Thomas Medwin, Conversations of Lord Byron Noted During a Residence with His Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822

A recorded conversation between Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, in which the two touch on Kemble and Hook briefly, and then speak about Sgricci at greater length. Shelley mentions Sgricci’s improvised performance of Iphigenia at Tauris in Lucca, which very much impressed him. Byron notes the marked difference between the arts of written poetry and improvisation. In the second passage, Medwin describes Byron’s incredible memory, focus, and the perfection of his manuscripts, likening his skills to those of an improvisatore.

Performer Name:
Kemble, Hook, Sgricci
Performance Venue:
Lucca
Performance Date:
 
Author:
Medwin, Thomas
Date Written:
 
Language:
English
Publication Title:
Conversations of Lord Byron Noted During a Residence with His Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822
Article Title:
 
Page Numbers:
204-07; 418-19
Additional Info:
 
Publisher:
Colburn
Place of Publication:
London
Date Published:
1824

Text:

[204] [quoting Byron] "When half seas over, Kemble used to speak in blank-verse: and with practice, I don't think it would be difficult. Good prose resolves itself into blank-verse. Why should we not be able to [205] improvise in hexameters, as well as the Italians? Theodore Hook is an improvisatore."

"The greatest genius in that way that perhaps Italy ever produced," said Shelley, "is Sgricci."

"There is a great deal of knack in these gentry," replied Byron; "their poetry is more mechanical than you suppose. More verses are written yearly in Italy, than millions of money are circulated. It is usual for every Italian gentleman to make sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow before he is married,— or the lady must be very uninspiring indeed.

"But Sgricci! To extemporize a whole [206] tragedy seems a miraculous gift. I heard him improvise a five-act play at Lucca, on the subject of the 'Iphigenia in Tauris,' and never was more interested. He put one of the finest speeches into the mouth of Iphigenia I ever heard. She compared her brother Orestes to the sole remaining pillar on which a temple hung tottering, in the act of ruin. The idea, it is true, is from Euripides, but he made it his own. I have never read his play since I was at school. I don't know how Sgricci's tragedies may appear in print, but his printed poetry is tame stuff.

"The inspiration of the improviser is quite a separate talent:— a consciousness of his own powers, his own elocution — the wondering and applauding audience, [207] — all conspire to give him confidence; but the deity forsakes him when he coldly sits down to think. Sgricci is not only a fine poet, but a fine actor. […]"

[…]

[418] He [Byron] seems to be able to resume the thread of his subject at all times, and to weave it of an equal texture. Such talent is that of an improvisatore. The fairness too of his manuscripts (I do not speak of the hand-writing) astonishes no less than the perfection of every thing he writes. He hardly ever alters a word for whole pages, and never corrects a line in subsequent editions. I do not believe [419] that he has ever read his works over since he examined the proof-sheets; and yet he remembers every word of them, and every thing else worth remembering that he has ever known.

Notes:

 
Collected by:
DP