of love (“amanti”), death (“morti”), and life (“vivi”)—where quite significantly the word “vivi” precedes “morti”109— punctually underscores at the level of logos the climactic dramaturgic moment that, as has already been shown, ushers in the sublime love-death/life motive that conjugates pathos and ethos. A motive which is now unabashedly declared

The doubleness of jealousy is another traditional topos of the theoresis of love since Andrea Cappellanus. See C. Schlumbohm, Jocus und Amor (Hamburg: Romanisches Seminar Der Universität Hamburg, 1974) 210ff. 108 Selmi talks about irony, thus hardly understanding the poetic crux in this scene. See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 442. 109 This crucial nuance is unfortunately lost in Sheridan’s translation. 107

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in Ficinian terms as the harrowing of death through death.110 And here is how it is poignantly acknowledged by Mirtillo himself in one of his last lines, which, maybe not casually, is the very last line with an exclamation point: Oh che dolce morir, quando sol meco il mio mortal moria, ne bramava morir l’anima mia! (5, 3, 422–4) (O how delightful were my death, if nought / But this my mortal part should die, and that / My soul should still survive in her dear breast!)

At the end of his redemptive erring, the language of the faithful shepherd has become overtly spiritual or Ficinian; yet, unlike Ficino, Guarini has managed to perfectly conflate sensuality and spirituality even on the coté of spirituality, and the “dolce morire” (“delightful dying”) no longer has an oxymoronic character but a hyperbolic one: the sensual “dolce” (“sweet”) has become the tangible expression for the spiritual bliss of an immortal death. A final consideration on Guarini’s sensualism is due at this point. In light of what has been discussed so far, it is safe to say that in the Pastor Fido sensuality is a far more complex issue than what it appears to be. In fact, Guarini’s sensualism, as has been pointed out, implies a subliminal language of spiritual love. Thus, if it is true that the pastoral capitalizes on a form of sensuality ‘in disguise’ in order to gratify and titillate in a sort of oblique way an audience that craves it,111 it is also true that this is only an expedient; it is the first step of a pedagogic strategy aimed at teaching a much more complex lesson on love. To be sure, the titillating element of sensuality is only a means of seduction. In other words, it is a “wooing” and ancillary means, whose end is to galvanize metaphysical speculation.112 As mentioned before, in order to properly address the question of sensuality in the Pastor Fido, and in Baroque 110

“O felicem mortem, quam due vite secuntur! O mirum commertium, quo quis se ipsum tradit pro alio, alium habet nec habere se desinit!” Convivium 2, 7, See M. Ficino, Opera Omnia, ed. M. Sancipriano (Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1959) vol. 2, 1327–8. (“O happy death, which is followed by two lives! O marvelous exchange, where he who gives oneself to another, has another, without ceasing to have oneself,” Convivium 2, 7). See Ficino, Opera Omnia, 2: 1327–8 (my translation). 111 See D. Dalla Valle, Pastorale Barocca. Forme e contenuti dal ‘Pastor fido’ al dramma pastorale francese (Ravenna: Longo, 1973) 136–7. 112 In this respect, one will have to clearly differentiate between the pedagogical strategy described here and the kind of gothic Petrarchism that characterizes earlier Venetian poets, such as Girolamo Malipiero and his Spiritual Petrarch (1536). To be sure, Guarini’s subliminal language of spiritual love is far from any attempt to expunge human love from Petrarch’s love poetry. On gothic Petrarchism see E. Taddeo, Il manierismo letterario e i lirici veneziani del tardo Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 1974) 180–92.

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sensibility in general, it is necessary to avoid the dichotomy between spirituality and sensuality. Otherwise one risks either seeing awkwardness and desecration where there is none, or mistaking the means of poetry for its ends—sensuality is indeed a means and not the end in Guarini’s poetry. The perspective rehearsed here is thus one which expresses an integrated vision, through which one beholds the mutual complementarity of sensuality and spirituality in Guarini’s poetry. In this light, the intrinsic doubleness which, as has been shown, indeed pertains to Guarini’s language or logos of love is but another coherent rhetorical element of his complex tragicomic aesthetics; thus, another coherent constituent of the therapeutic affective response this play intended to beget in its audience through a great poetic enchantment based on a compelling dramatic action and “wooing” words. An Artful Dramatic Language Thus, it is safe to say that for Guarini temperament not only is contingent upon a well-crafted plot or fabula, with its difficult yet efficacious mix of pathos and ethos; temperament also involves a highly sophisticated language or elocutio. The conquest of Tanatos through Eros in the Pastor Fido takes place through the skillful use of the whole complexity of drama as poetic/ rhetorical instrument. Once again, the parallel with Petrarch may not be that far fetched. After all, isn’t it Petrarch himself, who in the latter editions of his Rime sparse gradually underplays the narrative aspect, while indicating language—the “sound” of the “scattered rhymes”—as the decisive redemptive device of his lyrics? This, in turn, brings to the fore another issue that also pertains to the logos of this play—namely, the well known issue of the ornate style of the Pastor Fido that Guarini himself openly advocates: “Il mio pastor quanto più posso adorno” (“I adorn my shepherd as much as I can”).113 In fact one may wonder how also style fits into the poetic/rhetoric economy of Guarini’s pastoral, and thus helps cater to its therapeutic aspirations. So far critics have thoroughly examined Guarini’s style, calling it a staple of that Mannerist artfulness which significantly captures the taste for decoration typical of the seventeenth century.114 They also have acknowledged that, although the poetry of the Pastor Fido combines reminiscences of Boccaccio and Dante, it is Petrarch’s formal sophistication and control which more clearly define

113 Impresa which appears at the beginning of Guarini’s own comment to the Pastor Fido. See Guarini, Annotazioni, 1. 114 Besides the already cited works by Folena and Battaglin, see F. Flora, Storia della letteratura italiana, vol. 2 (Milano: Mondadori, 1953 ) 770ff.

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it;115 thus, they have rightly concentrated their efforts toward underscoring its peculiar musical character.116 Indeed, by the author’s own admission, it is Petrarch himself who provides the Pastor Fido with the mere stylistic and formal building blocks necessary for its construction: Ma per tornare a proposito, non si dice che ’l Pastor Fido non abbia degli ornamenti lirici, se del numero, dello stile, de’ traslati e delle voci simili a quella del Petrarca e de’ seguaci di lui s’intende; ed è tanto lontano che questo giudichi errore, che anzi errore giudicherei se altramente si fosse fatto, dovendo esser l’idea di lui il favellare con purità che sia nobile, proprio stile della drammatica poesia.117 (Going back to the issue [of style] it shouldn’t be said that the Pastor Fido doesn’t have lyrical ornaments, if one intends the meter, the style, and the figures of speech similar to those of Petrarch and of his followers; and I judge this far from being an error, since I would rather judge it an error having done the opposite, considering that it is his [Petrarch’s] idea of speaking with a purity that may be noble that ought to be the proper style of dramatic poetry.)

The link between Guarini’s dramatic language and Petrarch stylistic sophistication is thus legitimate; as is the observation that such a link is subjected to a process of intense rhetorization through the extensive deployment of figurae eloqutionis such as the enthymeme.118 So far, however, the formalistic approach to Guarini’s poetry seems to have overly emphasized the idea of an artfulness for artfulness’ sake, which was certainly not the case for Petrarch, and arguably not even for Guarini. In fact, knowing what we know about the immediate impact of form and style on life typical of the Petrarchan experience in the sixteenth century—to say nothing about the culture of the court—one may want to ask whether the question of coining a new ornate dramatic language may not entail deeper concerns; in other words, one may want to ask whether there are, perhaps, deeper motives underlying what has been referred to as the restoring of the “bloodless” Petrarchan 115

For a careful analysis of Petrarch’s stylistic legacy in Guarini’s language, see Battaglin, “Il linguaggio,” 299ff.; V. Guercio, “Note e Discussioni. Petrarca nel ‘Pastor Fido’. Integrazioni e puntualizzazioni in margine ad un recente commento,” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, CLXXX (2003). 116 Flora speaks of a tension whereby the words tend to lose their verbal weight in order to acquire a musical levity. See F. Flora, “Guarino e i madrigalisti del Cinquecento,” Storia della letteratura italiana (Milano: Mondadori, 1952) 3: 108. Battaglin emphasizes the musical character of Guarini’s poetry, and argues that musical sensuality is the ultimate goal toward which the poet’s linguistic and stylistic research is aimed. See Battaglin, “Il linguaggio,” 299–300. 117 Guarini, Compendio, 31–2. 118 See the already cited works Poetica and Icastico by Scarpati.

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language in a viable dramatic form.119 Why not, then, entertain the idea of a far more meaningful use of form in the pastoral, as Bigi and Della Terza convincingly do respectively for Castiglione’s pastoral drama Tirsi and for Tasso’s Aminta?120 In the light of what has been discussed thus far, this might seem at least a reasonable question to raise for two good reasons. Firstly, because it is Guarini himself that suggests a more meaningful use of style, when he points out that form and truth are clearly one the reflection of the other: “Il nome di Pastor Fido a questa favola fu dato con gran ragione e giudizio, essendo preso da quella parte, che rappresenta la sua formale, e vera sembianza” (“The name Pastor Fido was given to this tale with great reason and good judgment, having being taken from that part which represents its formal and true semblance”).121 Secondly, because, with the exception of Scarpati and Selmi’s work, there is no mention of any serious pedagogical or epistemological issue in all the extensive analytical work that has been done on the language and style of the Pastor Fido; and certainly not much has been said about the usefulness or utile of style in this play. The following discussion is an attempt to reopen the issue of Guarini’s subscription to the decorative style of Petrarch and of his epigones, positing a more meaningful use of style on Guarini’s behalf. More specifically, it is an attempt to understand style in Guarini’s poetry as directly contributing to the particular affectivity that moves the moral affects of the audience and allows for temperament. In this respect, style becomes a fundamental element of the poetic enchantment that allows the poetry of the Pastor Fido to move and temper the affects; in other words, it becomes the embodiment of the necessary congruity between subject matter and elocution imposed by the principle of decorum,122 without which no affective engagement of the audience would be possible. The idea of a correspondence between structural and ideological elements in the Pastor Fido is indeed a plausible one.123 In this light, it is safe to say I am borrowing the colorful expression from Selmi, Classici, 31. Bigi rightly underscores the close tie between Castiglione’s ethical ideal of grazia and the formal aspects that characterize his pastoral. See E. Bigi, “‘Semplicità’ pastorale e ‘grazia’ cortigiana nel Tirsi,” Poesia latina e volgare nel Rinascimento italiano (Napoli: Morano, 1989) 337. For another compelling perspective on form and content as products of culture, see Della Terza “L’esperienza petrarchesca del Tasso,” Forma e memoria. Saggi e ricerche sulla tradizione letteraria da Dante a Vico (Roma: Bulzoni, 1979) 179–80. 121 Guarini, Annotazioni, 1. Italics are mine. On the relationship between form and content in Guarini’s thought, see B. Hathaway, The Age of Criticism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962) 273. 122 According to Grosser the principle of decorum imposes a necessary congruence between matter and elocution, between content and form. See H. Grosser, La sottigliezza del disputare: teorie degli stili e teorie dei generi in età rinascimentale e nel Tasso (Firenze: La nuova Italia, 1992) 6. 123 Selmi notes a cohesion of structural and ideological elements in the Pastor Fido, and particularly dwells on the relationship between verisimilitude and hedonistic pleasure (“the pleasure of rhetoric”) intended as a sophisticated form of intellectual experience. See Selmi, 119

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that the above-mentioned sophisticated style of the Pastor Fido allows for the fulfillment of a momentous therapeutic project that capitalizes on a wide range of poetic/rhetorical means: from an Aristotelian fabula that stages the Petrarchan ethos, all the way to an elocutio characterized by an ad hoc decorative approach to Petrarch’s language and style that is meant to frame such Petrarchan ethos in a very specific way, and thus allows it to move the moral affects according to the specific dynamics of temperament that has been illustrated so far. Style, then, becomes the source of delight inasmuch as it is strategic for guiding and orienting the process of purgation of affects through which, according to Aristotle, man becomes virtuous. It is well known that Guarini deliberately chooses to follow in Speroni’s controversial footsteps,124 thus opting for a highly stylized poetic language that emphasizes artfulness over naturalness. This, he argues, is due to the fact that, since the object of pastoral poetry is not reality—as instead is the case for comedy and tragedy—it may be, and indeed should be, authorized to deploy all those artifices which one would normally consider hardly fitting in more realistic genres: Ma forse non si vorrebbon tante vivezze, tanti spiriti tante rime. I quali ornamenti non converrebbero a poema tragico et comico, imperoche sarebbon fuori del verosimile in questa guisa non favellandosi tra le mura della città, et se così parlassero i cittadini, sarebbono verisimili. Facciasi dunque la differenza che ci corre da sé: quegli ornamenti son verisimili in quel poema, dunque son tollerabili. Il Pastor Fido non è fatto in Arcadia? Or non è meraviglia se i pastori d’Arcadia, massimamente nobili, abbellivano di vaghezze poetiche i loro ragionamenti, essendo essi, più di tutte l’altre nazioni, amicissimi delle muse.125 (But maybe so many lively and spirited things, and so many rhymes would be uncalled for. Such ornaments would not be well suited for a tragic or comic poem, since they would not be verisimilar, because that is not the way people talk in the city; and if the citizens were to talk that way, they in turn would not be verisimilar. Hence one may see for oneself the difference: such ornaments are indeed verisimilar in this poem [the Pastor Fido], and thus tolerable. Isn’t the Pastor Fido set in Arcadia? Well, it is not a reason for marvel if the shepherds of Arcadia, who were highly noble, embellished with poetic niceties their reasoning, since they, more than any other nation, were best friends of the muses.) Nota, 45–6. On the correspondence of structural and ideological elements in the Pastor Fido, see also F. Ulivi, “La poetica del Guarini e il Pastor fido,” Humanitas 6 (1951). 124 The language of the Canace (1542) was in fact harshly criticized by Bartolomeo Cavalcanti for its “useless flourishes, puerile figures, distorted and obscure expressions.” For a general discussion on the polemic around the Canace, see B. Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961) 2: 912–53. 125 Guarini, Compendio, 32.

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Thus, inasmuch as the pastoral represents a fictional or ideal reality, the language, form, and style of choice have to be not truly verisimilar but artfully verisimilar; they should therefore include all the rhetorical artifices of a fully fledged lyrical language in order to accomplish that result. It is well known that with this move towards an idea of verisimilitude subjected to the laws of art—an “imitated verisimilitude”126—Guarini lays down the foundation for the new aesthetic developments about to take place in the Baroque. What still needs to be pointed out, even though it is probably evident by now, is how this new mimetic ideal is actually accomplished under the aegis of the Petrarchan auctoritas. It is in fact only by settling the very Petrarchan controversy between naturalness and artfulness on the side of an artfulness that implies an imitated verisimilitude (as opposed to verisimilitude per se, as is the case of Tasso) that Guarini is able to coin a style of metaphorical displacement which is coherent with the above-mentioned subliminal language of spiritual love he is deploying; it is, in other words, only by capitalizing on an artfulness that pertains to a sense of imitated verisimilitude that Guarini is able to achieve the ideality of the res that his verba want to imitate. In this respect, it may be worthwhile to remember that Petrarch himself, in the first eight lines of a seminal sonnet, actually acknowledges the artfulness of his poetry as the wise balance between the truths of Nature and Art that respectively characterize the “ancient tounge” and the “moderns’ style:” S’amore o morte non dà qualche stroppio a la tela novella ch’ora ordisco, e s’io mi svolvo del tenace visco, mentre che l’un con l’altro vero accoppio, i’ farò forse un mio lavor sì doppio tra lo stil de’ moderni e ’l sermon prisco che, paventosamente a dirlo ardisco, infin a Roma n’udrai lo scoppio. (RVF, 40, ll1–8) (If Love or Death does not create some flaw / or rend this fabric new whose warp I lay , / If from the limed snare I can free myself, / Till this one with that other truth I wed, / Perhaps so doubly my one work I’ll shape / Between the moderns’ style and ancient tongue / That (and I dare to say this fearfully) / At length you’ll hear it noised abroad in Rome.)127

Capitalizing on the particular artfulness of Petrarch’s code, Guarini creates a dramatic language where form and style do much more than serving as mere 126

Guarini calls it “verosimile imitato” (“imitated verisimilar”). See Guarini, Compendio, 9. 127 On the dialectic between simplicity and artfulness as an intrinsic element of the Canzoniere, see D. Alonso, “La poesia del Petrarca e il Petrarchismo: Mondo estetico della pluralità,” Lettere italiane 2: 3 (1959): 290–93.

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controlling devices, keeping in check the realistic charge of the content; they actually coalesce in order to create the great poetic enchantment that moves the moral affects of the audience and allows for temperament; a poetic enchantment created by means of the previously described subliminal language of love, as well as through the artful style of the Pastor Fido that mimetically reproduces the existential experience described in the plot: one which represents the triumph of Nature as right reason, in all its artfulness. As is well known, the author of the Pastor Fido has been accused of betraying the most vital instance of Renaissance poetry, namely, realism, and to have substituted it with its artful surrogate.128 That the artfulness of Guarini’s language does not often satisfy the taste of modern readers is a fact, demonstrated by a long tradition of criticism which has made no mysteries about its predilection for the Aminta.129 Indeed readers, both old and new ones, seem to enjoy more Tasso’s simple (but not simplistic) and natural erotic language130—although the language of the Aminta is also the result of a highly artful approach.131 It is, however, also important to frame Guarini’s option for an artful form and style within an organic poetic enterprise which aims at exploiting the full pedagogic potential of the Canzoniere in order to achieve the aesthetic goal of tragicomedy in a completely new way: by ushering in a new kind of affectivity that, as will be shown in Chapter 3, is a far cry from that of Tasso’s Aminta, and yet that is based on the very same sophisticated linguistic and stylistic Petrarchan code. In doing so, Guarini’s pastoral may very well have betrayed the most vital instance of Renaissance poetry in order to establish a new sense of decorum. This, however, hardly offers an informed response to the artfulness of his poetry; rather it disqualifies it. Instead, looking at all the Petrarchan poetic/rhetorical means that make up the artful form of the Pastor Fido as one great coherent strategy for raising pastoral poetry to unprecedented moral heights, is arguably an attempt at building a better informed response to this extraordinary work. In this respect, as a preliminary conclusion, one may note that, as this discussion has shown, Guarini fully exploits the whole gamut of Petrarchan Bonora, Retorica, 181–2. For Dryden and Pope’s predilection for the Aminta, vindicated exactly in name of realism, see N. J. Perella, “Amarilli’s Dilemma: The Pastor Fido and some English Authors,” Comparative Literature 12: IV (Autumn, 1960): 350–351. A thorough discussion of the Aminta will follow in Chapter 3. 130 Costa underlines the unprecedented frankness of Tasso’s erotic language in the Aminta. See G. Costa, La leggenda dei secoli d’oro nella letteratura italiana (Bari: Laterza, 1972) 100. 131 See M. Fubini “L’ Aminta intermezzo alla tragedia della Liberata,” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 145 (1968): 40. On this see also H. Grosser, “Aminta: lo stile della pastorale,” Il merito e la cortesia. Torquato Tasso e la corte dei Della Rovere. Atti del Convegno Ubino-Pesaro 18–20 settembre, 1996, ed. G. Arbizzoni, G. Cerboni Baiardi, T. Mattioli, and A. T. Ossani (Aletheia, Ancona: Il lavoro, 1999). 128 129

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poetic/rhetorical devices, not for mere artfulness’ sake, but rather in order to obtain a specific therapeutic result: the temperament of affects through the arousal of moral affects according to the tenets of tragicomic aesthetics. Moreover, one may also conclude that the Pastor Fido, rather than betraying some vital instances of Renaissance poetry, simply marks the dawn of a new moral vision characterized by the dominance of Nature as right reason or ‘good’ art.132 In this light, Art becomes the imitation not only of Nature as Art, as it had been for Tasso (see Chapter 3) but rather the imitation of Nature as artful Art; Nature is conceived no longer as self-regimented, as it had been for Tasso, but as regimented through artful law (faith). From now on, this will be the kind of enchantment that poetry will seek in order to move and temper the affects. It is a kind of enchantment that, as has already been mentioned, necessarily entails a painstaking recovery of the entire artfulness of Petrarch’s poetry; the ‘good’ artfulness that, as will be pointed out in the next chapter, Tasso’s approach to the Petrarchan code had purposely dissimulated in order to achieve a poetic imitation of Eros from a completely different philosophical perspective. Not surprisingly, in the Chorus of the fourth act, at the moment when Guarini openly declares the momentous conceptual shift that substitutes the moral values of the present to those of the past, one also finds, once again, a subtle yet significant subscription to Petrarch’s poetic enterprise; a Petrarch construed as the master of a discreet use of rhetoric,133 which not only combines and reconciles the truths of both Art and Nature, but also subjects the latter to the former by increasingly emphasizing form over narrative in his later elaborations of the Canzoniere. With respect to this famous chorus, where, as is well known, Guarini essentially rewrites the first chorus of the Aminta, Scarpati has rightly noted that the juxtaposition of Guarini’s “you may, if its allowed”134 to Tasso’s “you may, if you like” signals the collision between prelapsarian naturalism and civilized nature, between primitivism and regimented honesty.135 At the very same time this momentous overhaul of moral perspectives is taking place, Guarini also makes an important topical amendment in the text. The reference here is to the famous recasting of Tasso’s “tu [Onore] raccogliesti in rete / le chiome e l’aura sparte” (1, 701–2) (“you [Honor] gathered their locks / spread on the breeze”)136, turning it into his:

See L. G. Clubb, “The Moralist in Arcadia: England and Italy,” Romance Philology 19, n2 (1965). 133 See L. Forster, “The Petrarchan Manner: an Introduction,” The Icy Fire. Five Studies in European Petrarchism (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969) 6. 134 Sheridan’s translation of Guarini’s “Piaccia se lice” with “Yes, if it pleases you, you may,” completely misses the point of Guarini’s correction of Tasso, and thus constitutes a major flaw in the translation. 135 See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 102–3. 136 My translation. 132

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Così qual tesa rete [tu Secol rio] tra fiori e fronde sparte celi pensier lascivi. (4, 1439–41) (So you [guilty present time] as an insidious net deceive / When covered over with scattered flowers and leaves.)137

At the peak of his polemic against false honor, Tasso had deployed a language loaded with Petrarchan signals. Words of unmistakable Petrarchan resonance such as “sparte”—reminiscent of the “voi ch’ ascoltate in rime sparse il suono” (“O you that hear in scattered rhymes the sound,” RVF, 1)—, “chiome” (“locks”), and particularly the word itself “(L)aura,” were singled out and pointed at as byproducts of false honor itself. A quite strong statement indeed with respect to Petrarchism; one which, as Niccoli rightly remarks, “must have posed somewhat of a problem to Guarini.”138 In fact, as one can see from his correction, Guarini ends up removing the markedly suggestive “chiome” (“locks”) and particularly the emblematic “(L)aura,” replacing them with the much more innocuous and vaguely pastoral “flowers” and “leaves,” thus moving the possible referential field of the polemic he is engaging against false honor away from Petrarch. While maintaining Tasso’s critical tone against false honor, Guarini prevents Petrarch’s code from possibly becoming an indirect target within this polemic.139 The two Petrarchan syntagms greatly compromised by Tasso’s polemic are therefore removed, while “sparte” (“scattered”) is kept in order to respect Tasso’s rhyme scheme, thus to enhance the particular per le parole character of his rebuttal.140

137

My translation. See G. Niccoli, Cupid, 84. 139 That Tasso’s deployment of Petrarchan language was indeed meant to be polemic in some respects is, I believe, beyond any doubt. However, as will be pointed out in the next chapter, his polemic, very much like Guarini, rather than against the code itself, is directed toward its distortions caused by Petrarch’s gallant epigones. In other words, Tasso’s stance is an anti-Petrarchistic rather than an anti-Petrarchan stance. On pastoral drama as a moment of critical reflection on Petrarchistic love with an attempt at denouncing and overcoming the underlying pathology of courtly love, see R. Gigliucci “Precipitando Aminta ascende,” Sylva. Studi in onore di Nino Borsellino, ed. G. Patrizi (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002). 140 See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 102. With regard to the ideological implications of Guarini’s rewriting of Tasso, besides the already cited Bàrberi Squarotti, “Il far grande,” see also D. Chiodo, “‘Soavi licor’ e ‘succhi amari’: Guarini e Baldi emuli del Tasso,” Lettere Italiane 45 (1993); and, from the same author, “Il mito dell’eta aurea nell’opera tassiana,” Studi tassiani 35 (1987)—later reprinted in Torquato Tasso, poeta gentile (Bergamo: Centro Studi Tassiani, 1998)—as well as “Tra l’Aminta e il Pastor Fido,” Italianistica 24 (1995); Selmi, Classici, 190–199; and most recently M. Residori, “‘Veder il suo in man d’altri’: note sulla presenza dell’Aminta nel Pastor Fido,” Chroniques Italiennes 5 (1/2004 Série Web). 138

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Another significant correction occurs a few verses earlier in the text, where we find that Guarini changes Tasso’s “quell’idolo d’errori, idol d’inganno” (1, 671) (“That idol of error, idol of deceit”) to his “inutil soggetto / di lusinghe, di titoli e d’inganno” (1, 1409) (“useless subject of flattery, status, and deceit”).141 Not only had Tasso used the word “idolo” (“idol”)—a word of particularly strong Petrarchan overtones142—as the metaphor of false honor itself; he had managed to draw particular attention to it with a tactical anaphora. Guarini decides to wipe out the Petrarchan reference, punctually correcting another potentially compromised syntagm. Once again he reconfirms Petrarch’s code, and shields it from any possible compromising resonance.143 It is clear, at this point, that Guarini is not simply choosing a style for his poetry that is supposed to usher in a totally new sense of decorum, he is also attempting to safeguard the integrity that pertains to such style. His option for Petrarch’s artful style is, then, not merely decorative; it is the result of a truly mimetic process: a process whereby, as is the case in the best humanist tradition, the verba are but reflections of the res, and thus the poetry, with its form and style, conveys a content that is but the author’s philosophical elaboration of morality itself.144 To be sure, Guarini’s style is but the formal reflection of the highly intellectualized idea of love that, as has been shown, characterizes de facto his pastoral. His is, thus, a move to the rescue of the intrinsic moral integrity of an artful Petrarchan code that he still considers vital in order to convey a particular sense of morality. It is a way to “authorize” Petrarch, to use Kennedy’s suggestive expression, according to the Mannerist temperament within which he is operating,

141

My translation. Particularly significant are two instances of the Canzoniere. The first is the famous patriotic Canzone: “Latin sangue gentile, / sgombra da te queste dannose some; / non far idolo un nome vano, senza soggetto” (“Noble latin blood / Cast off these hurtful burdens from yourself: / No idol make of names, / unsubstantial, void”) (RVF, 128, ll. 74–7). The second is a Sestina, where Petrarch uses the word “idolo” as the metaphor for Lady philosophy herself: “I’ temo di cangiar pria volto e chiome, / che con vera pietà mi mostri gli occhi / l’idolo mio scolpito in vivo lauro” (“I fear the changing of my face and hair / Before, with pity true, she shows her eyes / —My idol sculpted in the living laurel”) (RVF, 30, ll. 25–7). 143 For another interesting instance of Guarini’s Petrarchan “contamination” of Tasso, see V. Guercio, “La lezione dell’Aminta e il Pastor Fido,” Studi Secenteschi 43 (2002): 124–6 and 145–6.While the issue is certainly well known among scholars, this is, to my knowledge, the first attempt at framing it within a coherent poetics that has momentous moral implications. As will be shown in the next chapter, the degree of Petrarchan contamination or decontamination that pertains to Tasso and Guarini’s pastorals is a determinant factor not only to their respective interpretation of Mannerist poetics but also with respect to the particular kind of affectivity of the poetry, and thus to its therapeutic function. 144 See S. Jossa and S. Mammana, “Petrarchismo e Petrarchismi. Forme, ideologia, identità di un sistema,” Nel libro di Laura (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2004) 98. 142

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and propose a new style—an openly artful style—as a crucial element of a new aesthetics of the dramatic pastoral that is meant to overturn Tasso’s aesthetics. Quite in keeping with this full avowal to a moralized form of Petrarchism, with its full metaphysical import, are also Guarini’s critical tones against a courtly tradition that seems to have misunderstood and even abused its master. A significant example is Guarini’s treatment of the topos of the Satyr, and particularly the invective against the poets which closes the sixth scene of the second act. Following Beccari’s example, Guarini presents us with a Satyr who not only does not succeed in his violent intents but is also scorned by the nymph he intended to rape. Moreover, Guarini’s Satyr is a character that, rather than completely enslaved by his own bestial desire, seems to display a self-conscious attitude; an attitude that his discourse promptly reflects. Niccoli calls him an “ardent antiPetrarchist,”145 and indeed he is, in some respects—that is, if with Petrarchism we understand a formulaic, inert, and even abusive approach to the Petrarchan code.146 Indeed, from a meta-literary perspective the Satyr embodies the grieving voice of an abused code: Ecco! poeti, questo è l’oro nativo e l’ambra pura che pazzamente voi lodate. Omai arrossite, insensati, e, ricantando, vostro soggetto in quella vece sia l’arte d’una impurissima e malvagia incantatirce, che i sepolcri spoglia e, dai fracidi teschi il crin furando, al suo l’intesse e così ben l’asconde, che v’ha fatto lodar quel che aborrire dovevate assai più di Megera le viperine e mostrüose chiome. (2, 6, 984–95) (Behold, ye poets, here’s your native gold! / Your genuine amber! Which ye madly all / Commend. Blush at your follies and recant / These vain encomiums. In their place describe / The wicked arts of a most impious sorc’ress, / Who robs the graves and strips the putrid heads / Of hair which, in her own inwaved, deceives / The nicest eye. This made you write those poems / In praise of them, for had you known the cheat, / They would have been as much detested by you / As the foul hissing ringlets of Megara.)

See Niccoli, Cupid, 139. For the discrimination taking place within Petrarchism itself, from Speroni to Tomitano to Castelvetro, between a purely formulaic approach—that of the “rimari” and “vocabolari”—and a doctrinal or philosophical approach to Petrarch’s poetry, see Jossa and Mammana, “Petrarchismo,” 104–7. 145 146

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By openly denouncing the shortcomings of a code in statu quo, Guarini indirectly points back to its glorious original inspirational force, Petrarch himself, underscoring with all the possible irony how far astray some of the courtly epigones of the Master have wandered.147 Thus, underlying what seems to be a comical invective, there is indeed a true ‘call to order’ that resonates with the full scope of Petrarch’s conflicting sentiments with respect to simulacra as ‘double edged’ objects of idolatry: on the one hand, they enslave the elegiac poet; on the other hand, they are the means through which his poetry springs: L’aura celeste che n’ quel verde lauro spira, ove Amor ferì nel fianco Apollo, et a me pose un dolce giogo al collo tal che mia libertà tardi restauro, pò quello in me che nel gran vecchio mauro Medusa, quando in selce transformollo; né posso dal bel nodo omai dar crollo, là ’ve il sol perde, non pur l’ambra o l’auro: dico le chiome bionde e l’ crespo laccio che sì soavemente lega e stringe l’alma, che d’umiltate e non d’altr’armo. L’ombra sua sola fa ’l mio cor un un ghiaccio et di bianca paura il viso tinge; ma gli occhi ànno vertù di farne un marmo. (RVF, 197)148 147

Bárberi Squarotti also engages in a meta-literary reading of the Satyr’s invective, arguing that it entails a “liquidation of the ideology underlying the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.” See Il ‘far grande’ 439–40. While I essentially agree with him on the fact that Guarini’s Mannerism entails a thorough revision of the Petrarchan code, I think that the textual evidence presented in this chapter clearly points out that it is a revision that reinstates the code, rather than liquidating it. 148 Quite poignant is also the pendant sonnet immediately following this one: “L’aura soave al sole spiega e vibra / l’auro ch’Amor di sua man fila et tesse / là da’ belli occhi, et de le chiome stesse / lega ‘l cor lasso e i lievi spiriti cribra. / Non ò medolla in osso o sange in fibra / ch’ i’ non senta tramar, pur ch’i’ m’ apresse / dove è chi morte e vita inseme, spesse / volte in frale bilancia appende et libra, / vedendo ardere i lumi and’io m’accendo / et folgorare i nodi ond’io son preso or su l’omero destro ed or sul manco. / I’ nol posso ridir, ché nol compredo, / da ta’ due luci è l’intelletto offeso / e di tanta dolcezza oppresso et stanco” (“The soft breeze strews and ruffles in the sun / Gold that, near her fair eyes, Love spins and weaves / With his hand, and with that same hair he binds / My flagging heart, and shifts light spirits out. / In fiber, blood, in bone no pith have I / That does not shiver if I but come near / Where she is, who ofttimes suspends and weighs / In fragile balance death and life at once; I see those lights ablaze that kindle me / And see those braids that bind me

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(The heavenly breeze sighs in that laurel green / Where Love once struck Apollo in his side / And placed about my neck so sweet a yoke / that too late I regain my liberty. / In me she can do what Medusa did / to that old giant Moor when she changed him into stone; I can’t shrug off that fair knot which / Dims not just gold and amber, but the sun. / I speak of that blond hair, that twinning net / Which gently binds my soul, holds it so fast / That it’s armed only with humility. / Though her mere shadow turns my heart to ice, / And makes my face grow pale with blanching fear, / Made marble by the power of her eyes.)

Not surprisingly the whole incident which serves as a pretext to the Satyr’s invective is centered around the emblematic “chiome bionde” (“blond locks”). The clever escape of deceitful Corsica, who leaves a scorned Satyr holding what he thought to be her hair, and is instead just her wig—a blond wig, to be sure—, thus becomes a lazzo (joke) with strong meta-literary implications149 that serve to re-address the issue of simulacra in poetry from a true Petrarchan perspective (or maybe even from an Augustinian perspective—the Augustine of the Secretum, that is): the “blond hair” is nothing but the ‘bait’ which leads the poet right into a trap called idolatry. Indeed the Satyr’s particular emphasis on the deceitful nature of simulacra is a far cry from Petrarch’s vague ambiguity. However, we also must not forget that the markedly moralizing tone used here is likely to have had a comic rather than serious effect in this particular instance. Definitely not comical is instead the ensuing Chorus, where the reflection on the wantonness of cupidity and love of “dead beauty” poignantly reiterates the essence of the above-mentioned invective, addressing particularly its ethical implications. By means of a much more legitimate voice—the voice of collective consciousness—Guarini underscores the problems inherent in the “shadows” or idols that populate the poet’s imagination, as well as that of man in general, once again leading the discussion from the ambit of poetics and aesthetics to that of ethics: Ciechi mortali, voi che tanta sete di possedere avete, l’urna amata guardando d’un cadavere d’or, quasi nud’ombra flashing so, / Now on the right-hand shoulder, now the left, / I can’t recount what I don’t understand; / My intellect is dazed by two such lights / And by such sweetness wearied and weighed down”) (RVF, 198). 149 Selmi hints at the meta-literary implications of this passage and its references to Petrarch and his epigones. See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi, 358–9. It may also be worth noticing that, in his famous commentary of Petrarch’s rhymes (1541), Daniello shows: “that Petrarch’s elocutionary devices at their worst suffer from inflated figuration and hollow meaning. It also shows that these devices at their best offer a profound alternative to the language of philosophy.” See Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch, 66.

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy che vada intorno al sepolcro errando; qual amore o vaghezza d’una morta bellezza il cor v’ingombra? (2. Chorus. 1022–8) (Ye blinded mortals still pursuing / With eager thirst a glitt’ring ruin, / Who know no joy buried gold; / Who, watching there, are perfect slaves / Like silent ghosts about your graves; / What beauty or what joy can be / In toys which vex to such degree.)

Once again, the issue of idolatry resurfaces; and if earlier Guarini had made the idolatrous Satyr/poet into a caricature in order to ridicule not Petrarchism but the idolatry potentially inherent in it, now it is the “thirst of possession” (“sete di possedere”) that is placed under careful scrutiny; not to be demonized but simply to point out the idolatry potentially inherent in it. Idolatry in art, as well as in life, is thus the point that the first part of this Chorus drives home: something that, as we have seen, Petrarch was perfectly aware of, yet unable to completely avoid.150 From this new awareness of the potential vanity of poetry and the problematic essence of the blond simulacrum (significantly referred to as “cadavere d’oro”), which inspires it, springs, in the second half of the Chorus, that masterpiece of late Petrarchism discussed earlier: the sensually spiritual Hymn to the kiss which carries Bembo’s lesson of the Cortegiano at the threshold of the sensual Baroque. With this final observation on yet another aspect of Guarini’s subscription to, and criticism of, Petrarchism it is time to draw some conclusions. This chapter has illustrated that the crux of Guarini’s pedagogic engagement in the Pastor Fido is to be found in the Petrarchan resonance of the plot, language, and style of the play. In other words, Guarini’s pedagogic engagement is to be found in: 1. A fabula that is informed by the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love, with both the love-death and love-death/ life motives and their respective affect rousing potential (pathos and ethos). 2. An elocutio that not only incarnates the specific pedagogic experience of the fabula, thus caters and enhances the affectivity of the plot itself, it also purposefully enhances artfulness rather than dissimulating it, and thus implicitly hints at an underlying habitus which carefully integrates Art and Nature to the advantage of the former, yet not to the demise of the latter. All this transforms the previously described neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy of the Pastor Fido into a extraordinary poetic enchantment that manages to move and temper in a unique way the affects of the audience, and thus allows for pastoral drama to fulfill its lofty ethical aspirations. As already discussed in Chapter 1, Guarini singles out Petrarch’s love-lyric as an effective example of affect-rousing 150 On the issue of idolatry in Petrarch, see G. Mazzotta, The Worlds of Petrarch (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993) 58ff.

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moral discourse. It is thus not a surprise to see that his poetic enterprise in the Pastor Fido aims at recovering the full affective import of an artful Petrarchan sentimental education, with its exemplary story, and the meaningful linguistic and stylistic apparatus through which this story is told. It is a Petrarch filtered through a morals characterized by a renewed faith in the supremacy of reason over instinct, of Art over Nature; and, most importantly, with no intention to dissimulate such supremacy but instead to openly display it through an enhanced artful style. In the beginning of the chapter it was stated that temperament in pastoral drama is an effect based on the persuasiveness and affect-rousing potential of an artful matter (affectivity) which is inherently pedagogical. The ensuing discussion has shown the relevance of the Petrarchan substance and essence of pastoral drama in this respect, and presented it as another fundamental component of the particular healing agenda that pertains to this genre.

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Chapter 3

The Blueprint: the Aminta As the previous discussion has demonstrated, there is indeed a deeper structure of meaning underlying Guarini’s neo-Aristotelian tragicomedy. This meaningful underpinning, which turns the neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy of the Pastor Fido into an extraordinary poetic enchantment with momentous therapeutic aspirations, is the full scope of the pedagogic experience featured in the Canzoniere; a pedagogic experience that is conveyed through Petrarch’s exemplary tale, as well as through the particular decorum embedded in the Petrarchan language and style that to such a tale pertains. In this light, one could conclude that Guarini’s never openly admitted debt to Tasso’s Aminta is indeed substantial and, most importantly, that it extends far beyond the level of dramaturgy, all the way to the deeper cognitive structure that is vital for the affective engagement of the audience. In fact, most critics agree that, while Tasso’s play is undeniably indebted to Sannazaro’s Arcadia, what lies at its very core is actually Petrarch’s redemptive itinerary from love to death, and from death to life in all its manifold poetic implications. 

