56 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
images with which Foscolo represents the fascination of his
goddess-friend, so rich in perils, would not have presented
themselves so vividly and so spontaneously as they did. But
what was that impetus of the soul which has now become a
magnificent lyrical representation? Was all of Foscolo, the
soldier, the patriot, the man of learning, moved with so many
spiritual needs, expressed in that aspiration? Did it act so
energetically within him as to be turned into action, and to
some extent to give direction to his practical life? Foscolo,
who had not been wanting of insight in the course of his love,
as regards his poetry also from time to time became himself
again when the creative tumult was appeased, and again
acquired full clearness of vision. He asks himself what he
really did will, and what the woman deserved. It may be
that a slight suspicion of scepticism had insinuated itself dur-
ing the formation of the image, if our ears be not deceived
in seeming to detect here and there in the ode some trace of
elegant irony toward the woman, and of the poet toward
himself. This would not have happened in the case of a more
ingenuous spirit, and the poetry would have flowed forth
quite ingenuously. Foscolo the poet, having achieved his
task and therefore being no longer poet, now wishes to know
his real condition. He no longer forms the image, because he
has formed it; he no longer fancies, but perceives and nar-
rates (“that woman,” he will say later of the “divine one,”
‘had a piece of brain instead of a heart”); and the lyrical im-
age changes, for him and for us, into an autobiographical ex-
tract, or perception.
With perception we have entered a new and very wide
spiritual field; and, truly, words are not strong enough to
satirise those thinkers who, now as in the past, confound
image and perception, making of the image a perception (a