Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Anyone who wishes to see a small example of the infinite variety of the Greek language, and how it is primarily an aggregate of several languages rather than a single language, according to what I have said elsewhere [→Z 2060–62], and who wishes to see it in a single author and in a single book, should read the Phaedrus of Plato. In which he will find, I do not say three styles, but three true languages, the first in the words which make up the Dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, which is the usual one proper to Plato, the second in the two orations against love, in the person of Lysias and Socrates, the third in the latter’s oration in praise of love.1 Because Plato in these orations adopts words and phrases and constructions [2718] very notably and visibly different from those which make up the ordinary language of his Dialogues, albeit in the latter he very frequently deals with the same or similar matters to those of the three orations mentioned, especially the last. And the words, phrases, constructions of the last oration (entirely poetic in style, but not thereby inflated or exaggerated or excessive or such that it is not true prose) are indeed very different from those of the other two. Nor in any of the three does the writer do violence to the language, or show affectation, as those more recent Greeks did who diverged from their proper manner in order to follow and imitate that of others. But certainly anyone who did not know any other Greek language than Plato’s usual one, would not be able to understand those three orations without a certain difficulty. (23 May 1823.)

  For p. 2699. For those writers of the 14th century who used more illustrious and common, or less plebeian and provincial or municipal language, see Perticari, [2719] Degli scrittori del Trecento, bk. 2, ch. 6. And it should be noted that many of the differences which are encountered in these writers between their language and that of today are not to be attributed to the language of that century. They are all proper to the writers themselves. In those first beginnings of our illustrious language, in the scarcity of examples and hence of rules of the written vulgar language, some writers followed one road and some another, both to find or create words for given objects and to link them, for they were the first. Frequently, through lack of skill, bad taste, poverty of words and phrases proper to them or the language, through love of novelty, or through simple ignorance and limited knowledge of their own written or spoken language, and through being unable to write, these writers separated what they wrote from the spoken language much more than they should have done, or did so in certain things or ways much more than they should have done. Because they did not want to be plebeian, they were on occasion monsters of expression. Being unable to express themselves, they invented words and forms entirely their own, entirely barbarous, and they introduced many Latin and Provençal words and phrases into their writings which were extremely harsh and [2720] incompatible with the character of common or particular speech, illustrious or plebeian, of that same century. About which speech therefore on these matters one cannot and must not base any argument on those writings. Because those monstrosities and oddities, which we believe to be and commonly call archaisms, just as they are not now spoken nor written, so never were spoken, not even then, nor were they written except by one person or a few, and therefore they are not proper to the language of the 14th century but to those particular authors. And even in the centuries following, right up to our own day, they were never spoken by anyone in Italy, nor ever written except by the occasional pedantic imitator, rummaging around among the ancients, of which pedants there is still a large supply today. But the authority of these does not establish today’s language or that of the past. See also on these arbitrary monstrosities, particular to this or that [2721] fourteenth-century writer, Perticari, loc. cit., pp. 133–35 and especially p. 136, end. (23 May 1823.)

  Gelli, too, confessed (in Perticari, Degli scrittori del Trecento, bk. 2, ch. 13, p. 183) that the Tuscan language had not been applied to the sciences. (24 May 1823.)

  On the impossibility or harmfulness of substituting for the terms of the sciences or the arts (1) circumlocutions, (2) general terms, (3) metaphorical, catachrestic, or in any way figurative terms, see Perticari, loc. cit., pp. 184–85. (24 May 1823.)

  Aristotle said “there are more things than words”: and Perticari, loc. cit., pp. 187–88 explains and applies this saying to the necessity of always having to make new words for new notions and ideas.1 (24 May 1823.)

  On the necessity of making new words for new things, or for new things never dealt with by one’s compatriots, and that each science or art has its proper terms which are distinct from those of other sciences or of common speech, see Cicero, De finibus, bk. 3, ch. 1–2. (24 May 1823.)

  [2722] “What happens to languages that are no longer spoken does not happen to living languages. The former, like a plant, which is no longer burgeoning, cannot receive growth, and all that can be done by us in their regard is to preserve them diligently in the state in which they are, for in them every modification tends toward their corruption. On the contrary languages which are living are still burgeoning and can grow more and more, and in them small changes, which happen from time to time, are not certain signs of corruption; on the contrary they are at times signs of health and vigor. And therefore those who would not wish our authors to have any other savor than that of the fourteenth century, are harming the language, because they are attempting to reduce it to the condition of those which are dead, and, so far as is in their power, they desiccate its green branches, in order for it not to be able, against the advice of Horace, to dress itself again in new leaves. This author lived indeed in the golden age [2723] of the Latin language, and at the time when it was in its most flourishing state. And yet because it was still alive, he thought that it could enrich itself even more and receive new forms of speaking.” Note by the Abbé Colombo to the Lezioni sulle doti di una colta favella “along with an unpublished lecture on the style to be used today and other short works by the same author” (that is the Abbé Colombo), Parma, Giuseppe Paganino 1820 (second ed. of the three first Lectures and of the other works, except one), Lecture 4, “Dello Stile che dee usare oggidì un pulito Scrittore,” p. 96 (last but two of the Lectures), note a.1 (25 May, Trinity Sunday, 1823.)