For the idea of Tasso’s pastoral as an already fully fledged dramatic piece, which displays the mixture of tragic and comic elements that Guarini will later invoke for his Pastor Fido, see L. Riccò, “Ben mille pastorali”. L’itinerario dell’Ingegneri da Tasso a Guarini e oltre (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004) 358–60. This idea does represent an important revisionist effort with respect to the well known genealogy of the dramatic pastoral traced by Guarini, who indicated Beccari’s Il Sacrificio as the prototype for the tragicomic pastoral. Riccò’s study, which instead focuses on Ingegneri’s genealogy of pastoral drama, argues that Tasso’s Aminta represents the coronation of a phase of intense experimentation in the genre, thereby challenging the long-held view according to which Tasso’s play is a wondrous event that almost came out of nowhere—on this see the seminal work “Su l’Aminta di Torquato Tasso,” in G. Carducci, Opere, Edizione nazionale (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1962)—hardly having a bearing on the evolution of the tragicomic pastoral. This work intends to shed some more light on the tremendous influence Tasso’s pastoral had on the evolution of the tragicomic pastoral, both at the level of dramaturgy and at the level of the cognitive structure underlying it.  More specifically, it is Carino’s love-story (Book VIII) which has been reckoned as the model for Aminta’s love-story. See A. Di Benedetto, “L’Aminta e la pastorale cinquecentesca in Italia,” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 173 (1996): 501.  Initially argued by Varese—see C. Varese, “Introduzione,” Aminta, by Torquato Tasso (Milano: Mursia, 1985) 12—this idea has been reiterated in more recent critical contributions such as G. M. Anselmi, “Aminta di Torquato Tasso,” Letteratura italiana. Le Opere, ed. A. Asor Rosa, vol. 2 (Torino: Einaudi, 1993); R. Fedi, “Torquato Tasso,” Storia della letteratura, ed. E. Malato, vol. 5 (Roma: Salerno, 1997); C. Scarpati, “Il nucleo ovidiano nell’Aminta,” Tasso, i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995).

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The Petrarchan substance and essence is, then, another fundamental common feature in Guarini and Tasso’s pastorals; thus, it is clearly another good place to ‘mine’ in a comparative study that wants to move beyond the more obvious issues that pertain to these plays and focus on the crucial therapeutic affective experience such plays aim at providing (temperament), through their neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy and their full subscription to Petrarch’s mastery. The primary focus in the previous chapter has been to highlight the Petrarchan imprint in the Pastor Fido as a fundamental constituent of the affectivity of Guarini’s play. This chapter intends to link the above-mentioned Petrarchan imprint in pastoral drama to its blueprint: Tasso’s Aminta. The chapter will thus try to revisit the much scrutinized issue of Petrarchism in the Aminta by specifically addressing the crucial role of Tasso’s Petrarchism with respect to the particular affectivity of the Aminta and thus with respect to the therapeutic aspirations of this play. In order to do so, it will be necessary not only to show that Tasso’s pastoral is indeed the first to co-opt the Petrarchan erotic initiation into Love described in the previous chapter; it will also be necessary to focus on how exactly Tasso handles that initiation through the plot, language, and style of the play—the fabula as well as the elocutio. In other words, it will be necessary to find out what kind of approach Tasso chooses with respect to the Petrarchan initiation, and how this impacts the affectivity of the play as a whole. These are the fundamental issues that will be addressed in the course of this chapter. The Petrarchan ‘Upgrade’ There is one thing that ought to be said right away about the fabula and the elocutio of Tasso’s pastoral drama, and that may be considered a contribution to the extant scholarship on the Aminta and on pastoral drama as a whole: Tasso does not simply borrow from Petrarch here and there; his instead is a systematic

 In this respect, I find Ramat’s observations on the “lyrical theatrical sense” (“senso teatrale lirico”) of the Aminta still particularly relevant—see R. Ramat, Per la storia dello stile rinascimentale (Messina: D’Anna, 1953) 125—and propose to further elaborate on this felicitous critical intuition. For the translation of Ramat’s “senso teatrale lirico” as “lyrical theatrical sense,” see M. Galli Stampino, Staging the Pastoral. Tasso’s Aminta and the Emergence of Modern Western Theater (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005) 14.  As mentioned in the Preface, this anachronistic tracing of the Petrarchan imprint in pastoral drama from a more recent work (Pastor Fido) to an earlier one (Aminta), although unorthodox, has, I believe, one fundamental advantage: that is, connecting rather than disconnecting the affectivity of the Pastor Fido to that of the Aminta, and thus the affective experience that characterizes these two plays.  For the relevant bibliography on this issue, see Chapter 2.

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Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ with respect to earlier pastorals. In other words, Tasso does not limit himself to incorporating in his play a number of Petrarchan linguistic and stylistic features; nor does he limit himself to incorporating in his play an important structural element of the Petrarchan love-epic of the Canzoniere such as the lovedeath/life motive; he instead completely absorbs the very essence and substance of the Petrarchan erotic initiation, thereby moving away from a merely perfunctory Petrarchistic imitation of Petrarch’s love. Indeed, Tasso’s Petrarchan ‘upgrade,’ whose extent will become evident as the discussion unfolds, is perfectly coherent with the keener and more profound knowledge of Petrarch that, as Scarpati has convincingly demonstrated, characterizes Tasso’s “Petrarchan geometries” in the Gerusalemme liberata as well as the deep Petrarchan resonance in the fabula and elocutio of the Re Torrismondo (1587). As for the fabula of the Aminta, it is safe to say that it completely absorbs the very romance-like character that, as mentioned earlier, characterizes Petrarch’s love-epic in the Renaissance. Indeed, from the initial falling in love to the ensuing melancholic distress (act 1, scene 2), all the way to the climactic moment of the 

Although a distinct Petrarchan resonance can be detected already in Beccari’s Il Sacrificio—and particularly in the voice of the shepherd Erasto—, the plot still predominantly deals with a typical feminine rite of initiation, and the subtext there is rather an Ovidian one. For a modern edition of Beccari’s pastoral, see Favole, ed. F. Pevere (Torino: Res, 1999). Much the same can be said about another prototype in the genre, Agostino Argenti’s Sfortunato (1568), where Petrarch’s language and imagery are certainly present along with a number of other topoi of courtly love (the complex love chase, misogyny, and homophilia)—on this see R. Gigliucci, “Precipitando Aminta ascende,” Sylva. Studi in onore di Nino Borsellino, ed. G. Patrizi (Roma: Bulzoni, 2002) 336–40—but they are rather the fruit of a Petrarchistic or mannered and superficial appropriation of Petrarchan love which is a far cry from Tasso’s Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ in the Aminta. The distinction between Petrarchistic imitation of courtly love and Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ or imitation of Petrarchan love is crucial for an understanding of the momentous shift that occurs in the history of this genre with Tasso and Guarini. In this respect, Gigliucci is right when he claims that pastoral drama provides an ‘exit strategy’ from the “golden cage of western love-lyric” (see ibid., 353, my translation). That ‘exit strategy’ is built, as I hope to have clearly demonstrated in my discussion of Guarini (and as the ensuing discussion will further corroborate), on the full recovery of the true essence and substance of Petrarchan love. For a modern edition of Argenti’s pastoral, see the above-mentioned Favole.  See C. Scarpati, “Sulla genesi del Torrismondo,” Dire la verità al principe. Ricerche sulla letteratura del Rinascimento (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1987); and “Geometrie petrarchesche nella Gerusalemme liberata,” Tasso i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995). This particular critical perspective has been further developed in F. D’Alessandro, Petrarca e i moderni: da Machiavelli a Carducci (Pisa: ETS, 2007) 131–61. For other recent fruitful attempts at a recovery of the Petrarchan resonance in Tasso’s poetry, see E. Russo “‘Però prepongo a tutti il Petrarca’. Appunti sull’epica tassiana e il canone petrarchesco,” I territori del petrarchismo. Frontiere e sconfinamenti, ed. Cristina Montagnani (Roma: Bulzoni, 2005); and in the same volume, see V. Martignone, “Tra gravità e piacevolezza: l’uso delle fonti petrarchesche nel Torrismondo del Tasso.”

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beloved’s death (act 3, scene 2) and the ensuing attempted suicide that leads to a higher love (act 4, scene 2), Aminta’s erotic initiation closely follows the particular Petrarchan initiation into Love of neo-Platonic bent outlined in Chapter 2—from the dangerous progression of incontinence to the possible lapse into intemperance to the final miraculous redemption.10 Tasso, then, not only co-opts the core theme of the Petrarchan love-epic into pastoral drama (the love-dearth/life theme); he co-opts the entire romance-like substance that the neo-Platonic Renaissance had added to the Petrarchan love-epic, with its peculiar mix of pathos and ethos. This Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ is, to be sure, momentous for the development of the genre. First, it allows for Petrarch’s pathetic language of love to be thoroughly exploited within a dramatic context, therefore tremendously enhancing the psychodramatic component in pastoral drama. It suffices to look at the unsettling tension that pertains to the psycho-drama of love featured in the play: the psycho-drama of Aminta’s transgressive pursuit of love (the Petrarchan “giovenil errore”) that Tasso brilliantly juxtaposes to Silvia’s equally transgressive escape from love, thereby adding a further element of drama to an already quite dramatic love-story, and making its tragic potentiality even more verisimilar in a courtly context, where the heterosexual experience of love must necessarily culminate with marriage. Aminta’s naturally unrestrained love for Silvia which, read in Petrarchan terms, threatens to jeopardize her reputation, her life, and ultimately poses a great threat to his own life as well,11 is masterfully juxtaposed to Silvia’s unnatural negation of love12 in a dramatic crescendo that makes the tragic epilogue of the psycho-drama unavoidable. An epilogue which, as has been noted, brings forth a quite gloomy and altogether tragic vision of love as perpetual doubt, deceit, and travesty,13 and underscores its intimate relationship with death,14 as the Petrarchan love-death theme takes center 

A detailed discussion of all these scenes will follow in this chapter. It is worth remembering Dionisotti’s brilliant intuition on the Aminta: a symptomatic sign of a time that can no longer experience love “without scruples for sin, and without the chilling effect of death” (“senza scrupolo di peccato e senza brivido di morte”). See C. Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana (Torino: Einaudi, 1967) 72 (my translation). 11 Referring to Aminta, Bárberi Squarotti rightly talks about the self-destructive character of love. See “La tragicità dell’Aminta,” Fine dell’idillio. Da Dante a Marino (Genova: Il Melangolo, 1978) 148. 12 See G. A. Niccoli, Cupid, Satyr, and the Golden Age. Pastoral Dramatic Scenes of the Late Renaissance (New York: Lang, 1989) 80. 13 See Bárberi Squarotti, “La tragicità,” 150. 14 Anselmi, “Aminta,” 621. For a tragic reading of the Aminta that tends to make this play into the manifesto of a dark age—that is, the age of the Counter-Reformation— besides the above-mentioned trend-setting work by Bárberi Squarotti and its more recent elaboration by the same author “Prodromi del tragico tassiano,” Torquato Tasso e la cultura estense 3. Il Teatro del Tasso, ed. G. Venturi (Firenze: Olschki, 1999), see also E. Fenzi, Enrico, “Il potere, la morte, l’amore. Nota sull’Aminta di Torquato Tasso,” L’immagine riflessa 3 (1979); G. Ferroni, “Percorsi della scena cortigiana,” Il testo e la scena. Saggi 10

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stage. Needless to say, such tragic potentiality nicely caters to the already discussed growing moral expectations that characterize the affective response to pastoral drama. Thanks to Tasso’s Petrarchan upgrade this new genre definitely becomes worthy to arouse the moral affects of pity and fear that pertain to tragedy.15 At the same time the above-mentioned Petrarchan ‘upgrade,’ thanks to the strong neo-Platonic structure that underlies and frames the psycho-drama of love, also manages to cater nicely to the particular moral experience specifically associated to tragicomedy: the particular purgation of passions through the arousal of moral affects that is conducive to “riso temperato” or tempered laughter. Thus, the Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ is also responsible for placing the potentially tragic psycho-drama of love, and the moral affective experience that pertains to it, within a tragicomic economy. In this respect, one ought not to forget that tragedy is only a transitory element of the tale of the Aminta, which, to be sure, ends with Elpino’s joyful announcement of the lovers’ redemption,16 however unlikely or even “impossible” this may appear to a modern reader.17 This is the moment when, as is well known, the sage poet/oracle discloses the marvelous vision of things and recognizes Aminta’s suicide as a wondrous death to a new life of requited love.18 Thus, although the potentially tragic dimension of the psycho-drama of love is indeed crucial in the Aminta (and although, as will be shown, it is even strategically enhanced by Tasso’s idiosyncratic mimetic approach to Petrarch’s erotic initiation), it is ultimately to be placed within the larger economy of the neoPlatonic, Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love which the play in its entirety dramatizes. In this respect, one may say that Tasso’s Petrarchistic handling of the Petrarchan erotic initiation is one that seems to be the most faithful to the particular

sul teatro del Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 1980); S. Zatti, “Natura e potere nell’Aminta,” Studi di filologia offerti a F. Croce (Roma: Bulzoni, 1997); D. Quarta, “Spazio scenico, spazio cortigiano, spazio cortese. L’Aminta e il Torrismondo di Torquato Tasso,” La corte di ferrara e il suo mecenatismo 1441–1598. Atti del convegno di studi (Copenhagen, maggio 1987), ed. M. Pade, L. Waage Petersen, and D. Quarta (Modena: Panini, 1990) 301–14, R. Alonge, “La riscoperta rinascimentale del teatro,” Storia del teatro moderno e contemporaneo, ed. R. Alonge and G. Davico Bonino (Torino, Einaudi, 2000) 1: 105–15. 15 Sampson points out the kinship existing between the Aminta and one of the four tragic plot structures that Tasso identifies in the Discorsi sull’arte Poetica: the ‘affettuoso’ type of tragedy. See L. Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: the Making of a New Genre (London: Legenda, 2006) 71. 16 On Elpino’s crucial role in the tragicomedy of love that the Aminta stages, see Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 75. 17 Bárberi Squarotti, “La tragicità,” 151. 18 On the importance of the “lieto fine” as an essential means to celebrate the triumph of Love in the Aminta, see D. Chiodo, “Il mito dell’età aurea,” Torquato Tasso, poeta gentile (Bergamo: Centro Studi Tassiani, 1998) 51. Chiodo’s argument, however, is rather based on the classical resonances in the Aminta and less on the Petrarchan subtext that I am instead focusing on.

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erotic initiation described in the Canzoniere itself.19 After all isn’t the potentiality of tragedy a fundamental element of Petrarch’s own self-conscious epic of love; isn’t the psycho-drama of damnation at the very core of Petrarch’s own redemptive search of the self chronicled in the Canzoniere, and isn’t Laura’s honor constantly endangered by it? And yet, doesn’t Petrarch eventually redeem himself? In this light, talking about tragedy as one mode of representation in the Aminta—as opposed to the mode of representation—would definitely do it more justice and avoid that one may miss the tragicomic forest for the tragic trees.20 An increased awareness of the Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ that takes place in this play may certainly help to reconcile the strong pathetic component of the potentially tragic psychodrama with the elated, miraculous resolution of the psycho-drama itself;21 an issue that has often duped earlier critical efforts. It is, then, through the ambivalence, the dramatic richness, and allegorical resonance of Tasso’s Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ that the conundrum of this pastoral may be most successfully approached. In this light, it is safe to say that, notwithstanding the persistence of the love-death motive, tragedy in the Aminta remains only one component of an underlying epic which, as already mentioned, is intrinsically ambivalent, and positively—at least for a Renaissance reading of the Canzoniere—ends with redemption. A fully worldly redemption, one should mention, that entails the happy marriage of the two lovers. In this respect, the Aminta is indeed a blueprint for the Pastor Fido as it too features a Petrarchan epic accurately inscribed within a general heterosexual experience of love culminating with marriage, able to supply the court with a viable secular pedagogic model promoting matrimony as well as spiritual ascent.22 Thus, if it is true that the Aminta dramatizes the elegiac Petrarchan theme of love-death,23 it is also true that it does so only as a part of the larger narrative: the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love; in other words, if it is true that the Aminta extensively features the motive of love-death, it does so within the neo-Platonic 19

I am thinking in particular about Dotti’s characterization of a darker, earth-bound Petrarch; a Petrarch that is “unsettled, never peaceful,” and that in the later editions of his lyric fragments, tends to blur if not to defy the peculiar narrative of redemption that originally characterizes his rhymes. See U. Dotti, “Introduzione,” Canzoniere, by F. Petrarca, ed. Ugo Dotti (Roma: Donzelli, 1996) xi (my translation). For a discussion of the Petrarchan and Petrarchistic heritage in Tasso’s Petrarchism, see E. Bonora, “Osservazioni sul petrarchismo del Tasso,” Atti dell’Ateneo di scienze lettere ed arti in Bergamo 36 (1971–1972). 20 Sampson rightly characterizes the structure of the Aminta as a tragicomic structure. See Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 71–5. 21 On the idea of love as miraculous power in the Aminta and in the Rime, see Gigliucci, “Precipitando,” 343. 22 In this respect, it may be useful to mention that Politian’s famous celebration of Giuliano de’ Medici’s life in the Stanze (1475–1478) already perfectly integrates matrimony in the economy of a Platonic, transcendental form of love. See F. Bausi, “Introduzione,” Poesie Volgari, by A. Poliziano, ed. F. Bausi, vol. 1 (Roma: Vecchiarelli, 1997) xiii. 23 See Anselmi, “Aminta,” 621.

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macro-economy of love-death/life;24 a macro-economy of love-death/life which the Petrarchan initiation into Love discussed in Chapter 2—with the dangerous progression of incontinence, the possible lapse into intemperance, and the final, and by all means miraculous, redemption—nicely fleshes out in a dramatically appealing way. In this light, we may still want to read Tasso’s pastoral as a Bildungsroman,25 but without forgetting to add to it the complexity that characterizes a Petrarchan Bildingsroman. Thus Aminta ‘ascends descending,’ from unrestrained love to decorous (or moderately licentious) love; in mirroring fashion Silvia ‘ascends descending’ from excessive chastity, through pity, to decorous love.26 Most importantly, it is in the wake of Silvia’s death—the death of the Arcadian 24

Da Pozzo’s words are conclusive in this respect: “Per tornare al tema degli influssi di pensiero, più che non di vere fonti di esso, è indubbio, invece, che se la normativa specifica relativa al genere praticato, cioè la pastorale, è quella dell’aristotelismo vulgato, la spinta trainante e l’elemento amalgamatore di tanti elementi del contesto è il platonismo tassiano arricchito dalle sue non poche innervature neoplatoniche. Si pensi, in questo senso, all’idea dell’amore come morte, per l’innamorato, verso il resto dei valori esistenti; si consideri più in generale il trapasso-alternanza, vita-morte-vita lungo l’arco dei sentimenti provati dai protagonisti giovani della favola, e al nesso morte creduta → amore ricambiato” (“Going back to just the influences on Tasso’s thought — rather than the actual sources of said thought — it is beyond doubt, instead, that if the specific normative relative to the pastoral genre is neoAristotelian, the major thrust and what binds together all the other elements of the context is Tasso’s neo-Platonism, enriched by its many neo-Platonic ramifications. One may think, in this respect, of the idea of love as death to the remaining existing values; one may also consider more generally the life-death-life alternating transformations in the development of the sentiments of the young protagonists of the fable, and to the nexus: assumed death → requited love”). See G. Da Pozzo, L’ambigua armonia. Studio sull’’Aminta’ del Tasso (Firenze: Olschki, 1983) 135. For a full-scale neo-Platonic reading of the Aminta, see also R. Cody, The Landscape of the Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); and A. Corsaro, “Inquietudini filosofiche del Tasso. In margine ad una rilettura dell’ ‘Aminta’,” Torquato Tasso e l’Università, ed. W. Moretti and L. Pepe (Firenze: Olschki, 1999). 25 “in una sorta di Bildungsroman, Aminta passa dallo stadio adolescente allo stadio adulto quando avverte che la cupido degenera in ferinità se non assume la pudicitia, Silvia porta a termine la sua ‘formazione’ allorché riconosce che la ritrosia (la pudicitia) degenera in crudeltà se non assume l’amore” (“in a sort of Bildungsroman, Aminta turns from an adolescent to an adult when he realizes that cupido degenerates into bestiality, if it does not assume pudicitia, Silvia completes her ‘training’ when she recognizes that pudicitia degenerates into cruelty, if it does not open up to love.” See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 80. 26 For the mirroring aspects of Aminta and Silvia’s experiences of love, see F. Taviani, “Teatro di voci in tempi ‘bui’ (Riflessioni brade su Aminta e pastorale),” Teatro e storia 9 (1994): 26; Scarpati, “Poetica e retorica in Battista Guarini,” Studi sul Cinquecento italiano (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1982) 233; and by the same author, “Il nucleo,” 79ff. For some analogies pertaining to the process of falling in love undergone by the two lovers, see R. Bruscagli, “L’Aminta del Tasso e le pastorali ferraresi del ’500,” Studi di filologia e critica offerti dagli allievi a L. Caretti, vol. 1 (Roma: Salerno, 1985) 307ff.

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counterpart of the Petrarchan Laura27—that Aminta (the Petrarchan lover) ‘ascends descending’ and transitions to a new life and love, through his own death; moreover, it is through that very process of Petrarchan death/life that Silvia is eventually moved to pity, and thus to reciprocate her lover’s feelings. Hence, it is Petrarch’s love-romance of the Canzoniere in all its semantic richness and overall ambiguity that Tasso summons in his pastoral—and, as has been shown, Guarini after him. In this respect, Radcliff-Ulmstead is right to underscore the romance-like aspects of the Aminta, claiming that the play examines various visions of love, as well as a plethora of feelings that to these visions pertain: from melancholy to triumphant love.28 This complex Petrarchan, romance-like aspect of the Aminta is, as will be pointed out, crucial for the particular complex affective engagement of the audience in this play. In fact, not unlike it is the case for the Pastor Fido, the romance-like Petrarchan erotic initiation featured in the Aminta constitutes a crucial component of the affectivity of the play, providing the cognitive base for the Aristotelian art of purging to reach its desired effect of temperament, and most importantly to reach that effect through a unique dynamics. In this respect, it is important to notice that Tasso’s ‘take’ on the romancelike, Petrarchan erotic initiation is quite different from Guarini’s. Case in point is the culminating death-life stage of the initiation, which spans over two long and suspenseful acts. In the second scene of the fourth act the death of the protagonist is first reported by a messenger. Needless to say, we are at a moment in the play that since the very beginning announces itself as an utterly tragic moment; and the quote from Dante’s Inferno29 is certainly not casual here: NUNCIO. Io ho sì pieno il petto di pietate e sì pieno d’orror, che non rimiro né odo alcuna cosa, ond’io mi volga, a qual non mi spaventi e non m’affanni. CORO. Or ch’apporta costui, ch’è sì turbato in vista ed in favella? NUNCIO. Porto l’aspra novella de la morte d’Aminta. SILVIA. Ohimè, che dice? NUNCIO. Il più nobil pastor di queste selve, che fu così gentil, così leggiadro, così caro a le ninfe ed a le Muse, ed è morto fanciullo, ahi di che morte! (4, 2, 1634–45) 27

On the subtle juxtaposition of Silvia and the Petrarchan Laura, see C. Varese, “L’Aminta,” idem, Pascoli politico, Tasso e altri saggi (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961) 142. 28 See D. Radcliff-Ulmstead, “Love in Tasso’s Aminta: A reflection of the Este Court,” Il teatro italiano del Rinascimento, ed. M. de Panizza Lorch (Milano: Comunità, 1980) 75–6. 29 “da qualsiasi parte io mi volga” (Inf. 4, 5–6). See T. Tasso, Aminta, ed. C. Varese (Milano: Mursia, 1985) 117.

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(MESSENGER. I’ve filled my heart with such compassion, and / such horror that I cannot see or hear / a single thing, wherever I may turn, / that doesn’t frighten me or cause grief. CHORUS. What is that he bears / that he is so disturbed in face and speech? MESSENGER. I bring the bitter news: / Aminta’s dead. SILVIA. Alas, what do you mean? MESSENGER. The noblest shepherd of these forest paths, / who was so kind, so handsome, and so dear / to all the nymphs and to the Muses here; / and he is dead, so young. A grievous death!)30

What follows is a tragic narrative, masterfully cast into the form of a highly pathetic dramatic dialogue, which reaches its climax with Aminta’s jarring suicide: an original twist indeed for the pastoral tradition, where suicide is often contemplated, yet never committed;31 an original twist that Tasso purposefully inserts with the clear intent to up the pathetic charge of the initiation: — Poi che non posso, e’ l Cielo diniega al mio desire gli animali voraci, che ben verriano a tempo, io prender voglio un altra strada al morire: prenderò quella via che, se non la devuta, almen fia la più breve Silvia, io ti seguo, i’ vengo a farti compagnia se non la sdegnerai: e morirei contento, s’io fossi certo almeno che ’l mio venirti dietro turbar non ti dovesse, e che fosse finita l’ira tua con la vita. Silvia, io ti seguo, io vengo — Così detto, precipitossi d’alto co ’l capo in giuso: ed io restai di ghiaccio. (4, 2, 1709–28) (“But since I cannot and / the gods deny my wish / for hungry animals / whose coming I would welcome, I will take / another road to death. / I’ll take that way, which if / it’s not what it should be, at least it will be short. O Silvia, I follow you. I come as your companion, friend, / if you will not disdain. / And I shall Unless otherwise specified, I am quoting from Aminta: A Pastoral Play by Torquato Tasso, ed. and trans. Charles Jerrigan and Irene Marchegiani Jones (New York: Italica Press, 2000). 31 As Gigliucci has shown, Tasso’s treatment of suicide is highly original and influential in the development of the tradition. See Gigliucci, “Precipitando,” 344–52. 30

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy die content, / if I could just be sure / my coming now, behind, / will not disturb you peace, and that anger will / be finished with your life. O Silvia, I follow you, I come.” He spoke and threw himself / straight down headfirst, and I remained like ice.)32

Finally (but only in the next scene, and after intermission), the initiation reaches its happy ending, as the reassuring Elpino is ushered in and what had appeared to be a dreadful moment of death turns out a joyful, and indeed marvelous, moment of life through death instead: CORO. Oh che ci narri, e quanto ci racconsoli! E non è dunque il vero che si precipitasse? ELPINO. Anzi è pur vero, ma fu felice il precipizio: e sotto una dolente immagine di morte gli recò vita e gioia. (5, 1, 1873–8) (CHORUS. What do you say! Oh how / you offer us relief! Then was it false, / he hurled himself headlong? ELPINO. No, it was true, / but still his fall was fortunate, and from / the effigy of death, so full of grief, / he’s found both life and joy.)

Thus, while leaving the essence of the Petrarchan erotic initiation unchanged—the complex antithetical conceit of a “painful death of life and joy” that awaits Aminta at the bottom of the oxymoronic “happy precipice” serves as an incontrovertible proof in this respect—Tasso quite dramatically manipulates its substance as he stages a moment of neo-Platonic spiritual transcendence that marvelously ensues an utterly tragic act of suicide.33 This is, to be sure, not exactly what one would expect from an ‘orthodox’ Petrarchist. Nevertheless Tasso’s idiosyncratic reading of Petrarch’s allegory is indeed that of a Petrarchist: a Petrarchist sui generis,34 32 For the distinct Petrarchan resonance that pertains to this poignant moment in the play it is worth noticing that Aminta’s line “Silvia io ti seguo, io vengo,” which is repeated twice in Aminta’s short monologue, is lifted almost exactly—even the same verb “seguire” is used—from Petrarch’s famous canzone Che debb’io far? (RVF, 268), which is included in the Rime in morte di Madonna Laura part of the Vatican 3195 manuscript of the Canzoniere. Here is the relevant text: “Madonna è morta, / et à seco il mio core; / et volendol seguire / interromper dover quest’anni rei” (ll. 4–6) (“My lady’s dead; she has with her my heart, / And I, who’d follow it, / Must interrupt this round of evil years”) (italics are mine). 33 The fact that Elpino lives in a cave obviously gives to this coup de scène a distinct Platonic resonance. 34 Varese views Petrarchism as one continuous element, which takes different forms within a long literary tradition that from Sannazaro and Bembo goes all the way to Tasso.

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whose naturalistic mimetic approach leads him to particularly focus on the human elements of pain, sorrow, desperation, and death in the Petrarchan romance of transcendence. A peculiar interpretation indeed, which confirms the solidity of the neo-Platonic reading of the Canzoniere in the Renaissance to be such that it may even tolerate a major elegiac thrust, with its related ‘pathetic surge,’ without really compromising the integrity of its transcendental essence. The result is, then, not a failed initiation but simply one which is painted with the tragic colors of passionate love, and thus brings out the full elegiac potentiality of Petrarch’s lyric.35 This, of course, makes pathos very tangible throughout the play; it is a pathos that, as will be shown, Tasso integrates within a general aesthetics of tragicomedy following a path that, to be sure, is quite different from that chosen by Guarini, but that also leads to thoroughly exploiting the means of catharsis within a dramaturgy that, as already mentioned, ultimately ushers in the wondrous as an effective affectrousing and cognitive device. The particular pathetic approach to the climax in the Petrarchan erotic initiation described above is certainly not the only instance in which Tasso’s Petrarchism pushes the envelope. Other episodes in the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into See C. Varese, “L’Aminta: corte e letteratura dal Sannazaro e dal Bembo al Castiglione allo Speroni e al Tasso,” Schifanoia, Notizie dell’Istituto dei Studi Rinascimentali di Ferrara 3 (1987). I agree with Varese’s contention that even the more ambiguous interpretations of the Petrarchan code should be counted as a proof not of its extinction but of its continuity. Also Baldacci refuses the idea of anti-Petrarchism as an autonomous phenomena antithetical to Petrarchism; instead he contemplates it as the moment of crisis of Petrarchism itself. See Baldacci, Il Petrarchismo italiano nel Cinquecento (Padova: Liviana, 1974) 46. On the issue of ambiguity in the imitation of the Canzoniere, see Bonora, Retorica e invenzione (Milano: Rizzoli, 1970) 98ff. On the sense of continuity of the Petrarchan code in the Cinquecento, see also A. Quondam, Petrarchismo mediato (Roma: Bulzoni, 1974); La parola nel labirinto. Società e scrittura del Manierismo a Napoli (Bari: Laterza, 1975); Il naso di Laura. Lingua e poesia lirica nella tradizione del Classicismo (Modena: Panini, 1991). On the importance of sixteenth-century commentaries on Petrarch, besides the already cited works by Kennedy, see D’Alessandro, Petrarca e i moderni, 95–161. 35 This quite obvious example will suffice: “Amor m’à posto come segno a strale, / come al sol neve , come cera al foco, et come nebbia al vento; et son già roco, / donna, mercè chiamando, et voi non cale. / Dagli occhi vostri uscìo ’l colpo mortale, / contra cui non mi val tempo né loco; / da voi sola procede, et parvi un gioco, / il sole e ’l foco e ’l vento ond’io son tale. / I pensier’ son saette, e ’l viso un sole, / e ’l desir foco: e ’nseme con quest’arme / mi punge Amor, m’abbaglia e mi distrugge; / et l’angelico canto et le parole, / col dolce spirto ond’io non posso aitarme, son l’aura inanzi a cui mia vita fugge” (RVF, 133) (“Love set me as a target for his darts, / As snow to sun, as wax to fire, and as / The fog to wind; already I am hoarse / From calling ‘mercy,’ lady; you care not. / From your eyes issued forth that deadly shot / Against which neither time nor place availed; / From you alone proceeds (a game you think) / The sun and fire and wind that shaped me thus. / These thoughts are arrows, and your face a sun, / Desire a flame; with these assembled arms / Love pierces me and blinds me, melts me down. / That song angelic and those words, with that / Sweet wit from which I can’t defend myself, / They are the breeze before which my life flies”).

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Love featured in the Aminta suggest the same kind of idiosyncratic approach on the romance-like narrative structure of the Canzoniere. For example, there is the scene of Aminta’s enamourament (act 1, scene 2), where one can distinctly hear the elegiac tones of the famous Chiare fresche e dolci acque (RVF, 126) resonating in the background,36 and where Laura’s fatal “vostr’occhi” described in Petrarch’s famous sonnet (RVF, 3) morphs into Silvia’s “dolcissima bocca,” and Petrarch’s “Love’s battery” is transformed into a sizzling erotic sequence of kisses that, as has been shown, Guarini will be quick to co-opt in his Pastor Fido. Moreover, there is the attempted ravishing of Silvia by the Satyr, where the darkest aspects of Petrarch’s Eros are being unpacked and adapted to a new, post-Tridentine sensibility. These episodes, combined with the just mentioned suicide attempt of Aminta, rather than an anti-Petrarchan attitude, poignantly signal Tasso’s extraordinary ability to integrate the Petrarchan literary legacy with the complex sixteenth-century phenomenology of love; and most importantly his ability to bring out a specific affective quality of the literary legacy on which he capitalizes. In this respect, it is important to underscore that Tasso’s imitatio of Petrarch in the Aminta, not unlike Guarini’s, is not a slavish one. On the contrary, it is a highly creative one, which aspires to breath into a number of crystallized topoi the fire of courtly life; in other words, it wants to update Petrarch’s imagery by igniting it with the necessary complexity that would make it appealing to a sophisticated audience, and with the necessary pathos that would allow its ethos to become compelling, and most importantly therapeutic. From this perspective one may now look at the well known Petrarchan scenes of the play with renewed interest,37 and appreciate Tasso’s masterful development of Petrarchan imagery into what should be considered to be a great phenomenological study of courtly love of great affective/cognitive impact.38 Such as, for example, the case of the second scene of the first act, where Tasso is able to turn a fallingin-love scene permeated with Petrarchan motives into a quite insightful reflection on the psychological implications on the playful and painful aspects of a staple of courtly love: the kissing game. It suffices to look at what Guarini does, first with his kissing game and then with the game of blind man’s buff (Chapter 2), to see that the author of the Pastor Fido has a very keen eye for Tasso’s Petrarchan upgrades and promptly follows up on them. Far from being a way of trivializing Petrarch, these upgrades bespeak the great creative effort of a courtly poet to re-activate the momentous ideological implications of a code by actualizing it according 36

See Varese, “L’Aminta,” 124. Another particularly relevant scene in this respect is the second scene of the third act, where Aminta’s regret for having lost an opportunity to die resonates with the elegiac tones of Petrarch’s Canzone Solea da la fontana di mia vita (RVF, 331). See Varese, “L’Aminta,” 124. 38 It is probably clear by now that the word “affective” in this particular analytical context always implies a cognitive process. On this see, P. de Bolla, Art Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001) 1–22. 37

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to the expectations of their target audiences, thereby totally transforming mere entertainment into a collective therapeutic experience of great moral import. At this point one may reiterate with even more determination the argument already introduced in the previous chapter: that, if from Giraldi Cinzio to Beccari one indeed witnesses an active co-optation in Arcadia of the feminine element, with Tasso and Guarini it is Petrarch’s entire romance-like love-epic of the Canzoniere to be actively and creatively co-opted into the complex narrative structure of pastoral drama, as the feminine element still continues to be elaborated.39 Pastore and nocchiere conflate into one person, as the Petrarchan romance of love in all its poetic meaningfulness and poignancy is successfully adapted to post-Tridentine courtly culture, and thus becomes crucial for the highly moral affect-rousing experience that pertains to pastoral drama. The previous chapter has shown how the momentous Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ that characterizes pastoral drama since Tasso’s Aminta eventually finds in Guarini one of its most admirable cultivators and, of course, skilled manipulators. The Art of Purging By now it is clear that the major Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ that characterizes the Aminta is not meant to be merely decorative; on the contrary, it is meant to deeply impact the entire dramatic structure of the play, as well as the aesthetics of the play. Such a causative relationship between content and form is clearly suggested in a passage of the Discorsi dell’arte poetica (1587)40 where it is said that the poet, once chosen a specific poetic concept or “materia,” must provide it with a “fitting form and disposition” (“forma e disposizion poetica”), thereby showing excellence not only in the choice of content but also in the ability of fitting content to form: Scelta che avrà il poeta materia per se stessa capace d’ogni perfezione, li rimane l’altra assai più difficile fatica, che è di darle forma e disposizion poetica: intorno al quale ufficio, come intorno a proprio soggetto quasi tutta la virtù dell’arte si manifesta.41

39

Quite significant in this respect are also later pastorals such as Maddalena Campiglia’s Flori (1588) and Isabella Andreini’s Mirtilla (1588), where, besides a ‘transgendered’ Petrarchan erotic initiation, one continues to find a classic Petrarchan lover such as, for example, the character Alessi. See Flori, act 5, scene 3, qtd in D. Chiodo, “Il mito dell’età aurea,” Torquato Tasso, poeta gentile (Bergamo: Centro Studi Tassiani, 1998) 77. 40 The actual date of composition, according to Poma is 1564. See Torquato Tasso, Discorsi del arte poetica e del poema eroico, ed. Luigi Poma (Bari: G. Laterza, 1964). 41 T. Tasso, Discorsi dell’arte poetica e in particolare sopra il poema eroico, in Prose, ed. E. Mazzali (Milano, Napoli: Ricciardi, 1959) 366. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Tasso’s prose works are mine.

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(Once chosen a matter which is in and of itself capable of every perfection, the poet is left with another much more difficult task: that is, to give such matter a poetic form and disposition; a task in the handling of which all the virtue of art is manifested.)

Such fitting of form and disposition to content is, to be sure, certainly not for the mere sake of art; it is, in fact, supposed to allow for poetic imitation to fulfill what Tasso calls “operazione”—that which the poetry operates; in other words the end of poetry: Ma il fine di ciascuna dovrebbe esser proprio, perché sì come ha l’arte de’ freni, altro quella del far alabarde (tutto che l’una e l’altra sia subordinata a l’arte de la guerra e dirizzata a quel fine ch’ella si propone), così altro fine dovrebbe aver la tragedia, altro la comedia, altro l’epopeia, o altra operazione. Perché la forma di ciascuna cosa si distingue per la propria operazione; ma l’operazione della tragedia è di purgar gli animi co ’l terrore e con la compassione, e quella de la comedia di muovere il riso de le cose brutte.42 (But the end of each [kind of poetry] should be specific, because just as the art of building reins is other than the art of building spears (even though both arts are subordinate to the art of war and aimed at the end such art wants to accomplish), so should the end of tragedy, comedy, and the epic poem be different or at least their operation. Since it is the operation of each form that distinguishes it from the other; but the operation of tragedy is to purge the mind through terror and pity, and that of comedy is to move to laughter of ugly things.)

