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GUARINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1537-1612)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 660 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GUARINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1537-1612) , See also:Italian poet, author of the Pastor fido, was See also:born at See also:Ferrara on the loth of See also:December 1537, just seven years before the See also:birth of See also:Tasso. He was descended from See also:Guarino da See also:Verona. The See also:young Battista studied both at See also:Pisa and See also:Padua, whence he was called, when not yet twenty, to profess moral See also:philosophy in the See also:schools of his native See also:city. He inherited considerable See also:wealth, and was able See also:early in See also:life to marry Taddea de' Bendedei, a See also:lady of See also:good birth. In 1567 he entered the service of See also:Alphonso II., See also:duke of Ferrara, thus beginning the See also:court career which was destined to prove a See also:constant source of disappointment and annoyance to him. Though he cultivated See also:poetry for pastime, Guarini aimed at See also:state employment as the serious business of his life, and managed to be sent on various embassies and See also:missions by his ducal See also:master. There was, however, at the end of the 16th See also:century no opportunity for a See also:man of See also:energy and intellectual ability to distinguish himself in the See also:petty See also:sphere of Italian See also:diplomacy. The See also:time too had passed when the profession of a courtier, painted in such glowing terms by See also:Castiglione, could confer either profit or See also:honour. It' is true that the court of Alphonso presented a brilliant spectacle to See also:Europe, with Tasso for titular poet, andan attractive circle of accomplished ladies. But the last duke of Ferrara was an illiberal See also:patron, feeding his servants with promises, and ever ready to treat them with the brutality that condemned the author of the Gerusalemme liberata to a mad-See also:house. Guarini spent his time and See also:money to little purpose, suffered from the spite and See also:ill-will of two successive secretaries,—Pigna and See also:Montecatini,—quarrelled with his old friend Tasso, and at the end of fourteen years of service found himself See also:half-ruined, with a large See also:family and no prospects. When Tasso was condemned to S.

See also:

Anna, the duke promoted Guarini to the vacant See also:post of court poet. There is an interesting See also:letter extant from the latter to his friend Cornelio See also:Bentivoglio, describing the efforts he made to fill this See also:place appropriately. " I strove to transform myself into another See also:person, and, like a player, reassumed the See also:character, See also:costume and feelings of my youth. Advanced in manhood, I forced myself to look young; I turned my natural See also:melancholy into artificial gaiety, affected loves I did not feel, exchanged See also:wisdom for folly, and, in a word, passed from a philosopher into a poet." How ill-adapted he See also:felt himself to this masquerade life may be gathered from the following See also:sentence: " I am already in my See also:forty-See also:fourth See also:year, the See also:father of eight See also:children, two of whom are old enough to be my censors, while my daughters are of an See also:age to marry." Abandoning so uncongenial a See also:strain upon his faculties, Guarini retired in 1582 to his ancestral See also:farm, the See also:Villa Guarina, in the lovely See also:country that lies between the See also:Adige and Po, where he gave himself up to the cares of his family, the See also:nursing of his dilapidated fortunes and the See also:composition of the Pastor fido. He was not happy in his domestic See also:lot; for he had lost his wife young, and quarrelled with his See also:elder sons about the See also:division of his See also:estate. Litigation seems to have been an inveterate See also:vice with Guarini; nor was he ever See also:free from legal troubles. After studying his See also:biography, the conclusion is forced upon our minds that he was originally a man of robust and virile See also:intellect, ambitious of greatness, confident in his own See also:powers, and well qualified for serious affairs, whose energies found no proper See also:scope for their exercise. See also:Literary See also:work offered but a poor sphere for such a character, while the enforced inactivity of court life soured a naturally capricious and choleric See also:temper. Of poetry he spoke with a certain See also:tone of condescension, professing to practise it only in his leisure moments; nor are his See also:miscellaneous verses of a quality to secure for their author a very lasting reputation. It is therefore not a little remarkable that the See also:fruit of his retirement—a disappointed courtier past the See also:prime of early manhood—should have been a dramatic masterpiece worthy to be ranked with the See also:classics of Italian literature. Deferring a further See also:account of the Pastor fido for the See also:present, the remaining incidents of Guarini's restless life may be briefly told. In 1585 he was at See also:Turin superintending the first public performance of his See also:drama, whence Alphonso recalled him to Ferrara, and gave him the See also:office of secretary of state.

