These effects follow from the parity of language between writers and nation, and occur in a greater or a lesser degree depending upon whether the cause is greater or lesser. In France it is great indeed, and not only this parity of language but also the actual popularity and national feeling of writers and literature. In Italy today (for in the fourteenth century it was very much the reverse) the written language of writers, though it differs much less from the spoken language than was the case with Latin, does nonetheless differ, or so I believe, more than it does in any other educated country, or certainly any European one. [842] And this may perhaps account in part for the absolute lack of popularity of our literature, and for the fact that the best books are in the hands of a single class, and are addressed to it alone, although as far as the subject is concerned they may have nothing to do with that class. It also stems, however, from the absolute lack of culture and literature and the utter neglect of study even for amusement that prevails among the other classes in Italy, a neglect that comes in the final analysis from the absence in Italy of all life, all sense of nation, all activity, and also from the total lack of liberty and hence originality of writers, etc. etc. These causes are likewise mutually reinforcing—specifically with respect to the disparity between the written and the spoken language—and all of them through their reciprocal effects help to keep all sense of homeland, all life, and all activity far from Italy, to hamper all originality in writers, and, finally, to maintain the absolute division that continues between the literary class and the rest, and between Italian literature and the Italian nation. In the sixteenth century, and also during the seventeenth century, although written Italian [843] had diverged from spoken Italian, and far more so than in the fourteenth century (not as much as nowadays, however), literature still continued to be in a very close relation, if not with the common people, at least with classes that were certainly not professionally engaged in literature, and therefore it was transmitted to foreigners as well. And this was in part because the nation still preserved some patriotic love and patriotic spirit, some activity and life, and the writers sufficient liberty and originality, and in part because the Italian that was spoken was still Italian, more or less, and not barbarous, as it is today, when if one were to write as one speaks, one would not be writing Italian, indeed one would be hard pressed to make oneself understood in the nation itself. And the study of language was more widespread then, and of literature, too, and it was more vivid and lively, and there was a greater number of professional men of letters, and good writers, and people who, without being men of letters, knew enough literature to be good readers, and to care about reading. And the topics treated were more national, more important, more novel, [844] more appropriate to the writer, etc.; in short, there was a different literary spirit both in writers and in the nation.
Suppose we apply these same principles not to modern but to ancient languages. Among the ancients, in whom imagination was far stronger than dry and unhappy reason, the form and structure of a language could not be so reasonable, so much in accord with the strict truth and order of things as it might be in some modern languages. We should therefore not expect to find the reasons for the universality of an ancient language corresponding too closely with those needed to produce the same result in a modern language. An ancient language could be suited to universality to a certain degree, and might achieve it, but never as much as a modern one. Although the Greek language was more figurative than not only French but also Italian (I mean Italian when an excessive and unnatural conformity with Latin procedure does not make it stray as it strayed in the 16th century, by contrast with [845] the 14th century, and with its true nature), it possessed in its original guise a form that, if it was not reasonable, was eminently natural, simple, and flowing. For as long as it maintained its true genius, it also maintained this attribute. It maintained it in Herodotus, in Xenophon, in the Attic Orators,1 and generally in more or less all the writers of its best times, depending upon their relative antiquity. Although the writers that followed these were also good, and were far from being turgid, precious, markedly obscure, or excessively complex and immodest in style and language, they nevertheless greatly distanced the language from the native, plain, spare, spontaneous, and simple beauty and grace of its first and best writers, and violated its original nature and character, bringing it closer to Latin structure than its own. This can be observed in Polybius and in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but still more in subsequent authors, like Lucian, but far more, and above all, in Longinus. Very elegant writers [846] no doubt, with an elegance that is not affected, impure, corrupt, or unhealthy, but that differs from the utterly simple elegance of the ancient Greek language, and if not opposed to and incompatible with certainly remote from its original nature and practice. Much the same can be said of various sixteenth-century authors, who perhaps followed their Latin models too closely, but were not corrupted, mannered, or contrary to the nature of the Italian language, different though they were from the original practice of the language as shown in fourteenth-century writers. Among the latter the Italian language, just as it greatly resembles Greek in its development, so, too, had to suffer the same—though not in itself bad—diversification that the Greek language, as I have said, suffered; and, as in Greek, there gradually ceased to be that parity of language which had existed between writers and nation, in both languages, as I will shortly explain in the case of Greek. From being very simple, ancient Greek writing gradually became, if not obscure, at any rate difficult, having declined into the highly wrought and ornate language that at the same [847] time, or a little earlier or later, became characteristic of the Latins, from whom I can readily believe that the practice and taste were passed on to the Greeks (but one would have to scrutinize the Greek writers between Demosthenes and those alive in Roman times), although such practice and taste could very naturally arise from study, from the Atticists who were coming to the fore, from everything turning into rules, and elegance into measure and reflection and research, etc. Longinus, though lavishly bedecked with all the possible elegances and refinements of the Greek language, sought them out so diligently, and piled them up so high (without being mannered, however), that you could find more figurative phrases and expressions in him than in ten ancient Greeks put together, and whether because of this or because of the intricate, composite, manipulated nature of his orations, the lengthy and closely interwoven periods, and the circumlocutions, etc., he proves as difficult as the most difficult and elaborate Latin authors. Indeed, so closely does he resemble the latter that, noting in particular his study of Cicero, I do not doubt that Longinus, for his part, derived his style from the Romans, and that he had transposed or sought to transpose, [848] or it was as if he had transposed, the nature and spirit of Latin into the Greek language. To the extent, however, that the latter permitted, for in any case it keeps its distinctive appearance even in Longinus, as all languages always do. I won’t discuss the Sophists and other writers of the poorest Greek literature, including the literature that was already languishing without hope (as in the times of Theophylactus Archbishop of Bulgaria).1 When such authors wished to dress in all their finery, and wrote in a way that joins the striving for effect, sinuosity, and tortuousness of their language to the vicious and corrupt striving for effect, wit, and obscurity of their style, the difficulty of understanding their writings is as great as their uselessness once they have been understood.