In the light of this ternary causative relationship between content, form, and purpose, it is clear that the “operation” of Tasso’s neo-Aristotelian play, that is, purgation, is necessarily shaped by the Petrarchan erotic initiation that, as has been shown, constitutes the content of the Aminta. Furthermore, it is also clear that such “operation” is necessarily shaped by the idiosyncratic reading of Petrarch’s Canzoniere that, as has also been shown, constitutes an integral part of the form or (to use a term more fitting to this analytical context) the affectivity of the play. In short, it is clear that Tasso’s art of purging in the Aminta is thoroughly informed by the particular kind of erotic initiation the poet has chosen as its content. This, of course, complicates what earlier scholarly endeavors have revealed about the aesthetics of this play.43 If Tasso’s Arcadia is indeed the place where Petrarch’s erotic initiation is staged, it is now time to confront that and show how exactly this experience becomes therapeutic thanks to the particular neo-Aristotelian Tasso, Discorsi del poema eroico, 504–5. For an earlier formalistic approach to the affective response in this play, see R. Henke, Pastoral Transformations: Italian Tragicomendy and Shakespeare’s Late Plays (Cranbury, NJ and London: University of Delaware Press, 1997) 129–31. 42 43

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dramaturgy through which that erotic initiation is channeled. It may be helpful to first place the neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy of the Aminta in the context of the general debate on tragic purgation or catharsis that characterizes Renaissance literary criticism. Unlike his fellow poet and competitor Guarini, Tasso never formally discussed the tragicomic dramaturgy of the Aminta, nor the particular affective experience that he intended for the play. This, however, doesn’t mean that Tasso’s pastoral was conceived in a theoretical vacuum. Especially if one thinks that, since Giraldi Cinzio’s already mentioned Lettera overo Discorso sovra il comporre le satire atte alla scena, there is an ongoing debate focusing on the legitimacy of this third genre,44 and that Tasso, although certainly more militant on the front of the epic poem, is certainly not oblivious with regard to the issues concerning the stage. In fact, according to his first biographer, Giovan Battista Manso, the author of the Aminta was perfectly aware of all that contemporary dramaturgy had to offer, tragicomedy included.45 Recent studies have also convincingly demonstrated his mastery in the crafting of an original dramatic fabula based on a refined use of intertextuality.46 44

See Bruscagli, “Ancora a proposito delle pastorali ferraresi del ‘500: la parte del Lollio,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell’Europa del Cinque-Seicento, ed. M. Chiabò and F. Doglio (Roma: Centro Studi sul Teatro Medioevale e Rinascimentale, 1991). 45 “facendosi Scena de’ boschi, e ritenendo le persone pastorali, si sottopose non men’ al costume dell’Egloghe, ch’alle regole della Comedia, e della Tragedia parimente, facendo di tutte & tre una maravigliosa, vaghissima, e regolatissima composizione. Perciocché dall’Egloga prese come hora dicevamno la Scena, le persone pastorali, e ’l costume; dalla Tragedia le persone divine, l’heroiche, i chori, il numero del verso, e gravità della sentenza; dalla Commedia le persone comunali, il sale de’ motti, e la felicità del fine più proprio della Comedia, ch’all’altre due. La composition poi di questo mescolamento quanto all’unità, & integrità della favola, & al suo circuito, e quanto alla Protesi, & alla Catastrofe, & all’altre parti quali, e quante elleno deono essere disposte egli secondo le regole, & alla Tragedia, & alla Comedia ugaulmente comuni, delle quali fu così diligente osservator, che in tutto quel Poema non ha potuto l’invidia stessa ritrovare mancamento alcuno” (“Since he set the plot in the woods, and fashioned his characters as shepherds, he followed the customs of eclogues as well as the rules of comedy and tragedy, and made out of those three a wonderful, most beautiful, and highly regulated work. The latter took set, characters, and costumes form tragedy; and commoners, facetious wit, and happy endings form comedy. Tasso observed the unity and integrity of the plot, its coming full-circle, its protasis and resolution, and all the other parts and rules that must be followed and that are common to tragedy and comedy, and did it so well that envy itself could not find any fault to this poem”). See G. B. Manso, Vita di Torquato Tasso (1621) (Roma: Francesco Cavalli, 1634) 49, qtd in Galli Stampino, Staging, 11 (translation by Galli Stampino). 46 On this, besides the already cited C. Scarpati, “Sulla genesi,” see the more recent “Classici e moderni nella costruzione del Torrismondo,” Tasso, i classici e i moderni (Padova: Antenore, 1995).

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The little that is known about Tasso’s own thoughts on dramaturgy must be teased out here and there from his theoretical works: like his initial condemnation of tragicomedy in the Delle differenze poetiche (1587) which he eventually retracts in the later Discorsi del poema eroico (1594), where he equates tragicomedy to the tragedia di felice fine;47 or like the preference for an Aristotelian approach to catharsis which he openly declared in his Giudicio (1666).48 In addition to that, there is also the dedicatory epistle for Re Torrismondo, where he clearly states his interest for catharsis, as well as his subscription to an aesthetic delight that essentially consists in the purgation of affects, which he indicates as the ultimate end of tragedy: e V. Altezza, leggendo e ascoltando questa favola, troverà alcune cose da imitare, altre da schivare, altre da lodar, altre da riprendere, altre da rallegrarsi, altre da contristarsi. E potrà con il suo grandissimo giudizio purgar in guisa l’animo, ed in guisa temprar le passioni, che l’altrui dolore sia cagione del suo diletto.49 (And as your Highness will read and listen to this tale, he will find in it things to imitate, and things to avoid, things to praise and things to rebuke; things that are reason for rejoicing and others that are cause of sorrow. And he will with his greatest judgment purge his heart, and temper his passions in such a way that the grief of others may be turned into the cause of your delight.)

Tasso, once again anticipating Guarini (Chapter 1), essentially embraces a notion of delight that coincides with the purgation of affects, thereby not only disclosing the high ethical aspirations that lie beneath his hedonism50 but also, and most importantly for the sake of this discussion, moving away from Castelvetro’s 47 See Baldassarri, “Introduzione,” II Pastor Fido, by Battista Guarini, ed. Elisabetta Selmi (Venezia: Marsilio, 1999) 11. Sampson supplies some additional theoretical background to the Aminta by capitalizing on the Discorsi sull’arte poetica. See Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 71–5. 48 “In fact, I have tried in this connection, with more mature judgment, to moderate myself and my poem, conceding to modern poets the very vain praise of an affected pleasantry; but in the laments made for the death of friends and of children and in funeral rites, I have not wished to cease to imitate the Greeks and Latins; with both kinds of laments, however, I have wanted to purge the passions, following rather the judgment of Aristotle and the other Peripatetics than that of Plato, of the Academician, and of the Stoics and Epicureans, who although they disagree with one another in other respects, seem to agree concerning what pertains to the evacuation of the emotions and to the tranquility of the mind.” See T. Tasso, Del giudizio sopra la Gerusalemme di Torquato Tasso, qtd in B. Hathaway, The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962) 260. 49 Qtd in T. Tasso, Teatro (Milano: Garzanti, 1983) 100. 50 I am referring to the highly ethical “giovar dilettando” that Tasso indicates as the end of the epic poem. See Tasso, Discorsi del poema eroico, 504.

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notion of oblique aesthetic delight (see Chapter 1). His dramaturgy is thus centered on the very process of arousal and purgation of affects that in turn produces “temperamento,” as opposed to the ex post facto rationalization that, according to Castelvetro, is supposed to ensue that process.51 To the crucial matter of purgation of affects Tasso devotes the entire final part of the Giudicio. Here the author of the Aminta, not unlike Guarini does in the Compendio, openly dismisses the Stoic approach to purgation as obliteration of affects, and singles out Aristotle as the ultimate auctoritas on this matter, also showing full awareness of the allopathic and homeopathic methods: ma Aristotele, fornito d’altissimo ingegno e di gravissimo giudicio dotato, conobbe che non tutti gli affetti sono per natura malvagi, ma alcuni buoni anzi che no, prodotti da fecondità de la natura: fra’ i quali, non altrimenti che soglia il loglio fra ’l grano sogliono germogliare alcune passioni che paiono aver del maligno, come l’invidia e la malevolenza. Insegnò, adunque che si purgassero gli animi da gli affetti e comandò che ne la tragedia si faccia questa purgazione; ma del modo sono discordi gli espositori: altri vogliono che la purgazione nasca da la consuetudine … però ci consigliano al leggere ed a l’ascoltare i poeti ne’ quali ci avezziamo a le cose orribili e miserabili e per questa cagione poi ne siamo meno commossi; altri estimano che de la perturbazione avenga quel che avviene del vino inacquato, o diviso fra molti, che meno suole offendere; altri—fra’ i quali è il Boccaccio nel principio de l’Ameto ed in quel delle Cento novelle—hanno opinione che l’esempio dell’altrui calamità e ’l conoscere d’aver compagni ne la nostra miseria possa alleggerir le nostre. Ma San Tomaso ne l’ottavo de la Politica, dove Aristotele parla similmente di purgazione de gli animi, giudicò che la purgazione de gli animi si facesse come l’altre medicine quia contraria contrariis curantur: vuol dunque che ciascuna passione sia purgata dal suo contrario; però un insolente per la prosperità della fortuna, leggendo i casi di Priamo, o pur quelli d’Agamennone e d’Edippo e di Tieste, quasi fatto aveduto del’umanità, tempererà l’orgoglio e la superbia che suole accompagnare I fortunati … ma sì come nel corpo non solamente contraria contrariis curantur, ma per giudizio d’Ippocrate ancora, similia similibus curantur, per mio aviso la purgazione de gli animi non solamente si può fare da’ contrari, ma da’ simili; e perch’alcune cose purgano il corpo per eccesso … similmente il terrore, e la misericordia, e l’ira e l’amore, e le altre passioni possono, s’io m’inganno, purgarci l’animo non per contraria qualità, ma per eccesso; e l’una e l’altra maniera di purgazione conviene non solo alla tragedia, ma alla commedia. (Giudicio II, 211–17)52 51

On the well-known dialectic that Tasso establishes with Castelvetro on the primacy of the epic poem over tragedy, see G. Baldassarri, “Gli ‘Estratti dalla Poetica del Castelvetro,’” Studi tassiani 36 (1988). 52 T. Tasso, Giudicio sovra la Gerusalemme riformata, ed. C. Gigante (Salerno: Roma, 2000).

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy (but Aristotle, who was gifted with a high intellect and with the deepest judgment, understood that not all the affects are evil by nature, but that some are rather good than bad, and are spawned by the fecundity of nature; amongst them, just as weeds amongst wheat, sprout some passions that seem to be evil, such as envy or malevolence. He then taught how to purge hearts from affects, and ordered that tragedy be the means to achieve such purgation; however the commentators disagree on how this purgation should be achieved: some want that purgation be achieved by growing accustomed to certain things … so they advise us to read and listen to poets that allow us to get accustomed to horrible and miserable things in order to be less moved by such things when they happen to us; other commentators estimate that what perturbs us is like vine: once it is watered down or shared by many it does not offend us that much anymore; other still—amongst them is Boccaccio, particularly in his Ameto and in his one hundred novelle—think that the example of one’s calamity and the knowledge that we share our miseries with others may be a relief for us. But Saint Thomas, in his eighth book on Politics, where Aristotle also speaks of purgation, deemed that purgation can be achieved in a way similar to those medicines that cure by means of opposites: this means that each passion is purged by its opposite; thus one who has become insolent, because of his prosperous fortune, reading about what befell Priamus, Agamemnon or Oedipus or Thyestes, and thus becoming wary of human nature, will temper the pride that typically accompanies those who are lucky … but since according to Hippocrates it is also possible to cure by applying a medicine that is similar to that which ails, it is my opinion that purgation may not only be achieved through opposite but also through similar affects; and since some substances do purge the body by excess … similarly terror, and pity, and ire, and love, and the other passions can, if I am not in error, purge by excess rather than by opposition; both manners of purgation pertain not only to tragedy but also to comedy.)

With this dense excursus on purgation that embraces and rehearses most of the already discussed contemporary views—from the Mithradatic to the allopathic, all the way to homeopathic principles (Chapter 1)—Tasso clearly demonstrates his competence in matters of purgation; most importantly, he shows his intent to vindicate the autonomy of poetry, thus of affectivity, with respect to a potentially domineering and restrictive moral discourse; a moral discourse that, as has been mentioned, tended, with the authority of Plato, to put poetry under the vigilance of moral philosophy, thus sensibly confining the freedom of the poet’s imitative efforts. In this respect, he also seems to anticipate Guarini on another important issue of sixteenth-century poetics: his rejection of the via remotionis and his subscription to the via moderationis; and thus his subscription to a notion of purgation that implies temperament as opposed to obliteration of affects. In addition to Tasso’s above-mentioned theoretical reflections, it is also through the actual pastoral play itself that we may gain some important insight on Tasso’s

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tragicomic dramaturgy and the kind of temperament that he is striving for.53 As already mentioned, with its tragic crescendo spanning over four acts and culminating with Aminta’s suicide and Silvia’s vow to a similar fate, the Aminta immediately presents itself as a tragicomedy with a very strong commitment to tragedy.54 Thus, we do not yet see the strong investment on the comic side which characterizes the Pastor Fido. In other words, there is no highly complicated dramatic structure where tragic episodes are interwoven with comic ones, nor is there an extensive use of the sublime register where, as is the case of the Pastor Fido, the conquering of tragedy may take place (Chapter 1); instead there is a predominantly tragic action, which, with very little digression, proceeds straight to its potentially tragic epilogue, and subsequently—with some degree of improbability for the modern reader, one must admit—veers off toward its comic denouement. Moreover, there is no mechanism of tragic recognition that is strategically re-worked into a mechanism of comic recognition, as is the case of the Pastor Fido; something at which a rigorous restorer of the classical genres in the Italian vernacular tradition like Tasso would have certainly frowned.55 Thus, while essentially adhering to the same tragic-in-the-comic aesthetic formula that also characterizes the Pastor Fido the Aminta varies the ‘parameters’ within that formula, favoring the ‘phase’ of tragic tension over that of comic relief; or rather only partly developing the ‘phase’ of comic relief. In this respect, it is indeed right to conclude that the Aminta is born under the aegis of tragedy rather than comedy, with the already mentioned caveat not to miss the tragicomic forest for the tragic trees. The tragic ‘phase’ of the play has its climax, not unlike it is the case of the Pastor Fido, in act four, where the cathartic moment of Aminta’s death is situated. Catharsis is thus another common feature in both plays. As already mentioned, in the Pastor Fido catharsis is accomplished through the masterful use of the fashionable peripetia, cleverly inscribed within a general dynamics of danger, where probable death substitutes actual death. Much the same could be said about the Aminta. In fact, both Aminta’s naturally unrestrained love as well as Silvia’s Particularly in the case of the Aminta, I believe it may be legitimate to evoke the concept of “unwritten poetics.” See Claudio Guillén, Literature as System: Essays Toward the Theory of Literary History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971). On the fact that Tasso makes of its own pastoral the very site of his theoretical reflection on pastoral drama, see the above-mentioned study of Bruscagli, “Ancora a proposito,” and most importantly E. Selmi, Classici e Moderni nell’officina del ‘Pastor Fido’ (Alessandria: Orso, 2001) 142–4. 54 The relationship between Tasso’s Aminta and Speroni’s tragedy Canace is well known. See F. Vazzoler, “Le Pastorali dei comici dell’arte: La Mirtilla di Isabella Andreini,” Sviluppi della drammaturgia pastorale nell’Europa del Cinque-Seicento, 291. Bruscagli talks about a series of tragic signals in the Aminta which become more numerous from the third act on. See Bruscagli, “Ancora,” 43. For a discussion of the Aminta in the context of the theoretical tradition, see Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 68–74. 55 On Tasso’s likely perplexity with respect to Guarini’s daring syncretism, see Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 103–4. 53

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unnatural negation of love create great threats for the two protagonists; moral threats, to be sure, that, thanks to their Petrarchan resonance, are supposed to arouse the moral affects of pity and fear, and thus have a cathartic effect on the audience; and the above-mentioned idiosyncratic approach to the Petrarchan ‘upgrade’ that Tasso chooses to pursue is obviously meant to build and direct the arousal of moral affects that is necessary for such catharsis. Thus, it is safe to say that the Aminta seems to strive for a form of temperament that, although quite different in its substance and its dynamics to that pursued by Guarini, is not unlike it in its essence, in that it is also achieved through a cathartic experience; a homeopathic cathartic experience, to be sure. Also important with respect to Tasso’s art of purging is how he uses the device of peripetia. Once again, there are some important distinctions to be made with Guarini’s art of purging. As already discussed, the first peripetia in the Pastor Fido occurs when Amarillis and Mirtillo are caught in flagrant adultery and Amarillis is sentenced to death. This is indeed a highly pathetic moment in Guarini’s play which is accurately devised in order to stir the moral affects. Much the same can be said for the first peripetia in the Aminta, which occurs in the last scene of the second act, when Nerina announces Silvia’s sudden death: an utterly tragic moment indeed, poignantly topped off by Aminta’s triple anaphora—“Oh velo, oh sangue, oh Silvia, tu se morta” (“Oh veil! Oh, blood! O Silvia, you’re dead!”) (3, 2, 88–9). It is, however, at the level of the second peripetia that the Aminta clearly reveals a sensibly different dramaturgic approach. In the Pastor Fido the second major turn takes place when Mirtillo offers to die in Amarilli’s place. As already discussed, this sublime moment is specifically devised in order to prompt what I have called an affective adjustment. An affective adjustment prompted by the climactic experience of meraviglia that leads the audience, in the wake of a crucial cognitive moment, to experience what is essentially the potentially tragic epilogue with a completely different affective participation: in this instance affects are aroused by a redeemed or virtuous character, a redeemed Petrarchan lover, who dies only in body and not in soul; a character for whom the audience is supposed to feel more admiration than pity and fear. Guarini thus not only requires from his audience an intelligent affective participation, based on moral or Petrarchan affects—the fear and pity for the death of the soul; he also requires an affective adjustment that eventually allows for the complete conquering of tragedy, as the momentous implications of the Petrarchan sacrifice are being experienced in all their providential significance throughout the final act. The Aminta instead has a quite different second peripetia, in that it features a Petrarchan lover who in utter desperation for the supposed death of his beloved throws himself off a cliff and dies. To be sure, it is sacrificial death that entails a re-birth into a new life and a new love—as it has to be in neo-Platonic framework. However, it is a sacrificial death that is staged so that it may indeed be experienced in all its pathetic potential. Tasso, then, only requires from his audience an intelligent affective participation

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based on moral or Petrarchan affects, and strategically invests all his affectivity in this cathartic endeavor.56 This clearly shows that, rather than the affective adjustment prompted by the heroic act of self-sacrifice, Tasso wants an affective ‘overkill’ prompted by the potentially tragic implications of self-denial; in other words he wants to fully capitalize on a more genuinely Greek elegiac element.57 Rather than an opening up for the enthusiastic harrowing of death through death/life, Tasso purposefully 56 I would like to note that Tasso is really the first one who understands how Petrarch’s love romance described in the Canzoniere ought to be co-opted into pastoral drama: not by simply replicating superficially a linguistic and stylistic paradigm but by capitalizing on the actual ethical substance of that paradigm, including the sacrificial death/life of the lover. Sacrifice, then, becomes a cathartic device in the Aminta, just as it is a cathartic device (of course, with a completely different meaningfulness) in the Pastor Fido. In this respect, one can’t help noticing that the Aminta is actually an interesting meta-literary response to Beccari’s pastoral, who had only co-opted the Petrarchan packaging and not the Petrarchan ethical matter. There is in fact no trace of Petrarchan sacrifice in the predominantly Ovidian plot of Il Sacrificio. 57 The elegiac nature of the Aminta ultimately implies a pagan pathos based on the fatality and inexorability of love, as opposed to the heroic Pastor Fido, which instead features a pathos that is built on the idea of love as willful lapsing, and is therefore a Christian pathos. What I believe clearly comes through in the Aminta is the idea of the captivitas amoris; in other words, Tasso’s version of the Petrarchan ethos is one where the pathos essentially comes from a classical or pagan idea of lapsing—it is the consequence of error, not of willful wrong choice. Symptomatic in this respect is Tasso’s characterization of Aminta’s love as “furor” and “desperate constancy” (act 4, scene 1, ll. 86–7), as opposed to Guarini’s characterization of Mirtillo’s love as “love in vain faithful” (act 1, Chorus). Thus, Tasso’s catharsis in the Aminta is one based on the Petrarchan fear and pity for a potential moral death that seems to be much more the result of a tragic human fate than willful choice. This peculiar wavering between a pagan pathos and Christian ethos, thus between a pagan and a Christian morality, is possibly not uncommon in Tasso’s dramaturgy. I am referring to Scarpati’s insightful observations on the noticeable shift in Tasso’s staging of tragic love—specifically, from love as the “empio misfatto” (“evil misdeed”), and “indegno fallo di cieca e folle cupidigia” (“unworthy act of mad cupidity”) of the Galealto to the “cieco e folle amore” (“blind and mad love”), and “impetuoso affetto” (“impetuous affection”) of Re Torrismondo (see Scarpati, “Sulla genesi,” 163). In this light, it is certainly not too far fetched to suggest that the Aminta, with its Christian Petrarchan ethos pregnant with pagan pathos, represents somewhat of a middle ground between the ‘Christian’ tragedy of love staged in the Galealto and the ‘pagan’ tragedy of love staged in the Torrismondo. Interesting in this respect is the fact that, while the composition of the Aminta and that of the Galealto are essentially simultaneous (see Scarpati, “Sulla genesi,” 157), Tasso completes the former but interrupts the latter. Scarpati sees in Tasso’s changed conception of “scelus” that culminates with the Torrismondo (thus, I should conclude, in his choice of pagan pathos over Christian ethos) an implicit rebuttal of Guarini’s attempt at a contamination of tragedy with comedy that characterizes the Pastor Fido (see Scarpati, “Sulla genesi,” 187). In the light of the discussion presented in this chapter, I believe it is safe to say that Tasso had already attempted that very contamination in the Aminta.

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chooses to fully exploit the dismal aspects of the harrowing of life through death/ life. Thus, while Guarini calls on a jubilant messenger who ecstatically announces Mirtillo and Amarilli’s ascent to virtue through the sacrifice of their lives, Tasso ushers in a horrified messenger, who, as has been shown, has a much different sacrificial story to tell. As is well known, Tasso’s second peripetia is typically topsy-turvy, starting with potential tragedy and ultimately ending with comedy as Aminta’s suicide misfires and Silvia is moved to pity and love. It is therefore important to point out that Tasso’s aesthetic formula remains essentially a tragic-in-the-comic one, both with respect to its rhetorical affect (mix of pathos and ethos) and its poetic affect (fabula). However, it is also important to point out that in staging the parable that through sacrifice leads from perspective tragedy to comedy, or from death to death/life, Tasso makes the conscious choice to thoroughly exploit one particular mode of representation: a tragic mode of representation which is much more akin to a Greek sensibility than it is to a Christian one. This particular ‘Greek choice’ informs Tasso’s play and in turn determines the above-mentioned variation in the parameters of his aesthetic formula, with its strong emphasis on pathos and the tragic-like fabula. While Guarini chooses an approach to the representation of the Petrarchan death/life experience where death is represented in terms which are much more ethical than purely pathetic—in other words, where death is conquered by a newly acquired virtue—Tasso chooses a pathetic rather than ethical representation of death/life, where death is experienced in the most heartwrenching way, and yet still conquered. Quite significant in this respect is Tasso’s choice of the Pyramus and Thisbe subtext.58 The undertones of Ovid’s highly pathetic tale of love and death, and metamorphosis quite nicely enhances the pathos-laden story of Aminta and Silvia: another story of metamorphosis, to be sure, but an internal rather than an external one. Thus, Tasso’s primary investment, as has been repeatedly underscored by critics, is in the direction of sheer pathos;59 sheer pathos, one must add, with respect to the Petrarchan ethos, and thus with respect to the sacrificial or ethical dynamics that pertain to it. Not so Guarini, who, as already mentioned (Chapter 1), instead chooses to capitalize on a sublime representation of self-sacrifice, thus giving to his sacrificial story a quite different spin: a heroic spin, to be sure; and yet, as has been shown, a heroic spin that is not lacking of a markedly pathetic tinge. Then, on the one hand—the Pastor Fido—we have a homeopathic catharsis combined with the powerful element of admiration, which also has an important cathartic function. On the other hand—the Aminta—we have a homeopathic catharsis, eventually resolved in the end by a comic moment of recognition without a real cathartic function. Admiration is certainly the primary rhetorical mode of Elpino’s joyful announcement; and yet in the Aminta it never becomes, as is the case for the Pastor Fido, the cornerstone of a Christian catharsis. Tasso’s catharsis 58

See Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 75–9. See Anselmi, “Aminta,” 623.

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deployed in the Aminta, then, is a Greek catharsis more than it is a Christian one. It is determined by a sensibly more tragic view of Petrarchan love, and by a thorough exploitation of the elegiac potential that such a tragic view naturally entails. The Aminta thus features a Petrarchan ethos drenched in pathos, as opposed to Guarini who only permeates his Petrarchan ethos with pathos. Moreover, it features a Petrarchan ethos that, by lacking a comparable investment in admiration as cathartic ‘phase’ in its own right, greatly de-emphasizes the cathartic potentialities of the love-death/life motive; potentialities that Guarini is instead much more keen on capitalizing and radically developing. On the contrary, Tasso much more emphasizes the cathartic potentialities of the elegiac love-death motive, and uses the moment of marvel in order to momentarily turn the pathetic into the sublime. In this respect, it is safe to safe to say that the Aminta capitalizes on a tragic sense of destiny more akin to the pagan world. In fact, with a cathartic principle hinging on the moral fear and pity for what only eventually turns out to be a successful erotic initiation, the Aminta seems to be a re-visitation of the cathartic dynamics of tragic fate; a re-visitation which, it is important to note again, is perfectly coherent with his dyed-in-the-wool Aristotelianism.60 Instead in the Pastor Fido the pathetic charge does not derive from destiny but from sin—i.e. the transgression to a just or natural law (fidelity); it thus pertains from the onset to a providential sense of destiny that is more openly akin to the Christian world. While Guarini reconceives catharsis taking into account the urgencies of Christian culture, Tasso essentially still operates in the realm of a pagan or faithfully Aristotelian understanding of it, thus confirming the above-mentioned openly declared favor for the pathos-laden lamentation that belongs to that tradition. His tragic view of love that is suggested in the elegiac approach to the Petrarchan erotic initiation that characterizes the Aminta seems but a coherent step in the very same direction; one that is leaning toward Ovid’s Amores, rather than Bembo’s Rime. Both plays, thanks to their Petrarchan cognitive structure, stage the potential death of the soul as a powerful event that is able to move the moral affects. Tasso, by thoroughly exploiting the elegiac potentiality of Petrarch’s love-death motive, tends to represent death in predominantly pathetic terms, only leaving the possibility to recognize it as redemptive in retrospect. He thus fully exploits the traditional process of affective crescendo that usually characterizes traditional tragedy, yet without ruling out the possibility of a comic resolution, which is accompanied by a momentous process of cognition. At that point, the pagan tragic sense of destiny eventually reveals itself as providential (and therefore ultimately even more wondrous).61 Instrumental in this respect is the moment in which meraviglia is ushered in the play. However, unlike what happens in the Pastor Fido, in the Aminta this poignant 60 For the extent of Tasso’s commitment to Aristotle teachings, See G. Baldassarri, “Introduzione ai ‘Discorsi dell’arte poetica del Tasso’,” Studi Tassiani 26 (1977): 5–38. 61 To be sure, the Aminta does not represent a pagan world, but a Christian world with a strong nostalgia for the pagan world.

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moment does not occur at the beginning of the second peripetia but only at its very end. Its function is thus undeniably different compared to the Pastor Fido. That notwithstanding, marvel does indeed play a relevant role in the economy of the Aminta.62 In fact, it promptly diffuses the build up of tragic affects—like shades dissolve in the lights of true forms. This great Platonic moment of recognition happens at the beginning of act five, with the explicatory or cognitive intervention of Elpino which opens the fifth and final act: Veramente la legge con che Amore il suo imperio governa eternamente non è dura, né obliqua; e l’opere sue, piene di provvidenza e di mistero, altri a torto condanna. Oh per quant’arte, e per che ignote strade egli conduce l’uom ad esser beato, e fra le gioie del suo amoroso paradiso il pone, quando ei più crede al fondo esser de’ mali! Ecco precipitando Aminta ascende al colmo, al sommo d’ogni contentezza. (5, 1, 1840–1849) (Oh certainly the law of Love, with which / eternally he governs all his reign / is neither harsh nor hard, and all his works / are full of providence and mystery, / which wrongly some condemn. Oh with what art / and through what unknown streets he leads his man / to blessedness, and places him amid / the joys of his am’rous paradise / when he is sure he’s sunk amid his ills! / See here, Aminta, hurled down to the ground, / who gains the heights, the summit of content.)

With this neo-Platonic celebration of the marvelous mystery of love and of the unpredictable nature of its ways Tasso’s tragic-like plot reaches its happy ending, allowing for the build up of tragic affects to be immediately defused, once it has served its cathartic purpose. Thus, tragedy is finally subdued in the end by the wondrous denouement of the Aminta. However, as mentioned before, it is possibly neither conquered nor forgotten, as is instead the case of the Pastor Fido. In this light, it is safe to say that the Aminta, although in essence already a fundamental

62 On the absence of meraviglia in Tasso, see M. Ariani, “Introduzione,” Il teatro italiano. La tragedia del Cinquecento, vol. 1 (Torino: Einaudi, 1977) 73–4; F. Taviani, “Teatro,” 23. My position is different, in that I believe that Tasso does not ignore meraviglia (which is the contention of the above-mentioned authors). In fact, in the Aminta the moment of marvel, not unlike it is the case of the Pastor Fido, constitutes an essential element in the process of affective re-adjustment from pathos to ethos that takes place in the aftermath of catharsis in order to defuse the previously aroused moral affects of pity and fear.

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step toward tragicomedy, is still in its substance a tragedia di fine felice.63 In other words, the Aminta is a tragicomedy that predominantly allocates its ethical aspiration to the tragic sphere, properly purging by means of the moral affects of pity and fear, as any regular tragedy would do. Although definitely fitting the tragic-in-the-comic aesthetic formula (specifically because of its difficult mix of pathos and ethos), Tasso’s pastoral still represents a rudimentary form of the tragicomic formula, later to be elaborated and codified by Guarini. Recalling the above-mentioned ternary causative relation between content, form, and “operation,” it is then safe to conclude that the particular tragicomic dramatic structure of the Aminta, and thus the particular art of purging that shapes the “operation” of this play, is indeed perfectly coherent with the peculiar take on the allegory of the Petrarchan initiation into Love that Tasso has elected as the content of his play. In fact, the particular affectivity of the Aminta and thus its purging power derives from Tasso’s peculiar choice to emphasize the elegiac character over the redemptive character of the romance-like epic he co-opts from the Canzoniere; a choice that immediately affects the tragicomic aesthetic formula of the play, yet, and this is important, without undercutting it, as it simply tends to saturate the Petrarchan ethos of the play with an overwhelming pathos. Tasso’s art of purging therefore tends to purposefully emphasize all the formal elements that will allow to reflect the painful and frightful ordeal of the erotic initiation, rather than the redemptive resolution, and yet—this can’t be emphasized enough— without obliterating that redemptive resolution.64 With its particular Aristotelian/ Petrarchan affectivity, the Aminta represents a fundamental first tragic-like step in the direction of the high moral aspirations for pastoral drama that Guarini will eventually further shape and develop. It therefore represents a first stage, a blueprint, in the evolution of a genre that seeks legitimacy on the grounds of its utility and pursues said utility through a hybrid form of purgation that combines tragic and comic aesthetics. The ultimate aesthetic experience prompted by this hybrid purging formula is “temperamento;” a term that, in the light of this discussion, can now be adequately fleshed out as follows: the “disposition” induced by a verisimilar imitation of a Petrarchan ethos that is both pathetic and ethical, whereby through the arousal of moral pity and fear all affects are restored to their natural balance. This “disposition” is not only therapeutic or more specifically ethical; it is also delightful, in as much as it is based on the fruition of moral affects. In this respect, 63 I believe a little more time should be spent in discussing this very curious juxtaposition of tragedia di fine felice and tragicommedia. In fact, it is exactly here that lies the fundamental difference between the two authors and their respective arts of purging. Tasso’s purging formula is very similar to that described by Giacomini (Chapter1), while Guarini’s purging methodology integrates comedic admiration to tragedic purgation, thus achieving what may rightly be considered a much more complex form of purgation. 64 For a discussion of the redemptive ending of the Aminta and of its function in the complex healing process that pertains to this play, see Chapter 4.

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the therapeutic movere pertaining to the Aminta is one that includes delight as an essential part of its ethical function; thus, it is indeed the fruitful middle ground in the diatribe between delectare and docere that, as already mentioned, characterizes sixteenth-century aesthetics. This intimate connection between delight and utility in poetry represents yet another momentous contribution to further developments in the genre, and certainly, once again, foreshadows the Pastor Fido. The Humanizing Effect As has been shown, the overarching Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love that informs the fabula of the Aminta is a fundamental component of the affectivity of the play. It allows for Tasso’s art of purging to become a great poetic enchantment that serves to move and temper the affects of the audience in a unique way, according to the unique dynamics of temperament that has just been outlined. This fundamental Petrarchan component, of course, coalesces with other Petrarchan features that pertain to the poetic language or elocutio of the Aminta and that, as is the case of the Pastor Fido, also are an integral part of the affectivity of the play. It is therefore to these other Petrarchan features that one must turn to see the whole picture, and thus to thoroughly appreciate the affectivity that pertains and defines the Aminta as a poetic imitation or mimesis. Generally speaking, critics tend to acknowledge that Petrarch’s poetry is indeed the base for images, conceits, and language in Tasso’s pastoral and point out that most of the Petrarchan reminiscences in the Aminta are purposefully ignited with unusually strong sensuality.65 Varese quite effectively calls this a process of humanization of lyric images.66 However, besides what is by all means a brilliant critical intuition, he does not really get into the specifics of what really happens during this so-called process of humanization. A little more in this respect can be gained from Brand’s insightful discussion of Tasso’s lyrical language and its relationship to Petrarch as follows: Tasso starts from a Petrarchan image, extends the idea or transfers it to a different context, or he embroiders on its form with word-play, antithesis, distorted wordorder etc. The conceit is not different in kind from its Petrarchan original; it is only denser, more extreme … Or he twists his Petrarchan source with the intention of taking the reader by surprise … It is Petrarch’s form, then, which Tasso’s adopts, sharpened and extended in the reflection of the different literary and 67 moral situation of the late Cinquecento, and of the poet’s own personality. See G. Getto, Interpretazione del Tasso (Napoli: ESI, 1967) 136. See C. Varese, Torquato Tasso: Epos—Parola—Scena (Firenze: D’Anna, 1976)

65 66

166.

67 See C. P. Brand, “Petrarch and Petrarchism in Toquato Tasso’s lyric poetry,” MLR 62 (1967): 266.

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The following remarks clearly imply that Tasso’s humanization of Petrarch’s language is the work of a skilled writer, who proficiently manipulates the vast repertory of rhetorical figures and tropes at his disposal. Another important critical assessment, to be sure, which, although more specific than earlier assessments, still does not give us a clear picture of how exactly Tasso operates with respect to Petrarch, and most importantly how this operating fits into the larger scheme of things—namely, the dynamics of temperament. In order to shed a little more light on that it is necessary to focus on Tasso’s manipulation of Petrarch’s metaphorical apparatus. One can start with the descriptio mulieris. There are two instances in the play where Silvia is being described as the topical figure of the cruel nymph. In the second scene of the second act, Tasso puts in the mouth of his frustrated protagonist the following words: Ho visto al pianto mio risponder per pietate i sassi e l’onde, e sospirar le fronde, ho visto al pianto mio; ma non ho visto mai, né spero di vedere, compassion ne la crudele e bella che non so s’io mi chiami o donna o fera: ma niega d’esser donna, poiché nega pietate a chi non la negaro le cose inanimate. (1, 2, 338–49) (Unto my tears I’ve seen / the rocks and waves for pity’s sake reply, / and leaves all seem to sigh / unto my tears I’ve seen; / but I have never seen, / nor ever hope to see / compassion in the one who’s cruel and fair, / though if she’s beast or woman, I know not: / but she denies her womanhood / since pity she denies / to one who’s even pitied / by things inanimate.)

As has been noted, the cruelty/beauty conceit stems from Petrarch’s Chiare fresche e dolci acque.68 Tasso is therefore deploying a well consolidated image of the lyrical repertoire, nicely juxtaposed to a contrasting pitiful nature. In this case, rather than an actual humanization, one may want to talk about an integration of the lyrical image with a series of pastoral elements. To be sure, the beloved remains still a quite elusive or vague object of desire crystallized in a highly refined, ethereal image. However, all this changes dramatically as Tasso ushers in the second lover, the Satyr, and puts in his mouth the following description: See Tasso, Aminta, 51.

68

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy Crudel Amor, Silvia crudele ed empia più che le selve! Oh come a te confassi tal nome, e quanto vide chi tel pose! Celan le selve angui, leoni, ed orsi dentro il lor verde: e tu dentro a bel petto nascondi odio disdegno ed impietate: fere peggior ch’angui, leoni ed orsi: che si placano quei, questi placarsi non possono per prego né per dono. (2, 1, 737–45) (Most cruel Love! And cruel Silvia, / worse than sylvan wilds! Oh, how your name / is fitting, just as he who gave it knew! / The woods hide serpents, lions, and even bears / within their green, and you within your breast / hide hate, disdain and lack of pity—beasts far worse than serpents, lions, and bears: / for those may be appeased, but your disdain / cannot be soothed by praise or any gift.)

Quite tactically placed into the mouth of the character in the play who is allowed the highest degree of transgression without jeopardizing the overall decorum, this is indeed quite an extraordinary descriptio mulieris. The reference here is Petrarch’s sestina A qualunque animale alberga in terra, and particularly the following verses: Non credo che pascesse mai per selva sì aspra fera, o di notte o di giorno, come costei ch’i’ piango a l’ombra e al sole. (RVF, 22, 19–21) (I’ll never think that, nurtured by the woods / As harsh a creature could be, night or day, / As she for whom I weep in shade and sun.)

But while Petrarch emphasizes the extraordinary cruelty of Laura by essentially defining her as an unusual beast of the forest, Tasso’s hyperbolic “più che le selve” right away connotes Silvia as a beast whose extraordinary cruelty is foreign even to the forest. Thus, the typical pastoral word-play selva-Silvia takes on an annominative function; and the emphatic suspension “Oh, how your name / is fitting, just as he who gave it knew!” turns into a powerful antiphrasis. An antiphrasis confirmed by a final similitude (“Celan le selve…”) which re-proposes the selva-Silvia analogy only to sanction that no analogy is possible, since the beloved’s fierceness, unlike that of the most cruel beasts of the forest, has no end. With a subtle yet significant editorial move, Tasso disrupts the Petrarchan metaphorical relationship beloved/beast, and achieves a new descriptio of the beloved: a quite extraordinary one indeed.69 And to measure just how extreme 69 The following is a list of places in the Canzoniere where Petrarch uses the beloved/ beast analogy: RVF (22, 20), (23, 149), (50, 40), (126, 29), (135, 45), (152, 1), (304, 3).

