Arthur de Gobineau - The Inequality of Human Races

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DE5J6" EDINBURGH

146

;

THE RENAISSANCE COUNT ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU By

Translated by Paul V. Cohn, with an Introductory Essay on Count Gobineau's Life and Work, by Dr. Oscar Levy

One Volume, Demy LONDON

:

8vo, Illustrated, ios net

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

THESE

five historical dramas cover the flowering time of the Italian Renaissance from the rise to prominence of Savonarola (1492) to the last days of Michael Angelo While grouped round the leading figures (about 1560). who provide the titles Savonarola, Cesare Borgia, Julius II, Leo X, and Michael Angelo the plays introduce almost every interesting character of the period. Nor are we only concerned with the great names ; the author aims at catching the spirit of the people, and the thoughts and feelings of soldier, artisan, trader, and their womenfolk find ample voice in his pages.

—

—

The

Italian Renaissance is an epoch of peculiar interest to English readers, not least because of its profound influence on our own Elizabethan age. It is perhaps the most many-sided period in history even fifth-century Greece scarcely contributed so much or at any rate so much that has survived to the world of politics, art, and thought. Now while this interest is amply :

—

reflected in

of Symonds there

is

—

contemporary

down

from the monumental work and jetsam of everyday fiction, more than an historian would show

literature,

to the flotsam

one kind of man who and that

insight into this age,

is

a poet.

work that Gobineau's "Historical Scenes" recomthemselves to the public. But there are many kinds of poets there is the religious and moral kind, there is the irreligious and sub-moral kind, and there is the super-religious and supermoral kind. Only the last-named can understand, can feel, can sympathise with such mighty figures as Cesare Borgia and the religious poet being inclined to paint them as Julius II It

is

as a poet's

mend

;

—

— — THE RENAISSANCE— continued Similia the sub-religious as freaks and neurotics. equals can only be recognised by their equals, and Gobineau was himself a type of the Renaissance flung by destiny In a century into an age of low bourgeois and socialist ideals.

monsters, similibus

:

swayed by romanticism and democracy, Gobineau was a classic and an aristocrat. He is a forerunner of Nietzsche (" the only European spirit I should care to converse with," said Nietzsche of him in a letter), and as such is peculiarly fitted to deal with one of the few periods that was not dominated by the moral law. For this reason Gobineau cannot fail to attract the large and evergrowing circle of students of Nietzsche in this country and America. "

can only add that this is a volume of serious import, worth reading from cover to book which even a jaded reviewer closes with a sigh of regret that he has not got to read it all over again.'' G. S. Layard in the Bookman. I

cover, a

"

We

—

know whether

to be more struck with the truth or liveliness of these Savonarola, for example, is something more than the Savonarola of history only and tradition. Not is the character of the man subtly brought out ; not only are we made aware, for the first time, adequately, of that devouring egotism which could see nothing but self as God's instrument, self as the scourge of Florence, self as the inspired prophet ; but beneath all this and vouching for it is the consciousness of the reality of the man, the consciousness that his cries of distress are real cries, and his moments of fierce aspiration and black despair genuine experiences. More touching and even more lifelike is the figure of Michael Angelo, a figure in the main familiar to us, but endowed with advancing years with a peace of mind, a lucidity of intelligence, and a breadth of sympathy such as were foreign to its young and stormy epoch. The last scene between Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna is a noble one, and can be read more than once with pleasure." The (^Morning Post.

scarcely

portraits.

"A

debt is due to Dr. Oscar Levy for bringing before English readers this translation of that great work of Count Gobineau, in which, through the medium of the drama, he reveals his reverence for the spirit that inspired the Italian Renaissance. The plays constituting the book are five in number, 'Savonarola,' 'Cesare Borgia,' ' and nothing more brilliant has appeared Julius II," 'Leo X,' and ' Michael Angelo,' in recent times. In scope we can only compare with it Mr. Hardy's ' Dynasts,' but no more striking contrast could be conceived than the creations of these two geniuses.

—

Through

the pages of these plays moves the whole glittering pageant of the fifteenth a mob of soldiers, priests, artists, men and women, slaying, plundering, preaching, poisoning, painting, rioting, and loving, while out of the surgent mass rise the figures of the splendid three. Borgia, Julius, and Michael Angelo,

and sixteenth centuries,

by the sheer greatness of their ideas and their contempt for other men's really one are the great aristocrats of their time, and the five plays in conception are an assertion of the saving grace of aristocracy, of the glory of race, at a time when the democratic flood, whose source is Christianity, was beginning to pour over Europe, to the overwhelming of all greatness of thought and art. The Glasgow Herald. translation, which is excellent, is by Paul V. Cohn."

dominating opinions.

all

—

They

—

LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN :