The commedia dell'artea study in Italian popular comedy . the money basis beneath pretencesof love, the hollowness of professions of honor, thecorruption of public officials, the charlatanry of theso-called learned classes and the pedantry of theAcademy, all are unsparingly revealed with a coolcynicism that is perhaps the best witness to thetruth of the portrayal. Everything in Gherardistheater is to laugh ;we cannot imagine one of hisold men weeping for tenderness like ScalasPantalone when his lost daughter is restored, or oneof his young lovers like Scalas Flavio, nobly rescu-ing at the dict
The commedia dell'artea study in Italian popular comedy . the money basis beneath pretencesof love, the hollowness of professions of honor, thecorruption of public officials, the charlatanry of theso-called learned classes and the pedantry of theAcademy, all are unsparingly revealed with a coolcynicism that is perhaps the best witness to thetruth of the portrayal. Everything in Gherardistheater is to laugh ;we cannot imagine one of hisold men weeping for tenderness like ScalasPantalone when his lost daughter is restored, or oneof his young lovers like Scalas Flavio, nobly rescu-ing at the dictates of honor the friend who has be-trayed him. Every mention of love and honor isgreeted on this later stage with a sarcastic grin;if a lover is faithful he must be a fool is the assump- ™Les Chinois, IV, 199 f. 30 Sometimes the satire was very personal; cf. Arlequin lingere duPalais, in which a prominent actress at the Francois is ridiculed underthe name of Chimene. A number of plots were taken by Gherardifrom Moliere, cf. Toldo, Moliere en B •£? co b Cj 13 >=>&3 6q -; t) ^i ;?> a «o := 535 . h^ B B CO S 53 >u CI ©. — » -H co ?« S- § -^ S B ^ O O o THE COMMEDIA DELLaRTE 215 tion,—lie ought therefore to be thwarted and dupedin his attempts to gain back his love. The explana-tion of this scepticism is perhaps that public interestwas beginning to shift away from the individualproblems that make Scalas themes now look sonarrow and his satire so hackneyed, and that thegrowing consciousness of larger social relationshipswas stammeringly coming to expression in manyplaces of which this vaudeville theater was one. At the end of the seventeenth century unfortu-nately there was no chance for anything like freespeech. In 1697 the Comedie Italienne was closed bythe police for some reason not yet quite clear, pos-sibly because, as St. Simon says, their comedy Lafausse prude had offended Mme. de Maintenon,quite as probably on account of some more subtlecr
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectenglish, bookyear1912