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(i.e. disrupting the metaphorical system in the direction of a stronger realism) such a description really is, one needs to go no further than the Pastor Fido. In fact, the lyric portrait which Guarini comes up with for his cruel lover, Amarillis, is instead a very ‘pastorally’-correct one, for which he exploits not only Petrarch but even Sannazaro:70 “Amarilli, del candido ligustro / più candida e più bella, / ma dell’àspido sordo / e più sorda e più fèra e più fugace” (I, 1, 274–7) (“My Amarillis, much more bright and fair / Than the white lily, yet to me you seem / More shy, more cruel than the deafened adder”).71 Guarini’s intervention brings back the belovedsnake to the realm of the forest—thus re-establishes the Petrarchan metaphorical relationship beloved/beast—and indulges particularly on the antithesis cruelty/ beauty which is the thematic center of the famous Canzone Chiare, fresche e dolci acque.72 Amarillis is thus repositioned in the realm of Petrarch’s ethereal vision of Laura. The analogy (Amar/Amarillis) is perfectly framed by a descriptio mulieris that is extreme yet never antiphrastic, and thus opens the door to a vision of the beloved that is appropriately metaphysical. Another interesting spot for examining Tasso’s humanizing effect with respect to the Petrarchan lyrical language is Tasso’s rendition of the fatal kiss which culminates the account of Aminta’s enamourament: La semplicetta Silvia, pietosa del mio male, s’offrì di dar aita a la finta ferita, ahi lasso, e fece più cupa e più mortale la mia piaga verace, quando le labra sue giunse a le labra mie. Né l’api d’alcun fiore cògliono sì dolce il mel ch’allora io colsi da quelle fresche rose, se ben gli ardenti baci While the idea of a beast of extraordinary cruelty is often implied by Petrarch, it is also very clear that this is a beast of the forest, her extraordinary cruelty notwithstanding. Thus, Tasso’s “more than the forest” cruelty conceit is indeed meant to chart new spaces in the imaginary of his audience. For this and all the following searches I am using the Concordanze del Canzoniere di Francesco Petrarca (Torino: ILTE, 1971). 70 For Selmi’s observations in this respect, see Guarini, Il Pastor fido, ed. E. Selmi, 297–8. 71 For the complete quote of the famous Cruda Amarilli madrigal, see my earlier discussion of this passage (Chapter 2). 72 “Tempo verrà ancor forse ch’a l’usato soggiorno / torni la fera bella e mansueta” (“The time may yet arrive / When to her usual haunts / That fair, untamed and gentle one returns,” RVF, 126, 27–9).

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There are a few things that one should notice about this extraordinary scene. First, Tasso brings up the poignant realism of “labra”—a word that Petrarch uses only once in the whole Canzoniere, and not referring to Laura but to himself;73 the realism of the effect is accentuated even further by an anaphora (“quando le labra sue / giunse a le labra mie”) and by the consonance of the possessive adjectives “sue,” and “mie” that make the experience both personal and reciprocal. Second, and even more important, Tasso openly dismisses any metaphorical distancing for this poignant erotic moment: “Né l’api d’alcun fiore / cògliono sì dolce il mel ch’allora io colsi / da quelle fresche rose.” The main frame of reference here is still Petrarch74—although not only Petrarch.75 And again the Petrarchan metaphorical apparatus (flower-rose/ lips; honey/delight) is dismissed in order to render the poignancy or to humanize the conceit: the delight of this particular stolen kiss from the lips of the beloved is not as sweet as honey; it is something that exceeds this metaphor altogether. A variation which, once again, we can easily measure against Guarini’s treatment of the same topos in the Pastor Fido. Amor si stava, Ergasto, com’ape suol, ne le due fresche rose di quelle labbra ascoso. E mentre ella si stette con la baciata bocca, al baciar de la mia, 73 “Più volte già per dir le labbra apersi, / poi rimase la voce in mezzo al petto” (“How often when I part my lips to speak, / my voice remains in silence in my breast,” RVF, 20, 9). 74 For Petrarch’s use of “mèl,” see RVF (215, 14) and (360, 24). For Petrarch’s use of “rose” as a metaphor for lips, see RVF (157, 12). I would also like to mention that the expression “fresche rose” occurs twice in the Canzoniere. Once in particular with unusual physical poignancy, as a metaphor for the object of the lover’s delight—in this specific instance it is the hand of the beloved. See RVF (199, 9–11). 75 See Guarini, Pastor Fido, ed. Selmi, 337; Tasso, Aminta, ed. Varese, 56.

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immobile e ristretta, la dolcezza del mèl sola gustai. Ma, poi che mi s’offerse anch’ella e porse l’una e l’altra dolcissima sua rosa, (fosse o sua gentilezza o mia ventura so be che non fu Amore), e sonâr quelle labbra e s’incontrarono i nostri baci (oh caro e prezioso mio dolce tesoro t’ho perduto, e non moro?) allora sentii de l’amorosa pecchia la spina pungentissima soave passarmi il cor, che forse mi fu renduto allora per poterlo ferire. (2, 1, 210–230) (Upon her lips, Ergasto, all my soul / Collected stood; my life in a small compass / Was so contracted it became one kiss. / Hence my lips had lost their pow’r and use; / Their nerves unbraced were trembling, weak and faint, / When I approached her eyes which darted light’ning, / As being conscious of my secret crime, / How was I struck with her majestic face. / ’Till son emboldened by a smile, / serene I ventured on, Ergasto, then did love / Hide in her lips like a luxurious bee / Nestling between two new-blown roses joined. / While she unmoved united her lips to mine, / Nought but the sweets of honey then I tasted, / But when she first displayed one fragrant rose / and then another (whether it was through / Her tenderness or my good hap, I know / It was not love) and pressed her balmy lips / To mine (O heav’ns, my only joy, and treasure, / Have lost thee and do not die?) How soon / I felt the pleasing sting transfix my heart! / Which only there was fixed to wound again.)

First of all, one should note that, unlike Tasso, Guarini excludes the sensual word “lips” from the actual dramatic narration of the fatal kiss (“E mentre…”), isolating it in the short introductory lyrical pause which precedes the narration (“Amor si stava…”) and purposefully coupling it with its metaphor “fresche rose” which he places in a prominent position in the sentence structure. Thus, not only is the physicality of the word “lips” controlled by the particular lyrical register it is placed in, it is also immediately associated to its very own metaphor, which tactically precedes it and further defuses its poignancy. Second, as the physicality of “lips” is sensibly controlled, there is a proportionate effort to emphasize words such as “bocca,” “baciata,” and “baciar,” which, as mentioned earlier (Chapter 2), have a considerable spiritual resonance. Third, within the dramatic narration itself Guarini carefully reconstructs the Petrarchan metaphorical apparatus (“rosa” and “mél”) which Tasso had dismissed: the delight of the stolen kiss that the lover/bee collects on the lips/rose of his beloved is indeed sweet as honey. However, Guarini goes

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even further. Not only does his poetic conceit reconstruct Petrarch’s metaphorical apparatus, it also allows for a very Petrarchan transfer of the conceit at the level of sound—at the level of the signifier—by means of a poignant synesthesia (“e sonar quelle labbra”).76 The realm of sheer physicality is thus transcended twice, through image and through sound/image. Also significant is another passage, where Aminta describes how his love for Silvia slowly made its way into his heart: Ma, mentre io fea rapina d’animali, fui non so come a me stesso rapito. A poco a poco nacque nel mio petto, non so da qual radice, com’erba suol che per se stessa germini, un incognito affetto che mi fea desiare d’esser sempre presente a la mia bella Silvia; e beveva da’ suoi lumi un’estranea dolcezza, che lasciava nel fine un nonso che d’amaro; sospirava sovente, e non sapeva la cagion de’ sospiri. (Aminta 1, 2, 422–36) (But while I chased the animals for prey, / I don’t know how, but I fell prey myself. / And bit by bit was born within my breast, / I don’t know from what root, / as grass may seem to germinate itself, / a strange affection that / made me desire to be / forever present where / my lovely Silvia was. / I drank from her soft eyes / a newfound sweetness, one / that left a bitter taste / somehow, I don’t know why: / so soft I often sighed and scarce I knew / the reasons why I sighed.)

This early stage of the erotic initiation, which Tasso makes every possible effort to endow with the utmost naturalness—with an earthy if slight metaphorical displacement (amore/erba), and a beautiful naturalizing simile (“com’erba”)— receives a quite different treatment by Guarini in the Pastor Fido: Ond’io, che fin allor fiamma amorosa Non avea più sentita, oimè! non così tosto mirato ebbi quel volto, che di subito n’arsi, 76 Note also the effects of alliteration and onomatopeia in the following verses: “E mentre ella si stette / con la baciata bocca, al baciar de la mia” (2, 1, 213–15).

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e senza far difesa al primo sguardo che mi drizzò negli occhi, sentii correr nel seno una bellezza imperiosa e dirmi: — Dammi il tuo cor, Mirtillo —. (2, 1, 76–85) (Whence I, who never yet had felt his flames, / Alas! No sooner saw her lovely face, / But of a sudden all my breast was fired. / To the first darted glances of her looks / I tamely yielded and made no defense. / The valiant beauty straight my heart assailed, / And said, “Surrender, for thy heart’s my pris’ner.”)

As Guercio has rightly noticed, Guarini’s account of the enamourament is instead a classic Petrarchan coup de foudre,77 with its artful metaphorical displacement (amorosa/fiamma) and its erudite war-metaphor (“far difesa”) that allow to control the sensuality of the description. Humanization of lyrical images in Tasso not only pertains to the more titillating passages of the play; it also pertains to some of the more unsettling and pathetic ones. Case in point is Aminta’s suicide. Earlier in this chapter it has been mentioned how this particular part of the play is characterized by an atmosphere which recalls the poignancy of Dante’s infernal visions. That notwithstanding, it is once again Petrarch who provides Tasso with the essential imagery. It is well known that Petrarch’s redemptive experience is occasionally characterized by moments of total despair, where not only death is passionately invoked but where even suicide is seriously contemplated. This is particularly true for some of the poems which belong to the “in morte di Laura” cycle, such as the following one: S’io credesse per morte essere scarco del pensiero amoroso che m’atterra, colle mie mani avrei già posto in terra queste membra noiose e quello incarco; ma perch’io temo che sarebbe un varco di pianto in pianto, et d’una in altra guerra, di qua dal passo anchor, che mi si serra, mezzo rimango, lasso, e mezzo il varco. Tempo ben fora omai d’avere spinto l’ultimo stral la dispietata corda, ne l’altrui sangue già bagnato e tinto; et io ne prego Amore, e quella sorda che mi lassò de’ suoi color’ depinto, et di chiamarmi a sé non le ricorda. (RVF, 36) 77 See V. Guercio, “La lezione dell’Aminta e il Pastor Fido,” Studi Secenteschi 43 (2002): 145–6. On the bookish nature of Guarini’s enamourament, also see Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi (Venezia: Marsilio, 1999) 334–5.

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Petrarch envisions the laceration of his own body by the arrow of death tinged with the blood of his dead beloved: a stunning suicide conceit which, I believe, Tasso extensively exploits in the Aminta. As a matter of fact, the idea of a body stabbed by a deadly weapon already crops up at the level of Aminta’s first attempted suicide—that which is prevented by Dafne’s fortuitous arrival: AMINTA. Dispietata pietate fu la tua veramente, o Dafne, allora che ritenesti il dardo; però che ’l mio morire più amaro sarà, quanto più tardo. (3, 2, 1324–8) (Your pity truly was / dispiteous, O Dafne, when you held / my arrow back from me, / for death can only be / the bitterer the longer it’s delayed.)

However, it is at the level of the second attempted suicide—the ‘successful’ one— that Tasso actually manages to recover the full import of Petrarch’s poetic art and even surpass it with a masterful gesture. In fact, here the Petrarchan conceit of two bodies slain by same deadly weapon is transformed into the conceit of two lovers dismembered by the same voracious beasts: Se presti al mio volere così aver io potessi la gola e i denti de gli avidi lupi com’ho questi dirupi, sol vorrei far la morte che fece la mia vita: vorrei che queste mie membra meschine sì fosser lacerate, ohimè, come già foro quelle sue delicate. (4, 2, 1699–1708) (If I could have my way / then I would have the maws / and teeth of eager, greedy wolves instead / of rocks such as I have. I’d to have a death / like that

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which took my life; / if only these, my wretched limbs could be / as torn and ripped apart, / as her limbs, ever delicate, / alas, were torn before.)

While essentially co-opting the same Petrarchan conceit Tasso juxtaposes the deadly bow-and-arrow metaphor to the much more expressive and humanizing metaphor of the teeth and throats of the beasts that have dismembered Silvia, and then poignantly analogizes the sharp edges and the deep crevasses of the precipice that awaits Aminta with those very teeth and throats. With this mind-boggling continued metaphor Tasso not only manages to bring Petrarch’s conceit of suicide back into the picture, he also manages to give it an extraordinarily humanized quality, once again pushing the envelope by escalating the deadly weapon-image into the bloodthirsty beast-image; a humanized ‘take’ on the Petrarchan image which in all likelihood must have had quite an impact on an audience whose imagination was steeped in Petrarch’s imagery. It is then safe to say that Tasso’s humanization of Petrarchan conceits is not restricted to the markedly erotic aspects of the Aminta; in fact, this carefully deployed strategy can be seen at work even in the most pathetic moments of the play. This proves the enormous affective richness of Petrarch’s lyrical language and the strength of its legacy within the pastoral tradition. It also proves, once again, how Petrarch’s mastery in the pastoral does indeed have an important pedagogical function. To be sure, Tasso’s systematic manipulation of Petrarchan metaphors does not merely humanize this or that Petrarchan conceit, it humanizes the entire Petrarchan erotic initiation the plays focuses on, allowing for the Aminta to become an even more powerful and persuasive lesson in poetic form on the particular transcendent experience of love Tasso has chosen to imitate. In other words, Tasso’s strategic use of metaphor supplies the Petrarchan erotic initiation featured in the fabula of the Aminta with a language or elocutio that in and of itself actualizes the very earthbound or human perspective from which such initiation is being contemplated. It is the key element of a language of love that perfectly fits the specific humanized and pathetic conquering of Eros through Tanatos of the tragicomic fabula, and thus the key to the proper decorum of this play. Of course, this particular aspect of the affectivity of the Aminta in turn allows for a stronger emphasis on the elegiac and pathetic elements of the Petrarchan erotic initiation and thus is conducive to the particular dynamics of temperament that has been discussed above. Properly coalescing with the dramatic structure and plot of the play (the fabula), the elocutio of the Aminta transforms the whole Petrarchan erotic initiation into a wonderfully passionate and heartwrenching experience of transcendence that brings upon the desired cathartic effect. In the previous chapter Guarini’s acutezza has been described as the way to infuse what is essentially a language of sensuality with the spiritual element, thereby engendering what has been dubbed as the subliminal language of spiritual love. As already mentioned, such acutezza is determined by reconstructing the Petrarchan metaphorical apparatus, thus by recreating a language where the sensual poignancy of the conceit is systematically subdued by its metaphoric

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displacement. On the other hand, Tasso’s humanizing of lyrical images—one may call it immediatezza (immediacy)—attempts to do the opposite: it cuts down the metaphoric distance separating the conceit from its poetic expression, thus tilting the perfect balance of the Petrarchan language in the direction of sensual poignancy—as opposed to Guarini’s spiritual poignancy. In this respect, one may argue that Tasso’s particular Mannerist approach to rewriting Petrarch mostly focuses on emphasizing all those elements (for example metaphor) that enhance the human potentiality of Petrarch’s poetry, while, as has been shown, Guarini’s rewriting of Petrarch mostly focuses on emphasizing those linguistic and stylistic elements that enhance the spiritual potentiality of Petrarch’s poetry. The result is, to be sure, another subliminal language of spiritual love: this time a humanized one. In fact, Tasso’s sensual poignancy in the Aminta does not obliterate the spiritual resonance of his poetry. That would be impossible, given the neo-Platonic frame of reference that, as has been repeatedly mentioned, pertains to it.78 Once again, the key to what may appear as a contradiction lies again in the ‘double entente,’ the pun between the lyric simplicity of Tasso’s language and the implicit semantic richness of the fabula itself, for which the language is crafted. Which is to say that the excellence of the lyrical language of Tasso’s pastoral, not unlike the case for Guarini, lies in the complex affective experience that the poetry prompts in the reader; an affective experience which harmoniously combines, in a constant interplay, the sensual and the rational levels of the poetry, thus the human and the spiritual aspects of the Petrarchan ethos. As has been shown, both Guarini and Tasso widely capitalize on the ‘double entente’ of pastoral poetry, albeit in quite different ways. Their poetic and rhetorical craft, which determines the particular affectivity of their poetry, is chiefly responsible in establishing the ratio of such interplay; that is to say that their craft is responsible for subconsciously directing the audience’s experience to the right balance of sensuality and spirituality with respect to Petrarch’s erotic initiation. In this respect, one may say that in the Aminta, not unlike the Pastor Fido, also elocutio is a substantial aspect of the aesthetics of the play and of its “operation” (purgation); it is, in other words, a crucial component of the poetic/rhetorical matter which enchants the audience by catering to its particular sensibility—a sensibility that for Tasso’s audience is centered in the sensuality of the spiritual experience, and for Guarini on the spirituality of the sensual experience—and in turn allowing it to be moved, and tempered according to the specific dynamics of temperament that have been illustrated. One thus may conclude that both Tasso and Guarini’s pastorals are attempts at coining a poetry of love that, not unlike Petrarch’s Canzoniere, reconciles passion 78 For the idea that the kind of passionate love that characterizes the Aminta is not a purely sensual form of eroticism but a passion with spiritual implications, see B. Croce, “Poesia pastorale,” Poeti e Scrittori del pieno e del tardo Rinascimento, vol. 1 (Bari: Laterza, 1945) 327. Also Ramat underscores the constant interplay between sensual and rational engagement in the Aminta. See R. Ramat, Per la storia dello sitle Rinascimentale (Messina-Firenze: G. D’Anna, 1953) 121ff.

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and reason (sensuality and spirituality) in an effective way through the affectivity of their lyrical language; they simply choose different mimetic approaches to do that. Two different approaches that are both rigorously conducted under the aegis of Petrarch; in other words, it is Petrarch who provides the fruitful background for these different mimetic approaches. A Petrarch that Tasso’s immediatezza tends to radicalize in the direction of sensuality, yet within the context of a Petrarchism steeped in neo-Platonic sensual spirituality, and that Guarini’s acutezza tends to push in the direction of sensuality, yet within the context of a Christian spiritualized sensuality that already anticipates the Baroque. As is the case for Guarini, Tasso’s sensualism has often become a stumbling block for critics. Some have pointed to Tasso’s sensualism as incompatible with Platonism and transgressive with respect of the idyllic atmosphere that pertains to the pastoral genre;79 for others the poignancy and variety of the erotic imagery in the Aminta suggests a hedonistic rebellion with respect to the Petrarchan code.80 Conversely, some have hailed Tasso’s ability to heal the split between two until then incompatible forms of discourse in a sort of coincidentia oppositorum.81 Indeed Tasso’s challenge and, as will be pointed out in Chapter 4, the challenge of pastoral drama as a whole is exactly that of healing the split between two forms of discourse that are historically incompatible. And indeed Tasso endeavors to do so in the particular way that has been illustrated so far: that is, by reaching out to the most legitimate form of poetic discourse on love, Petrarch’s Canzoniere, and by purposefully enhancing the sensual element already inherent in it, thus systematically pushing Petrarch’s perfectly balanced language toward immediacy and naturalness; toward a highly pathetic language with elegiac aspirations. Very much like his particular handling of the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love, Tasso reads the Petrarchan code in an idiosyncratic way in order to bring out the sensuality and passion already inherent in it; sensuality and passion that Petrarch had shielded, or rather displaced by means of a very sophisticated rhetorical apparatus—metaphor being only one of its constituents—that aimed at distancing the verba from the natural res and bringing them closer to the spiritual res. Tasso’s pedagogical aspirations lead him instead to opt for immediatezza in the representation of conceits in order to match the natural res that are the object of his poetry with the natural or human verba that make up the very discourse that such poetry intends to mediate.82 And yet, it is in this idiosyncratic adhering to the Petrarchan language that Tasso confirms his aspiration for a poetry that is passionate and at the same time lofty in spiritual content. A poetry See D. Vittorini, “Realistic Elements in Tasso’s Aminta: A Revision,” Italica 25 (1948). Initially marshaled by Croce, this view still survives among critics today. See Niccoli, Cupid, 81. 81 See Getto, Interpretazione, 120. 82 An aspiration which is clearly voiced in the Discorsi dell’arte poetica: “i concetti sono il fine e per conseguenza la forma de le parole e delle voci” (“concepts are the end, and consequently the form of words and terms”). See T. Tasso, Discorsi dell’arte poetica, 52, qtd in Varese, Torquato Tasso, 156 (my translation). 79 80

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that does not dismiss its high aspirations but rather capitalizes on a different kind of sensualism in order to fulfill such aspirations. Tasso’s sensualism, then, is indeed still conducive to a metaphysics of love. His is very much the same subliminal language of spiritual love that, as has been shown, is deployed in the Pastor Fido (Chapter 2). Guarini opens up the sensual perspective of the spiritual experience, by purposefully enhancing the sensuality of the subliminal language of spiritual love that pertains to the Petrarchan erotic initiation. His is, once again, a corrective response to Tasso, who instead, as has been pointed out in this chapter, charges the subliminal language of spiritual love with the full force of a purposefully sought humanizing effect. Following and expanding Varese’s suggestions on Tasso’s Petrarchan language,83 Della Terza has argued that in the Gerusalemme liberata Tasso’s memory of Petrarch is a selective one; in other words, it tends to prefer images over thoughts in order to accomplish the principal poetic aspiration at that point —namely, the dry and definitive form of narration or elocutio peculiar to the epic genre.84 In the light of what has been discussed so far, one may say that something similar happens also in the Aminta. In fact, the process of selective memory that has just been illustrated—a process of selective memory that looks very much like a systematic and minute process of editing with respect to the Petrarchan metaphorical apparatus—indeed seems to be a coherent expression of Tasso’s aspirations for a new form of elocutio, that may adequately convey a discourse on love which speaks to both heart and mind. It is the discourse of human love in flesh and spirit. Then, as a preliminary conclusion, one may say that the Aminta features an approach to the Petrarchan initiation into Love that, without losing its spiritual telos, purposely emphasizes the passionate and sensual aspects that cater to the overpowering pathos that defines the specific dynamic of temperament of the play. In this light, besides the already mentioned polemic against a mannered Petrarchistic imitatio Petrarcae, one may also want to talk about a conscious effort on the poet’s behalf to challenge the increasingly dominant spiritualizing ideology which characterizes Petrarchism in the Counter-Reformation age.85 Fechner’s idea of anti-Petrarchism could be appropriate in this respect.86 However, inasmuch 83

“[Tasso] si vale del linguaggio petrarchesco, togliendo da una diversa situazione lirica e sentimentale frasi, versi, parole per inserirli in un nesso di racconto” (“[Tasso] uses the Petrarchan language, taking phrases, verses, and words from a different lyrical situation and inserts them in a logic of story-telling”). See Varese, Torquato Tasso, 163. 84 See D. Della Terza, “L’esperienza petrarchesca del Tasso,” Forma e memoria. Saggi e ricerche sulla tradizione letteraria da Dante a Vico (Roma: Bulzoni, 1979) 187ff. 85 On the spiritualizing ideology of Petrarchism, see F. Tateo, La letteratura, 166–7; N. Longo, “La letteratura proibita,” Letteratura italiana, ed. Asor Rosa (Torino: Einaudi, 1992­–1994) 5: 977–8. 86 “Der Antipetrarkismus ist keine Ablehnung der Imitierten, sondern die Ablehnung der Form der Imitation” (“Anti-Petrarchism is not the dismissal of that which is imitated,

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as one understands Petrarchism as one should—as “the hegemonic code of lyric writing in the Cinquecento, as it results from Bembo’s normative mediation”87—, Tasso remains essentially a Petrarchist, although one sui generis or, as Martignone has said even more effectively, a “heretic” Petrarchist.88 A “heretic” attitude which, as already mentioned, leads the poet to a particular reading of the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love that pertains to the Canzoniere: one that emphasizes the immanent perspective of the love-death motive,89 within the transcendent perspective of love-death/life; thus one that capitalizes on the elegiac and pathetic elements of the Petrarchan initiation in order to prompt for a specific therapeutic experience. In this respect, it is important to keep in mind that it is in a Petrarchistic frame of reference that Tasso operates even when he is in effect reforming it from within.90 This, of course, leads to the conclusion that the alleged amorality or hedonistic disengagement of the Aminta is due to the dissimulated appearance that moral discourse takes on here, rather than to the actual absence

but rather the dismissal of a certain form of imitation”). See Jörg-Ulrich Fechner, Der Antipetrarkismus: Studien zur Liebesatire in Barocker Lyric (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1966) 25 (my translation). For a similar view, also see L. Forster, “The Petrarchan Manner: an Introduction,” The Icy Fire. Five Studies in European Petrarchism (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969) 57. 87 A. Quondam “Riscrittura – Citazione – Paordia del Codice. Il Petrarca spirituale di Girolamo Malipiero,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 17 (1978): 77 (my translation). On this subject see also C. Varese, “L’Aminta: corte e letteratura dal Sannazaro e dal Bembo al Castiglione allo Speroni al Tasso,” Schifanoia, Notizie dell’Istituto di Studi Rinascimentali di Ferrara 3 (1987). However, with respect to the latter article, I must say that a synchronic reading of Petrarchism which overlooks the “new expectations” (“nuove attese”) that were projected onto it from time to time—in other words, a Petrarchism “al di sopra della ipotesi di ricezione e di committenza” (“above and beyond the hypothesis of reception and patronage”)—is bound to fail to grasp the actual scope of what in reality is not only a complex literary phenomenon, but also a complex cultural phenomenon altogether. In this respect, I can’t help finding quite problematic Varese’s idea of tying Tasso’s Petrarchism to some alleged anti-court sentiments. Instead I believe that in its manifold appearances Petrarchism somehow embodies the particular ambivalence or dilemma that pervades the very history of the culture of the court from Sannazaro to Bembo to Marino. It is in this spirit that I have endeavored the study of Petrarchism in Tasso and Guarini, and underscored its permeability with respect to the culture of the court. 88 V. Martignone, “Tasso lirico fra tradizione e innovazione: i sonetti liminali del canzoniere Chigiano,” Torquato Tasso quattrocento anni dopo Atti del Convegno di Rende 24/25maggio, 1996, ed. A. Daniele and F. Walter Lupi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1997) 28. 89 Quite significant, with respect to a heretic tradition that enhances the sensual element of Petrarch’s poetry, is Cornelio Castaldi’s stance for the “vampa segreta,” which, he laments, Bembo and his epigones are lacking. See Bonora, Retorica, 94. 90 For a different view, which tends to see the particular code of love presented in the Aminta as clearly distant from Petrarch, see Bárberi Squarotti, “La tragicità,” 144ff.

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of it.91 As already mentioned, Arcadia is the place in the collective imaginary where heartbroken lovers are prompted to purge their passions as they learn how to love properly. Tasso’s pastoral is no exception in this respect. Truly “portentous”92 and, as has been shown, definitely inspiring for Guarini is instead the extraordinary way the Aminta fulfills that moral mission through a poetry whose pathos, ethos, and a logos thoroughly capitalize on the full scope of Petrarch’s poetic lesson. It is in fact Tasso’s open subscription for the primacy of affectivity (and specifically to the Aristotelian and Petrarchan affectivity) that constitutes his groundbreaking move within the tradition. Quite significant in this respect is the second Chorus of the Aminta. This is where Tasso makes his claim to a new “fiery” or affective discourse on love, which relinquishes none of the ambitions of philosophical discourse, while capitalizing on the affectivity through which poetry becomes a mimesis of love, and the verba (“the wild rhymes”), rather than coldly explaining the res, become the res themselves: Amore, in quale scola, da qual mastro s’apprende la tua sì lunga e dubbia arte d’amare? Chi n’insegna a spiegare ciò che la mente intende, mentre con l’ali tue sovra il ciel vola? Non gìa la dotta Atene, né ’l Liceo ne ’l dimostra; non Febo in Elicona, che sì d’Amor ragiona come colui ch’impara: freddo ne parla, e poco; non ha voce di foco come a te si conviene; non alza i suoi pensieri

After having convincingly argued that the Aminta indeed “raises the profile” of pastoral drama, Sampson surprisingly concludes that Tasso’s pastoral is morally disengaged while the Gerusalemme liberata is morally engaged (Pastoral Drama, 90). As has been shown, there is a very clear sense of morality in the Aminta that comes through in its particular poetic/rhetorical means just as there is indeed a clear sense of morality in Tasso’s epic poem. The two are simply not the same. In this respect, I would not speak of a lack of decorum in the Aminta (Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 80), but rather of a different kind of decorum, which is based on an entirely different moral perspective (that of prelapsarian naturalism or of a self-regimented nature). The issue of morality in the Aminta will be taken up again in Chapter 4. 92 Here the reference is to Carducci’s renowned definition of the Aminta as “portento storico.” See G. Carducci, “Su l’Aminta di Torquato Tasso,” in G. Carducci, Opere, Edizione nazionale, 30 vols (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1962) 14: 140. 91

The Blueprint: the Aminta a par de’ tuoi misteri. Amor, degno maestro sol tu sei di te stesso, e solo tu sei da te medesmo espresso; tu di legger inegni quelle mirabili cose che con lettere amorose scrivi di propria man ne gli occhi altrui; tu in bei facondi detti sciogli la lingua de’ fedeli tuoi; e spesso (oh strana e nova eloquenza d’Amore!) spesso in un dir confuso e ’n parole interrotte meglio si esprime il core e più par che si mova, che non si fa con voci adorne e dotte; e ’l silenzio ancor suole aver prieghi e parole. Amor, leggan pur gli altri le socratiche carte, ch’io in due begli occhi apprenderò quest’arte; e perderan le rime de le penne più saggie appo le mie selvagge, che rozza mano in rozza scorza imprime. (2, Chorus, 1140–1180) (O Love, where is the school, / from what professor did / we learn the lasting dubious arts of love? / While in the sky above / our minds would fly, who bid / us come and learn about the realm you rule? / Not wise Athena, nor / her School could demonstrate; / not Phoebus on Mt. Helicon / could speak of love, and reason on / of what you inculcate: / few words he spoke, did not inspire— / he lacked a voice filled with fire, / as you make sing and soar. He could not raise his inmost thought / to match the mystery that you taught. / O worthy master, Love, / lord of yourself alone / for you alone can teach us of your own. / You teach the rustic intellect / to read the secrets of your sect, / the marvelous delights / that your own hand indites / with loving letters in the eyes man craves. With lovely, fluent words / you free the tongues of faithful slaves; / and oft (ah, strange and new, Love’s noble eloquence!), oft in speech confused / and interrupted phrase / the heart makes known its sense / and seems to move more true / than if in learned and ornamented lays; / and silence still is wont hear / a lover’s words and lover’s prayer. / O Love, let others read / Socratic argument, / in two fine eyes I’ll learn that art’s intent; / and let the rhyme be lost / from pens more wise than my / wild rhymes that coarsely cry, which awkward hands on uncouth bark emboss.)

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Needless to say, what Tasso ushers in here is the idea of a quite unconventional erotic discourse: one that polemically defies the lofty discourse directly tied to an ancient philosophical tradition that dates back to Plato, and yet which does not resign its high speculative aspirations; on the contrary, it embeds such speculative aspirations in its fabula and elocutio. Tasso’s claim for a “voice of fire” is by no means a refutation of the philosophical import that characterizes the formal discourse on love; it is simply a refutation of the particular mode in which such discourse is conveyed: that is, the “parlar freddo” of philosophical discourse, from Plato’s Symposium to Ficino’s Commentary, all the way to Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues. Thus, Tasso makes his claim for a discourse on love that is altogether different inasmuch as it is channeled through the affectivity of poetry. It is in fact that very affectivity that allows the discourse on love presented in the Aminta to be sizzling with the flame of truth and passion. And it is within this unprecedented and indeed ambitious move that one must frame not only the above-mentioned systematic labor limae with respect to Petrarch’s metaphorical/analogical system, but also the particular reading of Petrarch’s allegory of redemption presented in the play. In fact, all these elements are absolutely essential in the economy of the particular discourse on love that Tasso wants to achieve; and, most importantly, they all coalesce in order to allow for the play as a whole to stir the moral affects, and thus to fulfill the therapeutic goal of pastoral drama: the temperament of affects. An Artful Dramatic Language After All As has been shown, the elocutio of the Aminta, not unlike that of the Pastor Fido, is carefully crafted in order to perfectly convey, through form, the particular pedagogy that the play endorses by means of its fabula. In this respect, one may conclude that the particular humanizing effect that has been illustrated so far is an important stylistic feature providing the fitting “form and disposition” that are instrumental for the unique kind of temperament the Aminta intends to achieve. Once again, the ternary causative relation between content, form, and operation is quite evident. Form mirrors content and directly bears upon the operation of the play. The artful or lyrical language of the Aminta has indeed a dramatic function; it is another fundamental component of the momentous poetic enchantment that transforms the dramaturgy of the Aminta into a great therapeutic experience. Then, despite its natural setting and apparent simplicity, the distinctive feature of the poetry of the Aminta is indeed artfulness.93 Such artfulness, as has been shown, resides in the complex Petrarchan resonance of the play. It is a particular On the artificiality of the style of the Aminta, see C. P. Brand, Torquato Tasso. A Study of the Poet and of his Contribution to English Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965) 48–52. Brand’s insightful analysis harkens back to de Sanctis’ well-known idea of a “contrived simplicity” in Tasso’s play. See F. de Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (1958; Torino: Einaudi, 1996) 582. For an assessment of Tasso’s 93

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kind of artfulness, to be sure, which is a far cry from the artfulness of the Pastor Fido; and here lies the main ideological difference between the two plays. In fact, the particular sprezzatura with respect to Petrarch94 that presides over Tasso’s play is coherent with the naturalistic perspective that, as has been mentioned, constitutes the philosophical backdrop of the Aminta. Encoded in that particular form of artfulness—or rather dissimulation of artfulness (sprezzatura)95—there is a distinct pledge to Nature through Art. It is a pledge to Nature that reflects both the philosophical and moral programs of the Aminta: a philosophical program that elects Nature as the ultimate law, and thus where love is both natural and honest, therefore essentially self-regimented according to natural law; and consequently, a moral program that settles the Art vs. Nature moral antinomy on the side of Nature—a Nature, of course, that imitates Art that in turn imitates Nature;96 but a ‘realistic’ Nature nevertheless, artfu;. yet not gravitating toward abstraction (which is, as has been pointed out, what Guarini does). The humanizing effect is just one important stylistic feature that epitomizes this particular kind of sprezzatura, with all its particular philosophical and moral implications. In this respect, it could be considered as another symptomatic signal that attests to Tasso’s well known efforts to defend the meaningfulness of style as immediately related to the “concetti” the poetry wants to express, as opposed to the superficially formalistic feature it tends to be turned into by some of his contemporaries.97

artfulness within the context of Mannerism, see M. Cataudella, “L’Aminta del Tasso: favola e manierismo,” Esperienze letterarie 20, n3 (1995). 94 Baldassarri rightly notes in Tasso “un Petrarca all’insegna della ‘sprezzatura’” (“A Petrarch under the banner of ‘sprezzatura’”). See G. Baldassarri, “Per un diagramma degli interessi culturali del Tasso. Le postille inedite al commento petrarchesco del Castelvetro,” Studi Tassiani 25 (1975) 13. 95 The following words of the Forestiero napoletano are quite significant in this respect: “Da gli oratori dunque e da’ poeti sempre, o assai spesso, ci sarà coperto il loro artificio […] Il nasconder dunque l’ingannno e, per così dire, la dissimulazione de l’arte è sommo artificio” (“Then, orators and poets will always or at least very often cover their artifice […] Then, to hide deception and, in a manner of speaking, the dissimulation of art is the highest artifice”) (T. Tasso, La cavalleta ovvero della poesia toscana, T. Tasso, Dialoghi, vol. 2, pt. 2, 656). 96 “Due versi del poeta medesimo potrebbero addirsi alla sua arte, così spontanea e così ricca di richiami dell’arte precedente: quelli in cui del giardino di Armida egli disse: ‘Di natura arte par che per diletto / l’imitatrice sua scherzando imiti’ ove la natura imita a sua volta l’arte che è a sua volta imitatrice” (“Two verses of the poet himself could befit his art: those where in describing the garden of Armida he said: ‘It seemed an art of Nature’s playfulness / to mimic her own mimic for delight,’ where nature imitates art, which itself imitates”). See F. Flora “Introduzione,” T. Tasso, Poesie (Milano: Ricciardi, 1952) xxii (my translation). 97 On this see C. Scarpati and E. Bellini, Il vero e il falso dei poeti (Milano: Vita e pensiero, 1990) 10–11.

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In this respect, de Sanctis had hit the nail right on the head when he called attention to sprezzatura in the Aminta, and thus argued, perhaps a little too harshly, that its simplicity was actually mechanical and contrived: Semplicità molta nell’ordito, e anche nello stile, che senza perder di eleganza guadagna di naturalezza, con una sprezzatura che pare negligenza ed è invece artificio finissimo. Ed è perciò semplicità meccanica e manifatturata, che dà un apparenza pastorale a un mondo tutto vezzi e tutto concetti. È un mondo raffinato, e la stessa semplicità è un raffinamento.98 (A great deal of simplicity in the construction of the structure and also in the style, which, without losing elegance, gains in naturalness, with a sprezzatura which appears to be negligence and is highly refined artifice instead. It is therefore a mechanic and manufactured simplicity, which gives a pastoral appearance to a world that is all sweet talk and conceits. It is a refined world, and simplicity itself is a refinement.)

