A Lytton Sells - Böcker

Italy in the Seicento retained her prestige as the country most advanced in the arts of civilization. She was still, with France, and prior to the formation of the Royal Society, in the van of scientific research. The Academy of St. Luke in Rome was the greatest art school in the world. Scientists like Galileo, historians like Paolo Sarpi, added new lustre to her name. Venice, ‘the eldest child of liberty’ was still glorious and powerful. Thus it was that English students flocked in numbers to Padua and that travellers regarded a sojourn in Italy as the highlight of their experience.First published in 1964, The Paradise of Travellers devotes particular attention to travel books. Not only the records of such celebrated tourists as Fynes Moryson and John Evelyn, but those of many others, equally interesting, are examined. It is shown that, as the century advanced, Englishmen were entertained and even welcomed in Rome by learned ecclesiastics and eminent Cardinals. The Protestant and Catholic worlds were learning the need, and even the charm, of co-existence.

In view of the author of Oliver Goldsmith (originally published in 1974), the many biographies which have appeared seem defective in several respects. They either omit information which is readily available, or ignore essential features of Goldsmith’s life and character, or fail to see the real problems which should be considered; they are too prone to pass over or make light of Goldsmith’s faults. Dr Lytton Sells decided, therefore, that he would have to go back to the sources and to think out his character afresh. There are strange gaps in the records of Goldsmith’s life, and many questions that remain unanswered. Goldsmith kept no journal and few of his letters have survived. He was an inveterate liar, and we cannot often give credence to what he tells us about himself. This is what makes the biographer’s task a difficult one; nevertheless, Dr Lytton Sells has tackled it with great enthusiasm and insight and has given us a life that is both sound and readable and takes account of all the evidence available. And to this he has added a full-length study of the works which will be invaluable to any student of English literature.

If poetry was the fashionable mode of expression in Tudor England, ‘Great Italy’, as Shakespeare called her, was the land of predilection for Englishmen. They looked to Italy for lessons in philosophy, good breeding, in the art of civilization and the art of government. Englishmen travelled to Italy and lived as students in Padua; Italian Protestants came to England—Vermigli, Gentili, Florio, Bruno. The commerce in politics, religion, court life, manners and the things of the intellect was immense.First published in 1955, The Italian Influence in English Poetry analyzes the non-dramatic work of various poets to show how, beginning with Chaucer, Englishmen took from Italy many of the forms of their poetry, many of its techniques and much of its subject-matter. But their policy was not to annex; rather to naturalise. Spenser tries to surpass Ariosto; Sidney finds a pattern in Petrarch; Greville adapts Machiavelli; and so on, through the study of Shakespeare, Drayton and Southwell, and a host of minor poets. The results of scattered research are here for the first time drawn together to form a comprehensive picture.