Justice, Modesty and Compassion in Foscolo's Ajace

Vate era sommo, ed avea cinto l'armi,
E alteri come il brando eran suoi carmi.

--Silvio Pellico ¹

Whitehead's discussion of "Understanding" in Modes of Thought identifies the 19th century as the period of final resolution of Renaissance ideas, and consequently of Greek thought, a gathered edifice whose aesthetic limitations are too seldom remembered or applied critically to its historical recurrences. ² If human understanding is to be expanded in the modern period, says Whitehead, the multiple as well the unitary, the confused and manifold as well as the singular and orderly, must be included in our intellectual and aesthetic models. "In the history of European thought," he adds, "the discussion of aesthetics has been almost ruined by the emphasis upon the harmony of the details." ³ In Italy the transition out of neoclassicism into the Romantic period is multiple and confused in this way, a fact complicated by Italy's perennial classicism and identity as the cradle of the Renaissance. All too rarely have scholars given sufficient weight to the radically eristic nature of the romantic revolt; literary works whose details are not harmonious are simply deemed unworthy.

A case in point is the historical reception of Ugo Foscolo. Born in Zante, Greece, of a Greek mother and Venetian father, Foscolo's first studies were of the Greek classics. When he arrived on Italian shores it was with a great literary and patriotic passion, and a great proclivity for involving his personal aspirations in his literary endeavours. The tragedy I have chosen to study, Ajace, comes at a point in Foscolo's career when he has overcome his self-centeredness and left behind the contradictory self-projections of his twenties. In the real world of power, saturated by the animal instincts of man, Foscolo has come to realize that rebellion, no matter how righteous, is futile and self-defeating. This is the crux that presents itself in this difficult work, which steps beyond the harmony of the details and delivers in its formal synthesis a prophetic vision of modernity. The poor reception of Ajace, as Walter Binni has demonstrated, should not prevent us from considering it as a masterwork essential to any genuine understanding of Foscolo. ⁴

Before approaching the Ajace, I will look briefly at two earlier texts: "A Venezia" (1796), and the celebrated ode, De' Sepolcri (1806). As the first historian of the Italian sonnet, Foscolo was always sensitive, even in his earliest attempts, to the fragile thematic and musical equilibrium of the genre. "A Venezia" marks a step forward in his quick mastery of the form and is well known among later Italian patriots and activists. The poem is based, in essence, on a series of contrasts: between reality and myth; between the Venetian Republic's cowardly neutrality and the aura of its illustrious past; between the sorry state of a colonial Italy and the great future of the nation foreseen by Foscolo in his (for now) Vichian conception.

A Venezia
O di mille tiranni, a cui rapina
Riga il soglio di sangue, imbelle terra!
'Ve mentre civil fama ulula ed erra,
Siede negra Politica reina;
Dimmi: mai ti val se a te vicina
Compra e vil pace dorme, e se ignea guerra
A te non mai le molli trecce afferra
Onde crollarti in nobile ruina?
Già striscia il popol tuo scarno e fremente,
E strappa bestemmiando ad altri i panni,
Mentre gli strappa i suoi man più potente.
Ma verrà il giorno, e gallico lo affretta
Sublime esempio, ch'ei de' suoi tiranni
Farà col loro scettro alta vendetta.

[To Venice
Oh peace-throttled land, Throne coated
With blood by a thousand tyrants!
Your civic name roves about and cries out
As evil Politics reigns on high.
Tell me: what could it concern you
If cowardly peace shops and sleeps nearby,
If firey war never grips your soft tresses
To cause you to crumble in noble ruin?
Your gaunt and...