It is well known that de Sanctis’ interest for Tasso’s sprezzatura was meant to serve a second motive: to indict what he considered a time of decadence, whose art, unable to convey a sound sense of morality, thrived instead on mere decoration.99 The perspective on Tasso’s artfulness which is proposed here is instead one that, in line with what is by now a new understanding of Mannerism,100 tries to underscore the meaningfulness of the artfulness in pastoral drama, but most importantly its morality or utile. It is in fact exactly through the masterful use of sprezzatura that Tasso establishes the necessary decorum that ensures the affective engagement of the audience, and thus the arousal of moral affects which is necessary to achieve temperament. Of course, there is an ideological perspective that determines which relationship ought to be established between Art and Nature in the mimetic process, or in the translation of content into form (i.e. decorum). In Tasso’s Aminta the pledge is for an artful Nature. Not so for Guarini, whose pledge is instead for an artful Art, thus where artfulness is not dissimulated but sensibly emphasized through the use of pointedness or acutezza. Tasso’s dramatic language, then, is and remains an extremely sophisticated artifact, which is made Nature-like through a process that rather than obliterating artfulness from Art simply conceals it. His is a poetry in which formal control through Art is not lacking, but is simply dissimulated in order to accommodate the naturalistic perspective on love that informs the Aminta; it See F. de Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (1958; Torino: Einaudi, 1996) 582 (my translation). 99 See Galli Stampino, Staging, 13–14. 100 For a particularly useful survey on the evolution of the understanding of Mannerism, see J. V. Mirollo, Mannerism and Renaissance Poetry. Concept, Mode, Inner Design (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). 98

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is, then, a poetry of beautifully simulated, thus verisimilar, naturalness rather than of naturalness tout court. This actually makes Tasso’s pastoral not morally disengaged or amoral, as is often argued, but morally otherwise engaged101— and this is exactly what Guarini perfectly understands about the Aminta and, as will be discussed in the next chapter, what represents the real subversive element of Tasso’s play. To be sure, if the world of Aminta and Silvia is the world governed by the hedonistic rule of pleasure (“you may, if you like”), it is also a world where pleasure and desire undergo, as has been shown, an artful or Petrarchan initiation into love.102 A process of initiation which is not tantamount to the triumph of Nature over Art—the pagan sexual liberty of the Golden Age—but to the triumph of Nature as Art.103 As already mentioned, the form of the Aminta is quite symptomatic in this respect, in that in its apparent naturalness it remains intrinsically artful, and insofar it defines its lofty habitus-building or civilizing aspirations. One may thus say that Tasso’s poetry, through a masterful use of sprezzatura, gains in expressive potential yet without losing its moral footing. In this light, it is safe to conclude that the Aminta presents us with a complex ethic/aesthetic initiation carried out under the aegis of Petrarch—a Petrarchan initiation, where a dominant neo-Platonic Eros allows to absorb the humanizing charge of Tasso’s peculiar mimetic approach without undermining the transcendent quality that pertains to the initiation. What constitutes the artful affectivity of the Aminta, then, is a Petrarchan erotic initiation that not only takes on a particular Varese’s characterization of the Aminta as a “well-thought alternative, an opposite and yet contemporary and interference-generating solution” to the Gerusalemme liberata is still the best way to explain Tasso’s moral engagement in the Aminta. See Varese, “L’Aminta,” 115. I am adopting Galli Stampino’s translation of this passage (see Galli Stampino, Staging, 32 n16). As is well known, Varese argues that Tasso’s ‘lyrical option’ is to be taken as a self-conscious alternative choice with respect to the tragedy of history that instead dominates his epic poem. This discussion is meant to integrate this brilliant critical intuition by showing how much Tasso’s ‘lyrical option’ is actually a fully fledged moral option as well. 102 This, I believe, is essentially also Yoch’s contention. Pointing to a number of visual and textual signals the critic cogently argues that Tasso’s pastoral is indeed characterized by a “need for moderation of desire, of words and actions.” See J. Yoch, “The Limits of Sensuality: Pastoral Wilderness, Tasso’s Aminta, and the Garden of Ferrara,” Forum Italicum 16 (1982): 61. 103 Emblematic in this respect are the following words by Tirsi: “maestra [dell’amore] è la natura, ma la madre e la balia anco v’han parte” (2, 2, 848–9) (“the mistress [of love] is nature, but the mother and the nurse also have a part in it”) (my translation). Scarpati has noted that the Aminta features a natural initiation to the mutual exchange and participation of Eros (Scarpati, “Il nucleo,” 83). This discussion intends to further elaborate on the idea of the naturality of the initiation presented in Tasso’s play, underscoring the skillfully dissimulated artfulness of such naturality, thus the civilizing aspirations of naturality itself in the Aminta. 101

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dramatic shape conducive to a specific dynamics of temperament (fabula), it also takes on a particular humanized lyrical language (elocutio), which is perfectly coherent with the particular dynamics of temperament that pertain to the fabula itself and with the idea of verisimilitude that Tasso embraces. This, of course, belies Tasso’s moral disengagement and instead suggests another kind of moral engagement that, as will be discussed in Chapter 4, Guarini confronts in order to fit the healing aspirations of pastoral drama to the new urgencies of his time. Thus, it becomes evident that the Pastor Fido did indeed grow out of the roots of the Aminta,104 inasmuch as it retained and manipulated the lofty moral aspirations that Tasso had already introduced into pastoral drama by “raising its profile” and masterfully putting his “stylish style”105 to the service not only of the dulce but, most importantly, of the utile of poetry: “Ma ’l giovar dilettando è peraventura di tutte le poesie: perché giova dilettando la tragedia, e giova dilettando la commedia” (“But it so happens that delighting while aiding pertains to all forms of poetry: because tragedy aids while delighting, and so does comedy”).106 In a famous sonnet addressed to Alessandro d’Este, Tasso openly praises the Aminta by referring to it twice with the term “audacious song:” E se già celebrai col canto audace I bosci ombrosi, e ’l canto audace piacque, piaccia s’esalterò l’apriche arene. (O fanciul d’alto ingegno) (and if I, with audacious song, already celebrated / the shady woods, and the audacious song was pleasing / may it also be pleasing, if I exalt the sunny banks.)107

Knowing the lofty standards to which the poet always held his art, it is not unlikely that what made him so proud was exactly the “audacious” utile/dulci mix he had achieved through his oaten flute in order to aid and delight.

104

Scarpati, “Sulla genesi,” 187. See J. Shearman, Mannerism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1967) 19. Of course, I realize that I am charging Shearman’s term with moral overtones that are foreign to his use of the term, but this is exactly how this work intends to contribute to broaden the understanding of this felicitous term. Shearman’s discussion of the Aminta and the Pastor Fido centers on the notion of artificiality (ibid., 91–6), while mine centers on artfulness, and thus proposes a far more meaningful use of style and form in these two plays: one that is conducive to the edifying function these plays were meant to have. 106 T. Tasso, Discorsi del poema eroico, 505. 107 Qtd in Di Benedetto, “L’Aminta,” 485 (my translation). 105

Chapter 4

The Healing On the Pastoral Stage The primary objective in the first three chapters has been to illustrate some of the poetic and rhetorical means that are crucial for the affective engagement in the Pastor Fido and in the Aminta. Such means constitute the affectivity of these texts; in other words, they are the poetic/rhetorical matter that allows these plays to move the audience and, in turn, achieve the kind of temperament, whose dynamics has been described so far, and whose effect and meaningfulness will be further explored in this chapter. With a medicinal analogy one may say that for now the focus has been on the ‘active ingredients’ that allow for the process of healing on the pastoral stage to take place. In this respect, it is safe to say that the complex Petrarchan erotic initiation—in plot, language, and style is a crucial ‘active ingredient’ in both the Pastor Fido and the Aminta. In fact, it not only provides the dramatic agency (the agent of conflict and change) in these plays; it also provides a particular content, form, and style, that, once cast into the mold of an ad hoc neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy, determines a specific dynamics of temperament for each play. The Petrarchan erotic initiation, then, at its various levels (diegetic, linguistic, and stylistic), functions as a necessary cognitive structure or socio-cultural convention; a multi-layered common cognitive basis which is essential for the proper affective engagement, and thus the movement and temperament of the audience. As has been pointed out, the Pastor Fido and the Aminta propose two quite different approaches to Petrarchan erotic initiation prompting their audiences 

As already explaned in the Introduction, the poetic/rhetorical means scrutinized in this work have been: first, the rhetorical mode—mood, character, reasoning (pathos, ethos, logos)—through which the text engages thus moves the audience; second, the particular poetic substance (fabula and elocutio) through which the above-mentioned engagement of the audience reaches a specific kind of therapeutic outcome (i.e. temperament). Temperament, the therapeutic effect of pastoral drama, is the result of the combined effect of these different means.  In this respect, I believe Scaglione’s idea of the “‘arty’ emotionality” of Petrarchism—see A. Scaglione, “Cinquecento Mannerism and the Uses of Petrarch,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5 (1971): 143—fails to capture the intensity of the emotional experience that, as has been shown, pertains to pastoral drama, where the emotionality rather than arty is artful, with all the manifold moral implications that pertain to that word in a post-Tridentine culture.

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for two quite different kinds of affective engagements and thus therapeutic experiences. In other words, the temperament through the arousal of moral affects (i.e. “operation”) that these two great neo-Aristotelian therapies aim at inducing is differently connoted, and depends on the particular mimetic approach (i.e. “form and disposition”) to the Petrarchan erotic initiation (i.e. “matter”) featured in each play. The Pastor Fido is centered on the mimesis of a Petrarchan ethos of love according to a principle of verisimilitude that upholds the artfulness of Art: thus an ethos that is predominantly sublime; an ethos that is able to arouse more enthusiasm than pity and fear. On the other hand, the Aminta is centered on the mimesis of a kind of Petrarchan ethos of love according to a principle of verisimilitude informed by a sense of morality that upholds the artfulenss of Nature: thus an ethos that is predominantly elegiac; an ethos that is able to arouse more pity and fear than enthusiasm. These differences are crucial in determining the specific therapeutic effect each play has on the audience. As already discussed in the previous chapter, the affectivity of the Aminta is tragic-like. In other words, it is characterized by a particular neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy and by a naturalistic take on the Petrarchan erotic initiation that, together, strategically enhance the implicit pathetic component of the particular elegiac Petrarchan ethos this play is staging. As already discussed, this affectivity, while certainly conducive to the tempered laughter of tragicomedy, also introduces an unusually strong pathetic charge. So much so that, as is well known, the play ends with a choral acknowledgment of the “grave torments” of Aminta and Silvia’s naturally honorable love, and with an open call to reject it, and instead embrace the “suave scorns” and “sweets refusals” of a more licentious form of love: Non so se il molto amaro che provato ha costui servendo, amando, piangendo e disperando, raddolcito puot’esser pienamente d’alcun dolce presente; ma, se più caro viene e più si gusta dopo ‘l male il bene, io non ti chieggio, Amore, questa beatitudine maggiore; bea pur gli altri in tal guisa: me la mia ninfa accoglia dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: e siano i condimenti de le nostre dolcezze non sì gravi tormenti, ma soavi disdegni e soavi ripulse, risse e guerre a cui segua, reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua. (5, 1978–96)

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(I know not if the great / affliction he has suffered, serving long, / with tears, enduring wrong, / despairing, loving, could be quite put right / by some sweet present sight. / But if good’s more dear / and after suffering, more filled with cheer, still I’d not be imbued / with such beatitude. / Let others be so blessed. / I’d rather win my nymph / with brief entreaties and with service brief. / And may the condiment / of our contentment be / not serious torment, / but games of gentle scorn / and sweet refusals, and / affrays and quarrels, which cease / and yield to hearts rejoined in truce and peace.)

The irony of this final call—which quite significantly echoes the famous exhortation to escape from an ethics of love ruled by the principle of Honor (Chorus 1), thus from the binds of a lofty ethical love-code—and the open acknowledgment of the conspicuous and even overbearing pathetic charge of the play have led some critics to underscore the anti-climactic nature of the Aminta, and, as already discussed, to particularly stress the tragic resonance of this play. The reading proposed here tries instead to account for the strong pathetic charge of the play as well as for the above-mentioned final ironic gesture as original elements of a therapy still inscribed within tragicomic aesthetics. The moral implications of that therapy will also be addressed later on in the chapter. It is certainly important not to underestimate all the elements that in the Aminta contribute to intensify the pathetic charge of the play, as well as the ironic response toward them; it is equally important, however, to frame the evaluation of these elements within the tragic-in-the-comic formula that, as has been shown, characterizes the aesthetics of the dramatic pastoral. In this respect, it is important to keep in mind a few things that have been discussed in the preceding chapter. First, Tasso’s tragic-like affectivity allows for a temperament generated by the stirring of the moral affects in a classically tragic fashion, within a general economy that clearly upholds a neo-Platonic Petrarchan ethos. His is indeed what, from the rhetorical point of view, one may define as a Petrarchan ethos drenched with pathos, thus much more akin to tragicomedy than to tragedy. Moreover the Aminta shows also all the poetic ingredients for what is in essence a typically  Quite symptomatic is the shift from the chaste and tempered Petrarchan “dolci durezze e placide repulse / piene di casto amore e di pietate” (RVF, 351, 1–2) to Tasso’s hyperbolic and outright galant “soavi disdegni / e soavi repulse, / risse e guerre.”  On the anti-climactic ending of the Aminta see D. Chiodo, “Tra l’Aminta e il Pastor Fido,” Italianistica 24 (1995): 564.  On this see Chapter 3. With respect to this particular critical approach, it is probably worthwhile to mention that it represents a legitimate reaction to such prominent voices such as Toffanin, who wrongly undermined the tragic potentiality of the Aminta—see G. Toffanin, “Il teatro del rinascimento,” Storia del teatro italiano, ed. Silvio d’Amico (Milano: Bompiani, 1936) 76. Its merits are therefore unquestionable and not challenged by this work, which is simply trying to present the affective response that pertains to Tasso’s play in more complex or tragicomic terms.

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tragicomic kind of temperament. Its Aristotelian fabula with a happy ending is scrupulously designed in order to achieve a tragicomic “riso temperato” (tempered laughter) through bitterness, tearfulness, and even despair; and its elocutio provides the necessary enchantment for that specific effect to take place by implicitly or metaphorically enhancing the human and mostly passionate aspects of a love that is undoubtedly honorable and transcendent, thus moral. In this light, it is safe to say that the above-cited final chorus only apparently dismisses the whole ordeal of the Petrarchan initiation; it thus only apparently refutes the actual happy ending of the play. To be sure, if placed in the proper context, the last choral statement simply signals Tasso’s own original attempt at addressing the crucial question of tragicomic temperament: not only by means of a mixed poetic/rhetorical approach that capitalizes on pathos while subscribing to ethos but also through the crafting of a fabula with a happy ending, whose pathetic overtones resonate until the very end, and possibly even after; and through the fleshing out of that very fabula with an elocutio that enhances such pathetic overtones by subscribing to a mimetic approach to Petrarch’s erotic initiation that is markedly naturalistic and that thus enhances the elegiac potential of Petrarch’s transcendent poetry. In short, with Tasso one simply enters the realm of a tragicomic temperament that is ethical, inasmuch as it is primarily cathartic in a strictly Aristotelian sense of the word; it is a temperament induced primarily, yet not exclusively, by the arousal of the moral affects of pity and fear, properly tempered by the undisputable sense of elation, if not exactly admiration or enthusiasm elicited by the final outcome. The final chorus, then, is simply a great gloss on the particular approach at temperament undertaken by the author; it is an acknowledgment that the attempt at addressing this crucial question is only tragic-like, not tragic. In fact, as has been shown in the previous chapter, the purpose of the Aminta is to achieve temperament by exploiting the full gamut of tragicomic aesthetics: from the deployment of a traditional peripetia to the Manneristic development of peripetia, all the way to the final comic denouement; and the tragic aspects that characterize the play are just one component of the unique temperament that this play strives to induce  On the last chorus as a refusal of the happy ending, see G. Bàrberi Squarotti, “La tragicità dell'Aminta,” Fine dell'idillio. Da Dante a Marino (Genova: Il Melango 10, 1978) 164. For a similar argument, see L. Sampson, Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: the Making of a New Genre (London: Legenda, 2006) 76.  Zatti’s reference to the Ovidian archetypes Pyramus and Thisbe (Met. 4, 55–166) is certainly pertinent in this respect, as is his acute remark that the “tragedia evitata” (“avoided tragedy”) of the two protagonists is poignantly acted out on the “virtual horizon” by their objectified extended selves—the bloody veil and the belt—which remain on the scene as poignant reminders of what could have happened, but didn’t. See S. Zatti, “Natura e potere nell’Aminta,” Studi di filologia offerti a F. Croce (Roma: Bulzoni, 1997) 133–4. In this respect, Zatti’s reading of the Ovidian subtext can be considered to be a nice complement to Scarpati’s above-mentioned ground-breaking work on the classical sources of the Aminta.

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in the audience through the unique affectivity it achieves, by casting a strategic, tragic-like rewriting of Petrarch’s allegory of initiation into Love into an ad hoc or appropriately verisimilar Aristotelian mold. Tasso’s mostly ‘bitter’ tale of Aminta and Silvia, then, is a daring and original feat, not an iconoclastic one, which, by the way, is certainly not out of character with respect to other poetic choices in the play itself, and more generally with the poet’s poetics as a whole. To be sure, Tasso’s rewriting of allegories is not uncharacteristic, and not only limited to his most important work. One may only think of the “heretic” form of Petrarchism that characterizes his inclination for an earthly resolution in the narrative of his rhymes. More to the point, the above-mentioned rewriting is also perfectly coherent with the conscious effort to accentuate the tragic resonance of the Aminta, by co-opting the Pyramus and Thisbe fabula (Chapter 3). It also fits with the quite unorthodox treatment of evangelical material in the play;10 and finally it fits with Tasso’s representation of Arcadia as bucolic innocence, where the dramatic agency of the erotic initiation, not unlike it is the case for Giraldi Cinzio’s Egle, serves to usher in tragedy as an essential component.11 

I’m referring to Tasso’s rewriting of the narrative and allegorical structure of Politian’s Stanze in the Gerusalemme liberata. See F. Bausi, “Echi del Poliziano nella Gerusalemme liberata,” Torquato Tasso quattrocento anni dopo. Atti del Convegno di Rende, 24/25 maggio 1996, ed. A. Daniele and F. Walter Lupi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1997).  See V. Martignone, “Tasso lirico fra tradizione e innovazione: i sonetti liminali del canzoniere Chigiano,” Torquato Tasso quattrocento anni dopo. Atti del Convegno di Rende 24/25maggio, 1996, ed. A. Daniele and F. Walter Lupi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1997) 31. 10 For the antithetical relationship between Aminta and Christ in the Aminta, see M. Guglielminetti, “‘Pastor di che piangete?’ Nota su Aminta IV, II, 1779,” Torquato Tasso e l’Università (Firenze: Olschki, 1997). 11 See J. Tylus, “Purloined Passages: Giraldi, Tasso and the Pastoral Debates,” Modern Language Notes 99: 1 (1984) 105. In this respect, it is important to also differentiate the Egle from the Aminta, in that these two pastorals represent two quite different views on bucolic innocence, and most importantly two quite different views on the impact of civilization upon bucolic innocence. It suffices to say that in the former play the dramatic agency of the erotic initiation has a negative outcome (Egle’s plan fails in the end), and that such a negative outcome is admittedly instrumental in order to arouse the moral affects of pity and fear (see G. B. Giraldi Cinzio, “Lettera ovvero Discorso sovra il comporre le satire atte alla scena,” Scritti critici, ed. Camillo Guerrieri Crocetti (Milano: Marzorati, 1973) 233). Conversely, in the latter play the dramatic agency of the erotic initiation leads to a positive outcome and is nevertheless able to arouse the moral affects. As Tylus has convincingly argued, Giraldi Cinzio is essentially using Arcadia to stage a cathartic polemic against civilization (see Tylus, “Purloined,” 101–10). Tasso is instead using Arcadia to stage a cathartic drama of civilization. This fundamental distinction between early pastoral drama and its more mature developments will be the object of further discussion in this chapter.

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Then, Tasso’s choice for a tragic-like affectivity (which is, as has been shown, adequately supported by a notion of verisimilitude that suggests an avowal to truth and nature in the mimetic approach to Petrarch’s erotic initiation) is not deliberately or surreptitiously trying to undercut the therapeutic mission of pastoral drama; on the contrary, it is simply approaching that very mission in a different way, by deploying an affectivity that greatly enhances the pathetic component of the play. Thus, the final call to let the “spiritual things” be and concentrate on the instant gratifications of a much more prosaic form of love is, as already mentioned, ironic, and thus fictitious as a solution;12 the same can be said for another oblique disclaimer or self-correction in the play: namely, that suggested by another internal correspondence between the Prologue Amor fuggitivo and its coherent pendant, the Epilogue or final intermezzo.13 All this, however, is definitely not without a purpose with respect to the particular therapeutic effect of this play. In fact, it serves to usher in an interesting skeptical laughter that puts a damper on both the pity and fear elicited by the tragiclike peripetia,14 as well as on the elated laughter of the final comic denouement of the tragicomedy;15 it is a skeptical laughter which, to be sure, also becomes an integral part of the process of temperament that pertains to Tasso’s pastoral. Instead of taking leave on the blaring notes of a moralizing and enthusiastic ending like that of the Pastor Fido, the Aminta takes leave with a moralizing final smile drenched with a healthy dose of skepticism that distinctly marks the tragicomic aesthetics of this great play, and thus the particular healing that pertains to it. Temperament is still achieved, perhaps in a way that is still more akin to a pagan, elegiac sensibility than it is to a Christian, heroic one. The experience that Tasso has in store for the Estense court is one of great pathetic strength that is meant to 12

Da Pozzo is thus right when, noticing the blatant contradiction between the closing chorus of the Aminta and the lofty ethics of love upheld throughout the play, he calls the final invitation to a licentious form of love “fictitious” (G. Da Pozzo, L’ambigua armonia. Studio sull’ ‘Aminta’ del Tasso (Firenze: Olschki, 1983) 271. 13 “L’epilogo, per converso, vuole rappresentare l’immagine in negativo del dio e dell’amore, come se Tasso abbia voluto correggere la prima immagine del dio e convalidare, invece, il messaggio scettico che il coro conclusivo della pastorale … imparte allo spettatore” (“Conversely, the epilogue represents the negative image of the god of love, as if Tasso wanted to correct the first image of the god and validate the skeptical message that the final chorus sends to the audience”). See N. Saxby, “Amore e Venere nell’Aminta,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 36 (1988): 112. As is well known, the issue of the internal correspondence of Prologue and Epilogue in the Aminta is still quite controversial. For a detailed discussion of arguments and counter-arguments, see F. Taviani, “Teatro di voci in tempi ‘bui’ (Riflessioni brade su Aminta e pastorale),” Teatro e storia 9 (1994) 9–19. 14 As already mentioned, Tasso’s peripetia is really a Manneristic take on the traditional peripetia; it is, in other words, an unexpected turn of fortune that, although potentially tragic, eventually leads to an unexpected happy ending. 15 Note that, in the above-mentioned quote, Saxby rightly refers to the skeptical message of the final chorus of the Aminta.

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profoundly stir its moral affects, and then diffuse them with a comic denouement that is both the source of great marvel and some skepticism. This is the complex tragicomic aesthetics that determines how healing is achieved in Tasso’s Aminta, providing a paradigm both to be imitated, as is the case of Diomisso Guazzoni’s Andromeda (1587),16 and confronted, as is the case of Guarini’s Pastor Fido. It is, in fact, only fair to conclude that the final skeptical laughter Tasso puts on the face of his audience, although undeniably cathartic, is also a clear indicator that the therapy of the Aminta is not meant to directly engage individual will, and ultimately allows it to hang precariously between the move to moral action and the move to escape moral action. In this respect, the aesthetics of the Aminta suggests an aristocratic mind that is possibly more keen on the cathartic, realistic contemplation of the fundamental contradictions that characterize human love, rather than on the proactive and highly idealistic engagement toward a conquering of those contradictions. This, as will be pointed out, is instead what the aesthetics of Guarini’s Pastor Fido suggests. Tasso’s court is instead one where the enthusiasm for the successful mediation between passionate and rational love is to be tempered with a healthy dose of realistic self-irony. Shifting the focus on Guarini, one immediately notices that the affectivity that pertains to his Aristotelian approach to Petrarch’s erotic initiation is meant to provide the poetic/rhetorical substance to a much different therapy. Not unlike the Aminta, this is a therapy that, from the rhetorical point of view, still hinges on a Petrarchan ethos drenched with pathos; but where the pathetic vein is differently deployed and, most importantly, eventually conquered by an overbearing sublime Petrarchan ethos. As a matter of fact, the unsettling pathetic undertones of Amarillis’ probable death are outweighed by the redemptive ethos of Mirtillo’s self-sacrifice; and even the pathetic undertones of Mirtillo’s unjust death are eventually outweighed by the redemptive effect that his ethical self-sacrifice has on his beloved and, most importantly, on the whole community of Arcadia, which is eventually freed from Diane’s spell, thus from its doom. Moreover, with a fabula that features a markedly sublime Petrarchan erotic initiation wrapped in a dramatic armature that transforms an Aristotelian catharsis into a Christian catharsis, and 16

“Amor, se tant’amaro / Gusta prima l’amante / Che gusti il dolce di fatiche tante; / A me fia sempre caro / L’esser de le tue schole / Lontano, oimè, perché chi t’ama e cole / Non ha subito pace: / Perché’l tempo fugace / Porta veloce ogni mondana gioia. / Vivan donque gli amanti / Di quest’ameno loco / Con sì temprato foco, / Che fuggano i sospir gemiti e pianti; / Sì che la gelosia tosto sen moia” (“Love, if such is the great affliction / that a lover tastes before / he may enjoy the sweetness of his great toil / I will forever be glad / to dwell far from your school / because, alas, he who loves and lingers with you / does not readily have peace /; and because time, which is fleeting, / takes away every worldly joy. / Then let the lovers / of this lovely abode / live with such moderate passion, / that they may avoid sighs, cries, and tears; / so that jealousy may soon be dead here.”) D. Guazzoni, Andromeda, Chorus, act 5. Qtd in D. Chiodo, “Il mito dell’età aurea,” Torquato Tasso, poeta gentile (Bergamo: Centro Studi Tassiani, 1998) 58 (my translation).

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an elocutio that (through the evident process of sublimation of sensuality and the marked investment in artfulness it suggests) emphasizes all the sublime aspects of Petrarch’s poetry, the poetic affect of the Pastor Fido is designed for what is obviously a completely different kind of temperament. It is a temperament that is welcomed and endorsed by the enthusiastic final Chorus that frames this play: Oh fortunata coppia che pianto ha seminato e riso accoglie Con quante amare doglie hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi! Quinci imparate voi o ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, i sinceri diletti e i veri mali. Non è sana ogni gioia, né mal ciò che v’annoia. Quello è vero gioire che nasce da virtù dopo il soffrire. (5, Chorus, 1603–13) (O happy pair that sowed in tears / A harvest which in smiles appears, / how many bitter hours ye spent / To taste the sweets of true content. / From hence, ye blinded mortals, know / Sincere delights and real woe. / Nor think unmixed all present joy, / Nor all pure evils which annoy. / The truest joy that here is found / Is when great virtue woe ensues.)17

The final smile that Guarini puts on the face of his audience is thus fully endorsed by the audience itself, despite of some moments of “bitterness;” a bitterness that the audience, with an obvious display of Christian ethics, outright recognizes as a necessary component of the delight it is experiencing in the end. In fact, as has been shown, Guarini’s therapy does not simply gloss over the inherent difficulties and potential dangers of the plot; on the contrary, he incorporates them in a play whose fabula is no less purposeful than that of Tasso’s play (inasmuch as it too serves a cathartic function), but instead leads to the total conquering of tragedy through comedy (Chapter 1). The “tears sown” are thus harvested as unambiguous “smiles.” Moreover, through a poetic language that ‘seduces’ the audience, yet without failing to point to the spiritual goal that lies within that very seduction, the Pastor Fido represents a therapy approached from a markedly rational perspective, yet steeped in sensualism. This particular elocutio perfectly

17 I have replaced Sheridan’s last line, “Is when wronged innocence is crowned,” with my translation.

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emphasizes the overall sublime affectivity of the play,18 and is thus conducive to the particular temperament that such affectivity achieves. Guarini’s take on Petrarch’s erotic initiation is one that conquers tragedy by ushering in the sublime. The joy it induces in the beholding audience is validated by the suffering that has led up to it. This legitimate joy, which is also enthusiastically embraced by the audience—no skepticism is to be found here—not only signals the completion of the particular dynamics of temperament that pertain to the Pastor Fido; it also clearly announces the ultimate therapeutic end of the play: a tempered laughter ignited with the typically comic affect of enthusiasm;19 a tempered laughter that immediately translates in the willful embracing of a loveethics, based on the full import of Petrarch’s sentimental education, in all its intrinsic ambiguity but, most importantly, in all its sublime and thus redemptive potential.20 Emblematic in this respect is the above-cited conclusive Chorus, where Guarini’s reconciling effort even translates, at the rhetorical level, into a series of compelling harmonizing juxtapositions of antithetical terms—pianto/riso; amare doglie/raddolciti affetti; diletti/mali—and culminates with the poignant rhymed antithesis gioire/soffrire (5, Chorus 1605–13). The purposeful deployment of poetic/rhetorical means in the Pastor Fido, then, is meant to have not only a direct impact on the temperament of the audience, as affects are being moved and 18 Sublime affectivity means that the poetic/rhetorical matter that causes the audience to move in the Pastor Fido pertains to a sublime Petrarchan ethos (rhetorical) expressed through a specifically designed Aristotelian fabula and Petrarchan elocutio (poetic). In the Aminta, instead, one should talk about a tragic-like affectivity, since the poetic/rhetorical matter that causes the audience to be moved in the Aminta pertains to a tragic-like or highly pathetic Petrarchan ethos (rhetorical) expressed through a specifically designed Aristotelian fabula and Petrarchan elocutio (poetic). 19 “La commedia purga la malinconia, affetto tanto nocivo, che bene spesso conduce l’uomo ad impazzare, et darsi la morte: et purgalo con quella guisa che fa la melodia secondo che c’insegna Aristotele quell’affetto che i greci chiamano enthousiasmon. En quella guisa che la sacra scrittura ci racconta, che David coll’armonia del suo suono cacciava i mali spiriti di Saul primo Re degli ebrei” (“Comedy purges melancholy, which is such a noxious affect that often times it leads man to madness, and to kill himself: and it purges melancholy in the same way that melody does, according to Aristotle, with the affect that the Greeks call enthousiasmon. In the same way that, according to the scripture, David used to chase away the evil spirits of Saul, first King of the Jews”). B. Guarini, Compendio della poesia tragicomica tratto dai duo Verati (Venezia: G. B. Ciotti, 1601) 15. The biblical reference speaks quite eloquently about the sublime ambitions of Guarini’s tragicomedy. 20 It is worthwhile mentioning that the word “sublime” appears in Gaspara Stampa’s rewriting of Petrarch’s programmatic opening poem of the Canzoniere: “Ove fia chi valor apprezzi e stime, / Gloria, non che perdon, de’ miei lamenti / Spero trovar fra le ben nate genti, / Poi che la lor cagione è sì sublime” (I, ll. 5–8). See G. Stampa, Rime, ed. R Ceriello (Milano: Rizzoli, 1954). It is also interesting that the affective economy described here— one where grieving (“lamenti”) is inscribed in the ethical category of the sublime—is perfectly coherent with the particular Petrarchan ethos that pertains to the Pastor Fido.

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tempered according to a specific affectivity; it is also meant to uniquely shape the ultimate effects of that temperament, inasmuch as it mobilizes the will to engage in moral action. Then, as a preliminary conclusion, one may say that Tasso’s pastoral, with its tragic-like affectivity, achieves healing through a TRAGIcomic aesthetics, where the final tempering laughter which ensues the marvelous final outcome, with its skeptical character, is primarily meant to dissolve the lingering tragic overtones, rather than having a true galvanizing effect on the will. The audience is delightfully tempered, as the experience of moral affects is mixed with selfirony. On the other hand, Guarini’s therapy capitalizes on a sublime affectivity and achieves temperament by means of a tragiCOMIC aesthetics, where the final tempering laughter that ensues the marvelous final outcome is coupled with a ravishing display of enthusiasm that is supposed to completely conquer tragedy, thus to have a galvanizing effect on the will. Tasso’s temperament is the result of a poetics strongly invested in the Aristotelian stirring of the tragic affects. Guarini’s temperament is instead the result of a poetics that is keen on stirring the tragic affects, but most importantly on mobilizing the will. The Aminta, then, represents an aesthetics that is still markedly neo-Aristotelian, where dramatization serves primarily to stir and purge the affects, and where laughter is essentially partly relieving and partly endorsing the bitterness of the process. On the other hand, the Pastor Fido represents a markedly Christian re-elaboration of that very aesthetics, where dramatization serves to stir and purge, but most importantly where laughter, coupled with enthusiasm, allows to compel the will in an unprecedented way. Thus, if Tasso’s Aminta features a therapeutic Arcadia where temperament is achieved by means of an almost tragic tale that is delightful inasmuch as it is primarily cathartic and ultimately wondrous, Guarini’s Pastor Fido features a therapeutic Arcadia where temperament is achieved by means of a sublime tale that is delightful inasmuch as it is primarily wondrous and thus cathartic in a way that is galvanizing. On the one hand, we have an effective therapy for the heartbroken court; on the other hand, a proactive therapy for the heartbroken court. In this light, it is evident that both the Aminta and the Pastor Fido indeed fulfill the therapeutic mission pertaining to pastoral drama, and that they do so by pursuing not only two different philosophical perspectives—the self-regimented epicurean naturalism epitomized by the “you may if you like” Imperativ of the former, and the Christian lawful naturalism epitomized by the “you may, if it’s allowed” Imperativ of the latter—but, and most importantly, by pursuing two different kinds of affectivity through the form of their plays. The result is two distinct, yet indeed delightful and efficacious therapies, each one cathartic in its own right. The momentous cultural implications of these therapies will be addressed later on in this chapter, and also in the Epilogue.

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Issues of Morality and post-Tridentine Corrections So far the focus of the analysis has been strictly on the aesthetics of effect or Wirkungsästhetik. Following the fundamental assumption that pastoral drama is in essence a tale that achieves a specific kind of temperament by means of a specific use of poetic/rhetorical means, this discussion has allowed to compare and contrast the different types of therapies that pertain to the Aminta and the Pastor Fido and thus the different types of healing that characterize pastoral drama. For now the discussion has been purposefully conducted in a sort of aesthetic vacuum and strictly concerned about the substance and effect of affectivity. It is now time to raise some necessary issues of morality with respect to the aesthetics of effect that characterizes each play. As has been shown, the Aminta and the Pastor Fido are indeed two perfectly successful therapies. But what are the moral implications that pertain to these therapies? How do they square with post-Tridentine morality? These questions are raised not, as is sometimes the case, in an attempt at moralizing over these, but simply in order to understand the different perspectives on the aesthetics of tragicomedy that inform these two plays in the context of contemporary morality. In this respect, it is important to remind that the moral landscape of the Aminta is characterized by the fracture between Honor (the regimented honor with a capital H) and love.21 This, as is well known, is clearly stated in the initial Chorus where Honor, intended in the courtly sense as the imposed ruling principle over both love and nature, is gently ushered out of Tasso’s moral landscape, thereby suggesting a political Golden Age, a court-like Arcadia,22 that is ruled, as was the case for the “antiche genti” of prelapsarian times, solely by Nature: 21 On this see G. Bárberi Squarotti, “Il forestiero in corte,” L’onore in corte. Dal Castiglione al Tasso (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1986) 96; and D. Chiodo, “Il mito,” 49–50. 22 On the court-like world of Aminta and Silvia, see C. Brand, “Per la struttura dell’Aminta,” Letteratura e critica. Studi in onore di N. Sapegno, vol. 4 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1977) 220; C. Varese, “L’Aminta,” Pascoli politico, Tasso e altri saggi (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961) 144; Zatti, “Natura,” 132–3; D. Quarta, “Spazio scenico, spazio cortigiano, spazio cortese. L’Aminta e il Torrismondo di Torquato Tasso,” La corte di ferrara e il suo mecenatismo 1441–1598. Atti del convegno di studi (Copenhagen, maggio 1987), eds M. Pade, L.Waage Petersen, and D. Quarta (Modena: Panini, 1990) 301–14. Riccò best elaborates on this idea when she rightly remarks that, while the Aminta is characterized by the juncture of the world of shepherds with that of the court, in the Gerusalemme liberata that juncture is broken, thereby ushering in a completely different kind of pastoral world; one that is in an actual positive opposition to the court: “Nella Liberata, invece, si riattingono le origini ‘basse’ della pastorale in poema, calibrandole sul tema dell’opposizione positiva del ‘solitario chiostro,’ non più ‘asociale deserto,’ alla corte” (“In the Jerusalem Delivered, instead, the ‘low’ origins of the pastoral are retrieved in the epic poem, and are calibrated on the theme of a positive opposition of the ‘solitary cloister,’ no longer ‘antisocial desert’, to the court”). See L. Riccò, “Ben mille pastorali”. L’itinerario dell’Ingegneri da Tasso a Guarini e oltre (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004) 291 (my translation). On the conflation of courtly

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy Ma tu [Onore], d’Amore e di Natura donno, tu domator de’ Regi, che fai tra questi chiostri che la grandezza tua capir non ponno? Vattene, e turba il sonno a gl’illustri e potenti: noi qui, negletta e bassa turba, senza te lassa viver ne l’uso de l’antiche genti. (1, Chorus 710–718). (But you, the Lord of Love and Natural Right, / who rules great kings’ intents, / what are you doing in these dwellings / that are unworthy of your power and might? / Go shake the sleep at night / of all the great and bold; / and us, forgotten, low, you let us live and go / the happy way that lived the men of old.)23

The fact that the play features an honorable and civilizing (i.e. Petrarchan) erotic initiation taking place in a prelapsarian Arcadia, thus outside the jurisdiction of regimented honesty or Honor (a pillar of courtly morality) has obviously remarkable moral implications; especially in the context of the highly self-conscious postTridentine moralizing atmosphere where the Aminta sees the light. With respect to that atmosphere, the Aminta certainly reveals itself as a problematic moralizing attempt. Celebrating the morality of the court by casting out Honor is, in fact, a move that flies in the face of a long and well-established tradition in the discourse on love; a tradition that, as is well known, is firmly grounded on the supremacy of Honor over Nature, and that, as will be discussed later, derives its moral legitimacy, and thus its political legitimacy, from the very fact that it operates under the aegis of Honor, the supreme law that, as the above-cited chorus says,“rules great kings’ intents.” The Aminta instead essentially conflates (not substitutes) the world of the court with that of prelapsarian Arcadia and stages a painful and bitter, yet successful, erotic initiation solely based on the law of a self-regimented, naturally honorable Nature. This is a fascinating and daring moral proposition in the context of pure entertainment. It does, however, also strike a quite dissonant chord vis-àvis mainstream post-Tridentine morality. In this respect, it is certainly right to talk about the “ambiguous harmony”24 (or, maybe more precisely, about the perfect harmony and problematic morality) of this play, because the successful erotic initiation it presents is actually achieved, if not exactly through a divorce from and pastoral worlds in both the Aminta and the Gerusalemme liberata, see also Sampson, Pastoral Drama, 90. For the opposite perspective that instead enhances the otherness of the pastoral world of Aminta and Silvia with respect to the court, see Chiodo, “Il mito,” 43–52. 23 Italics are for my translation. 24 The reference here is to Da Pozzo’s seminal work on Tasso, which I have referred to profusely in this work.

