| Alessandro Manzoni - Opera Omnia >> The sacred hymns |
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ilmanzoni text integral passage complete quotation of the sources works historical five may poetry ode napoleon fifth in verses prologue preface, operaomnia # Written by Rev. J.F. Bingham The most unfathomable fountain, therefore, of poetic material of the grandest and most inspiring sort must be located in the Bible and encycled in the dogmas of the Christian Church. The adumbration there of things unseen, intangible, unthinkable -- the bottomless past, the boundless present, the inconceivable future, the inspirations of trust, of duty, of dread, of hope -- the whole subjective stream of thought, of emotion, the tout ensemble of which we call 'The Faith' -- than this, however commonplace and prosaic many, or most expressions of it are, there exists, there can exist, no other loftier pathway for the flight of imagination, or more inspiring subject matter for picturesque definition and effective amplification. This poetical opportunity has never been overlooked. On the contrary, it has been exploited by hosts of poetizers and hymn-writers in every age. To say nothing of the poetic prophecies and psalmodies in which, to so large an extent, the ante-christian faith lay embedded; passing over the magnificent canticles, such as the very ancient and anonymous Gloria in excelsis and the Te Deum of AMBROSE which for a millennium and longer have formed part of the daily worship of the universal church; to say nothing of a score or more of the best Latin hymns, such as Veni Creator Spiritus, anonymous, translated and imitated by so many later hymn-writers, Dies Irae of VON CELANO, Stabat Mater called of JACOPONE, etc., etc., -- all sung in Christian assemblies and welcomed in private as perennial inspirations of devotion in every age and in every quarter of Christendom; beyond this and equally true it is, that the varying shades of Christian belief, as well heretical as orthodox, so-called, have always perceived the popular power of poetic images and numbers and more especially of rhyme and used this power for the promotion of the tenets of their faith in all the centuries abundantly. ARIUS, in the beginning of the IV century, promoted the spread of his doctrine by writing "Songs for the Sea, for the Mill, and for the Highway" which a century later CHRYSOSTOM combated by counter-hymns in defense of the Catholic doctrine. JEROME, contemporary of the latter, tells us that in his day "you could not go into the fields but you should hear the plowman at his halleluiahs, the mower at his hymns and the vine-dresser intoning the [imitated] psalms." Very great names besides those already mentioned stand among the host of noted writers of sacred hymns during the Latin middle ages. Especially notable is CLEMENS PRUDENTIUS, in the V century, whose work in many respects more nearly resembles the Inni Sacri of MANZONI, than that of any other sacred hymnist before or since. Most of all is this true of his little book, Liber Cathemerinon [Diary (of prayers and meditations)], a collection of twelve religious lyrics, only two of which, however, the nth and the 1 2th, that on the Nativity and that on the Epiphany, have, like all those of MANZONI's Sacred Hymns, a special relation to the life of our LORD. Noteworthy as a hymn-writer in the VII century is the good, rather than poetic, Pope ST. GREGORY I; in the VIII, the venerable BEDE; in the XII, BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX with his: [Jesus the very thought of Thee] in 190 stanzas; in the XIII, THOMAS AQUINAS with his famous: Corporis mysterium, [Sing my tongue, sing famously The glorious Body's mystery,] which fixes the epoch of the transubstantiation dogma. In short, all the way from the IV to the XVI century innumerable anonymous hymns, in which theological formulę were embodied and sentiments of the Christian experience more or less sympathetically voiced, had a wider or narrower popular currency in the Church, sometimes taking obviously form and color from the time-spirit of the passing age, sometimes apparently aiding in no small degree to shape the religious character of the age upon which they have stamped their impress. At the beginning of the XVI century, with the rise of Protestantism, came a very great outburst of doctrinal and sentimental hymns, especially in Germany, where they singularly met the temper and taste of the country, were eagerly sung by the common people on all occasions and in all places and exerted an unmeasured force in spreading there the great schism. With an equal intensity of spirit, though with less extended result, the same phenomena appeared in France and in Scotland. In the former country, the first translation of the Psalms, by MAROT, in the beginning of the XVI century, wedded to native melodies, found an echo in the heart of the nation. "The king hummed them as he rode to the chase. The burghers of Paris sung them in crowds in the Prč aux Clercs. The sweet music was heard in the vineyards of Provence and on the market-boats of the Loire and the Rhone." Retouched and completed by BEZA, the translation lives in the Protestant worship to-day and is confessed on every side to have done much toward the progress of the Reformed theology there. In Scotland, as well, a considerable satisfaction of the popular heart