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CHIABRERA, GABRIELLO (1552-1637)
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See also:CHIABRERA, GABRIELLO (1552-1637) , See also:Italian poet, some-times called the Italian See also:Pindar, was of patrician descent, and was See also:born at See also:Savona, a little See also:town in the domain of the Genoese See also:republic, twenty-eight years after the See also:birth of See also:Ronsard, with whom he has far more in See also:common than with the See also:great See also:Greek whose See also:echo he sought to make himself. As he has told in the pleasant fragment of autobiography prefixed to his See also:works, in which, like See also:Caesar, he speaks of himself in the third See also:person, he was a See also:posthumous See also:child; he went to See also:Rome at the See also:age of nine years, under the care of his See also:uncle Giovanni. There he read with a private See also:tutor, suffered severely from two fevers in See also:succession, and was sent at last, for the See also:sake of society, to the See also:Jesuits' See also:College, where he remained till his twentieth See also:year, studying See also:philosophy, as he says, " piit per trattenimento the per apprendere,"—rather for occupation than for learning's sake. Losing his uncle about this See also:time, Chiabrera returned to Savona, " again to see his own and be seen by them." In a little while, however, he returned to Rome, and entered the See also:household of a See also:cardinal, where he remained for several years, frequenting the society of See also:Paulus See also:Manutius and of Sperone Speroni, the dramatist and critic of See also:Tasso, and attending the lectures and See also:hearing the conversation of Mureto. His revenge of an insult offered him obliged him to betake himself once more to Savona, where, to amuse himself, he read See also:poetry, and particularly Greek. The poets of his choice were Pindar and See also:Anacreon, and these he studied till it See also:grew to be his ambition to reproduce in his own See also:tongue their rhythms and structures, and so to enrich his See also:country with a new See also:form of verse—in his own words, " like his country-See also:man, See also:Columbus, to find a new See also:world or drown." His reputation was made at once; but he seldom quitted Savona, though often invited to do so, saving for journeys of See also:pleasure, in which he greatly delighted, and for occasional visits to the courts of princes whither he was often summoned, for his See also:verse's sake, and in his capacity as a dramatist. At the ripe age of fifty he took to himself a wife, one Lelia Pavese, by whom he had no See also:children. After a See also:simple and blameless See also:life, during which he produced a vast quantity of verse—epic, tragic, See also:pastoral, lyrical and satirical—he died in 1637, at the patriarchal age of eighty-five. An See also:epitaph was written for him in elegant Latin by See also:Urban VIII.; but on his tombstone are graven two See also:quaint Italian hexameters of his own, in which the gazer is warned from the poet's own example not to prefer See also:Parnassus to See also:Calvary. A maker of odes in all their elaborate pomp of See also:strophe and See also:antistrophe, a See also:master of new and complex rhythms, a coiner of ambitious words and composite epithets, an employer of audacious transpositions and inversions, and the inventor of a new See also:system of poetic diction it is not surprising that Chiabrera should have been compared with Ronsard. Both were destined to suffer See also:eclipse as great and sudden as had been their See also:glory. Ronsard was succeeded by See also:Malherbe and by See also:French literature, properly so-called; Chiabrera was the last of the great Italians, and after him literature languished till the second See also:renaissance under See also:Manzoni. Chiabrera, however, was a man of merit, apart from that of the See also:mere innovator. Setting aside his epics and dramas (one of the latter received the honours of See also:translation at the hands of See also:Nicolas Chretien, a sort of scenic du Bartas), muchof his See also:work remains yet readable and pleasant. His See also:grand See also:Pindarics are dull, it is true, but some of his Canzonetle, like the See also:anacreontics of Ronsard, are exceedingly elegant and graceful. His autobiographical See also:sketch is also extremely interesting. The simple old poet, with his See also:adoration of Greek (when a thing pleased him greatly he was wont to talk of it as " Greek Verse "), his delight in journeys and sight-seeing, his dislike for See also:literary talk See also:save with intimates and equals, his vanities and vengeances, his See also:pride in the memory of favours bestowed on him by popes and princes, his " See also:infinite' maraviglia " over See also:Virgil's versification and See also:metaphor, his fondness for masculine rhymes and See also:blank verse, his quiet See also:Christianity, is a figure deserving perhaps of more study than is likely to be bestowed on that " new world " of See also:art which it was his glory to See also:fancy his own, by See also:discovery and by See also:conquest. The best See also:editions of Chiabrera are those of Rome (17'8, 3 vols. 8vo) ; of See also:Venice (1731, 4 vols. 8vo) ; of See also:Leghorn (1781, 5 vols. 12mo) ; and of See also:Milan (1807, 3 vols. 8vo). These only contain his lyric work; all the See also:rest he wrote has been See also:long forgotten. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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