There can
therefore be no serious question of his partnership in a play wherein the
comic achievement is excellent and the poetic attempts are execrable
throughout.
The recast of it in which a greater than Berni has deigned to play the
part of that poet towards a lesser than Bojardo shows tact and delicacy
perhaps without a parallel in literature. No chance of improvement is
missed, while nothing of value is dropped or thrown away. {125} There is
just now and then a momentary return perceptible to the skipping metre
and fantastic manner of the first period, which may have been
unconsciously suggested by the nature of the task in hand--a task of
itself implying or suggesting some new study of old models; but the main
style of the play in all its weightier parts is as distinctly proper to
the second period, as clear an evidence of inner and spiritual affinity
(with actual tabulation of dates, were such a thing as feasible as it is
impossible, I must repeat that the argument would here be--what it is
now--in no wise concerned), as is the handling of character throughout;
but most especially the subtle force, the impeccable and careful
instinct, the masculine delicacy of touch, by which the somewhat
ruffianly temperament of the original Ferando is at once refined and
invigorated through its transmutation into the hearty and humorous
manliness of Petruchio's.
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