and a distinct nourishment of the intellect and the imagination have been drawn from religious canticles adapted to old favorite melodies and widely diffused. The old rugged but effective translation of the Psalms, sung with full emphasis and hearty response, served well as a sympathetic background for the furious eloquence of KNOX and the stern warfare of the Covenanters. English effective hymnology came later; and ranked by the test of popularity, certainly, and perhaps we may add of apparent results, the name of WATTS must stand in one of the highest places. His flowing numbers greeted the little one in the cradle, insinuating themselves irresistibly into his memory never to leave, followed him through every step of the Christian life, hovered over his waking bed in the night watches of health, warbled spiritual comforts at his bedside in days of pain and sickness and descended with him into the grave itself under a roll of simple but inspiring music that takes hold on immortality. CHARLES WESLEY, standing almost the rival perhaps of WATTS, but rather in the subjective and emotional elements of the Christian life, labored not without great efficiency in his stirring music of the bagpipe, mainly to rouse to the fight against the forces of evil and to the struggle for Heaven. Later, the results in the Anglican Church of KEBLE'S Christian Year, where "you listen to a music like the lulling chime of church-bells," cannot be overlooked; and later still, in the English Catholic Communion and far beyond, the religious effect is notorious of FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER'S sweetly stirring metres and rhymes. These great representative names constitute but a fragment of a proper specimen even and in the first rank only, of the innumerable multitude of hymn-writers in all time, whose strains have filled the ears of believers and unbelievers and wrought mightily to form the sentiments and guide the conduct of individuals, as well as to shape the current of teaching, in many cases, of the Church herself. And the practical importance and efficiency of the whole tribe has ever been indisputable and markedly apparent, even when (as has happened infinitely the most often), the production is colorless and quite without value as poetry, critically considered. So much so, as every one knows, that the mass of hymns which in every age have been the most popular and apparently the most potent in realizing the motive of their creation have consisted of simple prose arranged in rather musical measures enhanced with rhyme. Such, with the rarest exceptions of here and there an inspired stanza or two, are in fact the productions even of the great names mentioned above. Often, indeed, rising to great propriety and beauty of expression and carrying thoughts of course of the highest value and usefulness, still they are not poetry in the critical sense. From this it has seemed to follow and has been accepted in some quarters as a general truth, that no great hymn-writer will be a great poet; and no great poet a great hymn-writer. In proof of this it is easy to ask for the Poems of WATTS and the rest; and to note that MILTON and DANTE, whose prolific pens are always magnificently poetic and always dipped in dogma and in sentiment, have each left but one or two specimens of available Christian hymns. The indication of a few very familiar examples will suffice to exhibit my meaning. Take first, HENRY KIRKE WHITE'S inspired and inspiring Hymn, so-called (whether correctly or no, is not the question here), entitled THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM, commencing: This I suppose is poetry of the most undisputed type in every line, striking and pleasing from its exquisite poetical beauty, rather than calculated to awaken profound devotional passion. WHITE was, prospectively considered, a very great Poet but not a great hymn-writer. Compare the Hymn, so called, so used and far more widely famous, of NAHUM TATE (as hymnwriter practically a rival, in the Anglican Church, of the great Dissenter, ISAAC WATTS), commencing: If this is to be deemed anything more than simple prose arranged in metre and rhymed, perhaps it might be fairly named a sacred ballad, without sharply defining the limits of that term. Though not poetry, in the highest critical sense, yet by a picturesque simplicity, a mellifluous flow of numbers and the invincible charm of rhyme, it has pleased the popular fancy and fixes itself immovably in the memory, but without greatly arousing devotional passion. Finally, it must suffice to cite but one more familiar example and this time from the pen of WATTS himself. Let it be the Hymn, so-called, commencing: Here every stanza and every line, though far enough from being chiseled to perfect elegance, fulfills, I imagine, the undisputed conditions of poetry. While teaching religious dogma, it is indisputably a lyric poem; and with no feeble voice addresses, also, devotional passion. WATTS wrote some others of the same character, like that commencing: but in comparison with the massive bulk of his work they are few indeed. Still they establish beyond cavil his title of lyric poet, however we may classify the greater part of his work, or smile at his longer productions. Now I wish to point out that the Sacred Hymns of MANZONI (Gl'Inni Sacri) belong to this last mentioned category, but