  The pedants who today try to hinder us from using the faculty of enriching the language use as their pretext that it is already perfect. But they made the same objection in the sixteenth century, when the language was in the process of being perfected, [2724] indeed at the moment that it began to become perfect, as Bembo did, who wanted this beginning to remove the faculty of ever increasing, and to restrict the language just to Petrarch and just to Boccaccio.1 The same objection was made at the time of Cicero and Horace, that is, in the golden age of the Latin language, in which it was being perfected, and was certainly not perfect up to then. But pedantry soon arises, and impotent men quickly, indeed immediately believe and claim it to be perfect and that one cannot and should not go beyond nor increase that amount, more or less, of good which has been done, both to dispense with going further and increasing it, and because they do not feel capable of doing so. (25 May 1823.) And as very little is needed to outstrip the ability of men of no worth, so very little artifice and very little quality is enough to make them think it insuperable, as it really is for them, even if it is very small. Moreover, [2725] to their limited and twisted judgment the mediocre appears often and in good faith first-rate, and the first-rate mediocre, and the bad good, and the opposite. (27 May 1823.)

  No matter how fervently it is to be desired, there is no point in hoping that the works of scientists will ever be written in fine language, elegantly and in a good style (with the art of style). Whoever has genuinely formed his own good style, knows what an enormous effort the acquisition of this practice has cost him, how many years spent solely in this study, how many profound reflections, how much exercise dedicated solely to this, how many comparisons, how many readings directed at this one end, how many vain attempts, and how only gradually after very long labors, and very long habituation he has final
ly succeeded in possessing the true sensorium of fine writing, the knowledge of all its most minute parts and causes, and finally the art of putting into practice himself what he has not without great difficulty [2726] succeeded in recognizing and feeling in the great masters, an extremely difficult art to acquire, and one which does not of itself indeed follow after the science of style. Rather, the science of style is required, and is required to be most perfect, but this science can exist on its own, and very often does, without achieving true art. Now scientists who ever since they were children have always had their whole mind and their whole love directed to studies vastly different and vastly removed from these, how can it ever be that when they set themselves to write, they write well, if in order to do this is required an art which is entirely proper to writing well itself, and which demands from man everything, and so many studies, so much practice, and labor? And how can we expect scientists to submit to these studies and labors, when they have no love for them at all, and when they are completely occupied and full of habits incompatible with these, and since they lack absolutely the time necessary for an art which requires more time than any other? In addition to this the most perfect possessors of this art, after the [2727] very long labors spent in acquiring it, are never masters of putting it into practice without this very operation of putting it into practice proving to be for them extremely laborious and long, because it is certain that even the great masters do not write well without extremely serious and long meditations, and revisions, and corrections, and refinements, etc. etc. Can one ever demand of or hope from scientists this work, which is as indispensable as that required in acquiring the art of writing well?

  By scientists whom I exclude from the possibility of writing well and elegantly, I do not mean the moralists, the politicians, the observers of the human heart and human nature, the metaphysicians, in short philosophers properly so called. The sciences of these people are not so far removed from that which is required to write well, nor are their practices incompatible with the practice and the reflection which produces the beautiful, the simple, the elegant. In fact Cicero said that without philosophy one cannot have the perfect orator;1 and the same can be said [2728] about the perfect writer of every type. The science of fine writing is a philosophy, and a very deep and subtle one, and holds good for all branches of wisdom. In addition the matter itself of such disciplines is extremely capable of elegance. Therefore these sorts of erudition have provided many excellent ancient and modern writers.

