Headstrom, Birger R.

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THE HUMANISM OF BOCCACCIOBY BIRGER R. UKADSTROMIN the two distinct periods that combined to give definition toBoccaccios hfe, we find that each served to give expression, andto reveal, the subhmity and depth, not only of his genius, but of thequality which has earned him immortality—his humanism. Withoutthe profound mysticism of Dante, or the extraordinary sweetnessand perfection of Petrarch, he was more complete than either ofthem ; in his passion, his love, his suffering which defines the firstperiod of his life, he is full of laughter and humility and love,—that humanism which in him alone was really a part of his life;and which later, under profound grief and melancholy, developedinto that noble friendship with Petrarch,—a friendship which hasbecome one of the most beautiful things in literature, and in whichBoccaccio saw the beauty and glory of an idealism that later becameassociated with Erasmus.A poet by nature, sensitive to the influence of love, his passionfor the unfaithful Fiammetta controlled his entire life. She hadawakened in him the slumbering spark of genius ; and years laterher memory still continued to be his inspiration. Under the in-fluence of his love for her, he gave expression to his happiness bythe development of his creative genius. He wrote for her, firstto please her, and then to regain her. Even when she betrayedand deserted him—even though his love afifair was at an end, neverto be renewed—his love for her gave him hope and Inspiration,and found such beautiful expression in the work he wrote for her.Extraordinarily personal, his state of mind is visible in them. Onesimple thought seems to dominate his mind ; he had loved a princessand had been loved in return ; and though he had been forsaken byher she remained, in spite of all, the guiding star of his life. To182 THE OPEN COURTregain her love, he enchants her with stories, he glorifies her, con-stantly telling her his own story; but what hopeless means to winback the love of a woman ; what folly to suppose she will read histhousands of lines!"You are gone suddenly to Sammium," he writes to her inthe dedication to Filostrato, "and ... I have sought in theold histories what personage I might chqose as messengerof my secret and unhappy love, and I have found Troilus,son of Priam, who loved Criseyde. His miseries are m})history. I have sung them in light rhymes and in my ownTuscan, and so when you read the lamentations of Troilusand his sorrow at the departure of his love, you shall knowmy tears, my sighs, my agonies, and if I vaunt the beautiesand the charms of Criseyde you will know that I dream ofyou."It is an expression of his love. He wants her to know what hesuffers, to tell her of his experiences, his pains, his joys. Andthough the story serves as a means of self-expression, it is, in itsexquisite beauty of sentiment and verse, one of the loveliest ofhis works.But his sufferings, his journeyings, were but the progress ofpreparation for the work which was to give perpetuity to his name.In his travels, he became familiar with the people of his country,their joys, their sorrows, their pleasures, their hardships ; and inhis own sufferings, he learned life, learned to recognize and appre-ciate its beauties, its crudities. And then suddenly all the brightworld about Florence, among the woods of Vincigliata under Fiesoleand the olive gardens and podere of Corbignano, on the banks ofAffrico and Mensola , so full of voices for Boccaccio, was silenced.The end of the world had come, some said. In a sense it was true.For the Plague was the end of the Middle Age. And at Florence,the vengeance of God, or an outraged nature, had deprived Boccac-cio of all those for whom he had cared, or had lived, and nowalone, he retired from the world to devote himself to the taskof giving to posterity his great immortal work, which some havecalled the Human Comedy.It is rather strange that the work which best represents hisgenius, his humour and his wide tolerance and love of mankind,should be so different to his other works which are so involved withTHE HUMANISM OF BOCCACCIO 183his own affairs. It can probably be best explained by the transitionand change that had taken place in his soul, and which was to serveas an indication to that later period when a nobler and graverbearing gave definition to his friendship for Petrarch, and his inter-est and zeal in reviving the learning of the ancients.Even his style had undergone a strange change, a style which,for its beauty and simplicity of expression, was in a certain sense tomark the rise of Italian prose. It is true that Dante's Vita Nuovawas written before, but its involved sentences, founded essentiallyon Latin construction, cannot be compared with the infinite sup-pleness and precision of Boccaccio's prose. For the first time,Boccaccio prese?its a new idiom, which, like the character of thenation, is flexible and tender, and capable of rendering all theshades of feeling, from the coarse laugh of cynicism to the sighof hopless love. Like most progressive movements in art and litera-ture, his remodeling of Italian prose may be described as a "returnto nature." Indeed, it is the nature of the Italian people itselfwhich he has made articulate in the Decameron; we find southerngrace and elegance, blending with the unveiled naivete of implusewhich is such a striking and admirable quality of the Italian char-acter. And though the descriptions of low life, with its coarsenessand indecency, might seem incomprehensible to the northern mindbecause of the freedom with which the life of the Italian findsexpression, they are so admirable, and the character of the popularparlance rendered with such humour, that one cannot help but feelhe is one of them, even though their immorality might seem dis-gusting.The Decameron is a world in itself, and the effect upon thereader is the effect of life itself, which includes for its own good,things moral and immoral. It is Italy in the fourteenth century,and though with all its looseness, it is a