This decline of the Greek language from its original path and practice and nature may be illustrated by considering Isocrates’s language. He is so famous for the great care and precision he employed in the choice and ordering of words, in the structure and harmony of periods, that one might readily believe that, although by date he belongs with those [849] ancient authors whom I have differentiated from the more modern, in the character of his language he belongs more with the latter. And yet, no matter how great his diligence may have been, it is so well hidden, and his language, the arrangement and ordering
of his words, the structuring of periods and of the oration are so plain, simple, smooth, natural, and spontaneous that he not only does not diverge from the original nature of his language but manages to be clearer, simpler, and more pared down than several of the very best, and certainly no less so than any of them. So much so that if you were to compare Isocrates, who is considered to be the most elegant and the most accurate of the best Greek writers, with the least elegant and elaborate of the good Greek writers, the latter will prove to be much more difficult, and less plain and straightforward, than he is. So it is that, just as Xenophon and Herodotus show us what simplicity and sweetness were, and Thucydides and Demosthenes the might and sinew of ancient Greek, so Isocrates shows us what its elegance and finesse were, and how different they were from the qualities introduced under those names [850] in times and by writers who were still good and very noteworthy, but not the best in Greek literature.
For as long as Greek literature endured in its earliest and best state, the difference between the spoken and the written language was slight and, I believe, not much greater than that now existing in France. Among the many other proofs that might be advanced, I would point to the fact of Herodotus reading his history to the people, and his thereby earning, as everyone knows, much applause from the nation.1 This is something that would not have happened if Guicciardini (all else being equal) had read his history to the multitude. And if Titus Livy or Tacitus had done the same, that is reading not before selected and knowledgeable judges (being judged, or having to be judged, by just a few), do we suppose that they would have succeeded in being applauded by the multitude?2 As for the Orations of famous Latin orators, spoken in assembly, everyone knows that their written and spoken forms differed, and therefore we cannot argue on the basis of those we have by Cicero [851] that he used that same language with the people.
So then the naturalness, simplicity, and formal ease of the Greek language, in both its ancient writers and the nation, and the near uniformity of language used by writers and the people that was a consequence of it served together in combination, since the one occasioned the other, to make Greek suitable to universality: suitable, I should point out, in relation to the times, and not so much as it would have to be today, or so much as French. For a language to be universal today, it has to be arid and geometric, where Greek was vivid and natural; it has to be restricted, where Greek was generous and rich; it has to not be beautiful, where Greek was very beautiful. Consequently, Greek was not fully or consistently universal, nor can any beautiful and natural language ever be so. For both the above-mentioned reasons, however, and those given in another thought [→Z 239–45], Greek served that universality only as loosely [852] understood, and not absolutely, as might suit an age when neither reason, nor precise knowledge, nor philosophy, nor precision in an absolute sense, nor reciprocal commerce between nations, and between individuals belonging to them, had made progress comparable in scale or extent to that of today. And it may also be noted that, just as they were still times of imagination and not of reason, so too (although the former is various, and the latter monotonous, and everywhere uniform) the same imagination that governed that language among the Greeks also allowed other peoples who were still ruled by imagination to adjust without too much difficulty to that language, for it conformed to the character of those times, and to feel that the naturalness of that language corresponded to their own inclinations (when I refer here to naturalness, I regard it as the opposite of reasonableness and geometry, and intend to employ it in this sense).