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courtly morality that would make this play dangerously teeter on the brink of libertinism,25 at least by a highly unconventional way to address the question of courtly morality, thus to reconcile the conflict between honor and love. As is well known, Guarini directly intervenes on Tasso’s daring proposition and overturns it, staging instead a successful erotic initiation under the aegis of honesty regimented by faith (Chorus IV). Thus, he manages to bring back pastoralism under the aegis of conventional courtly morals; a courtly morals, to be sure, with strong Catholic overtones. From a newly acquired sense of Nature as the expression of right reason—a faithful Nature, that is—Guarini conquers Tasso’s antithetical view that pastes love against Honor by introducing faithful love as a form of regimented honesty, and thus mends the moral fence that Tasso had torn down. Mending that fence, however, does not only require the well known radical change of philosophical vantage point from prelapsarian naturalism to faithful naturalism; it also requires a completely new aesthetics that from its inner-workings all the way to its effects would allow to transform a new philosophy of nature into a great therapeutic poetic enchantment. Such an overhaul in aesthetics is even thematized through the extraordinary meta-literary component that characterizes the Pastor Fido. For starters, it is worth noticing that in Guarini’s pastoral the two love-stories with a happy ending of the protagonists (Amarillis–Mirtillo/Silvio– Dorinda) are set against the backdrop of another quite different story: the tragic love-story of a shepherd and a nymph significantly named Amintas and Lucrina.26 In the play this story is related by Mirtillo’s confidant, Ergasto, in the second scene of the first act. It is, not unlike Tasso’s Aminta, a pathos-laden story: Ti narrerò de le miserie nostre tutta da capo la dolente istoria, che trar porria da queste dure querci pianto e pietà, non che dai petti umani. (1, 2, 384–6) 25 See N. Borsellino, “ ‘S’ei piace ei lice’ ” Sull’utopia erotica dell’Aminta,” Torquato Tasso e la cultura estense 3. Il Teatro del Tasso, ed. G. Venturi (Firenze: Olschki, 1999). Borsellino calls the Aminta an “erotic utopia,” recalling the mythical Golden Age. I believe, as Riccò does, that erotic freedom is really just one marginal voice rehearsed in Tasso’s play. On this see L. Riccò,“I ‘verdi chiostri’ tassiani dalla pastorale alla tragedia,” Torquato Tasso e la cultura estense 3. Il Teatro del Tasso, 1087. In the previous chapter I have already discussed the elaborate formal control that Tasso exercises on the proposed “you may, if you like” rule of pleasure. 26 Here is a brief summary of the story: the high priest Amintas, whose love for faithless and vane nymph, Lucrina, is at first reciprocated deceitfully and eventually betrayed, in utter desperation calls upon Diana, who moved by his pitiful predicament decides to punish Arcadia with a bout of plague. The community decides to sacrifice Lucrina to Diana to appease her wrath, but, in performing the sacrifice, Amintas kills himself instead, and Lucrina, who is finally moved to love by Amintas’ unexpected act of self-sacrifice, immediately sizes the knife from Amintas’ breast and kills herself too.

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Then hear with patience, and I shall relate, / From its first rise, the melancholy story / of our misfortunes, which would draw compassion / Not only from a human breast, but from / These knotted oaks, if they had ears to hear.)

The significant addition of “pietà” (“compassion”) and most importantly “pianto” (“tears”) already connotes Amintas and Lucrina’s story of unrequited love as tragic, and thus underscores its uniqueness with respect to what usually takes place in Arcadia.27 Moreover, it is a story that, in the context of Guarini’s play, is aimed at clearly justifying the contingent tragic state of affairs in Arcadia—the plague— and the terrible mistake by which it was caused. It thus goes right at the core of the moral issue, giving a clear explanation of its origins. Quite indicative with respect to that are three things in the ensuing narration. First, there is the sentence of the Oracle, which, while directly referring to the “old crime” of unfaithful Lucrina as the cause of the goddess’ wrath, synecdochically also points to Amintas’ mistake, who killed himself because of her: Non avrà prima fin quel che v’offende, che duo semi del ciel congiunga Amore; e di donna infedel l’antico errore l’alta pietà d’un pastor fido ammende. (1, 2, 508–11) (Your miseries shall never know an end / Till two of heav’nly race be joined in love. / And till a faithful shepherd shall atone / For an old crime of a perfidious woman.)

Then, backtracking a little, there is Lucrina’s desperate outcry for Amintas, underscoring the tragically fruitless love which has driven him—and her with him—not to a new life through death, but to an oxymoronic life and death. O fido, o forte Aminta, o troppo tardi conosciuto amante, che m’hai data, morendo, e vita e morte. (1, 2,462–4). (O my most faithful, O my dear Amintas, / Too late discovered for thy matchless love, / Who dying thus bestowing life and death / To me.)28

Finally comes the verdict, without appeal, directly from the mouth of the narrator:

27 Note that the element of tears (“piangendo”) is openly acknowledged in the final chorus of the Aminta, which is cited later in this chapter. 28 The reference to a potentially problematic approach to the Petrarchan initiation into Love is subtle yet distinct here.

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Tal fine ebber gli amanti; a tal miseria troppo amor e perfidia ambidue trasse. (1, 2, 473–4) (This was the dismal end two lovers had; / One fell a victim of excess love, / The other for ungen’rous breach of faith.)

Perfectly complementary to Lucrina’s “ungen’rous love”, Amintas’ ‘mistake’— significantly labeled “excess love” by Ergasto—has no lesser weight in the moral economy of this tragic love-story. Looking at all these elements one may conclude that the three above-mentioned voices (the Oracle, Lucrina, and Ergasto) univocally sanction that Amintas’ transgression is just as pernicious as that of his cruel beloved.29 At this point the remarkable meta-literary story that is subtly told in between the lines of this scene is certainly more obvious. It is in fact almost impossible not to notice that the “pastor fido” mentioned by the Oracle is not only the pseudonym of a character in the text (Mirtillo), it is the title of the text itself. Moreover, it is impossible not to notice that, as the Oracle clearly says, the purpose of the “pastor fido” is to atone the error of another character, Amintas (but in Italian it is Aminta), who besides being a character in the story narrated by Ergasto just so happens to be the title, and the leading character of Tasso’s play—which, incidentally, is published the same year Guarini starts sketching out the Pastor Fido.30 In this respect, it is safe to say that the tragic story of Amintas and Lucrina, in the second scene of the first act, not only has an important dramatic function within the economy of the Pastor Fido;31 it also has a meta-literary function within the economy of the aesthetics of pastoral drama. As a matter of fact, it provides Guarini with the opportunity to assess Tasso’s Aminta as a problem at the level of aesthetics, and thus to provide a rationale for the most important of his corrective enterprises: that which systematically takes place throughout the form of the text of his play. Significant in this respect is not only the fact that the Amintas–Lucrina love-story is subversive, but that the language deployed in the narration of this love-story is itself subversive with respect to more than one literary code—from the lyrical to the pastoral, all the way to the religious.32 What better way to taking issue also with the ‘problematic’ 29

Referring to the shepherd’s act of disobedience to Diana’s law, Boillet rightly talks about la “chute d’Amyntas.” See D. Boillet, “La mise en scène du langage figurè dans le ‘Pastor fido’ de Battista Guarini,” Figures à l’italienne. Metaphores, equivoques et piontes dans la littérature maniériste et baroque, eds Alain Godard and Danielle Boillet (Paris: Universitè Paris III Sorbone Nouvelle, 1999) 175. 30 See C. Molinari, “Per il Pastor fido di Battista Guarini,” Studi di Filologia italiana 43 (1985): 161–2. 31 Selmi indicates an internal corrispondence between Mirtillo, the faithful shepherd, and his pre-fuguration Amintas, the faithful lover betrayed by Lucrina. See Il Pastor Fido, ed. E. Selmi (Venezia: Marsilio, 1999) 304. 32 See Boillet, “La mise,” 165–76.

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form (fabula and elocutio) of the Aminta, and specifically with the peculiar mimetic approach to the Petrarchan allegory of initiation into Love purposefully adopted by Tasso? It is then safe to conclude that Guarini’s meta-literary ‘parable’ inscribed in the second scene of the first act is another fundamental, and in fact much overlooked component of Guarini’s moralizing of Tasso; a fundamental follow up at the level of aesthetics of the well known correction found in the chorus that closes the fourth act of the Pastor Fido. In fact, through this meta-literary ‘parable’ Guarini conveys his full awareness that Tasso’s Aminta not only posed a philosophical problem, but also, and most importantly, that it posed a problem in aesthetics in post-Tridentine times. As has been shown, confronting that problem for Guarini entailed not only ushering in a whole new mimetic approach to Petrarchan erotic initiation; it also entailed a profound reflection with respect to the dramaturgic mold into which that erotic initiation had to be cast. Confronting Tasso’s problematic philosophical approach, then, entails the creation of a totally new conception of affectivity. Thanks to this newly conceived affectivity, Guarini’s hero, the “pastor fido,”—fictional character as well as text— would set out to amend the previous delightful “mistake(s)”of an almost too tragic Petrarchan hero called Aminta/Aminta, and succeed at it just as delightfully, but by radically changing the form and content of the pastoral enchantment, and hence its therapeutic effect: from a tempered laughter based on a neo-Aristotelian catharsis to a tempered laughter based on a Christian reworking of a neo-Aristotelian catharsis. This, of course, is Guarini’s reading of the Aminta; it is Guarini’s implicit acknowledgment of the corrective enterprise he had set out for himself with respect to what he considered to be a problem of aesthetics in Tasso’s play; a problem in the artful affectivity (the “form” and “disposition”) as well as in the “operation” of the play. Biased as it may have been by a completely different sense of morality, this correction is arguably based on a strikingly deep understanding of what Tasso had tried to do with both Aristotle and Petrarch. It is thus based on a profound understanding not only of the philosophy that inspired the Aminta, but also of the aesthetics through which that philosophy had been transformed into a great therapeutic event. That of Tasso was, indeed, a masterful lesson on the therapeutic deployment of poetic/rhetoric affect in the pastoral; a lesson, so it seems, that was still standing, even for those, like Guarini, who aspired to challenge it. To be sure, with the Pastor Fido, the process of healing on the pastoral stage undergoes a post-Tridentine correction in content and form.33 A correction In this sense, one can truly speak of the Pastor Fido as a 360-degree, post-Tridentine correction that addresses issues of morality by modifying both its content, and its form. On the subject of post-Tridentine corrections in the Pastor Fido, see R. Alonge, “Appunti sul Pastor fido,” Lettere Italiane 23 (July–Sept. 1971), where this idea has been presented for the first time. My attempt here has been to expand on this seminal idea by integrating Alonge’s discussion, which is mostly concerned with the historical, and socio-political, dimensions of the Pastor Fido, with an evaluation of what I take to be an equally crucial aspect of Guarini’s post-Tridentine correction of Tasso: form or, more specifically, affectivity. 33

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poignantly foreshadowed through a meta-literary ‘parable’ at the beginning of the play, openly announced (almost as an ex post facto) in the famous chorus of act four of the Pastor Fido, and, most importantly, carried out systematically through the ‘reformed’ affectivity of Guarini’s play that, in turn, leads to a completely different effect. Thus, a correction of content as well as of form; of philosophy as well as of aesthetics. It is, however, just a correction—not a recreation ex novo— which takes place on the fruitful ground broken by Tasso’s innovative approach to the genre and the particular affectivity that pertains to it. Mending the fence of morality that Tasso tears down also means another ad hoc correction for Guarini the post-Tridentine moralist: a re-authorizing of Petrarch that could rectify the delightfully but all too human language of love of the Aminta as well as its all too passionate subliminal language of spiritual love, and thus convey a different sense of morality, more akin to the new faithful naturalism that pastoral drama was embracing with the Pastor Fido. This correction—which, as has been illustrated (Chapter 2), takes place through the pointedness or acutezza of Guarini’s lyrical language, and stylistically through a new approach to the Art/Nature antinomy that capitalizes on artificiality as opposed to sprezzatura—represents yet another attempt at moralizing the Aminta, this time in a typically Manneristic way: that is, by specifically acting through the element of the Petrarchan language and style.34 In this respect, one may say The fundamental contention that informs my discussion of style in the Aminta and the Pastor Fido has been inspired by Kennedy’s idea of authorizing Petrarch. The argument that I put forth in Chapters 2 and 3 is essentially that Tasso and Guarini are both ‘authorizing’ Petrarch, and that they are doing so through style, thus coherently with respect to the Mannerist temperament within which these two poets operate—for an extensive analysis of the phenomenology of Mannerism specifically focused on the stylistic features of Mannerism, see A. Quondam La parola nel labirinto. Società e scrittura del Manierismo a Napoli (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1975) 63–186. In this respect, it is safe to say that style certainly repesents what could be considered yet another “site of Petrarchism,” which certainly deserves more consideration also with respect to pastoral drama. As has been pointed out, Tasso authorizes Petrarch by investing in the direction of Nature (Nature as artful Nature, that is) and coming up with a humanized Petrarch; Guarini instead authorizes Petrarch by investing in the direction of an artful Art and coming up with an artful Petrarch that reins in Tasso’s naturalness or rather re-orients it. Then, it is easy to see that in these two pastorals Petrarch’s language is purposefully molded according to the Nature vs. Art moral question: Tasso’s sprezzatura is conveying one take on that moral question, whereas Guarini’s acutezza is meant to convey another take. Style is thus another element of form through which the Aminta and the Pastor Fido address the question of morality, and through which the latter corrects or moralizes the former, according to the new urgencies that pertain to post-Tridentine morality. What is also important for the sake of the discussion presented here is to underscore that style is not only a thermometer for the moral concerns of these two authors: it is also a crucial component of the affectivity of these two plays, and thus a key element in the evolution of the aesthetics of pastoral drama from Tasso’s TRAGIcomedy to Guarini’s tragiCOMEDY. 34

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that Guarini’s new sense of morality also entails the creation of a particular style, whose openly displayed artfulness suggests a completely different approach to the Art/Nature antinomy: one that obviously intends to rectify Tasso’s sprezzatura, as it essentially equates Nature to Art, as opposed to dissimulating Art in Nature. In this respect, one may conclude that Guarini’s artfulness or acutezza becomes the very means through which yet another crucial post-Tridentine correction with respect to Tasso’s pastoral takes place, and a new, politically correct, moral vision is ushered in through the logos of poetry. It is a new moral vision that is not made of precepts but of cognition through form and constitutes an essential part of the affectivity of pastoral drama, thus a fundamental component of the temperament it induces. Once again, the aesthetics of pastoral drama is strategically adjusted in order to reflect changes that occur at the conceptual level and a new morality is ushered in through a keen manipulation of affectivity. Erotic Dualism A full appreciation of the meaningfulness of temperament, thus of the aesthetics of pastoral drama examined so far, also requires to explore other momentous cultural implications. Specifically, it requires to place that aesthetics in the context of pastoralism, and in turn in the context of the lofty aspirations of the court culture as a whole. Healing on the pastoral stage is, to be sure, a complex matter that certainly needs to also be evaluated with respect to the horizon of cultural expectations or Erwartungshorizont that specifically pertains to pastoral drama. A few introductory remarks on Renaissance pastoralism are due at this point. As is well known, Renaissance pastoralism provides the ideology for the pastoral stage. It provides the ultimate referent for the symbolism of the turbulent stories of shepherds and nymphs that take place in Arcadia. This ideology, as Cody rightly points out, is not merely an instrument of propaganda for courtly love; it is instead a fully fledged philosophy aimed at reconciling the contradictions underlying the culture of courtly love: In the Italian Renaissance, in a Platonizing culture dominated by the courtly ethos, pastoralism becomes the temper of the aristocratic mind: the reconciling of discords in the medium of the work of art, the shadow of the ideal.35

Needless to say, the philosophy suggested here is the Platonic philosophy of love, which, as is well known, is centered on the concept of erotic dualism, and thus celebrates the earthly and heavenly nature, the marvelous and paradoxical nature See R. Cody, The Landscape of the Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) 12. On this issue, see also Da Pozzo, L’ambigua, 100; and D. Radcliff-Ulmstead, “Love in Tasso’s Aminta: A Reflection of the Este Court,” Il teatro italiano del Rinascimento, ed. Maristella de Panizza Lorch (Milano: Comunità, 1980) 84. 35

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of love: love as beginning and end of all things; love as death and life; love—to use a well known Platonic image popularized by Titian’s famous painting—as earthly Venus and heavenly Venus.36 If, as Riccò rightly points out,37 the primary function of Renaissance pastoralism is indeed that of going ‘back to the future’— the civilized future of true nature38—such a process of civilization is, to be sure, grounded in the concept of erotic dualism and in the reconciled view of love that to 36 I am referring to Wind’s persuasive re-assessment of Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love. See E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958) 121–6. On the subject of the two Venuses as a determining factor of the tragicomic structure of pastoral drama, see M. Pieri, La scena boschereccia nel Rinascimento italiano (Padova: Liviana, 1983) 43–63. In this respect, it is important to note that pastoral drama not only exploits the great comical potential that lies in the conflict between savage and courtly love; it also (and most importantly, for the sake of this discussion) exploits the moral potential that pertains to the mediation between passionate love and rational love within the lofty realm of courtly love. In other words, the primary moral vocation of pastoral drama is that of staging the effective mediation between passionate and rational love within the realm of an ambivalent Petrarchan eros, thereby reconciling the contradictions that pertain to courtly love. On this subject, I find extremely helpful Riccò’s insightful observations on the fundamental role of honest love in pastoral drama, and more specifically her discussion of the momentous shift to a dignified “nymph-shepherd dialectic” in Beccari’s Il Sacrificio; a shift that allows for honest love to be ushered in on the pastoral stage as a crucial ennobling element for the otherwise dangerously ‘savage’ pastoral scene. On this see Riccò, “Ben mille,” 41–5. On the ennobling function of love and its relationship to poetry and wisdom in the Aminta, see M. G. Accorsi, Aminta: ritorno a Saturno (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1998) 75–137. 37 Riccò underscores this particular civilizing mission of the pastoral: “siamo in realtà in presenza di una nozione di pastoralità non tanto come stato naturale da incivilire, bensì come ‘stato innaturale’ da ricondurre alla vera natura” (“we are in fact dealing with an understanding of pastoralism that suggests the leading back to true nature of an unnatural state, rather than the civilization of a natural state”)—see Riccò, “Ben mille,” 38. She argues that especially in Tasso and Guarini this particular civilizing function is strictly tied to the dominant presence of the theme of love, and indicates love as a means through which honor and virtue are achieved in pastoral drama—see ibid., 69–91. She thus overturns earlier interpretations of the Aminta that indicated love as chaotic and ultimately tragic agency, and underscores the edifying function of love in that play. Starting from this fundamental premise, my work emphasizes also the ambiguity and duplicity of love in pastoral drama as a fundamental aspect of the affectivity that pertains to this genre. It is, in fact, exactly this ambiguity and duplicity that allows for the dramatic pastoral to arouse the moral affects of pity, fear, and admiration. Thus, my approach tries to present love as indeed fundamental in the process of edification that takes place in Arcadia, inasmuch as it is an ambiguous love, sinful and sublime—a Petrarchan love—thus a love able to move the moral affects. 38 In this respect, one may want to draw a line between the kind of pastoralism that characterizes Giraldi Cinzio’s Egle—where the crux is the celebration of the primitive pastore and the potential tragic impact of civilization upon a bucolic innocence (Tylus, “Purloined,” 101–11)—from the ‘back to the future’ kind of pastoralism, where the focus is on the painstaking conquest of true nature as civilization.

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it pertains. It is this loftier, reconciled Love that, as Tasso declares in the Prologue of the Aminta, will inspire noble thoughts in rough hearts and thus make the pastoral worthy of kings and queens.39 Emblematic in this respect is the peaceful shepherd in the background of the aforementioned painting: in fact, as Wind rightly remarks, he both separates and unites the raw passion of the two lovers on the far right, and the ascetic aspirations of the hunters on the left, exercising a protective, mediating power on them.40 Through the Platonic idea of erotic dualism, Renaissance pastoralism achieves the effective mediation between passionate or sensuous love and rational love, and makes of that mediation the foundation of a proposed process of civilization. Of course, the fact that such mediation, especially with Guarini, can only take place under the aegis of Hymeneus, thus may be strictly conducive to marriage, is a clear indicator of how crucial post-Tridentine morality weights into the mediation between passionate and rational love, and thus into the process of civilization proposed through such mediation.41 Renaissance pastoralism, then, hinges on the idea of erotic dualism, and more precisely on the idea of love as coincidentia oppositorum—that is, what “can unite the elements of virtue that are diverse in nature and would else be opposing in tendency” (Plato, Statesman 310a).42 Pastoral drama systematically stages that idea in a theme and variations-like fashion, through the erotic initiations it features, thereby becoming the place where the Platonic temperament of the mind takes place through the very special means of the affectivity of poetry. In this respect, it is important to note that, if pastoral drama is indeed the symbolic expression of erotic dualism, what makes it therapeutic is not the mere fact that it conveys that philosophical idea, but rather the particular poetic/rhetorical matter deployed in staging that idea. It is, then, the particular way erotic dualism is staged that makes each pastoral a unique form of healing. Pastoral drama not only incarnates the Platonic idea of love as coincidentia oppositorum; it also stages it, thereby taking on a specific tragicomic cathartic mission. Thus, healing in pastoral drama 39

“Spirerò nobil sensi a’ rozzi petti, / raddolcirò de lo lor lingue il suono; / perché ovunque i’ sia, io sono Amore, / ne’ pastori non men che ne gli eroi, / e la disuguaglianza de’ soggetti / come a me piace agguaglio” (“Nobly inspired shall be these rustic breasts / and I shall sweeten so their songs’ rough sounds / for I am Love wherever I may be, / no less among shepherds than the great, / and inequality of those I rule, / if I desire, I equalize”). See Aminta, Prologue, 80–85. 40 See Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, 128. 41 On the polarity between “amore in abito pastorale” of Tasso and the “santo imeneo” of Guarini, see Riccò, “Ben mille,” 69–91. On the ideological implications of Guarini’s emphasis on marriage, see also M. Guglielminetti, “Introduzione,” B. Guarini, Opere (Torino: UTET, 1978) 45–8. 42 See The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, translated by J. B. Skemp, Bollingen Series LXXI (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). Qtd in J. Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” Dissemination, translated by B. Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 126.

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combines a Platonic temperament of the mind to the temperament of affects induced by means of a specific Aristotelian/Petrarchan affectivity able to arouse the moral affects. The emphasis, then, goes on staging erotic dualism in pastoral drama, since this is what allows erotic dualism to become therapeutic.43 This therapy not only allows the court to temper its mind by beholding the Platonic reconciling of discords; it also allows for a unique temperament of affects, according to the specific affectivity of the tale through which such an idea is being staged.44 It is, to be sure, exactly such a combination of “concetti” and “affetti” that so much delights the audience of the first performance of the Aminta in Pesaro, in 1574 and that continues to be the trademark of the long string of imitations that will follow suit.45 Pastoral drama, then, heals because of the mediation between passionate and rational love that takes place therein; and it heals because of the particular poetic/rhetorical substance (affectivity) that allows for that very mediation to induce a specific kind of temperament. In this light, one may think of healing in the dramatic pastoral as the effect of a tragicomic cathartic process, which takes place as the reconciliation of the fundamental antinomy that characterizes human love is being staged by deploying a specific affectivity. Of course, the Platonic theme of erotic dualism is played out in Tasso’s widely contended harmonized view of natural love.46 It is also extensively played out in Guarini’s “most exalted paean to the courtly love doctrine sung in the CounterReformation,”47 which closes the third act of the Pastor Fido, where love is presented as a “rare and wondrous monster of human and divine countenance:”

43

In this respect, this work takes Riccò’s argument one step further: if it is true that ushering in love on the pastoral stage allows for pastoral dramaturgy to become dignified, and thus solves a series of issues pertaining to the morality of such dramaturgy, it is also true that this very dignified dramaturgy in turn allows love to take on an therapeutic function on the pastoral stage; it makes love the affect-rousing means through which the temperament of affects is achieved, and thus the ethical end of poetry fulfilled. 44 For an evaluation of pastoral drama that rightly places the emphasis on the arousal of moral affects, yet does not get into the formal constituents of said arousal of affects, see M. Galli Stampino, Staging the Pastoral. Tasso’s Aminta and the Emergence of Modern Western Theater (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005) 264–5. 45 See Riccò, “Ben mille,” 126. On the issue of the imitation of the Aminta, see the same work, 127–48. 46 This has been a long held contention in the scholarship of Tasso’s pastoral. For a thorough historical view of the criticism of the Aminta, see C. Varese, Torquato Tasso: Epos--Parola--Scena (Firenze: D’Anna, 1976) 119ff. For some recent contributions to a critical approach more keen on underscoring the fundamental harmony of Tasso’s play, see Da Pozzo, L’ambigua, as well as A. Di Benedetto, “L’Aminta e la pastorale cinquecentesca in Italia,” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 173 (1996). 47 See N. J. Perella, “Heroic Virtue and Love in the Pastor Fido,” Atti del Real Istituto veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 132 (1973–1974) 675.

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy Come se’ grande Amore, di natura miracolo e del mondo! qual cor sì rozzo o qual sì fiera gente il tuo valor non sente? Ma qual si scaltro ingegno e sì profondo il tuo valor intende? Chi sa gli ardori che ‘l tuo foco accende, importuni e lascivi, dirà: — Sprito mortal, tu segni e vivi ne la corporea salma —. Ma chi sa poi come a virtù l’amante si desti e come soglia farsi al suo foco, ogni sfrenata voglia subito spenta, pallido e tremante, dirà: — Spirto immortale, hai tu ne l’alma il tuo solo e santissimo ricetto —. Raro mostro e mirabile, d’umano e di divino aspetto; di veder cieco e di saver insano; di senso e d’intelletto di ragion confuso affetto! e tale, hai tu l’impero de la terra e del ciel ch’a te soggiace. (3, Chorus, 1343–65) (O Love, how pow’rful is thy dart! / The world’s great miracle thou art. / What heart so rough or man so fierce / Through which thy virtue does not pierce. / And yet, what reach or thought profound / Can this mysterious virtue sound? / He that observes the keen desires, / The am’rous and the wanton fires / Which you by subtle magic raise / Within our breasts a thousand ways, / Concludes you have your residence / In our corporeal part, from thence. / And on the other hand, who knows / How you the heart of man dispose / To virtuous love (when stubborn will / Is quite subdued, and calm, and still) / And make him tremble and look pale, when you with fiery dart assail, / Will thus conclude, immortal spirit, that you the soul alone inherit. / What monstrous properties are thine / Of human aspect and divine? / And, though in outward vision blind, / Great is the knowledge of thy mind. / Of sense and intellect compounded, / By reason and appetite confounded. / Yet heav’n and earth must both obey / That potent scepter which you sway.)

While certainly a great way to “celebrate order,”48 staging erotic dualism in these two plays entails much more than just that. In fact, as the analysis presented in the 48 See G. Bárberi Squarotti, “Introduzione,” Favole, by Agostino Beccari, Alberto Lollio, Agostino Argenti, ed. Fulvio Pevere (Res: Torino, 1999) xv–xx.

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previous chapters has demonstrated, the turbulent stories of shepherds and nymphs that take place here not only systematically celebrate the idea of erotic dualism, as they achieve a mediation between passionate and rational love; they also manage, through their specific affectivity, to move the moral affects of those who behold them, and thus to become cathartic in a unique way. What the audience of the Aminta and the Pastor Fido is actually beholding, through the silver lining of the peculiar (frightfully happy) erotic initiation featured in these plays, is a celebration of love as coincidentia oppositorum that induces temperament by means of the representation of a particular virtuous character—one that is pathetic and ethical— by means of a fabula that is scrupulously designed in order to a achieve a specific Aristotelian purging function, and by means of an elocutio that provides the necessary enchantment for that specific cathartic function to take place. This leads to the conclusion that, by the time it reaches its prime, pastoral drama not only is still a great manifesto of Platonic philosophy; it is also the means through which the therapeutic aspirations that late Renaissance poetics, in the wake of Aristotle’s resurgence, ascribe to dramatic poetry, are actually fulfilled. Then, by staging erotic dualism the dramatic pastoral conflates a process of Aristotelian temperament of affects and a Platonic philosophical ideal, thus becoming the Aristotelian path of affectivity toward a Platonic temperament of the mind. Upholding the Platonic idea of erotic dualism celebrated by Renaissance pastoralism, pastoral drama achieves the effective mediation between passionate and rational love through a successful erotic initiation, and makes of that mediation the cornerstone of a proposed process of edification that is centered on the moving and temperament of affects. Temperament is, then, the fundamental poetic, addedvalue that transforms a civilizing philosophy (neo-Platonism) into a momentous healing experience taking place on the pastoral stage. Needless to say, Petrarch’s lyric poetry plays a crucial role in this transformation. First and foremost, it provides the crucial cognitive structure that allows for pastoral drama to actually arouse the moral affects, thus become the Aristotelian path of affectivity toward a Platonic temperament of the mind. This is because Petrarch’s lyric is, in and of itself, the very fruitful ground where, in the sixteenth century, poetry meets neo-Platonic philosophy, thus where the poetic or affective version of a Platonic temperament of the mind actually occurs. To be sure, the exquisitely Petrarchan conflict between love and honor that, as has been shown, both the Aminta and the Pastor Fido address and solve in different ways, is but a recasting in Petrarchan terms of the above mentioned process of mediation between passionate and rational love that characterizes Platonic erotic dualism. It is, of course, a recasting that follows two opposite perspectives (self-regimented naturalism vs. faithful naturalism), thus achieves a mediation between love and honor through different paths. On the one hand, there is Tasso’s radical play, which by advocating for a love that is both natural and honest, thus essentially self-regimented according to natural law, casts out of his court-like Arcadia the idea of honor (or law) as outside governance and ultimate authority over love, thus achieves a mediation between love and honor within the strict boundaries

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of natural love (with all the already discussed problematic moral implications that pertain to it) and, most importantly, makes such mediation cathartic thanks to the particular tragic-like affectivity it features. On the other hand, Guarini’s play introduces the concept of regimented love—a love that is naturally honest inasmuch as it is faithful (thus regimented by the law of God)—brings back an overpowering right reason into his court-like Arcadia, and thus solves the issue of mediation between love and honor in a totally different, and much less problematic way (from the point of view of post-Tridentine morality); and, most importantly, makes such mediation cathartic in a totally new way, that entirely co-opts, and at the same time conquers, tragedy. Not only does the speaking “I” of the Canzoniere, in its constant struggle to reconcile love and honor, represent the most insightful and eloquent spokesperson for erotic dualism; the very poetic account of this struggle with its unique “antinomicparadoxical” structure, is but the poignant poetic manifesto of sixteenth century love-theoresis;49 it is, in other words, the poetic translation of the philosophical idea of love as coincidentia oppositorum. Petrarch’s Canzoniere is, in fact, the place where antithesis tends to identity,50 thus where conflicting narratives of desire are reconciled into one great narrative that incorporates the aesthetic world of plurality.51 Thus, the fact that Tasso and Guarini are essentially ‘laying in the shadow’ of Petrarch’s Canzoniere not only suggests the full awareness of the great pedagogic efficacy that the sixteenth century credited to Petrarch’s lyric poetry,52 it also suggests a perfect awareness of the status of “philosophical poet” the author

49 See G. Regn, Torquato Tassos zyklische Liebeslyrik und die petrarkistische Tradition. Studien zur ‘Parte prima’ der ‘Rime’ (1591/92) (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1987) 30. 50 “Originally, the life and death concepts were placed side by side in a more or less concrete sense; gradually they are related to one another, and enter into a sort of tension in which they become inseparable, interchangeable and finally almost identical.” See L. Forster, “The Petrarchan Manner: an Introduction,” The Icy Fire. Five Studies in European Petrarchism (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969) 20. 51 See D. Alonso, “La poesia del Petrarca e il Petrarchismo. Mondo estetico della pluralità,” Lettere italiane 2: 3 (1959) 316–17. 52 “il Petrarca delle Rime sparse è presente soprattutto quale modello di comportamento amoroso da proporre sia all’uomo, sia alla donna di palazzo: un comportamento che attraverso una severa disciplina interiore, mira, come aveva detto il Bibbiena, alla conquista dell’animo della donna, lasciando intatta la sua onestà; sono i connotati di cui il Canzoniere costituisce la codificazione letteraria più prestigiosa” (“Petrarch of the Scattered Rhymes is present, especially as model of behavior in love matters for both the man and woman of the court: it is a behavior that through a serious interior discipline aims, as Bibbiena had mentioned, at conquering the woman’s soul, while letting her honesty intact; the Canzoniere represents the most prestigious literary codification of such behavior”). See A. Sole, “L’amore e la corte: la concezione dell’amore nel Cortegiano fra esemplarità petrarchesca e attualità cortigiana,” Il gentiluomo-cortigiano nel segno del Petrarca (Palermo: Palumbo, 1992) 21 (my translation).

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of the Canzoniere had been raised to by popular commentators like Bernardino Daniello,53 and most importantly by Bembo’s Asolani. ‘Lying in the shadow’ of Petrarch, then, allows these two plays to also buy into the full philosophical import that Petrarch’s lyric poetry had acquired in the aftermath of neo-Platonism; it thus allows these plays to become two great manifestos of erotic dualism: through their fabulae with their climactic neoPlatonic moment of love/death-life; and also through their subliminal language of spiritual love that, in its intrinsic constant duplicity, incarnates the mediation of passionate and rational love suggested by the love/death-life motive. Petrarch’s lyric poetry thus not only provides the basis for pastoral drama to become a great poetic enchantment that moves the moral affects and thus induces temperamento; it also allows pastoral drama to become the poetic celebration of the neo-Platonic ideal and of the great reconciling of opposites to which such an ideal pertains; it is, in other words, the basis for a therapy for the heartbroken that allows for an Aristotelian temperament of affects, as it celebrates a highly intellectual and philosophically minded courtly culture. The State of the Art of the Love Tract Reconciling the underlying contradictions of the culture of courtly love through the mediation of passionate and rational love was certainly not a new mission for a court culture, whose discourse on love was essentially still modeled after the Medieval questioni d’amore.54 In this light, one may say that pastoral drama did nothing more than take over a very old philosophical mission, and pursue it by thoroughly exploiting the extraordinary affective appeal of the increasingly sophisticated dramatic means of theater.55 The effect was bound to be extraordinary. So much so that pastoral drama, in Perella’s words: “took over what had been the function of the trattati d’amore.”56 This clearly suggests not only that pastoral drama eventually acquires the status of cultural and political manifesto of the court; W. J. Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) 84. For a discussion of the permeability of Renaissance fiction by the questioni d’amore, see C. Schlumbohm, Jocus und Amor (Hamburg: Romanisches Seminar Der Universität Hamburg, 1974) 217ff; Lorenzetti, “La bellezza e l’amore nei trattati del Cinquecento,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore Universitaria di Pisa, Filosofia e Filologia 28 (1922): 125ff. 55 See F. Tateo, “Questioni d’amore” in teatro: l’esempio di Orfeo nel Polziano,” Critica letteraria 18 (1990). 56 See Perella, “Heroic Virtue,” 662. For a similar contention, also see F. Angelini, Il teatro barocco (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1975) 17, and Galli Stampino, Staging, 254. On the relationship existing between the courtly play and the formal theoretical discussion on love, also see C. Schlumbohm, Jocus, 210ff. On the relevance of Aminta in determining a code of love, see G. Getto, Interpretazione del Tasso (Napoli: ESI, 1967) 136–7. 53 54

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it also suggests that it eventually substitutes the love tract, the official cultural and political manifesto of the court. How did that happen? In order to attempt to answer this question one must turn to examine the state of the art of the love tract at the time the dramatic pastoral reaches its prime. Annibale Romei’s Discorsi is certainly a quite significant piece of evidence in this respect. Published in 1594, this tract not only captures the cultural temperament of the Estense court in the last decade of the sixteenth century; it also features the author of the Pastor Fido as a fictional character, and authoritative voice on the subject of love.57 The dialogue on the subject of “Human love” which takes place on the second day, under his guidance, is indeed a quite interesting one. Following a well established Medieval trend in the genre since the 1540s, the Discorsi present a remarkable variety of questioni—on the nature of love, on the possibilities and propriety of love, and on the conditions that favor or stifle love.58 A closer look at these questioni reveals that, rather than the usual series of short questions by an inquiring lady prompting long-winded answers by the expert in the matter, these questions are actually meant to spark a fully fledged debate, where different voices are allowed equal space. On the one hand, there are the questioning ladies, who tend to focus on the more pragmatic, realistic, and even sensual aspect of love,59 thus with an obvious interest for passionate love. On the other hand, there is Guarini—a sort of Ferrarese Bembo—who instead takes great pains in keeping the discussion at a lofty level by constantly rehearsing a rational perspective on love.60 When, for example, Tarquinia Molza asks whether love is a matter of destiny or choice,61 she receives a highly doctrinal answer, largely based on literary and philosophical sources (Petrarch and Plato). This time, however, she ends up taking issue with the expert:

A. Romei, Discorsi del Conte Annibale Romei, gentil’huomo Ferrarese di nuovo ristampati, ampliati e con diligenza corretti, divisi in sette giornate nelle quali tra dame e cavaglieri ragionando, con la risposta a tutti i dubbi che in simil materie proponer si sogliono (Venezia: B. Carampello, 1594). 58 See S. Prandi, Il “Cortigiano” ferrarese. I “Discorsi” di Annibale Romei e la cultura nobiliare nel Cinquecento (Firenze: Olschki, 1990) 142–7. 59 It suffices to take a look at the following very practical questioni that are presented: “if love can be extinguished by he or she who is in love” (62); “whether distance makes love grow or extinguishes it;” “if jealousy indicates a great love” (68); “whether love may be sparked by ugly people” (70); “whether the beloved must reciprocate love, and why” (79); “is it better to love or to be loved;” “what is the most fervent love: that of man for woman, or that of woman to man” (83); “if a lover may love more than one person at the same time;” whether a lady loved by two lovers should reciprocate both in order not to be ungrateful” (97); “if a rejected lover can sustain love for a long time” (100). 60 Prandi points out how the conception of love presented in the Discorsi emphasizes the primacy of reason. See Prandi, Il Cortegiano, 137. 61 Romei, Discorsi, 58. 57

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Di questa vostra conchiusione rest’io poco consolata … perchè s’è vero quello che afferma il Petrarca e l’Ariosto, che Amore di libertà ci spogli, e che freno non è che raffrenar lo possa, la elettione (atto della libera volontà) non haverà luogo nel suo regno, et in vero la isperienza ci dimostra, che Amore con violenza essercita il suo imperio, e che dove men speranza d’unione, e di reciproco amore, ivi scacciando la ragion di seggio maggiormente fa prova delle sue forze. Arse l’infelice Mirra dell’amor del proprio padre, la misera Canace del fratello suo Macareus, e dell’Amor del castissimo Hippolito la sfrenata Fedra, vinta dall’amorosa passione: Pasife per il Toro entrò nel legno, et il sfrenato giovane di Gnido sospinto da questo crudelissimo Tiranno, macchiò nel Tempio la bellissima statua di Venere; e chi dirà, che la radice di questi amori fosse fondata sopra alcun atto della ragione, e non confessi che questi infelici amanti furono piùttosto dalla violenza del Fatto, che da elettione a così disordinati amori sospinti.62 (I remain hardly consoled by your conclusion … because if it is true, as Petrarch and Ariosto say, that love takes our freedom away and that there is no bridle that can restrain it, then choice (the act of a free will) doesn’t have a place in his kingdom; and in fact experience proves that love exercises his power with violence, and that, where the hope of a union and of a reciprocal love is the least, there love proves its great might, chasing away reason from its seat. Unhappy Mirra burned with love for her father, miserable Canace for her brother Macareao, unbridled Phaedra was overcome by her amorous passion for the utterly chaste love of Hyppolitus; Pasiphaë entered in the wooden cow for the bull, and the unbridled youngster of Knidos, compelled by this utterly cruel Tyrant, violated the most beautiful statue of Venus in the temple; and who will say that these loves were rooted in any act of reason, and won’t confess that these where unhappy lovers, compelled to disorderly forms of love by Fate, rather than by election.)

