ARIOSTO, SHAKESPEARE AND CORNEILLE
BY
BENEDETTO CROCE
TRANSLATED BY
DOUGLAS AINSLIE
"RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.I
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD.
1920
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Evviva L'Italia! Italy, Britain's ancient friend and loyal ally, hasbeen an important factor both in winning the war and in bringing it toan earlier conclusion. The War! That greatest practical effort thatthe world has ever made is now over and we must all work to make it abetter place for all to live in.
Now at the hands of her philosopher-critic, Italy offers us a firsteffort at reconstruction of our world-view with this masterly treatiseon the greatest poet of the English-speaking world, so original and soprofound that it will serve as guide to generations yet unborn. And itwill not be only the critics of Shakespeare who should benefit by thistreatise, but all critics and lovers of poetry—including prose—whogo beyond the passive stage of mere admiration. The essays on Ariostoand Corneille are also unique and the three together should inaugurateeverywhere a new era in literary criticism.
These are the first of Benedetto Croce's literary criticisms to see thelight in English.
They are profound and suggestive, because based upon theory, theTheory of Aesthetic, with which some readers will be acquainted inthe original, others in the version by the present translator. Thesewill not need to be told that Croce's theory of the independence andautonomy of the aesthetic fact, which is intuition-expression, and ofthe essentially lyrical character of all art, is the only one thatcompletely and satisfactorily explains the problem of poetry and thefine arts.
But this is not the place for philosophical discussion, althoughit is important to stress the point, that all criticism is basedupon philosophy, and that therefore if the philosophy upon which itis based is unsound, the criticism suffers accordingly. Croce haselsewhere shown that the shortcomings of such critics as Sainte-Beuve,Taine, Lemaître and Brunetière are due to incorrect or insufficientphilosophical knowledge and a similar criterion can be applied at homewith equal truth.
The translator will be satisfied if the present version receives equalpraise from the author with that accorded to the four translations ofthe Philosophy into English, which Croce has often declared to comemore near to his spirit[Pg v] than those in any other language—and he hasbeen translated into all the great European languages—the Aestheticeven into Japanese. The object adhered to in this translation has beenas close a cleaving as possible to the original, while preserving acompletely idiomatic style and remaining free from all pedantry.
A translation should not in any case be taken as a pouring from thegolden into the silver vessel, as used to be erroneously supposed, forCroce has proved that in so far as the translator rethinks the originalhe is himself a creator. This explains why so many writers have beenaddicted to translation—in English we have Pope, Fitzgerald, Rossetti,to name but three of many—and the author of the Philosophy of theSpirit, Croce himself, has published a splendid Italian version ofHegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophic Sciences.
DOUGLAS AINSLIE.
The Athenaeum,
Pa