THE WOOINGS OF FAMOUS POETS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2646, 30 November 1904, Page 76

THE WOOINGS OF FAMOUS POETS.

Literary celebrities filisre with royalty the unenviable distinction of having their affaires dv cceur dih-cussed and dissected by a critical public. This is, no doubt, an unavoidable circumstance, since they passions and the loves of posts, and, in a lesser degree, of all artists, in every branch of literature and painting, mus>t necessarily be reflected in that part of their lives of which the outer world is cognisant — iKimely, the creations of pen or pencil. The sympathetic reader — aye, the veriest dullard "armed with a "primer" — may tee a human heart laid bare upon the printed page, may feel the tumultuous pulses throbbing in "every woid. The student of a poem as a human document, as the appeal of a soul to the wide world for sympathy and understanding, may sometimes find a subtler, if a less impersonal, pleasure than he whose reading takes a pmely literary tone. — Tasso and the Princess*. — In the days of mediaeval Italy, when every lover was q, poet, every poet a lover, the object of such melodious wooing aften gained a fame which has lived in many cases longer than the poems which in the first place earned renown for the singer and his lady. Probably very few people have more than a nodding acquaintance with Torquaito Taseso's great epic, " Jerusalem Delivered," or even with the impassioned poet's amorous sonnets to the Princess Eleanora d'Este. The story of his imprisonment by the Princess's brother, the Duke of Este, has been generally accepted in a much more romantic form than that which history leads one to believe correct. Sooth to say, the poet would seem to have played the part of a silly, conceited fellow, and one cannot blame the Duke, in those days of primitive passions, for Ms rather drastic measures in dealing with the wooer. Tasso was the author of a number of amatory poems on the subject of his attachment to the Princess, and in certain of these He indulged in statements implying that the affair, which in point of fact was practically one-sideu, had reached a very advanced stage. Probably these poems had fallen into the Duke's hands, and therefore he seized upon Tasso and had him kept in close confinement as a lunatic. Roughly speaking, it is from these materials that the touching story has been moulded which shows us the devout lover, only kept apart from his true love by poverty and a difference in rank, Imprisoned in a maniac's cell by the tyrannous ducal brother. Kis quite certain that iasso was not madl; but the Duke anight easily be excused for thinking so ; and a proceeding which would probably have justice meted out to it in modern England by an unromanic introduction to an angry relative's boot, has received an old-woil'd glamour by the grim mention of prison walls and madhouse cells. — Danie and Beatrice. — What a wide gulf divides such amorous triflings from the duep, spiritual, reverent affection of Dante for his Beatrice! The poet's idealising love became a cleansing flame which destroyed all evil thought! and desires by the power of its own purity Until Beatrice Portiaari flashed upon his horizon, Dante's life had been, like that of most noble young men of the day, decid-edly licentious. From that tune forward, he led a life of the most exalted purity. Her image remains undimmed throughout his work. Despite her early death, apparently- when Dante was about 25 years old, her gracious piesence seems to be with him through his Jong life, keeping awake the hidden fires of love aud tenderness in the austere soul of the grim Florentine. Possibly no love affair, ieal or imaginary, has ever become so proverbial or so ideal as that of Dante paid, Beatrice. Pdi&eys have symbolised

thtir own piivatc griefs and passions under the semblance of Danto and his lady; poets etiiving to express the highest pilch of reverent devotion, have turned thither for inspiration. Many cloub+les*. are tho«e who sympatliise ■with Biovinhig, writing of the angel -which the poet, turned) painter, drew on the an-nivei-sary of the death of Beatrice : You and I would rather see that angel, Painted by the tenderness of Dante, "Would we not 9 — than read a fiesh Inferno. Yet there is a certain d-elicaey of feeling, alter all, which makes one shrink from breaking with noise and chatter into the silent secret places even of a dead man's heart. So far as the man reveals himself to us in his writings, so far as his private life has an intimate bearing upon his work, we do not trespass, however much we discuss and discover. — Leeds Mercury.