It would be unfair to say that these unsuccessful poets are typical of the Italian nation; but it can be safely stated that they are fairly representative of Italian weaknesses. A predominance of ill controlled feeling is the most inclusive characteristic of the group --a trait which is perhaps marked in Italians of the least desirable class. It is also significant, in contrast to Browning’s own nature, that no poet of his group of failures represents an intelligent, unselfish interest in human life.
VI. ITALIAN MEN OF LETTERS: DANTE.--Of the great Italian men of letters, Dante is the only one who is mentioned in _Sordello_, and with the exception of the Shelley references in _Memorabilia_ and _Pauline_, Browning pays him the most perfect tribute he ever gave a writer, in the last two lines of the following passage:
“Dante, pacer of the shore Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume, Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope, Into a darkness quieted by hope; Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God’s eye, In gracious twilights where his chosen lie.”
Referring to the fact that Dante’s _Divina Commedia_ includes Sordello as a character, and that _De Vulgari Eloquio_ praises him because he had first attempted to establish an Italian vernacular, Browning names Sordello as the forerunner of Dante. Again in the same poem, Dante is mentioned as having called the “Palma” of Browning’s poem “Cunizza,” and as having taken advantage of Sordello’s lost chance to establish a vernacular.
In most of the other poems, the references to Dante are merely incidental. _Up at a Villa_ refers to the great literary triumvirate of Italy, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as standing in the popular mind for all that is great in Italian letters. In _Time’s Revenges_ Dante appears as being, in the mind of a poor, starving poet, the highest possible standard of fame.
The only other Dante reference of any importance is in _One Word More_. In this poem, Browning’s most beautiful tribute to his wife, he represents every artist as wishing once, in his life, to honor his Margarita or his Beatrice. Dante, he says in speaking of that poet, once prepared to paint an angel, laying aside his own art of poetry. A historical basis for this statement is found in the _Vita Nuova_. But Browning, either intentionally or unintentionally, probably the former, for the purpose of making this basis accord with his poetical conception, departs from the facts in two important particulars. Dante plainly states that his attempt at the drawing grew out of his meditations on the anniversary of the death of Beatrice; and the people who broke in upon him were those of his own town, to whom he apologized for his delayed salutation, by “Another was with me.” Browning assumes that the picture was drawn to please Beatrice and that the people who interrupted symbolized Dante’s own thoughts about the characters of his _Inferno_.