Particularly indicative for this discussion is the fact that Tarquinia Molza uses the same erudite literary apparatus deployed by Guarini in order to take the other side of the argument and argue for the primacy of passionate love over rational love. Moreover, she uses that apparatus to harness an approach to the discourse on love that is completely different from the predominantly doctrinal approach followed by the fictional Guarini: it is an empirical approach, as the symptomatic word “isperienza” clearly indicates.63 62

Ibid., 60–61 (italics are mine). One should mention that the theme of experience consistently resonates throughout the whole second dialogue. Countess Sala refers to experience in order to declare that she doesn’t believe that possession of beauty extinguishes love (69). Similarly, Lady Camilla Bevilacqua resorts to an empirical argument in order to declare that love may be sparked also by ugliness (70). Countess of Sala argues that, according to experience, lovers tend not to be content with only one beloved and desire more (94–5). The queen argues that, 63

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Taking on a completely new identity with respect to the role she had had in earlier tracts,64 Tarquinia Molza—who, by the way, is the woman responsible for adding a sentimental flair to Guarini’s competition with Tasso—becomes the champion of what could be called a less orthodox approach to the discourse on love: one that focuses upon the darker and more passionate aspects of love, and juxtaposes the power of historical facts to mere speculation. It is a highly persuasive approach, which can count on an extensive catalogue of authoritative examples, instead of the same one or two auctoritates that usually dominate Guarini’s approach. Passionate love, then, appears as a fully fledged counterdiscourse with a compelling set of arguments based on authoritative sources and experiences that confront the established authority. Faced with such a strong challenger, the efforts of the fictional character Guarini are all devoted to maintaining the legitimacy of an approach to the discourse on love that upholds rational love over passionate love; and, in fact, he does so with all his intellectual strength and wit systematically framing the discourse on love within a strictly Platonic sphere. In keep with the traditional role assigned to the poet/courtier/love-counsel since Bembo’s Asolani, the fictional Guarini is clinging onto a discourse on love steeped in Platonic doctrine. His final answer to Tarquinia Molza’s above-mentioned objections is symptomatic. In fact, rather than directly addressing the objections of his intelligent interlocutor, the fictional Guarini resorts to what is essentially an invitation not to lose sight of the ideality of love; in other words, it is an invitation not to lose sight of the fact that the discourse on love must focus on the harmonizing power of right reason, rather than on the “wondrous” shortcomings of a passionate human nature: La conchiusione, dottissima Signora … tanto maggiormente consolar vi deve, quanto che quella il più delle volte è vera; et veramente, che per accidenti mirabili si contano quei sozzi, e sproporzionati amori, che tanto vi spaventano. Furono veramente quelli amori ferini, e ferini saranno tutti quelli che senza atto della ragione faranno la radice nel cuor humano: il che non havete già voi stessa, in cui la ragione a comandare, et il senso ad ubidir è avezzo: perciocché havendo della vostra bellissima anima la virtù già preso un fermo possesso, facile sempre vi sarà estinguere le disordinate fiamme d’amore; se pur destino alli occhi vostri scoprirà

according to experience, the passion of love does not fade in unrequited lovers (102). Finally, once again, we have a sort of paragone of discourses when the queen replies to the fable of Themistius quoted by Guarini with an argument based on “esperienza” (101). 64 Note that Tarquinia Molza not only is the interlocutor in Tasso’s markedly Platonic La Molza ovvero dell’amore (1585), she is also, as Bolzoni points out, a sort of “new Diotima” in absentia in Francesco Patrizi’s Amorosa filosofia (1577). See L. Bolzoni, “Il segretario neoplatonico,” La corte e il cortigiano, ed. A. Prosperi, vol. 2 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1980) 142. Her position taken in the Discorsi is therefore even more striking.

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bellezza conforme, voi quella come imagine della divinità contemplando, a poco a poco inebriata dell’amor divino, nella istessa divinità vi trasformerete.65 (The conclusion, my most learned lady … should console you much more, inasmuch as it is true most of the times; and rightly so, since one should consider as wondrous those accidents—those foul and disproportionate forms of love— that frighten you so much. Those truly were bestial forms of love, and just as bestial will be all the forms of love that will take root in the human heart, without a reasonable act: which does not concern you, since in you it is reason that rules, and the senses are used to obey. Therefore, since virtue already has a firm grip on your soul, it will be always easy for you to extinguish the disorderly flames of love; and if destiny shall disclose to your eyes a beauty that is in conformity with yours, you, by contemplating it as the image of the divine, will little by little become inebriated from divine love and transform yourself in that very beauty.)

The communication breakdown is unavoidable and is poignantly captured in Tarquinia Molza’s laconic reply: “Accettarò io, Signor Guirino, quest’ultime parole … non men per laude, che per consolazione” (“I shall accept, Signor Guirino, these last words … no less as praise, than as consolation”).66 The issue is dropped, yet certainly not settled. With her initial challenge and her final courteous yet ironic concession, Tarquinia Molza has managed not only to challenge a mode of discourse but also to put her finger on its most controversial aspect: the acquiescence of Platonism with respect to the dark side of love madness (furor).67 She thus indirectly defies the underlying “sociocode” of the Renaissance corroborated by neo-Platonic doctrine68—namely, that “Renaissance 65

Ibid., 61. Ibid. 67 See G. Mazzotta, “Neoplatonismo e politica nell’Orfeo di Poliziano,” Italian Quarterly 37 (2000): 158. In this respect, I should mention that, since Ficino, such acquiescence for love madness becomes a staple of neo-Platonic discourse. In fact, in the Convivio bestial love is only briefly touched upon (VII, 6), dismissed with contempt, and considered dealt with once and forever—particularly significant is the fleeting reference to Lucretious at the point in the discussion where Ficino addresses mad love and suicide. Such tendency towards denial of Eros’ darker side, determines the highly idealistic approach that characterizes erotic literature in the sixteenth century. The Discorsi are no exception: sure enough, Guarini swiftly touches upon the “Amore ferino” in his introductory speech (54) only to veer off just as swiftly, after having contemptuously referred to it as a form of desire that has escaped the control of reason. 68 For an overview on the defiance of neo-Platonism in late sixteenth-century tracts, see A. Maggi, “Sensual Love and Ficinian Tradition in Psafone by Melchiorre Zoppio (1590),” Quaderni d’Italianistica 18 (1997); and by the same author, “Il tramonto del neoplatonismo ficiniano: l’inedito ragionamento d’amore di Lorenzo Giacomini e la fine dei trattati d’amore,” Giornale italiano di filologia 49 (1997); A. Paolella, “Linguaggio erotico in G. B. Della Porta,” Quaderni d’Italianistica 18: 1 (spring 1997). 66

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aristocrats ‘love like gods’”69—shifting the emphasis on the un-godly aspects of love: the irrational, uncontrollable, unsettling, subversive nature of love; the love that, as Dante’s lustful Francesca says, “does not allow anyone who is loved not to love in return;”70 the love that, as the court knows all too well and has learned through experience, is deaf to reason and turns into obsession, melancholy, and death; finally, the love that overturns the natural order, as Anna Strozza’s objection suggests: Se è pur veduto per esperienza … che alcuni amanti privi della speranza, delle lor’amate, così privi si sono di vita e di legge, che la fedel moglie d’Ameto, non recusò d’esporsi a volotaria morte per amore del suo marito: il che ci dà manifesto segno, che può l’amante più di se stesso amar l’amata.71 (Experience has shown … that some lovers deprived of the hope of their beloved are so deprived of life and law that the faithful wife of Ameto did not shun from a voluntary death for the love she had for her husband: this is a manifest sign that the lover can love her beloved more than himself.)

Entrenched in his doctrine, Guarini fires away with his abstract idealism, and argues for the supremacy of reason in love, even ridiculing some of the myths of courtly love. Not surprisingly, he does indeed ruffle a few feathers: “Fu non senza qualche sdegno de gli innamorati Cavaglieri, dalle donne accettata per vera la sentenza del Guirino” (“Guirino’s sentence was acknowledged as true by the women, causing a bit of scorn among the enamored knights”).72 All in all, “Guirino’s” approach to the discussion is often a far cry from the realistic view of his interlocutors. Generally speaking, one may say that in this tract the poet/ philosopher finds himself at odds with his audience not only when he insists to disown passionate love, which instead the court expects to include in the discourse on love; his popularity is also jeopardized every time he attempts to drastically subordinate the power of love to that of reason.73 69

See S. F. Walker, “The Renaissance Court: Sacred Space and Profane Hedonism,” Proceedings of the XIIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, Munich 1988 (Munich: Iudicium, 1990) 525. 70 Romei, Discorsi, 102. 71 Ibid., 99–100. 72 Ibid., 100. 73 “Si acquetò la Signora Camilla con questa solutione, la quale se ben fu lodata, diede però da susurrar a’ giovani, a quali non piaceva che lo imperio d’Amore restasse totalmente distrutto, e che dopo i lor gravi eccessi, non havesse autorità farli pur’un salvo condotto, o ricoprirli sotto le sue grand’ali, havendo per verissima quella sentenza Che facilmente ogni scusa s’amette, Quando in Amor la colpa si riflette” (“Lady Camilla turned silent after this answer, which although it was sufficiently commended, gave raise to some protest among the youth: they did not like the fact that the power of Love had been completely destroyed,

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Thus, in the courtly world depicted by Romei there are two distinctive and evidently polarized languages of love being spoken; one of them, for obvious political reasons, must be ultimately authoritative, and this clearly causes tensions in more than one instance. As the voice of dissent embodied by the ladies of the court is growing stronger,74 the leisurely and playful game of the lieta brigata turns into a fully fledged debate which, however, leaves no doubt on who is right and who is wrong. What represents a drastic change with respect to the tradition is that the other voice is in fact not just well represented, it is also welcomed in the debate, as the ladies are strongly encouraged to take an active role in the conversation.75 The result is a debate where not only different points of view on specific issues are represented but also where an altogether different approach to the discourse on love—one that as has been shown exposes the passionate nature of love—is allowed equal room. This transgression to the normal order of things not only puts the fictional poet philosopher to the test in an unprecedented way; it also forces the text itself to take appropriate steps of ‘internal security,’ in a manner of speaking, in order to shield the potentially transgressive content with proper self-defensive formal choices.76 The resulting underlying tension is distinct. and thus that it [Love] did not have the authority to provide them with some leeway or protect them under its wings; thereby giving great truth to the saying: every excuse is easily accepted, when the fault is on Love deflected”). See ibid., 66. 74 The ladies featured in the tract are: the Duchess Margherita Gonzaga (third wife of Alfonso II d’Este), the two sisters Lady Marfisa and Lady Bradamante d’Este, Lady Barbara Sanseverino Countess of Sala, Lady Leonora Tieni Countess of Scandiano, Lady Isabella Bentivoglia Marquees of Galtieri, Lady Camila Costabile, Lady Lucretia Calcagnina, Lady Vittoria Tassona, Lady Camila Canale, Lady Silvia Villa, Lady Camila Bevilacqua, Lady Lucretia Machiavella, Lady Camila Mosti, Lady Ana Strozza, Lady Tarquinia Molza, Lady Leonora Sacrata, “et altre Signore, e matrone di conto, oltre alle dame della Serenissima” (Discorsi, 5). With the exception of the Duchess and her two sisters-in-law, Marfisa and Bradamante, they all take part to the ragionamento. The Queen or Reina of that day is Lady Isabella Bentivoglia. With respect to the issue of the presence of the female constituency in other important tracts on love and manners of the time, one should add that in Patrizi’s Amorosa filosofia there are no female interlocutors. However, Tarquinia Molza is indirectly included in the conversation, since it is her views that Querenghi relates to the other participants (See L. Bolzoni, “Il segretario,” 142). The presence of such a large group of ladies in Romei’s Discorsi is thus quite significant of a willingness to bring to the fore another kind of discourse on love. 75 Guarini clearly indicates it in the following passage: “Non restarò con tutto ciò d’avvertire queste bellissime Signore, ch’elle non vadino tanto altiere del nome d’amate: quasi che non possano essere anch’esse amanti” (“I will not refrain from warn these most beautiful ladies not to be too proud of being called beloved; almost as if they too couldn’t be lovers”). See Romei, Discorsi, 52. 76 Note that the discourse on “Amore Humano” is in fact quite anxiously framed in the beginning and in the end by two hunting scenes (the hunt is a well known symbol of chastity) taking place in the woods surrounding the palace of Belriguardo, the summer residence of the Estense court. Not surprisingly, the wife of the ‘prince,’ the Duchess, who

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Due to the constraints of the genre, Romei’s fictional “Signor Guirino” will have the upper hand over his audience in order to assure the legitimacy of a discourse with strong moral and political implications. The mediation between passionate love and rational love, thus, remains quite impossible to accomplish. The formal discourse on love is, at this point, still obviously caught into a dichotomy that looks much more like an aphoria, rather than a fruitful mediation. Although much better represented than in the past, passionate love still remains at the margins. The contradictions underlying the culture of courtly love are far from being reconciled through the discourse on love. However, they are at least quite openly acknowledged through that discourse. If one backtracks another ten years, the tensed unbalance of censorship (or self-censorship) becomes even more blatant, as the mediation between passionate and rational love is not even attempted in the love tract and the other voice is completely obliterated. For example, Tasso’s La Molza ovvero dell’amore (1585) is not only symptomatically con­cise (thus obviously self-censored), it is also extremely doctrinaire. But even more striking is the fact that there is absolutely no tension between the poet’s voice and the voice of the ladies partaking the discussion—this less than a decade before Romei’s Discorsi, and in the same milieu. The voice of the court seems to have been completely wiped out or, rather, fagocitated by the prince.77 Particularly significant in this respect is the fact that Tarquinia Molza, who, as already discussed, is often found in Romei’s Discorsi to be particularly concerned with passionate love, here figures merely as an echo to the poet. There is indeed very little left in this dialogue of the traditional playful spirit of the questioni d’amore, where there is hardly ever concordance of opinions. As a matter of fact, besides the ritual well mannered exhortations to get the poet to overcome his reticence, the ladies always agree with their interlocutor and are generally content with his answers. The tenor of the discussion remains quite had been present on the previous discussion on beauty, has now momentarily joined her husband, the Duke Alfonso, in the hunting party. Their tactical absence—which clearly prevents them from being associated in any way to the transgressive constituency that takes part in the conversation—supplies a strong defense to the legitimacy of the text itself, and conversely underscores the controversial nature of the topic about to be discussed: “Il giorno seguente Sua Altezza la Serenissima Duchessa, con parte della Corte, se ne andarono al Bosco della Elisea, dove era preparata una bellissima caccia, havendo i cacciatori con le reti rinchiusa una buona quantità di cinghiali, de’ quali è quel bosco più d’ogn’altro copioso” (“The following day Her Highness the Serenissima Duchess, with a part of the Court, went to the woods of Elisea, where a most beautiful hunting party had been prepared, and where the hunters had caught with their nets a good number of wild boars, which are numerous in these woods”). See Romei, Discorsi, 43. For the second fragment of the hunt, see ibid., 103–4. 77 For a thorough analysis of the political implications in Tasso’s Dialoghi, see G. Scianatico, “La questione della sovranità dei Dialoghi di Torquato Tasso,” Repubblica e virtù: pensiero politico e Monarchia Cattolica fra XVI e XVII secolo, ed. C. Continisio and C. Mozzarelli (Roma: Bulzoni, 1995).

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lofty indeed; it even takes a stilnovistic tone, when Tasso summons the theologian Hierotheus as “perfettissimo” and essentially equates love to God.78 This part is also reminiscent of the mystical tones that characterize the discourse of the Romito in the last part of the Asolani. It is therefore not surprising to find also the Duchess among the different voices featured in the discussion. Her presence clearly signals the unconditional approval of the particular discourse featured in the tract: an authoritarian discourse on love, to be sure, where the other voice is completely hushed, and where, quite significantly indeed, the oxymoronic characterization of love so common in earlier discussions on love (for example the Conclusioni amorose) is completely expunged in order to convey a sense of love that has a placid and tranquil outcome;79 a divine outcome, to be sure. In this light, there is one fundamental difference between La Molza and the Aminta. In fact, if the tract, with its highly dogmatic and essentially monophonic character, sanctions the impossibility of a discourse on love that mediates between passionate and rational love, the pastoral play, with its particular staging of erotic dualism, not only succeeds in the mediation, it is also able to stage the mediation in such a way so as to make it become the source of temperament. Whereas, on the one hand, the tract seems to deal with the cultural shortcomings that inform it by taking on an authoritarian, super-human perspective, the pastoral is instead able to stage such shortcomings in poetic form, thus making them affective, and in turn therapeutic. While the addressee of the tract is left disenfranchised by the pedagogic crisis which is written all over it, the audience of the pastoral play is faced with a pedagogical experience that is also meant to be cathartic. The open conflict between passionate and rational love appears in all its poignancy in Tasso’s Conclusioni Amorose (presented in 1570 during the celebrations for the wedding of Lucrezia d’Este, sister of Alfonso II, and Francesco Maria della Rovere). This work, which Tasso will eventually rework into the dialogue Cataneo (1590) is, in fact, the best example of the heightened sense of drama that characterizes Tasso’s erotic discourse.80 With its strictly Aristotelian ontology of love, based on the eternal discord and separation between sensual and spiritual love, and with its conception of sensual love as death, this work clearly endorses a strong post-Tridentine morality: L’appetito concupiscibile combatte con l’animoso, e l’uno e l’altro contende con la ragione e niega di prestarle ubidienza; mille altre passioni a guisa d’onde marittime sono sollevate: l’immaginazione è perturbata, i fantasmi a guisa di Tasso, Dialoghi, vol. 2, pt 2, 750–51. On this see R. Gigliucci, Contrapposti: Petrarchismo e ossimoro d’amore nel Rinascimento (Roma: Bulzoni, 2004) 63–5. Gigliucci rightly underscores how Tasso’s erotic discourse undergoes a profound change in priorities as earlier more poetic reflections on love, such as the Conclusioni, give way to a strictly philosophical reflection on love, such as La Molza. 80 See Gigliucci, Contrapposti, 61. 78

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larve notturne si appresentano con sembianza orribile e spaventosa, i tesori della memoria sono depredati … la reina medesima e imparatrice de l’animo o è precipitata dal suo seggio, o è costretta a patteggiare con la morte e a contendere al senso, già lusinghiero, ora tiranno, gran parte della signoria. In questa guisa l’amore sensuale suole divider l’animo, anzi lacerarlo … né solamente per l’amore sensuale in se stessa e da se stessa è divisa, ma è separata da Iddio: la qual separazione è la morte dell’anima. (807–8) (The concupiscent appetite struggles against that which pertains to the soul, and both are struggling with reason and are not willing to obey her; thousand other passions like waves at sea are soaring: the imagination is perturbed, phantoms in the form of nocturnal larvae present themselves with horrible and frightful appearances, the treasures of memory are dilapidated … the very queen and empress of the mind [reason] is overthrown or is obliged to strike deals with death and vie for lordship with the flattering senses, now turned into tyrants. In this way sensual love is used to divide the mind or rather lacerate it … nor is the mind just divided within itself and from itself, but it is also separated from God: that separation is the death of the soul.)

To be sure, the Platonic coincidentia oppositorum is nowhere to be found in the unchallenged Aristotelian perspective rehearsed here (this particular conclusion is the only one that does not raise any counter arguments), making this tract a perfect subtext for all that is tragic about the Aminta, yet hardly for what turns out to be its elating happy ending. To be sure, the only possible union contemplated in this chaotic landscape of love is strictly that between souls, not bodies.81 Passionate love is instead considered a real disease, according to the Dialogo (~1581); a disease that is comparable to that caused in the human body by the lack of temperance in the humors.82 Guarini’s already cited discussion of love-melancholy in the Compendio will reiterate that concept a few years later. Then, if it is safe to say that La Molza and the Conclusioni, in different ways and degrees, bear all the symptoms of an intellectual crisis, or rather of a rift between a poetic and philosophical understanding of love, one must assume that the seeds of such a crisis were sown long before. As a matter of fact, it suffices to take a look at the evolution of the discourse on love in the sixteenth century to see that, what once used to be the object of carefree discussions among liete brigate leisurely dwelling in the horti conclusi of this or that royal palace quickly becomes a selfconscious form of literary art with clear moralizing ends.83 We clearly see it in the Ibid., 63. My conclusion with resepct of the issue of coincidentia oppositorum in the Conclusioni is obviously more extreme than Gigliucci’s, who still manages to see a dramatic tension between passionate and rational love that I have a hard time seeing, especially in the above-mentioned passage. 82 Ibid., 61 n127. 83 See Lorenzetti, “La bellezza,” 154–6. 81

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Cortegiano, where the hesitation of a visibly self-conscious Bembo to approach the discussion on love causes him to be scolded by an impatient Duchess. Then, when he finally stops beating around the bush and gets into the argument, it will be the auctor himself who, through a painstaking ‘back-stage’ editing, will make sure that the conversation will make the proper concessions for sensuality, without losing its strict decorum, thus jeopardizing the high political aspirations that underlie this particular part of the tract.84 The result is a masterpiece of sprezzatura, where the apparent concessions made for sensuality in the discourse on love actually dissimulate the increasingly high neo-Platonic claims that are made within this very discourse. Quite significant in this respect is the well known concession for the kiss as an acceptable element of love-praxis. While this concession seems to cater to the more hedonistic instances of the court, in effect it is but one more chance—this time through sheer irony—to deny them, and instead reinforcing a stance for a completely spiritual form of love.85 Something similar could be said about the other great manifesto of courtly love, the Asolani. In fact, although it is true that Perottino’s discourse is meant to bring elements of sensuality and realism into the discourse on love, it is also true that what is ultimately being celebrated in this tract is the triumph of a discourse conceived in the most idealistic terms.86 Poignant in this respect is the fact that the philosophical climax of this work is reached when the equation ‘love = desire’—an axiom in the discourse on love since Andrea Capellanus—is refuted, and a new form of love is celebrated: “Amore senza disio” (“love without desire”). Indeed, from the ascetic heights where one is left off by the Romito, the voice of real sexual desire is nothing more than a faint whisper.87 However, it is only fair to note that the whisper of sensuality and passion is still present in Bembo’s Petrarchan universe, and instead disappears in Castiglione’s highly restrained love ethics. Then, we may conclude by saying that since the early sixteenth century there is an increasing tendency to radicalize the discourse on love.88 The result, as has been 84 On the issue of revision in the fourth book of the Cortegiano and its political implications, see P. Floriani, “Dall’amore cortese all’amore divino,” Bembo e Castiglione. Studi sul classicismo del Cinquecento (Roma: Bulzoni, 1976) 169ff. 85 For the strictly Platonic intent behind Castiglione’s defense of the kiss, see Schlumbohm, Jocus, 48. 86 Maggi, “Il tramonto,” 214–15. 87 Garbero-Zorzi, who, in my opinion, is overly critical of the Asolani, calls it a “lifeless erotic novel” (“inerte romanzo erotico”). See E. Garbero-Zorzi, “Festa e spettacolo a corte,” Federico di Montefeltro. Lo Stato/ Le Arti/ La Cultura, ed. G. Cerboni Baiardi, G. Chittolini, and P. Floriani, vol. 2 (Roma: Bolzoni, 1986) 328–9. On Bembo’s idealistic approach to the discourse on love, see also G. Santangelo, “Il Petrarchismo del Bembo,” Studi Petrarcheschi 7 (1961). 88 At this point, I should mention that, in the vast production of erotic tracts that characterizes the Cinquecento, I have chosen to focus specifically on those which I consider to be characterized specifically by what Pozzi calls “aristocratic urgencies” (“aristocratiche

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shown particularly in Tasso’s La Molza, is an increasingly authoritarian discourse on love; a discourse, which, as Schlumbohm correctly points out, is “remarkable” for its exceptional lack of conflicting voices;89 finally a discourse which is clearly more and more inadequate to represent and reconcile the various contradictions underlying the culture of courtly love. As has been shown, in the last years of the sixteenth century this general authoritarian trend seems to subside a little, and the discourse on love tends to become slightly more open with respect to the other voice. While still marketing a decidedly idealistic image, the culture of the court starts again to breathe the air of sensuality, and to allot more space for the contrasting voice of passionate love. Thus, we are faced with a quite peculiar contradiction with respect to neoPlatonism: the very same means through which the court had initially selffashioned itself as a sacred container of sexual desire90 becomes, in the wake of the Counter-Reformation, a coercive force that serves only the moral concerns of a courtier increasingly preoccupied for his own status, as well as for that of his prince.91 A coercive force that no longer sacralizes sensual pleasure by giving it a esigenze”). See M. Pozzi, Trattati d’amore del Cinquecento (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1975) xix. Rather than a general assessment of the discourse on love, what I am trying to do here is to give an assessment of how such discourse tends to ‘evolve’ in the cultural environment of the court. 89 In her sweeping study of the discourse on love from the Middle Ages up to the seventeenth century, Schlumbohm defines the neo-Platonic influenced phase as “remarkable” (“auffallende”) for its exceptional lack of conflicting voices in the debate. See Schlumbohm, Jocus, 392. 90 Walker, “The Renaissance,” 525–6. As is well known, Ficino’s Commentary of Plato’s Convivium—which according to the sources was to be the chronicle of a banquet organized by Lorenzo il Magnifico in Careggi on November 7, 1468—was commissioned to the author by the prince himself. See R. Marcel, “Introduction,” Commentaire sur le banquet de Platon, by M. Ficino, ed. and trans R. Marcel (Paris, 1956) 11–48. 91 With respect to the relationship between courtier and prince during the CounterReformation, I tend to subscribe to the slightly more problematic approach proposed by Vasoli: one which sees the courtier neither as an impotent victim of power, nor as mere instrument of power; neither estranged from power, nor slavishly serving it. That the relationship which the intellectual/courtier entertains with his prince is one of service is beyond any doubt; however, rather than understanding it in simplistic terms (i.e. courtier as instrument of the prince) one needs to understand it within the complex dynamics of service and self-service (i.e. courtier as instrument of the courtier and of the prince)—see C. Vasoli, “Il cortigiano, il diplomatico, il principe. Intellettuali e potere nell’Italia del Cinquecento,” La corte e il “cortegiano, ed. A. Prosperi (Roma: Bulzoni 1980) 173ff. On similar lines seems to be Ortolani’s argument which, while underscoring the hegemonic relationship existing between prince and courtier/intellectual in the XVI and XVII centuries, tends to look at the resulting ideology as a veil for existing contradicting images or collisions between different classes—see D. Ortolani, “Appunti per una storia degli intellettuali. A proposito di Gli affanni della cultura di G. Benzoni,” L’immagine riflessa 3 (1979). On the relationship between prince and courtier, also see J. Burckhardt, Die Kultur der

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metaphysical dimension; instead it discards sensual pleasure as antagonistic with respect to spiritual pleasure. While initially Ficinian neo-Platonism did indeed manage to cohabit with the carpe diem predicate epitomized by Lorenzo’s famous Trionfo di Bacco e di Arianna—and even gave it a sacred aura—soon enough this difficult formula became increasingly difficult to sustain and neo-Platonism was easily turned against the very hedonistic culture that it once had contributed to generate.92 That neo-Platonism had within itself the potential to become the ‘sanctuary’ of sensual desire as well its very ‘tomb’ is not at all far-fetched. In fact, while on the one hand it potentially allowed a less problematic view of the antithesis between spirituality and sensuality, on the other hand the restriction of sensual pleasure to the strictly spiritual realm (the senses of sight and hearing) that characterizes its very doctrine also potentially authorized much more uncompromising views with respect to sensual love.93 More uncompromising views that a new moralistic selfconsciousness may indeed have contributed to foster and even intensify. Thus, if initially sensual desire is sacralized in light of its potential extension (sublimation) to the spiritual sphere, later sensual desire becomes chastised in light of its potential extension (precipitation) to the worldly sphere. As the anxiety for sensual desire becomes greater, with the moralizing attitude of the Counter-Reformation, neoPlatonic idealism tends to become pessimistic rather than optimistic. This inevitably divorced Renaissance discourse on love from its Medieval tradition, which instead understood love as the fruitful antithesis between sensual satisfaction and spiritual

Renaissance (Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassischer Vrlg., 1989); F. Gaeta “Dal comune alla corte rinascimentale,” Letteratura italiana. Il letterato e le istituzioni, vol. 5, ed. A. Asor Rosa (Torino: Einaudi, 1982) 253ff.; M. Rosa, “La Chiesa e gli stati regionali nell’età dell’assolutismo,” Letteratura italiana. Il letterato e le istituzioni, ed. A. Asor Rosa, vol. 5 (Torino: Einaudi, 1982) 287ff. 92 This is neither the time nor the place to get into any speculation on the historical reasons that may have lain behind the dawn of a new age of moral concerns in the culture of the court, and the respective ‘reinterpretation’ of neo-Platonism. However, I will only mention that in 1496—only four years after Lorenzo de Medici’s death—with Eusebio Rey’s La bula de Alejandro VI otorgando el título de católicos a Fernando e Isabel a new model of Catholic monarch is canonized; a model with which, I assume, the sixteenthcentury ruler (especially one that wished to remain in good terms with Rome) must have had to contend, in one way or another. On the impact of this particular historical event, see P. F. Albaladejo, “‘Rey catolico’: gestación y metamorfosis de un título,” Repubblica e virtù: pensiero politico e Monarchia cattolica fra XVI e XVII secolo, ed. C. Continisio and C. Mozzarelli (Roma: Bulzoni, 1995). For the religious concerns of Ercole I d’Este and the concept of “Christian prince,” see A. Prosperi, “Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche e le idee religiose,” Atti del Convegno “Società e cultura” al tempo di L. Ariosto (Bari: De Donato, 1977) 134ff. 93 For the shift in the conception of sensual love from Medieval amor cortese to Renaissance post-Ficinian Platonic love, see Schlumbohm, Jocus, 50ff.

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elevation.94 In this respect, one may say with Schlumbohm that neo-Platonism was a way to “de-problematize” that eternal antinomy between passionate and rational love, rather than conquering it.95 A problematic solution, to be sure, which made the discourse on love increasingly intolerant with respect to instances of realism, passion, and sensualism, thus making it more and more inadequate to effectively represent the idea of erotic dualism which served to reconcile the contradiction of the court culture. In this critical state of affairs what comes to save the day is pastoral drama, where, thanks to the marginality that characterizes this genre—which is neither fiction nor real life but something in between—the effective mediation between passionate and rational love can, and indeed may be staged, despite of the paralyzing contradictions that determine the culture of the Counter-Reformation. Thus the well known tension between the two “reasons” that dominate erotic discourse in the Renaissance—the “literary and rhetorical reason” and the “philosophical reason”96—is eventually harmonized through the pastoral stage. Emblematic in this respect is the Chorus of act two in the Aminta, where, as already mentioned (Chapter 3), Tasso makes a claim for the truth of affectivity as a form of philosophical reason in its own right. What is more, thanks to the particular affective response generated by such affectivity, pastoral drama allows for a mediation between passionate and rational love that also takes on a new and crucial therapeutic function, which puts an added value to the particular form of discourse on love channeled through the pastoral stage. Staging erotic dualism not only continues to be possible in pastoral drama, in spite of the moralizing pressure of post-Tridentine culture; it even becomes therapeutic, inasmuch as it stirs the moral affects of pity, fear, and admiration and allows for a tempered form of laughter. It may thus not be a coincidence that, while pastoral drama is at its prime, the love tract is at its dusk. In this respect, one may also talk about a more abstract kind of healing that takes place at the political and cultural levels, as the old problematic manifesto of morality is replaced (or healed) by a new one that exploits all the power of affectivity, and the theatrical performance eventually becomes the new way to achieve a staging of erotic dualism that is instructing, entertaining, and cathartic as well. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the presence of neo-Platonic ideas is pervasive in pastoral drama. Interestingly enough, in the Pastor Fido erotic dualism even has its poignant symbolic landmark in Venus’ cave. To be sure,

94

I should remind that in the culture of courtly love disseminated by the troubadours complete sensual-sexual pleasure is always longed for, even though it is ultimately transcended by the lover. On this subject, see Schlumbohm, Jocus, 19–96. 95 I am translating Schlumbohm’s term “Entproblematizierung.” See ibid., 20. 96 See C. Dionisotti, “Appunti su Leone Ebreo,” Italia medievale e umanistica, vol. 2 (1959) 419. Qtd in Gigliucci, Contrapposti, 54.

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the cave not only effectively functions as the center of the dramatic intrigue,97 it also functions, thanks to the Platonic overtones described earlier (Chapter 1), as a poignant pedagogical symbol. On the one hand, this is where the drama of Eros and Tanatos is staged; the drama which results in Amarillis’ loss of honor and death sentence, as well as Mirtillo’s homicidal stint. On the other hand, this is also where the miraculous change of heart takes place, which leads Mirtillo to the noble gesture of self-sacrifice and ushers in the love-death/life motive. Thus the descent in the realm of shades preludes, on the one hand, to a possible lapse into bestiality, on the other hand to the final Platonic moment of self-awareness in which the selfish will is left behind and virtue is firmly embraced. In this light, we may want to think of Mirtillo’s descent in the cave as the turning point in the play, the moment when he is able to free himself from the delusion of the senses and gain real sight: the sight which contemplates the world of ideas. Venus’ cave thus represents the ultimate experience of Eros: when either blindness turns into bestiality, or blindness is conquered and a new vision of reality is acquired. Once again, the audience is left to behold the paradoxical nature of love with its earthly and heavenly pulls. Guarini is thus not only a skillful dramatist, he is also particularly keen on the Platonic symbolism of the cave that he, for the first time, has managed to make a central element of pastoral drama.98 But also in this respect, the influence of the Aminta is not be underestimated. In fact, it is almost impossible to think that the image of Aminta’s topsy-turvy fall, ending its markedly neo-Platonic course right in front of the entrance of the cave of the enlightened Elpino’s (act five), could have easily been removed from the memory of the author of the Pastor Fido. In conclusion, the meaningfulness of temperament and thus of the edifying aesthetics of pastoral drama becomes more evident once temperament is both understood as the result of an endogenous literary process (i.e. affectivity) and evaluated in the context of a horizon of specific cultural expectations. What this chapter allows to appreciate is that, thanks to its particular aesthetics, pastoral drama is the medium through which the contradictions that pertain to courtly love can not only be reconciled through the erotic initiation that is featured in the tale; they can also be staged in order to arouse the moral affects which are conducive to temperament. With an Aristotelian/Petrarchan affectivity that couples a Platonic temperament of the mind (coincidentia oppositorum) with the therapeutic arousal of moral affects, the pastoral finds the key to its continued success and in fact, to its upgrade to prominent manifesto of the court culture. It is, to be sure, exactly because of its ability not only to continue to effectively address the Platonic theme of erotic dualism, but also to stage it (thus to induce a moral affective 97

See D. Boillet, “Guarini réinventeur de lieux comuns: la grotte de Vénus dans le ‘Pastor Fido’,” Culture et societé en Italie du Moyen-Age à la Renaissance, vol. 13 (Paris: Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1985) 413. On the subject of the cave, see also E. Selmi, Classici e Moderni nell’officina del ‘Pastor Fido’ (Alessandria: Orso, 2001) 168–9. 98 See Boillet, “La Grotte,” 412.

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response through its decorous affectivity) that pastoral drama becomes the primary manifesto of the court culture. It is thus probably not a coincidence that Angelo Ingegneri, in respectful disagreement with De Nores, celebrates the excellence of this genre specifically by referring to the “noble affects” it is able to arouse; noble affects which, he says, are not “unsuitable to tragedy itself.”99 This chapter has underscored the far-reaching cultural implications that lie beneath Ingegneri’s vindication of pastoral drama as noble affect-rousing art. In this light, one may conclude that, for the court culture, pastoral drama is the way that, by means of the strategically engineered arousal of “noble affects,” leads back to a possible civilized (i.e. no longer unnatural) future of true Love and Nature.

99

“danno luoco a nobili affetti, non disdicevoli alle tragedie istesse” (“they allow room for noble affects that are not unsuitable to tragedy itself”). See A. Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentaiva e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Ferrara: Panini, 1989) 7.

Epilogue

The Pastoral Pharmakon The analysis presented so far has revealed that Guarini’s Pastor Fido and Tasso’s Aminta, despite the already discussed clear differences, show important elements of continuity. Shifting the focus on these elements of continuity has allowed us to gain a better understanding of what pastoral drama as a genre has grown into, once it reaches its prime, and thus to appreciate its meaningfulness as an art form. In the Introduction it was mentioned that a defining feature of the more mature specimens of pastoral drama is the presence of a particular agenda, which was dubbed “a medical healing agenda.” In the light of the analysis conducted so far, it is now possible to indicate what exactly such medical healing agenda entails. Firstly, and more generally, it entails the crafting of a specific poetic/ rhetorical substance (affectivity) which, mutatis mutandis, induces a therapeutic temperament of affects that is modeled after the principles of medicine; a poetic/ rhetorical substance which is the result of a rigorous approach to a neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy (the art of purging) that thoroughly capitalizes on the pedagogic import of the complex Petrarchan erotic initiation in content, language, and style (the art of teaching). Secondly, and more specifically, it entails the crafting of a fabula that combines the necessary mix of pathos and ethos to ensure its tragicomic purging vocation, and the crafting of an elocutio which, through a particular approach to sensuality and verisimilitude, brings in cognition and a specific sense of morality as crucial elements of the poetic enchantment or logos that enacts and frames such purgation; it thus entails framing and enacting the affect-rousing properties of poetic discourse through cognition. All this lies beneath the new therapeutic aspirations that pastoral drama vindicates by embracing a medical healing agenda in the edifying process. The architectonic end of such healing agenda is to obliterate melancholy, thus to cure the heartbroken lover. This is how pastoral drama fulfills its primary mission: namely that of remedia amoris. However, as has been shown, this is by far not the only end of the pastoral healing agenda. In fact, there is also a meta-literary end to that agenda: that is, to solve the well known aesthetic problems that pertain to both tragedy and comedy (Chapter 1). Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, there is also a crucial cultural end to that healing agenda: namely to provide a reconciling alternative to the inherent dichotomy of passionate and rational love that resides in the formal discourse on love (Chapter 4). All this proves one very important thing: that by the end of the Renaissance, pastoral drama has taken the therapeutic mission traditionally ascribed to pastoralism to unprecedented heights, thus becoming what is indeed an extraordinary medicina amoris, with all the above-mentioned important social, aesthetic, and cultural implications.

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But the theater/drug analogy can even be pushed further in this case; especially now that the full “operation” of pastoral drama, with its complex inner workings, has been thoroughly investigated as a direct effect of its formal structure. In order to uncover what is possibly the deepest layer in the above-mentioned analogy, it is now time to place the healing process that pertains to pastoral drama in the context of the most profound reflection on the therapeutic function of discourse in Western thought: namely Plato’s discussion of the pharmakon. In his seminal work, Jacques Derrida describes the Platonic pharmakon as an ambivalent (remedial and poisoning) potentiality that does not pertain to discourse (logos), but rather to the ontological sphere that informs it. Dialectics or philosophy, according to Derrida’s reading of Socratic thought, is the enchantment that rids the pharmakon of its poisonous potential and thus makes it remedial or therapeutic. A strikingly similar idea is suggested in the medicinal analogy Guarini deploys in equating pastoral drama, and specifically tragicomedy, to an antidote (“teriach”): E per mostrarvi chiaramente che così sia vegniamone all’atto pratico. Sapete come si fa? In quella guisa medesima, che sole il medico nel comporre la Teriaca, la quale chi non sapesse come si tempra, sappendo però ch’ella fia antidoto del veleno, si meraviglierebbe vedendovi entrare, la vipera velenosa, ma cesserebbe meraviglia, quando intendesse poi ch’ella non vi può entrare se non purgata prima del veleno, talche le parti salvifiche vi concorrono e non le nocive. Così fa chi compone Tragicommedia. (And in order to clearly show you that it is indeed so, let’s look at common practice. Do you know how to make it [tragicomedy]? In the same fashion the doctor composes Teriach. Those of you who don’t know how it is tempered, but just know that it is an antidote to poison, would be marveled to know that it contains the viper’s poison. The marvel would cease, however, when told that such poison can not be added without first being purged of the poison, so that only the salvaging parts concur in it, not the bad ones. This is what one who composes a tragicomedy does.)