with an important difference of motive and of execution. The work of the Italian Poet, lyric in the extended sense of the term, was not designed, primarily at least, to be sung in public functions of worship; but rather for the edification and enjoyment of Christian people in their closets and in their homes. In point of fact the beautiful verses are actually so used to-day throughout Italy and wherever the language of si is spoken. Thousands of infantile nurseries, and hearts if not bedchambers of adult persons of every degree, daily echo with this creation of unsurpassably elegant poetry as well as profoundly inspiring sentiment. It equally mingles in the meditations of the Philosopher and is coupled with infant prayers. To speak in general, two things are to be especially noted in the literary development of the Sacred Hymns -- qualities, indeed, which belong to all MANZONI'S later work -- namely, the absence of poetical allusions to the Pagan classics, which is one of the fundamental dogmas of romanticism of which he was the high-priest in Italy; and the humanizing element, conspicuous in the picturesque terms and the figures of speech that he chooses, in which his ideas, held as it were in solution, flow on in a stream clear and strong that touch of nature which makes all men kin. But the unique distinction of these Sacred Hymns lies in the novelty and elegance of their architecture and in the impeccable perfection of their literary finish. The early Latin compositions of PRUDENTIUS and the rest on the same and similar themes are so deficient artistically as to be out of the category of comparison with the Italian Poet. The enormous product of later times, especially the fruits of Protestantism in its Protean forms, though often presenting very perfect, sometimes even brilliantly beautiful specimens of true poetry, devotional and inspiring, consists in the best instances of fragments too sporadic and too brief to afford an opportunity for structural comparison with this finished series; and the general aim of these fragmentary creations is too religiously emotional, to yield distinct place to the highest literary effort. MANZONI, in the Inni Sacri planned to rear, complete in frame-work and elaborated to a finish in every detail, a single ideal edifice -- a literary structure that should stand out in the world for the ages to come a written monument at once of delight to the taste of the cultivated and as well, (as the Church of St. Roche had proved for him in the days of his tottering faith) an effluent source of quickening devotion alike to the learned and the lowly. Twelve hymns of curiously chiseled workmanship should be set, like monolith columns carved in artistic beauty, to support the foundation of the Church of God, "the House not made with hands," containing "the Faith once delivered to the Saints." Like the temples of marble which are designed to endure, this was no work of a day, or a month, or a year. The labor upon it moved slowly, the period of construction continued to be prolonged, and a decade had elapsed, while yet it was not unveiled entire to the eyes of the world. It was begun under the very glow of the dawn of the new day of his returning faith. It was wrought upon during the years of his maturing genius, and only after the nation and the world were ringing with astonished admiration over the Napoleonic elegy, Cinque Maggio, was his final hand put to the fifth and last column of the immortal structure. I cannot understand that it should be possible for any even moderately sensitive soul -- believer or unbeliever in the dogmas that underlie them -- to read with care the pregnant lines of these Hymns and not feel waking within him -- will he or nil he -- that movement of sentiment which evidences the deathless power of the creations of a great poet. Notwithstanding the fact that the original design, conceived and entered upon more than ten years before, contemplated twelve distinct poems or cantos, namely, stated in natural order: 1. The Nativity.five only were written and these in the following order: 1. The Resurrection (April-June, 1812).-- Whenever, it should seem, the arbitrary inspiration fell upon him. Of the reasons for this in each or any case nothing is known. The work, however, as it stands, is by no means to be considered fragmentary. Not only is each single Hymn a symmetrical and finished creation and even every stanza, or pair of stanzas (in one or two instances a group of three or four), the finished treatment of its own theme, like the chapters of a well-written book, but the tout ensemble is made integral and complete, in the mind of the Poet, by these five Hymns, chosen, correlated and conjoined substructures of the one great great Temple of The Faith. They are, in fact, architecturally so nicely contrived and adjusted to one another, that for catching the composite beauty and feeling the full power of the Poet's work, they should be read for the first time, at least, at one sitting. Afterward they may well be studied singly in detail; the more carefully the more admirable will their artistic perfection appear. For it is one of the wonderful qualities of all MANZONI'S work, and in none more conspicuously so than in the creation of these glittering Hymns, that it gains in admiration by microscopic scrutiny. |
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