Modern Spanish Lyrics

by Unknown

NOTES

The heavy figures refer to pages of the text; the light figures to lines.

ROMANCES. The Spanish romances viejos, which correspond in form and spirit to the early English and Scotch ballads, exist in great number and variety. Anonymous and widely known among the people, they represent as well as any literary product can the spirit of the Spanish nation of the period, in the main stern and martial, but sometimes tender and plaintive. Most of them were written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the earliest to which a date can be assigned is Cercada tiene á Baeza, which must have been composed soon after 1368. Others may have their roots in older events, but have undergone constant modification since that time. The romance popular is still alive in Spain and many have recently been collected from oral tradition (cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología, vol. X).

The romances were once thought to be relics of very old lyrico-epic songs which, gathering material in the course of time, became the long epics that are known to have existed in Spain in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries (such as the Poema del Cid, and the lost cantares of Bernardo del Carpio, the Infantes de Lara and Fernán González). But modern investigation has shown conclusively that no such age can be ascribed to the romances in their present form, and that in so far as they have any relation with the epic cycles just cited they are rather descendants of them than ancestors,—striking passages remembered by the people and handed down by them in constantly changing form. Many are obviously later in origin; such are the romances fronterizos, springing from episodes of the Moorish wars, and the romances novelescos, which deal with romantic incidents of daily life. The romances juglarescos are longer poems, mostly concerned with Charlemagne and his peers, veritable degenerate epics, composed by itinerant minstrels to be sung in streets and taverns to throngs of apprentices and rustics. They have not the spontaneity and vigor which characterize the better romances viejos.

A few of the romances were printed in the Cancionero general of 1511, and more in loose sheets (pliegos sueltos) not much later in date; but the great collections which contain nearly all the best we know were the Cancionero de romances "sin año," (shortly before 1550), the Cancionero de romances of 1550 and the Silva de varios romances (3 parts, 1550). The most comprehensive modern collection is that of A. Durán, Romancero general, 2 vols., Madrid, 1849-1851 (vols. 10 and 16 of the Biblioteca de Autores españoles). The best selected is the Primavera y flor de romances of Wolf and Hofmann (Berlin, 1856), reprinted in vols. VIII and IX of Menéndez y Pelayo's Antología de poetas líricos castellanos. This contains nearly all the oldest and best romances, and includes poems from pliegos sueltos and the second part of the Silva, which were not known to Durán. Menéndez y Pelayo, in his Apéndices á la Primavera y flor (Antol. vol. IX) has given still more texts, notably from the third part of the Silva, one of the rarest books in the world. The fundamental critical works on the romances are: F. Wolf, Ueber die Romanzenpoesie der Spanier (in Studien, Berlin, 1859); Milá y Fontanals, De la poesía heroico-popular castellana (1874); and Menéndez y Pelayo, Tratado de los romances viejos (vols. XI and XII of the Antología, Madrid, 1903-1906).

The romances, as usually printed, are in octosyllabic lines, with a fixed accent on the seventh syllable of each and assonance in alternate lines.

Many English translators have tried their hand at Spanish ballads, as Thomas Rodd (1812), J. C. Lockhart (1823), John Bowring (1824), J.Y. Gibson (1887) and others. Lockhart's versions are the best known and the least literal.

In the six romances included in this collection the lyrical quality predominates above the narrative (cf. the many rimes in-or in Fonte-frida and El prisionero). Abenámar is properly a frontier ballad, and La constancia, perhaps, belongs with the Carolingian cycle; but the rest are detached poems of a romantic nature. (See S.G. Morley's Spanish Ballads, New York, 1911.)

[1.—Abenámar] is one of a very few romances which are supposed to have their origin in Moorish popular poetry. The Christian king referred to is Juan II, who defeated the Moors at La Higueruela, near Granada, in 1431. It is said that on the morning of the battle he questioned one of his Moorish allies, Yusuf Ibn Alahmar, concerning the conspicuous objects of Granada. The poem was utilized by Chateaubriand for two passages of Les aventures du dernier Abencérage.