Guarini’s discussion of both the poisoning and remedial qualities of the antidote suggests that the author of the Pastor Fido, in his ex post facto attempt at normalizing pastoral drama, is perfectly aware of the above-mentioned ambiguity that pertains to the Platonic pharmakon. Most importantly, his description shows a clear intent at capitalizing that very ambiguity in order to make a claim for a kind

 See J. Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” Dissemination, trans. B. Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). The same essay was first published in French, see J. Derrida, “La pharmacie de Platon,” Tel Quel 32 and 33 (1968).  Guarini, Il Verato secondo, 245.

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of poetry that may successfully conquer that ambiguity, and thus the well-known issues raised in the Republic with respect to the corrupting effect of mimesis. In short, by means of a Platonic argument Guarini is professing his faith in poetry as a form of pharmakon in its own right, with its poisoning and remedial potentialities. This is indeed an extraordinary move that is meant to boldly raise poetry from the morally questionable art it was still considered to be in the sixteenth century to the status of a moral philosophy iuxta propria principia; in other words, it is meant to raise pastoral drama to the status of pastoral pharmakon. In light of the thorough analysis of the content, form, and “operation” of pastoral drama presented so far, it is safe to say that Guarini’s move may have been bold, but certainly not unsubstantiated. In fact, just as in the Platonic pharmakon dialectics provides the necessary enchantment to rid the pharmakon from its poisoning potentiality, in pastoral drama poetics and rhetoric provide the necessary affectivity that rids mimesis from the poisoning potential of multiplicity or poikilia—the problematic imitation of both good and bad—and makes it instead the source of and ethical temperament. Crucial components of such affectivity are, as has been shown, the neo-Aristotelian dramaturgy of pastoral drama, with its tragic-in-the-comic aesthetic formula that capitalizes on both the pathos and the ethos elicited by the Petrarchan protagonist of the fabula; and the Petrarchan lyrical language (elocutio), which provides the necessary enchantment or logos that turns the dramaturgy into a great therapeutic (thus remedial) experience—one that is cathartic according to the specific internal dynamics of each fabula and to the specific sense of morality and verisimilitude that preside over its cognitive elocutio. Thanks to this sophisticated form of affectivity, pastoral drama is able to transform itself in a form of poetic imitation that, although emancipated from moral philosophy, still manages to be ethical; it thus manages to become a form of discourse that, not unlike the Platonic pharmakon, can rid itself from its own poisoning potentiality allowing for imitation of the good and of the bad to turn into a delightful and, most importantly, a healing experience. Such transformation, in

 Besides the more obvious reference to the discussion on the falsehood of mimesis that takes place in Book X, possibly the strongest statement on the negative potential of poetry is that which takes place in Book III, where the corrupting effect of immoral stories is underscored: “Must we, then, supervise only the poets and compel them to impress the image of the good disposition on their poems or not to make them among us? Or must we also supervise the other craftsmen and prevent them from impressing this bad disposition, a licentious, illiberal, and graceless one, either on images of animals or on houses or on anything else that their craft produces? And the incapable craftsman we mustn’t permit to practice his craft among us, so that our guardians won’t be reared on images of vice, as it were on bad grass, everyday cropping and grazing on a great deal little by little from many places, and unawares put together some one big bad thing in their soul?” (Book III, 401 bc).

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turn, allows theater, a potentially dangerous drug that seduces with “lies that could threaten ones’ immortal soul,” to achieve a sound moral ground. The confirmed existence of a pastoral pharmakon, then, not only shows that theater, at the level of the sixteenth century, has a clear awareness of the ambiguity that pertains to the Platonic pharmakon; it also shows that theater purposefully appropriates that very ambiguity in order to profess and, most importantly, to successfully enact the therapeutic virtues of another moral philosophy—poetic imitation—that capitalizes on the highly sophisticated and artful form of affectivity illustrated in this work in order to heal itself. This pharmakon is, then, what turns the pastoral stage into a poignant actualization of the newly found faith in the morality of poetry, during the sixteenth century. What is more, it is a newly found faith in the morality of poetry painstakingly built on a syncretic philosophical basis. To be sure, in the definition of tragicomedy cited above, Guarini ostensibly speaks the Platonic language of the Phaedo, where, as Derrida argues, hemlock is mentioned as a poisonous potion that at the same time has the power to initiate one into contemplation of the eidos. Moreover, he capitalizes the Platonic bond between medicine and rhetoric restored in the Phaedrus, and interestingly uses it to advocate the therapeutic virtues of the kind of poetic mimesis ushered in by Aristotle, thereby conquering Plato’s bias on it. Guarini, then, revisits the Platonic pharmakon from an Aristotelian perspective, vindicating the intrinsic moral possibilities that lie in the territory of poetry, as opposed to philosophy.  See T. Pollard, “‘No Faith in Physisc’: Masquerades of Medicine Onstage and Off,” Disease, Diagnosis, and Cure on the Early Modern Stage, ed. Stephanie Moss and Kaara L. Peterson (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 33. For a discussion on the harmfulness of theater, see T. Pollard, Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 9–11.  The already cited work by Pollard is conclusive on this subject. See Pollard, Drugs and Theater.  In this respect, my work on pastoral drama not only confirms Pollard’s contention on the self-awareness of early modern drama with respect to its poisoning and remedial qualities; it goes one step further and also shows that early-modern Italy had already appropriated the drug/play analogy in order to show how to conquer the potential problems of morality that were inherent in it through a major investment in formal organization, according to Aristotle’s teachings.  See Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 127.  For a discussion of the bond between medicine and rhetoric in the Phaedrus, see Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 65–75.  I am perfectly aware that Derrida’s work moves from the fundamental assumption that the Platonic pharmakon is a problematic philosophical solution (for his criticism of coincidentia oppostorum, see “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 93) and goes about proposing différance as a possible alternative (see “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 127). So, I do not intend to propose the pastoral pharmakon as a solution to the problems that Derrida raises with respect to the Platonic pharmakon nor engage in a discussion on différance; I simply want to suggest that Guarini finds a way to capitalize on the idea of the Platonic pharmakon in his formulation of

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The discussion presented so far on the pastoral pharmakon corroborates Derrida’s discussion, thus showing the continued relevance of the Platonic pharmacological model to the Renaissance, and specifically to pastoral drama; it also shows some interesting developments that, so it seems, nicely reflect the syncretic philosophical climate of that time (Platonism and Aristotelianism) and that are possibly undermined in Morelli’s erudite discussion of tragicomedy.10 In this light, one may say that, by the end of the sixteenth century, there is indeed another very important pharmacy to be accounted: that is, the Aristotelian pharmacy; where mimesis or imitation rules and heals itself. This is where the pastoral pharmakon is conceived. Looking at what happened in Europe throughout the seventeenth century—from Cervantes to Honoré d’Urfé to Spenser, Sydney, and Shakespeare—and considering the pervasive European dissemination of both Guarini and Tasso’s plays, it is safe to say that this new drug was bound to flood the international literary market.

tragicomedy and that he thereby manages to make a strong case for vindicating the morality of pastoral drama. I therefore do not intend to argue here whether or not the pastoral pharmakon is a sound philosophical solution, but rather simply declare its existence, and thus confirm the relevance of the Platonic pharmakon in the Renaissance with its interesting Aristotelian developments. 10 See G. Morelli, Paradosso del farmacista. Il Metastasio nella morsa del tranquillante (Venezia: Marsilio, 1998). My idea of pastoral drama as a pharmakon bespeaks also a willingness to acknowledge my debt to Morelli’s erudite work and the hope to possibly contribute to it in some respects. Indeed my work on pastoral drama essentially shares Morelli’s conclusions about the tranquilizing aspects of the pharmakon—even though, for practical reasons, I have preferred to use the word healing instead. However, my work also tries to shed some light on the not-so-passive aspects of the “tranquilizer.” Morelli argues that the pharmakon comes to be very close to a placebo, where the effect is greatly dependent on the patient rather than on the medicine itself. Thus, rather than gauging the actual therapeutic effectiveness of the medicament, the placebo seems instead to reveal more and more the formidable role played by conviction and expectation with regard to the therapeutic effect of a believed-to-be medicament. In this respect, the emphasis on poetics and rhetoric that characterizes my approach intends to underscore that the great conditioning of the mind at work in pastoral drama relies on some subconscious, yet far from imaginary aspects. Thus, taking the medicinal analogy all the way, I would describe the pastoral pharmakon as a tranquilizer with a ‘therapeutic edge.’ Its ‘active ingredients’ are the poetic and rhetorical make up or substance (i.e. affectivity). Its ‘physiological’ effect is temperament. Its ‘clinical’ effect is the cure of melancholy. Temperament in this respect describes the equalized affective state of a newly conditioned mind, through the arts of purging and teaching. Both arts are indispensable and equally responsible for moving to moral action—or rather for (re)moving what prevents it (i.e. melancholy)— and for the ultimate pleasure that this entails. Thus, pleasure is certainly not to be understood as a form of escape, or oblivion, or self-serving titillation, or even tranquilizing effect; instead it is the result of a momentous cathartic and pedagogical experience which takes place thanks to a particularly captivating and rationally engaging moral discourse crafted with the mastery of both Aristotle and Petrarch.

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It is, to be sure, a well-known drug, which had been circulating for centuries in the literary markets. The above reference to theriac is significant in this respect, in that it not only defines the new moral aspirations of pastoral drama, it also connects these aspirations to, and thus measures them against, an entire literary tradition that goes back all the way to the Hellenistic era; a tradition that Ovid’s famous booklet acknowledges and on which it capitalizes.11 Pastoral drama, then, takes on the already mentioned traditional therapeutic concerns of pastoral poetry with an Ovidian rather than Horatian attitude (Introduction); but most importantly, it does so by actually showing how incredibly sophisticated its poetic and rhetorical craft, shaped according to the medical paradigm, has become; and specifically how it has learned to efficaciously cure not merely through precepts but through the sheer power of poetics and rhetoric. As has been shown, it is to Petrarch’s and Aristotle’s guidance more than to Ovid’s that it will ultimately turn to reach that goal, thereby signing a clear shift from precepts to formal organization in the remedia amoris. It is exactly this groundbreaking shift from precepts to a highly sophisticated and artful formal arrangement that marks a new phase in the edifying function of the pastoral and ushers in the idea of the pastoral pharmakon. At this point the case for a re-evaluation of pastoral drama on the base of the morality of its formal excellence can be rested. The goal of this study, which has been primarily to elucidate the sophisticated formal make up of pastoral drama and the particular cultural environment that allows for this formal marvel to take on an ethical function, has been reached. From this new perspective pastoral drama appears primarily as a highly artful or intellectually sophisticated literary instrument with an in-built tempering or, to use a Platonic term, “remedial” device (i.e. affectivity) of such complexity and moral rigor that it could be legitimately equated to a Platonic pharmakon. This, at least, is what the above-mentioned claim by Guarini suggests and what the literary analysis undertaken here has hopefully managed to convincingly argue. In this light, it is safe to say that edification in pastoral drama eventually becomes the business of a medicinal literary art with high moral (as opposed to moralizing) aspirations; an art that is able to achieve an ethical end by strictly relying on its refined, decorous substance (affectivity); finally, an art that, invoking its kinship with medicine, safeguards its own autonomy and moral legitimacy. In this respect, one may say that, by the time it reaches its prime, pastoral drama has become an alternative form of moral philosophy which conveys 11

I should mention that the Hellenistic era was well known for its “cure-poems,” and that Theriaca is the title of one of Nicander’s works that belongs to that genre. Ovid, who is a major auctoritas in Renaissance erotic literature, was the first one to integrate the tradition of the Greek cure poems with another poem explicitly devoted to the cure of love, the famous Remedia. On Ovid’s relationship with the Greek cure poems, see A. Henderson, “Introduction,” Remedia Amoris, by P. Ovidi Nasonis, ed. A. A. R. Henderson (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1979) xiv. On Ovid’s commitment to a medical approach to the cure of love, see ibid., Remedia, 39; and also see Lazzarini’s remarks in Ovidio, Rimedi, 128–31.

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a renewed faith in the synergy of scientific, literary, and philosophical discourses taking place throughout the sixteenth century and foreshadows a future time (the Baroque)12 when, with the enthusiastic embracing of Tacitism and Iatropolitics,13 edification will turn into a matter entirely centered on medicine.

12 Especially in the case of the Pastor Fido, it is certainly safe to say that the pastoral pharmakon starts taking on some features that, as Maravall argues, are distinctive of Baroque moral discourse: that is a pervasive presence of the medical paradigm, and most importantly a markedly proactive attitude toward crisis. See J. A. Maravall, Culture of the Baroque. Analysis of a Historical Structure, trans. T. Cochran (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986) 21. 13 On the relevance of Tacitism in the Baroque period, see Maravall, Culture, 21. On Iatropolitics and its intimate relationship to medicine, see L. Bisello, Medicina della memoria. Aforistica ed esemplarietà nella scrittura barocca (Firenze: Olscki, 1998) 177–220. For the influence of medicine on Sarpi’s moral discourse, see P. Guaragnella, Le Maschere di Democrito e di Eraclito. Scritture e malinconie tra Cinque e Seicento (Fasano: Schena, 1990) 143–56.

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Author Index

Abert, Anna Amelie 58 Accorsi, Maria Grazia 54–5, 181 Albaladejo, Pablo Fernandez 199 Alighieri, Dante 32, 60, 102, 104, 120, 124, 149, 154, 166, 192 Alonge, Roberto 106, 186 Alonso, Damaso 106, 186 Angelini, Franca 42, 58, 67–8, 80, 187 Anselmi, Gian Mario 73,75, 117, 122, 138 Aristotle ix, 6–9, 11, 14–15, 19, 20–21, 25–30, 35, 37–8, 53, 58, 60–61, 65, 77–8, 105, 132–4, 139, 171, 178, 185, 206–8 Avellini, Luisa 2, 5, 22, 73

Carapetyan, Armen 55 Cardano, Girolamo 5 Carducci, Giosué 117, 156 Carrara, Enrico 3 Castelli, Patrizi 2 Castelvetro, Ludovico 16, 20–22, 27, 35, 41, 43, 60, 63, 69, 71, 73, 86, 88, 111, 132–3, 159 Castiglione Baldassarre 68, 104, 127, 155, 173, 197 Cataudella, Michele 159 Cavallini, Ivano 15 Cavazzini, Giancarlo 15, 27, 30, 58, 63 Cavicchi, Adriano 57–8 Cerini, Mario 1, 76 Chiodo, Domenico 109, 121, 129, 165, 169, 173–4 Clubb, Louise G, 1, 3, 29, 63, 65, 67, 108 Cockcroft, Robert 7, 9–10 Cody, Richard 90, 123, 180 Conte, Gian Biagio 3 Corsaro, Antonio 70, 123 Croce, Benedetto 21, 97, 152–3 Croce, Franco 121, 166

Baldacci, Luigi 68–9, 72–4, 76, 87, 127 Baldassarri, Guido 62, 71, 132–3, 139, 159 Bárberi Squarotti, Giorgio 15, 80, 109, 112, 120–21, 155, 166, 173, 184 Battaglin, Deanna 22, 54, 68, 76, 102–3 Battistini, Andrea 27 Bausi, Francesco 122, 167 Bellini, Eraldo vii, 79, 159 Bembo, Pietro 68, 70, 74, 97, 114, 126–7, 139, 155, 187–8, 190, 197 Bigi, Emilio 68, 71, 74, 76, 104 Bisello, Linda 209 Boillet, Danielle 79–80, 85, 88–9, 96–7, 177, 201 Bolzoni, Lina 190, 193, 197 Bonora, Ettore 73–4, 107, 122, 127, 155 Borsellino, Nino 109, 119, 197 Bosco, Umberto 74, 194 Brand, Charles P. 73, 75, 142, 158, 173 Bruscagli, Riccardo 89, 123, 131, 135 Bulega, Franco 29 Burton, Richard 5

D’Alessandro, Francesca 70, 119, 127 Da Pozzo, Giovanni 1, 2, 68, 75, 123, 168, 174, 180, 183 Dalla Valle, Daniela 101 de Bolla, Peter 128 De Sanctis, Francesco 97, 158, 160 Della Terza, Dante vii, 1, 104, 154 Derrida, Jacques 6, 182, 204, 206–7 Di Benedetto, Arnaldo 3, 117, 162, 183 Dionisotti, Carlo 120, 200 Dotti, Ugo 69, 71, 81, 122, 133, 190 Durante, Elio 57

Calcaterra, Carlo 54 Campanella, Tommaso 15

Entzminger, Robert L. 2 Erspamer, Francesco 72, 74

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Fedi, Roberto 70, 117 Fenzi, Enrico 120 Ferroni, Giulio 120 Ficino, Marsilio 5, 56, 68, 81, 101, 158, 191, 198 Flora, Francesco 21, 54, 102–3, 159 Floriani, Piero 197 Folena, Gianfranco 21, 54, 102 Forster, Leonard 108, 155, 186 Foster, Kenelm 69, 89 Fowler, Alastair 3 Fragnito, Gigliola 73 Fubini, Mario 107 Fumaroli, Marc 47, 67 Fyfe, W, Hamilton 47, 49 Galli Stampino, Maria 8, 118, 131, 160–61, 183, 187 Gareffi, Andrea 33, 42–3 Gerbino, Giuseppe 57 Getto, Giovanni 142–3, 187 Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini, Lorenzo 31–2, 34–40, 64, 141, 191 Gigliucci, Roberto 68, 109, 119, 122, 125, 195–6, 200 Giraldi Cinzio, Giovan Battista 13, 18, 48, 68, 89, 129, 131, 167, 181 Girardi, Maria Teresa 47 Godard, Alain 2, 177 Gorni, Guglielmo 69, 74, 77, 88 Graziosi, Elisabetta 2 Grosser, Herman 104, 107 Guaragnella, Pasquale 209 Guarini, Battista vii, ix, 1–3, 5, 7–8, 13–22, 25–31, 33–4, 37–9, 40–43, 47–9, 51–65, 67–8, 75–7, 79–81, 83, 85, 87, 88–90, 94, 96–9, 101–14, 117–19, 123–4, 137–9, 131–9, 141, 145–9, 151–6, 159–62, 169–73, 175–83, 186, 188–92, 196, 201, 203–8, 210 Guercio, Vincenzo 103, 110, 149 Guerieri Crocetti, Camillo 13, 167 Guglielminetti, Marziano 15, 22, 167, 182 Guthmüller, Bodo 2 Hathaway, Baxter 8, 15, 25, 29, 32–6, 38–40, 52, 60, 65, 104, 132

Henke, Robert 3, 22, 29, 52, 59–60, 65, 130 Ingegneri, Angelo 61, 2, 65, 117, 202 Jossa, Stefano 110–11 Kahn, Victoria 8, 200 Kennedy, William 70, 73, 86, 110, 113, 127, 179, 187 Lollini, Massimo 47 Longinus (pseudo) 47, 49 Lorenzetti, Paolo 3, 15, 187, 196 Luisi, Francesco 54 Maggi, Armando 191 Mammana, Simona 110–11 Martellotti, Anna 57 Martignone, Vercingetorige 74, 119, 155, 167 Martinelli, Bortolo 71 Martini, Alessandro 71 Mastrocola, Paola 7, 25, 61 Matelli, Elisabetta 47 Mazzacurati, Giancarlo 18, 27–8, 72, 81 Mazzotta, Giuseppe vii, 28, 114, 191 Mengaldo, Pier Vincenzo 68–9, 74 Mirollo, James V. 160 Molinari, Carl 77, 177 Monteverdi, Claudio 58, 97 Montrose, Louis A., 2 Morelli, Giovanni 207 Moss, Stephanie 6, 26, 142, 206 Niccoli, Gabriel Adriano 1, 9, 109, 111, 120, 153 Noyer-Wiedner, Alfred 79 Ossola, Carlo 2 Ovid 1, 3, 128, 156, 198, 208 Palisca, Claude V. 32, 34, 55 Paolella, Alfonso 191 Patrizi, Francesco 190, 193 Patrizi, Giorgio 27, 109, 119 Perella, Nicholas J. 15, 21–2, 50, 68, 75–6, 80, 83, 87–90, 94, 97–8, 107, 183, 187 Peterson Kaara L. 6, 26, 206

Author Index Petrarch or Petrarca, Francesco 11, 17, 22–8, 43, 48–9, 5263, 68–77, 79–81, 83, 85–9, 94, 97, 101–6, 108–22, 124, 126–30, 137, 139, 142–56, 158–9, 161, 163, 166–71, 175–9, 186–9, 207–8 Petrini, Domenico 21, 94 Pieri, Marzia 1, 181 Pirrotta, Nino 55, 57 Plato 14–16, 86, 132, 134, 158, 182, 188 Plett, Heinrich, F, 7, 48 Politian or Poliziano 55, 57, 122, 167, 191 Pollard, Tanya 6, 7, 26, 34, 206 Potter, Lois 2 Pozzi, Mario 197–8 Prandi, Stefano 188 Quarta, Daniela 121, 173 Quondam, Amedeo 2, 22, 68, 72, 79, 127, 155, 179–14 Radcliff-Ulmstead, Douglas 124, 180 Raimondi, Ezio 24, 27, 69, 73 Regn, Gerhard 69, 71, 74–5, 186 Residori, Matteo 109 Riccò, Laura 1, 62, 65, 117, 173, 175, 181–3 Riccoboni, Francesco 15, 18, 21, 28 Rivoltella, Pier Cesare 8, 13–16, 21–2, 29, 32–3, 35, 37, 41, 56, 60, 64–5 Romei, Annibale 18–19, 73, 188, 193–4 Ronga, Luigi 54, 58 Rossi, Vittorio 34, 57 Russano Hanning, Barbara 32, 34, 55–6, 58 Russo, Emilio 119 Sala di Felice, Elena 5, 65, 90 Salviati, Leonardo 34 Sampson, Lisa 1, 13, 15, 18, 22, 27, 29, 56, 65,121–2, 132, 135, 156, 166, 174 Sannazaro, Jacopo 3, 54–5, 68, 117, 126–7, 145, 155 Santangelo, Giorgio 74, 197 Saxby, Nelia 168 Scaglione, Aldo 163 Scarpati, Claudio vii, 8–9, 14, 16, 20, 22, 53, 54, 63–4, 75, 79, 81, 102, 104, 108–9, 117, 119, 123, 131, 135, 137–8, 159, 161, 166–6

231

Schlumbohm, Christa 100, 187, 197–200 Selmi, Elisabetta 9, 13, 18, 22, 29, 41, 43, 47, 50, 60–65, 73, 75, 80–83, 88, 94, 97, 104, 109, 113, 132, 135, 145–6, 149, 177, 201 Shearman, John 162 Siraisi, Nancy G. 36 Sole, Antonino 69, 186 Sozzi, Bortolo Tommaso 71, 75 Speroni 61, 68, 111, 127, 155 Stampa, Gaspara 171 Taddeo, Edoardo 101 Tasso, Torquato ix, 1–3, 5, 7–9, 11, 14, 21–2, 24–5, 30, 35, 47, 52, 54, 57–8, 61–2, 64, 68–71, 73–6, 79, 89–90, 104, 106–10, 118–21, 127–56, 158–62, 165–70, 172–5, 177–83, 185–6, 190, 193–5, 198, 200, 203, 207 Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw 8 Tateo, Francesco 27, 154, 187 Taviani, Ferdinando123, 140, 168 Tessari, Roberto, 60 Throne, George A. 128 Toffanin, Giuseppe 15, 18, 21, 27, 30, 41, 65, 165 Treherne, Matthew 63 Tylus, Jane 8, 167, 181 Ulivi, Ferruccio, 22, 105 Varese, Claudio 1, 68, 75, 124, 126–8, 142, 146, 153–5, 161, 173, 183 Vasoli, Cesare 198 Vazzoler, Franco 135 Vico, Gianbattista 47, 104, 154 Vittorini, Domenico 153 Vossler, Karl 21 Walker, Steven F. 1, 192, 198 Weinberg, Bernard 8, 14, 15, 18–20, 25, 29–32, 35, 59, 65, 105 Yoch, James J. 161 Zatti, Sergio 121, 166, 173 Zoppio, Melchiorre 200

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Subject Index

admiration 10, 4, 8–9, 51–2, 87, 136, 138–9, 141, 181, 200 aesthetics ix, 2, 6–10, 17, 22, 32, 38, 48–9, 55, 60, 62, 64–5, 67, 102, 108, 111, 113, 127, 129–30, 141–2, 152, 165–6, 168–9, 172–3, 175, 177–90 affect 6–10, 20, 22, 25–6, 29–31, 37–9, 51–2, 67, 71, 87, 90, 114–15, 138, 170–71, 178, 183, 202–3 affect rousing 8, 22, 25–6, 51–2, 67, 81, 114–15, 183, 202–3 affective experience, response 20, 23, 43, 49, 52, 80, 102, 118, 121, 130–31, 152, 165, 200, 202 affectivity 9–11, 27, 41, 51–3, 64, 67, 79, 89–90, 104, 107, 110, 114–15, 118, 124, 130, 134, 137, 141–2, 151–2, 156, 158, 161, 163–5, 167–9, 171–3, 178–83, 185–6, 200–203, 205–8 affects, rhetorical ethos 7–10, 48–53, 63–4, 89, 90, 99–100, 102, 105, 114, 120, 128, 137–41, 152, 156, 163–6, 169, 171, 180, 203, 205 logos 7, 10, 89–90, 99, 102, 156, 163, 180, 203–5 pathos vii, 10, 32, 34, 43, 48–52, 63–4, 79, 90, 99–100, 102, 114, 120, 127–8, 137–41, 154, 156, 163, 165–6, 69, 75, 203, 205 affects, poetic elocutio 9–10, 89–100, 102, 105, 114, 118–9, 142, 151–2, 154, 158, 162–3, 166, 170–71, 178, 185, 203, 205 fabula 9–10, 19, 29, 74, 80, 88–9, 99, 102, 105, 114, 118–19, 131, 138, 142, 151–2, 158, 162–3, 166, 167, 169–71, 178, 185, 203, 205

allegory of initiation into Love 69, 72, 74, 78, 99, 114, 121, 122, 127, 142, 153, 155, 167, 178 Aminta v, ix, 1–2, 4, 11, 13, 21, 45, 51, 54, 61, 68, 70, 75–6, 79, 81, 104, 107–9, 117–33, 135–43, 145–69, 171–83, 185–7, 196, 200, 201, 203 antidote 5, 11, 204 Aristotelianism 37, 133, 139 Art vs Nature 159 artfulness 11, 102–3, 105–8, 114, 158–62, 164, 170, 180 Bildungsroman 75, 123 Camerata (Florentine)55, 57 Canzoniere 22, 24, 26, 68–77, 79–80, 85–7, 98, 106–8, 110, 117, 119, 22, 124, 126–30, 137, 141, 144–6, 152–3, 155, 167, 186–7 Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta (RVF) 22, 77, 80–81, 89, 85–6, 93–4, 106, 110, 112–13, 126–8, 144–6, 149, 165 catharsis 9, 11, 13, 16, 21–2, 25, 27, 29–31, 33–42, 51–3, 55–6, 59, 64, 127, 131–2, 135–40, 169, 178 catharsis, theory of 35, 39, 41, 52 allopathic principle 5, 34–5, 134 homeopathic principle 5, 34, 39, 41, 64, 134 Mithradatic principle 34, 38 purgation or “purgazione” 36 via remotionis, via moderationis 15, 43, 60, 134 coincidentia oppositorum 153, 182, 185–6, 196, 201 comedy 28–30, 59–61, 62–5, 105, 130–31, 134–8, 162, 170–71, 203 commedia 60, 133, 162, 171

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compassion or “compassione” 16, 24–5, 31–2, 37, 39–40, 46, 60–63, 82, 125, 130, 143, 176 Compendio i. e. Compendio della poesia tragicomica tratto dai duo Verati (Guarini) 5, 14, 17, 25–30, 33–4, 38–9, 53–6, 60, 62–5, 90, 103, 105–6, 133, 171, 196 Counter-Reformation 27, 72–3, 120, 154, 198–200 courtly love 11, 69, 79, 81, 109, 119, 128, 180–83, 187, 192, 194, 197, 198, 200–201 danger 30–31, 33, 42, 65, 135 Decameron (Boccaccio) 22, 25, 28, 60 decorum 59, 104, 107, 110, 117, 144, 151, 156, 160, 197 delight or “diletto” 16–17, 21–2, 29, 31, 53–4, 60–61, 64–5, 90, 92, 94, 96–7, 105, 132–3, 142, 146–7, 162, 170 delightful 8, 16, 21, 27, 33, 41, 43, 53, 92, 101, 141, 172, 178, 20 drama (pastoral drama) i, ix, 1–3, 5–11, 13, 56–7, 59, 62, 65, 67–8, 97, 104, 109, 114–15, 118–21, 129, 135, 137, 141, 153, 156, 158, 160, 162–3, 167–8, 172–3, 177, 179, 180–83, 185, 187, 200–208 dramaturgy or “drammaturgia” 5, 9–10, 13, 18, 22, 27, 30, 31, 33–4, 49, 52, 54, 57, 59–63, 67–8, 79, 114, 117–18, 127, 131–3, 135, 137, 158, 163–4, 183, 203 drug (theater / drug) 204 edification 2, 181, 185, 208–9 Egle (Giraldi Cinzio) 13, 89, 167, 181 elegiac 112, 122, 127–8, 137, 139, 141, 151–3, 155, 164, 166, 168 enchantment 10–11, 68, 102, 104, 107–8, 114, 117, 142, 158, 166, 175, 178, 185, 187, 203–5 ends of poetry 20 architectonic end or “fine architettonico” 13–14, 20, 28–9, 52, 64, 203

instrumental end or “fine strumentale” 13–14, 25–6, 28, 34, 47, 158, 167 enthousiasmon 171 erotic dualism 180–87, 195, 200–201 erotic initiation 49, 70, 72, 77, 79, 81, 88–9, 118–22, 124, 126–7, 129–31, 139, 141, 148, 151–2, 154, 161, 163–4, 166–9, 171, 174–5, 178, 185, 201, 203 fear or “spavento”, “timore” ix, 10, 16, 19, 25, 29–33, 35, 37–8, 40–41, 43, 48–9, 51–3, 61, 64, 87, 110, 113, 121, 136–7, 139, 140–41, 150, 164, 166–8, 181, 200 Galealto (Tasso) 137 Gerusalemme Liberata or Jerusalem Delivered (Tasso) 47, 54, 64, 119, 156, 161, 167, 173–4 Giudicio (Tasso) 132–3 healing i, iv, 3–7, 11, 16, 21, 23, 86–7, 115, 141, 153, 162, 163, 168, 169, 172–3, 178, 182–3, 185, 200, 203–5, 207 hedonistic 21–2, 96, 104, 153, 155, 161, 197, 199 horror or “orrore” 31, 46, 85, 125 humors 18, 26, 36–7, 43, 59, 196 Iatropolitics 209 imitation 6–4, 11, 13–15, 19, 25, 28, 31, 40, 51, 53, 67, 73, 79, 108, 119, 127, 130, 141–2, 154, 183, 205–8 mimesis 6, 11, 13, 99, 142, 156, 164, 205–7 inventio 8–10 laughter or “riso”, “riso temperato” 10, 20, 29–31, 33, 52, 59, 62, 64, 121, 130, 164, 166, 168–9, 171–2, 178, 200 Mannerism 25, 112, 159, 160, 162–3, 179 Mannerist 30, 33, 102, 110, 152, 179 Manneristic 166, 168, 179 marvel or “meraviglia” 30, 45, 48, 87, 105, 136, 139–40, 169, 204, 208

Subject Index marvelous, wondrous or “meraviglioso” 4, 47, 65, 96, 101, 121, 126–7, 139– 40, 157, 172, 180, 183, 190–91 medical 3–7, 9, 11, 13, 25–7, 34, 36, 52, 55, 203, 208, 209 medicament/s or “medicamento/i” ix, 6, 36–7, 207 medicinal 3, 5, 7, 9, 39, 52–3, 163, 204, 207–8 medicine 3, 6, 25–8, 34, 36, 19, 52, 54, 57, 61, 133–4, 203, 206–7, 209, 216, 223, 226–7 melancholy or “malinconia” 4–5, 9–10, 14, 28–9, 37, 41, 52, 64, 82–3, 85, 124, 171, 176, 192, 196, 203, 207 melodrama or “melodramma” 32, 54–5, 58, 65, 100 opera or early opera 57 movere or “muovere” 7–9, 16, 19–20, 32, 53, 130, 141 music or “musica” 15, 32, 54–9, 64 naturalism 108, 153, 172, 175, 179, 185 naturalness, naturality or “naturalezza” 105–3, 148, 160–61, 179 nature or “natura” 4–5, 8, 15, 17, 27–8, 36–5, 55, 60, 64, 68, 70–72, 77–9, 83, 98, 106–8, 113–16, 121, 133–4, 137, 140, 143, 149, 156, 159–61, 164–6, 168, 173–5, 179–82, 184, 188, 190, 193–4, 201–10 neo-Aristotelian 15, 18, 39, 65, 67–8, 114, 117–18, 123, 130–31, 163–4, 172, 178, 203, 205 neo-Platonic 68, 79, 87, 94, 97, 120–23, 126–7, 136, 140, 152–3, 161, 165, 185, 187, 191, 197–210 neo-Platonism 94, 123, 185, 187, 191, 198–200 Oedipus Rex (Sophocles) 50 Orpheus or Orfeo 8, 57–8, 187 Ovidian or “ovidiano” 3, 119, 137, 166, 208 Pastor Fido (Guarini) vii, ix, 1, 3, 5, 8–9, 11, 13, 15, 21–6, 29, 33–4, 41–2, 49, 50, 52–3, 56, 58–9, 62–5,

235

68, 74–7, 79–83, 86–94, 97–8, 100–105, 107–10, 113–15, 117–18, 122, 124, 128, 132, 135–40, 142, 145–6, 148–9, 152, 54, 158–9, 162–5, 168–73, 175–9, 183, 185, 188, 201, 203 pastoral i, ix, 1–3, 5–11, 13, 19, 54–9, 62–5, 67–8, 74–7, 79, 81, 83, 89–90, 97, 101–2, 104–7, 109–11, 115, 117–25, 129, 131, 134–5, 137, 141–4, 151–3, 156, 158, 160–63, 165, 167–8, 172–5, 177–83, 185, 187–8, 195, 200–209 pastoralism 89, 175, 180–82, 185, 203 pathetic 41–2, 48, 50–51, 53, 72, 74, 87, 97, 120, 122, 125, 127, 136, 138–9, 141, 149, 151, 155, 164–6, 168–9, 171, 185 peripeteia or peripetia 30–31, 41, 43–4, 47, 49, 65, 135–6, 138, 140, 166, 168 Petrarchan 43, 48–9, 52–3, 68, 71–7, 80– 81, 83, 85–90, 92, 94, 98–9, 103, 105–15, 117–24, 126–30, 136–9, 141–2, 144–56, 158, 161, 163–6, 169, 171, 174, 176, 178–9, 181, 183, 185–6, 197, 201, 203, 205 Petrarchism or “petrarchismo” 11, 43, 68–9, 72–6, 101, 106, 108–11, 114, 118, 122, 126–7, 142, 153–5, 163, 167, 179, 186, 195, 197 Petrarchist 74, 111, 126, 155 Petrarchistic 73, 109, 119, 121–2, 154–5 pharmakon v, 6, 11, 203–9 pietà / pietate or “compassione” 32, 37, 45–6, 80, 82–3, 110, 124, 143–4, 150, 165, 175–6 pity or compassion ix, 10, 15–16, 24–5, 29, 30–33, 35, 37–41, 43, 46, 48–9, 51–3, 60–61, 64, 80, 83, 87, 110, 121, 123–5, 130, 134, 136–41, 143–4, 146, 150, 164, 166–8, 176, 181, 200 pleasure or “piacere” 16, 21, 50, 60–61, 65, 77–8, 89, 104, 161, 175, 199–200, 207 Poetics (Aristotle) 7, 9, 14, 16, 19–21, 25–6, 30, 35, 38, 58, 63

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Pastoral Drama and Healing in Early Modern Italy

poikilia 15, 205 pointed, pointedness (acutezza) 8, 25, 69, 72, 88, 98, 101, 106, 108–9, 124, 153–4, 159, 160, 163, 169, 179, 179, 200 post-Tridentine 11, 51, 53, 85, 89, 128–9, 163, 173–4, 178–80, 182, 186, 195, 200 remedia amoris 1–3, 5, 203, 208 Republic (Plato) 14, 86, 205 Re Torrismondo (Tasso) 119, 121 132, 137 Rhetoric (Aristotle) 7–5, 21 Il Sacrificio (Beccari) 3, 89, 117, 119, 137, 181 sensualism 97, 101, 153–4, 170, 200 sprezzatura 159–61, 179–80, 197 sublime 47–53, 100, 135–6, 138–9, 169–72, 181 temperament or “temperamento” 8, 10–11, 17–22, 25–7, 30, 40–41, 43, 49, 51, 53, 55, 59, 64, 67, 69, 102, 104–5, 107–8, 110, 115, 118, 124, 133–6, 141–3, 151–2, 154, 158, 160, 161–6, 168, 170–73, 179–80, 182–3, 185, 187–8, 195, 201, 203, 207–8 terror or “terrore” 20, 30–31, 38–9, 42, 63, 130, 134 therapy, therapeutic vii, ix, 1–3, 5–6, 9, 11, 13, 18, 41, 49, 51, 53–4, 57–8,

64, 67–8, 70, 102, 105, 108, 110, 117–18, 128–30, 141, 155, 158, 163–5, 168–73, 185, 178, 182–3, 185, 187, 195, 200–201, 203–8 theriac or “theriaca” 5, 208 tragedy or “tragedia” ix, 5, 7, 10, 14–18, 25–6, 28–40, 42, 49, 51, 54–6, 59–65, 84–5, 90, 99, 105, 107, 121–2, 130–41, 161–2, 165–7, 170–72, 175, 186, 202–3 tragicomedy or “tragicommedia”, tragicomic or “tragicomico” 3, 5, 10, 13–14, 17, 20–22, 26, 28–31, 33, 41–3, 49, 52, 54, 56, 59, 61–5, 68, 76, 90, 102, 107–8, 117, 121–2, 127, 130–32, 135, 141, 151, 164–6, 168–9, 171–3, 179, 181–3, 203–4, 206–7, 211, 214–15, 218, 220, 225, 227 Triumphi (Petrarch) 75 Venus’ cave 83, 86, 88, 99, 200–201 Verrato primo, Verato secondo (Guarini) 20, 31, 40, 59–60, 204 verisimilar, verisimilitude or “verosimile” 11, 49, 53, 55–9, 58, 85, 87, 104–6, 120, 141, 161–2, 164, 166, 168, 203, 205 Wirkungsaesthetik or Wirkungsästhetik 7, 9, 20, 173