philosophy of the world,with its variety, and infinity of people, dealing with man as lifedoes, never taking him very seriously, or without a certain indift'er-ence, a certain irony and laughter. Yet it is full, too. of a love ofcountry, of luck, of all kinds of adventures, gallant and sad ; atrue and realistic mirror of life in all its forms, among all classes,filled with observations of those customs and types that made upthe life of the time. Dramatic, comic, tragic, ironic, philosophicand ever lyrical ; indulgent of human error, it is a human book, per-184 THE OPEN COURTfeet in construction and in freedom, full of people, of living people—that is the secret of its immortality. They live forever. And yetit seems to lack a certain idealism—a certain moral sense—anidealism which would have given it balance, a sense of proportion.It was inevitable that a style so concise and yet so pliable, sotypical and yet so individual, as that of Boccaccio should exert anenormous influence upon the progress of the prose created by it.This influence has persisted down even to the present day, to anextent beneficial upon the whole 'although frequently fatal toindividual writers. But it is rather by its humanism that it hasearned its place in literature. Even Chaucer, who turned freely toit, is not so complete in his humanism, his love of all sorts andconditions of men ; Goethe, Shakespeare, Tennyson and many otherslooked to it for inspiration but in the literature of the world itstands, for its humanism, alone. Even the Divine Comedy cannotrock it from its pedestal.In this immortal work is revealed, without the slightest con-straint, the width and depth of his humanism, that admirable qual-ity, the richness and beauty of which testifies to the sublimity ofhis inspiration. For with its completion, Boccaccio is no longerthe same man, human, loving and tranquil, but rather sad, melan-choly and somewhat cynical, a cynicism that found such terribleexpression in that savage and mysterious satire, // Corbaccio. Fiam-metta was dead ; and with the realization of that stern fact, thepassion that had given him inspiration and expression to his crea-tive genius, expired. He had written for her alone; now that shewas dead he was sad, and his grief, on which he brooded, servedto offer room for imaginative fancies. He had been injured andtreated shamefully, woman was an evil creature, a tool of the archenemy, to torment and destroy mortal man ; and he found an outletfor his emotions in that wild invective against Woman, laughablein its wildness and unmeasured malice. But it was merely thereflection of the change that was taking place in his soul ; thechange that marks the transition from his youth to Tns maturity;from the freedom and exuberance of the boy to the grave anddignified bearing of the man. And when the storm had subsidedand he found comfort in Petrarch, he still continued to cherish herfond memory, for that vain shadow always haunted him, theemptiness in his heart never left him.THE HUMANISM OF BOCCACCIO 185In Boccaccio's deep and intimate friendship for the greathumanist, it was inevitable that he should become interested in thecause for which his friend was laboring. Partly to forget his grief,and partly to be able to follow in the footsteps of the man whomhe so greatly admired, he plunged with energy and enthusiasminto the work of reviving the learning of the ancient masters.Boccaccio was no scholar who saw in the literature of antiquitywisdom and thought, which Petrarch sought to make more pro-found, but rather, as a humanist, something living and splendid.He was no longer able to create living men and women; but hecould find in the vast literature of the past a wealth of materialwhich by industry and spade-work could be restored and givento the world. His devotion to this task, and his success, can bemeasured by the indebtedness of posterity to the classics of anti-quity.By his industry and interest in reviving the learning of the past,as well as the influence of the austere Petrarch, Boccaccio's human-ism gradually grew from the simple love of human nature toadopt a higher and an intellectual significance. Having been farfrom virtuous, he gradually recognized the need of spiritual en-lightenment and comfort, and the preparation for a future life.His conversion was precipitated, or rather hastened by that strangeincident of the Carthusian monk which produced such a deep reac-tion on his impressionable nature. Having often attacked the insti-tutions and servants of the holy mother church, and terrified bythe approach of immediate death, he resolved to abandon literatureand devote the remainder of his life to penance and religious exer-cise. Writing to Petrarch to this effect, he is cautioned in wordsof tenderest friendship not to lose hold of himself."No monk is required to tell thee," Petrarch writes inpart, "of the shortness and precariousness of human life.Of the advice received accept what is good ; abandon world-ly cares, conquer thy passions, and reform thy soul and lifeof degraded habits. But do not give up the studies whichare the true food of a healthy mind."This advice and wisdom Boccaccio heeded ; and learned morethan ever to look to his friend for guidance and comfort. Theirties of friendship were strengthened ; and Boccaccio, already illand weighed by the grief which he could never throw ofif, felt186 THE OPEN COURTStrangely drawn to the great scholar. He survived his friend buta short time.In summary, we can do no better in fitting tribute to Boccaccio'ssublime humanism, than to quote the few lines engraved on histombstone, an epitaph composed by himself shortly before his death.Calm and dignified, it is indeed worthy of a great life with a greatpurpose."Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Joannis;Mens sedet ante Deiim, mentis ornata lahorumMortalis vitae ; Genitor Baccaccius illi;Patria Ccrtaldum; studium fuit alma poesis."

The Humanism of Boccaccio.

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The Humanism of Boccaccio.

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