BRITISH POETS IN ITALY

Cue (NZERS), Issue 10, 31 October 1944, Page 11

BRITISH POETS IN ITALY

HE man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an I inferiority/' Dr. Samuel Johnson, famous 18th Century man of letters once •remarked. According to him, then, we have got domething here. We may or may not agree with Wordsworth, when he wrote in his x Tour of Italy. — : Fair Land! Thee all men greet with joy; how few Whose souls take pride in freedom, virtue, fame, Part from thee without pity dyed in shame.

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BE that as it may, through the centuries Italy has been a goal of travel for thousands of all races, the British not least. Some have come to pay homage at religious shrines, some to delve among archaeological ruins, some to study or to ’revel in the music , the sculpture, the painting and the architecture for which Italy is 4

renowned, some to seek health and Mediterranean sunshine, while some have come to fight. Of all Britons who have been associated with Italy, none are better known to New Zealanders than Byron, Shelley,' Keats and Browning. Their names at least are familiar to us, whether we are lovers of their works or whether

our .poetic enjoyment never survived the criminal infliction of ’’twenty lines a week" on our young minds. How many teachers will be damned before the ' Judgment ' Seat because they caused schoolboys to conclude that poetry is sissy and poets are poor fish? Lord George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats were all young poets who made their mark in English life and literature about the close of the Napoleonic Wars. f All lived in Italy towards the end of their lives, and all, despite their youth, earned a permanent place among the poets. The only other man of literary importance in Italy, with this group was Leigh Hunt, distinguished, however, for his advanced political views rather than for his literary works, though more familiar to us to-day through his wellknown Aboil Ben Adem'.

Their association with Italy covered the years 1810 to 1824. The Brownings lived in Italy from 1845 to 1861, and the two periods were linked by that of Walter Savage Lander, classical scholar and minor k poet, who spent many years in Italy between 1818 and 1865. . Keats, who wrote some of the finest poetry in our language, early fell victim to tuberculosis, and came to Italy in 1820 in search of health: He stayed

a fortnight in Naples, declined Shelley’s invitation to stay with him in Pisa, and reached Rome in November, 1820. There he was nursed by his. devoted friend Severn, but died in February, 1821, at the age of 26. Severn, who was an artist, designed a monument for his friend’s grave ana many years I'atet was buried beside him. Though Keats produced no poetry of importance after he came to Italy he was always an enthusiast and may well have been thinking of Italy when he wrote his Ode to a Nightingale. Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, . , And purplestained mouth; that I might drink and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade into the forest dim. Shelley, friend and admirer of Keats, was by nature a rebel against mental and social convention, and ever' a champion of freedom. In England he suffered for his beliefs, and sought on the Continent a freer and more congenial atmosphere. After travelling with .Byron in Switzerland, he came to Italy in 1818. During the next four years he stayed at various timds in Venice, Naples, Leghorn, Florence, Pisa and .Rome. At Rome he suffered bereavement in the death of his two children. In Italy he wrote many of his best works, including Prometheus Unbound and Adonais, an elegy inspired by the death of Keats. In Adonais he voiced something of his , feelings for Italy and for Rome in particular.' * Rome’s azure sky, Flowers, ruins,, statues, music, words are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting words to speak. In July, 1822, when he. was aged 30, Shelley sailed with a friend in a small boat to make the trip from Leghorn to Spezia. They were caught in a storm and were drowned two miles off Via Reggio. His body was’washed ashore and was cremated there in the presence of Hunt, Byron and Trelawney. The ashes

were taken to Rome and. buried in a new part of the ■ Protestant cemetery not far from Keats’s grave. In 1881 Trelawney, adventurer, author, and friend ’of Shelley, was buried there beside him. 7 Of the famous trio, the romantic and adventurous Lord Byron was the most convincing proof that a poet—and poetry was always his chief passion—is not necessarily effeminate. . ;

Though lame from infantile paralysis suffered in childhood, he became a good boxer, played cricket for Harrow at Lord’s and in later life, joined the select few who have swum the Hellespont. By his; personal charm and the appeal of his poetry, he early won such widespread popularity in England that all the young bloods of his day aped him, imitating his style of dress and even his limp. However, his private life and rebel spirit 'did not suit the conventional mind of the England of that time, and, from the age of 21, he spent most of his life on the Continent, where lie travelled extensively. In Italy, where he lived from 1816 to 1823, he wrote much of his best work, including Don Juan. Who can say whether he owed his inspiration more to Italy or to Teresa, Countess Guicolli —but that is another story. Byron lived for various periods in Venice', Ravenna, Bologna, Pisa and Genoa. In 1823 he left Italy to take an

active part in the .struggle of the Greeks in their fight for freedom against ’the Turks, and the following year, at the a » e of 36, died of marsh fever contracted on a campaign at Missolonghi. He reveals something of his appreciation of Italy, of the Italian tongue, and also of feminine charms, in the following extract from Beppo".— I. love the language, that soft bastard Latin, .Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, And sounds as if .it should be writ in satin ' . With syllables which breathe of the • sweet south. > Robert Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, herself a poetess, lived in Italy from 1845 . till 1861 when she died. It'was largely for her health that they came to Italy, but apart from that'she was always keenly interested in Italy and in the' Italian struggle for freedom. As for Browning, no attempt can be made here to dojustice to his literary greatness. . He has shown his feelings for Italy in the lines from De Gustibus: — : ' ' Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it Italy. r • , For all these poets, probably the least important fact, as far as their work is concerned, is that they lived in Italy.

They would have been great anywhere, and were already poets before they moved to Italy. Nevertheless, except for Keats who died soon after his arrival, they, were undoubtedly influenced by Italy and wrote some of their best works during their stay. \ For our part, if we have' the slightest appreciation of the glory of English poetry, and if we have the opportunity, ■we shall find immense interest in visiting two particular places in Rome. One is the first floor..apartment,at : No., 26 Piazza di Spagna, where Keats • spent

his last days. Mainly through the generosity of American lovers r of English literature, this was bought and preserved as the Keats-Shelley Memorial House. It now contains a Keats-Shelley-Byron-Hunt library of more- than 8,000 books and relics, and has become a modest monument to the influence of Italy on British literature. The other place of pilgrimage is where the two young poet-friends lie, far from their native land, in the Protestant Cemetery, beneath* the Aurelian Wall, near St. Paul’s Gate.