It is obvious that the more natural, simple, supple, and not whimsical in the hands of writers the direction of a language is, [853] the more it will conform to the character of everyday, popular speech. And that just as these qualities in a language make it more or less suitable for universality, so too do they make it suitable for this conformity between the spoken and the written form, a conformity from which a great aptitude for universality again arises. Because the speech of the people, although ordinarily imaginative no matter what the nation, is for this reason always simple, plain, supple, or always tends to have these qualities; it has naturalness in its ordering, and avoids the elaborate, the arbitrary, and everything that derives purely from an individual or from a specific class of individuals, rather than from the nature of both things and people—a nature that, though different from reason, and much more various and abundant and luxuriant than reason, nevertheless is very much alike everywhere and in every people. Hence the ordinary language of any people, especially when used by those nations which belong to one and the same class (such as the cultured nations of Europe) and form a kind of family, such a language, [854] I maintain, at any rate within the confines of such a family of nations, is always more or less suited in itself, leaving aside particular circumstances, to universality. This is not the case, however, with the language of writers, who, as they gradually diverge from the popular course of the language, very often also diverge from its universal character. And thus the written language of one nation or another, as little by little it develops in its own way, and takes on its own special qualities, and by virtue of this particularity and specificity begins to diverge from the universally recognized line, so it distances the language from the universality to which it was naturally suited. Since, just as the nation’s language influences that of the writer, so too does the written language influence the spoken. So much so that even the popular language of a nation, though certainly well-suited at the beginning to universality, can and does in effect more or less lose or diminish its aptitude in this regard.
[855] This effect of writers, and the differentiation of the written language from the natural direction of the language, happened in Greece, but belatedly, and after its finest writers. It has not happened in France. It continued in Italy from the sixteenth century onward. It continued in Rome, in the first consolidation of the written Latin language and through the efforts of the first truly classical authors of that nation, about whom I have still to speak.
The first Latin writers, who even if they are lost are known from fragments or from the little of theirs that nevertheless remains, had, like the first writers in any language, a natural and simple way of writing that comes close to the true and ancient genius of Greek and to that of early Italian, that is to say Italian of the fourteenth century, and consequently also to their national spoken language. Which can also be shown for other reasons, if their simple, easy style were not enough to convince us that they did not diverge markedly from Vulgar Latin. [856] One such reason, or argument and conjecture (since only written, not spoken, Latin has survived), is the fact of our finding a good number of words, expressions, and forms that are not featured in the classical Latin authors yet which have entered or resemble those which have entered our language, a language derived in large part (as powerful arguments prove) from Vulgar Latin. And, in general, much in these ancient Latin authors (even in the slightest minutiae and material aspects, including the spelling) conforms closely with Italian, and far more so than is the case with later Latin writers.1
Judgments vary as to why it was that no sooner had the written Latin language assumed a stable form and attained perfection it diverged more from the spoken language than any of the world’s cultured languages had ever done. Some point to the different times at which the best Greek and the best Latin literature was produced (for the best of Greek literature indubitably appeared in periods of greater naturalness, indeed its best periods corresponded to those of the Greek republic, whereas the best periods of Latin literature were exactly contemporary with the decline and moral and political corruption of the Roman people, brought on by the excess of civilization, and the excess of power that caused it). Others, however, point to the fact that the [857] Greeks shaped their literature and taste on their own, and therefore more naturally, whereas the Romans modeled theirs on the Greeks. (It was therefore wholly the product of study; at its very birth it found the art of writing already formed and mastered, and with
the help, example, and instruction of a foreign nation it made such swift progress that nature barely had the time to precede art, and Latin literature was immediately and wholly at the mercy of rules, and was avowedly artificial and polished. In addition to this, in Greece, too, the same art was already succumbing to excess, so as to leave nothing any longer to nature, with the result that Latin literature at once far surpassed that of contemporary Greece, for it is only natural that in a country where literature is recent it does not decline before it has been excellent, and excess in art does not occur before [858] it has attained its proper maturity. But it did not last long at this level among the Latins, and their literature was as swift to decline as it had been to rise, on account of the times that were already rushing headlong from nature, the torrent of civilization coarsening and cutting the sinews from the greatness and might of the human species, the contagion of an art that in Greece had already gone beyond maturity, as much in other respects as in writing, and the fact of Latin literature having tarried so long before beginning when there remained but little time in which it could endure in a good state, little time for the strength, greatness, and true life of men, little time for the sway of nature and the vital faculties of man, and when the corruption and ruin of society, of Rome, of the civilized nations, of liberty and the world was imminent.) Whether it arose from one or the other of these causes, or from both together, the fact remains, as I have said, that no sooner had the Latin language assumed a stable form, and attained [859] perfection, than it diverged further from the spoken language than any of the world’s cultured languages had done. It established and created an extreme distinction between the language of writers and that of the people, and it diverged as much as is possible from the natural, common, and universal structure and movement of speech (without, however, going against nature). For all of the above reasons, the Latin language, notwithstanding the very great extent of the nation, became the least well suited to universality that there has ever been and did not attain that universality until it was barbarized, although we might wish to believe or say that it never attained it, and the written language, having lost its specificity, once again merged with the spoken, took on as many forms and characteristics as there were peoples and writers using it, and became a family of wholly barbarous languages rather than a universal or cultured language. This happened quickly, and lasted until [860] its daughters were born, or rather until they grew and separated from it—since for a long time (just as happens with all daughter languages) they could not be regarded as anything other than part of the family of barbarous languages contained within Latin—while Latin tore itself apart and broke up into pieces, like the great imperium of its nation, and contemporaneously with its wretched dispersion.
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