PETRARCH THE CRITIC AND READER 



similarity, moreover, should not resemble that of a 

 painting or a statue to the person represented, but 

 rather that of a son to a father; in which case there is 

 often great difference in the features and members, and 

 yet, after all, — hovering about the face, and especially 

 the eyes, — a shadowy something akin to what painters 

 call one's air, out of which there grows a likeness that, 

 immediately upon sight of the child, calls up the father. 

 So, too, in Hterary imitation the likeness must be 

 elusive, something impossible to seize upon, except as 

 the result of a sort of still hunt, a quality to be felt 

 rather than defined. A letter equally interesting is one 

 addressed also to Giovanni Boccaccio {Fam., xxii, 2), 

 in which Petrarch has much to say about plagiarism. 

 " Any garment is suitable for an actor, but not every 

 style for a writer. Each one should have his own style. 

 In our persons, in our movements, in our voice and 

 speech, every one of us possesses something that is 

 individual, our very own, which we should rather 

 polish and correct than exchange for another's." When 

 Petrarch talks like that, we do not feel incHned for an 

 instant to dispute his lofty position; and it can be 

 fairly said that what he aimed at, he attained. He is 

 the first man of the Italian Renaissance whose Latin 

 style is really polished; and, if it has certain defects 

 when compared with that of Cicero and Sallust, it has 

 this in common — real individuality. 



But Petrarch is not always what we should call the 

 true literary critic, the first author (as Vossler says) 



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