And precisely on this account my pen resembles
too much a pencil; precisely on this account I am too much of a
naturalist, and am too fond of losing myself in minute details. I am
as one, who, in walking, goes leisurely along, and stops every moment
to observe the dash of light that breaks through the trees of the
woods, the insect that alights on his hand, the leaf that falls on
his head, a cloud, a wave, a streak of smoke; in fine, the thousand
accidents that make creation so rich, so various, so poetical, and
beyond which we evermore catch glimpses of that grand, mysterious
something, eternal, immense, benignant, and never inhuman or cruel, as
some would have us believe, which is called God."
GUILIO CARCANO, ARNALDO FUSINATO AND LUIGI MERCANTINI
No one could be more opposed, in spirit and method, to Aleardo Aleardi
than Giulio Carcano; but both of these poets betray love and study
of English masters. In the former there is something to remind us of
Milton, of Ossian, who is still believed a poet in Latin countries,
and of Byron; and in the latter, Arnaud notes very obvious
resemblances to Gray, Crabbe, and Wordsworth in the simplicity or the
proud humility of the theme, and the courage of its treatment. The
critic declares the poet's aesthetic creed to be God, the family, and
country; and in a beautiful essay on Domestic Poetry, written amidst
the universal political discouragement of 1839, Carcano himself
declares that in the cultivation of a popular and homelike feeling in
literature the hope of Italy no less than of Italian poetry lies.
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