This reconciliation between the poet and his patron did not last See also:

long. Guarini moved to See also:Florence, then to See also:Rome, and back again to Florence, where he established himself as the courtier of See also:Ferdinand de' See also:Medici. A dishonourable See also:marriage, pressed upon his son Guarino by the See also:grand-duke, roused the natural resentment of Guarini, always scrupulous upon the point of honour. He abandoned the Medicean court, and took See also:refuge with See also:Francesco Maria of See also:Urbino, the last See also:scion of the Montefeltrodella-Rovere house. Yet he found no See also:satisfaction at Urbino. " The old court is a dead institution," he writes to a friend; " one may see a See also:shadow of it, but not the substance in See also:Italy of to-See also:day. Ours is an age of appearances, and one goes a-masquerading all the year." This was true enough. Those dwindling deadly-lively little See also:residence towns of Italian ducal families, whose day of See also:glory was over, and who were waiting to be slowly absorbed by the capacious appetite of See also:Austria, were no See also:fit places for a man of energy and See also:independence. Guarini finally took refuge in his native Ferrara, which, since the See also:death of Alphonso, had now devolved to the papal see. Here, and at the Villa Guarina, his last years were passed in study, lawsuits, and polemical disputes with his contemporary critics, until 1612, when he died at See also:Venice in his seventy-fifth year. The Pastor fido (first published in 1590) is a See also:pastoral drama composed not without reminiscences of Tasso's Aminta. The See also:scene is laid in See also:Arcadia, where Guarini supposes it to have been the See also:custom to See also:sacrifice a See also:maiden yearly to See also:Diana.

But an See also:

oracle has declared that when two scions of divine lineage are See also:united in marriage, and a faithful shepherd has atoned for the See also:ancient See also:error of a faithless woman, this inhuman rite shall cease. The See also:plot turns upon the unexpected fulfilment of this prophecy, contrary to all the schemes which had been devised for bringing it to accomplishment, and in despite of apparent improbabilities of See also:divers kinds. It is extremely elaborate, and, regarded as a piece of cunning mechanism, leaves nothing to be desired. Each See also:motive has been carefully prepared, each situation amply See also:developed. Yet, considered as a See also:play, the Pastor fido disappoints a reader trained in the school of See also:Sophocles or See also:Shakespeare. The See also:action itself seems to take place off the See also:stage, and only the results of action, stationary tableaux representing the See also:movement of the drama, are put before us in the scenes. The See also:art is lyrical, not merely in See also:form but in spirit, and in See also:adaptation to the requirements of See also:music which demands stationary expressions of emotion for development. The characters have been well considered, and are exhibited with See also:great truth and vividness; the See also:cold and eager See also:hunter Silvio contrasting with the See also:tender and romantic Mirtillo, and Corisca's meretricious arts enhancing the pure See also:affection of Amarilli. Dorinda presents another type of love so impulsive that it prevails over a maiden's sense of shame, while the courtier Carino brings the corruption of towns into comparison with the innocence of the country. In Carino the poet painted his own experience, and here his See also:satire upon the court of Ferrara is none the less biting because it is gravely measured. In Corisca he delineated a woman vitiated by the same See also:town life, and a very hideous portrait has he See also:drawn. Though a satirical See also:element was thus introduced into the Pastor fido in See also:order to relieve its ideal picture of Arcadia, the whole play is but a study of contemporary feeling in Italian society.

There is no true rusticity whatever in the drama. This See also:

correspondence with the spirit of the age secured its success during Guarini's lifetime; this made it so dangerously seductive that See also:Cardinal See also:Bellarmine told the poet he had done more harm to Christendom by his blandishments than See also:Luther by his See also:heresy. Without anywhere transgressing the limits of decorum, the Pastor fido is steeped in sensuousness; and the immodesty of its pictures is enhanced by rhetorical concealments more provocative than nudity. Moreover, the love described is effeminate and wanton, felt less as See also:passion than as lust enveloped in a See also:veil of sentiment. We divine the coming age of cicisbei and castrati. Of Guarini's See also:style it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. The thought and experience of a lifetime have been condensed in these five acts, and have found expression in See also:language brilliant, classical, chiselled to perfection. -Here and there the See also:taste of the 17th century makes itself felt in frigid conceits and forced antitheses; nor does Guarini abstain from sententious See also:maxims which reveal the moralist rather than the poet. Yet these are but See also:minor blemishes in a masterpiece of diction, glittering and faultless like a polished bas-See also:relief of hard Corinthian See also:bronze. That a single pastoral should occupy so prominent a place in the See also:history of literature seems astonishing, until we reflect that Italy, upon the See also:close of the 16th century, expressed itself in the Pastor fido, and that the See also:influence of this drama was felt through all the art of Europe till the See also:epoch of the Revolution. It is not a See also:mere play. The sensual refinement proper to an age of social decadence found in it the most exact embodiment, and made it the See also:code of gallantry for the next two centuries.

The best edition of the Pastor fido is the loth, published at Venice (Ciotti) in 1602. The most convenient is that of Barbera (Florence, 1866). For Guarini's miscellaneous Rime, the Ferrara edition, in 4 vols., 1737, may be consulted. His polemical writings, Verato primo and secondo, and his See also:

prose See also:comedy called Idropica, were published at Venice, Florence and Rome, between 1588 and 1614. (J. A.

End of Article: GUARINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1537-1612)

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