  But I exclude from writing well the professors of mathematical or physical sciences, and of those that partake of one and the other sort together, or are close to one or the other. And of this sort of sciences we really have no good and elegant writers, whether ancient or modern, except for very few. The Greeks dealt with these sciences in a half-poetic way, because they experimented little and imagined a lot. Therefore in these sciences they were less far from elegance. But certainly they were further away, the more exact they became. Plato is outside this class.1 The ancients greatly praised the style of Aristotle and Theophrastus. It may be that they were looking more to their political, moral, metaphysical writings, than to those dealing with natural phenomena. I say truly that neither in the latter [2729] nor in the former do I feel any great elegance. (What I do find there is purity of language and a sufficient and moderate Atticism, one and the other, the effect of the age and where they lived rather than of the writer, and in short nature and not art. But no elegance in either style or words. On the contrary often an enormous negligence in both the choice and the order and linking of words, little propriety, and not infrequently no syntax.) I do feel it well and very frequently in Celsus, a true and perhaps the only model among the ancients and moderns of fine exact-scientific style.1 With whom one might perhaps be able to place Hippocrates. The Latins had few exact-scientific writers. And of these, apart from Celsus, who could be called elegant? Certainly not Pliny, who if one wants to describe him as pure, then let him be so described, because he too for us is an authority of Latinity. I leave aside Mela, Solinus, Varro, Vegetius, Columella, etc. Let our own Galileo be called elegant by someone who does not know our language, and has no sense of elegance. (See Giordani, Life of Cardinal Pallavicino.)2 Buffon would be unique among the moderns for his elegant way of dealing with the exact sciences. But apart from the fact that natural history lends itself more readily to elegance than any other of these sciences, everything which is elegant in him is extrinsic to the science properly called, [2730] and belongs to what I call philosophy proper, which can be applied to any sort of subject. As did Bailly in his Astronomy.1 As long as we move outside of the doctrinal and instructive terms of an exact science, we are outside our remit for discussion. Science is no longer the matter but the occasion of such writings. One does not learn science from them, nor does the latter make direct advances by means of them, nor does it receive any direct increase from the propositions which they contain. They are thoughts about science. (28 May, Vigil of Corpus Christi, 1823.) Buffon’s thoughts do not constitute nor expound the science, they are not and they do not contain the dogmas of the same, nor are new dogmas added by him, but they ponder it, and they are concerned with the discussion of it and its dogmas. It is possible to adorn a subject with thoughts and words. All subjects are capable of being adorned with thoughts, because one can think about all things, and extend oneself in thought as far as one will, closer or further away from the subject strictly understood. But not all can be adorned with words. Buffon adorned science with philosophical [2731] thoughts, and to these thoughts which were not supplied by but occasioned by natural history, he applied the elegance of words, because the thoughts were a subject capable of it. But physicists, mathematicians normally cannot and do not intend to follow up such thoughts, but limit themselves to the science alone.

  Here I call exact sciencesa all those which even though they have not yet achieved such a high level of perfection and certainty, yet by their nature must be treated with the greatest possible exactitude, and do not give space to the imagination (of which Buffon made very great use), but only to experience, to the positive knowledge of things, to calculation, to measurement, etc.1 (30 May 1823.)

  On the topic of the extremely rapid decadence of Latin literature, and the extremely long preservation of Greek, it is a very remarkable thing how, after Tacitus, that is, from the rule of Vespasian onward (to which point his [2732] histories extend), Latin history remained in the hands of Greeks, and our deeds were narrated by Appian, Dio, Herodian, even before the translation of imperial rule to Constantinople, and after that by Procopius, Agathias, Zosimus, etc. Without them the history of our empire from Vespasian onward would be almost blind, having no other Latin writers than the wretches who wrote the Historia Augusta,1 full of factual errors, negligence, barbarisms, and Ammianus no less barbarous, let alone Orosius and others still more wretched than he.2 So that nation which in its most flourishing days had narrated its own affairs and its most shining deeds and its exalted fortunes, and perhaps before any other nation had given in Herodotus the example and teaching of this kind of writing—after so many centuries, when nothing more remained than the distant memory of its greatness, when its empire and power were extinct, when it was made [2733] subject of a people which, at the time it wrote its own history, that nation did not yet know—that nation continued to be the instrument of the memory of the centuries. And the events of the human race, and of that same dominant people which had swallowed it up, and annulled long since its political existence, were entrusted solely to its pens. Such is the power of civilization, and true it is indeed that the civilization of Greece lasted a prodigiously long time, and saw born and die that of other peoples (even the very great), which were children, or rather unknown, when that of Greece was mature and spoke and wrote, and they reached old age and death, while that was still in its maturity, and was still speaking and writing. In truth, Greece was the only civilized nation in the world in the most ancient times, and without ev
er losing its civilization, after immense vicissitudes of events, both universal [2734] and its own, after having seen the passage of the entire story of the greatest empire, which when Greece was young had not even been born, after having transmitted its civilization to a hundred other peoples and in them seen it flower and fall, was once again, in times that can be called modern, the only civilized nation in the world, and from her there emerged afresh the intellects and the succor that inaugurated the new, modern civilization in other nations.

  I pass over Ecclesiastical History, in which the Greeks have so many writers, and the Romans, so to say, none1 except St. Hilarius, of whose history a few fragments remain, but I don’t know how much of the historical they have about them, nor if it really was a history. See the Bibliographies, and the works of St. Hilarius, and a Dissertation by Maffei at the end of the works of St. Athanasius, Padua 1777. I pass over the Chronicles of Africanus and Eusebius,2 works which no one would ever have been able even to imagine at those times in Latin Europe, which were the model for all the wretched Latin Chronographies which came later (by Prosperus, Isodore, etc.), which were then translated into the language of Italy, as in the infancy of Latin literature were translated the works of Homer, of Menander, [2735], etc., which were also translated into the languages of the Orient (Armenian, Syriac, etc.), of that Orient which once again received civilization and literature from Greece, and thence also served as a model, as for the Chronicle of Samuel of Ani, etc. (30 May 1823.)