[1. Abenámar] = Ibn Alahmar: see above.

[9.] The verbal forms in-ara and-iera were used then as now as the equivalent of the pluperfect or the preterit indicative.

[11. la:] la verdad is probably understood. Cf. p. 2, l. I.

[2.—1. diría] = diré. In the romances the conditional often replaces the future, usually to fit the assonance.

[5. relucían:] in the old ballads the imperfect indicative is often used to express loosely past time or even present time.

[6. El Alhambra:] in the language of the old ballads el, not la, is used before a feminine noun with initial-a or e-, whether the accent be on the first syllable or not.

[25. viuda] in old Spanish was pronounced viuda and assonated in í-a. This expletive que is common in Spanish: do not translate.

[27. grande] merely strengthens bien.

[3.—Fonte-frida] is a poem of erotic character, much admired for its suave melancholy. Probably it is merely an allegorical fragment of a longer poem now lost. It is one of those printed in the Cancionero general of 1511. It was well translated by Bowring. There is also a metrical version in Ticknor, I, III. This theme is found in the Physiologus, a medieval bestiary. One of these animal stories relates that the turtle-dove has but one mate and if this mate dies the dove remains faithful to its memory. Cf. Mod. Lang. Notes, June, 1904 (Turtel-Taube), and February, 1906.

[3. In avecicas] and tortolica the diminutive ending-ica seems to be quite equivalent to-ito. Cf. Knapp's Span. Gram., 760a.

[4. van tomar] = van á tomar.

[7. fuera:] note that fué (or fuera) á pasar = pasó. This usage is now archaic, although it is still sometimes used by modern poets: see [p. 136, l. 18.]

[18. bebía:] see note, p. 2, l. 5.

[19. haber], in the ballads, often = tener. See also haya in the following line.

[4.—El Conde Arnaldos.] Lockhart says of "Count Arnaldos," "I should be inclined to suppose that

'More is meant than meets the ear,'

—that some religious allegory is intended to be shadowed forth." Others have thought the same, and the strong mystic strain in Spanish character may bear out the opinion. In order that the reader may judge for himself he should have before him the mysterious song itself, which, omitted in the earliest version, is thus given in the Cancionero de romances of 1550, to follow line 18 of the poem:

—Galera, la mi galera,

Dios te me guarde de mal,

de los peligros del mundo

sobre aguas de la mar,

de los llanos de Almería,

del estrecho de Gibraltar,

y del golfo de Venecia,

y de los bancos de Flandes,

y del golfo de León,

donde suelen peligrar.

Popular poems which merely extol the power of music over animals are not uncommon.

[1. ¡Quién hubiese!] would that one might have! or would that I might have! Note ¡quién me diese! (p. 7, 1. 25), would that some one would give me!: this is the older meaning of quién in these expressions. Note also ¡Quién supiera escribir! (p.134), would that I could write! where the modern usage occurs.

[22. dígasme] = dime This use of the pres. subj. with the force of an imperative is not uncommon in older Spanish.

[24.le fué á dar:] see note, p. 3,1. 7.

[5.—La constancia.] These few lines, translated by Lockhart as "The Wandering Knight's Song," are only part of a lost ballad which began:

Á las armas, Moriscote,

si las has en voluntad.

Six lines of it have recently been recovered (Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología, IX, 211). It seems to have dealt with an incursion of the French into Spain, and the lines here given are spoken by the hero Moriscote, when called upon to defend his country. Don Quijote quotes the first two lines of this ballad, Part I, Cap. II.

[8. de me dañar] = de dañarme.

[13. vos] was formerly used in Spanish as usted is now used,—in formal address.

El amante desdichado. Named by Lockhart "Valladolid." It is one of the few old romances which have kept alive in oral tradition till the present day, and are still repeated by the Spanish peasantry (cf. Antología, X, 132, 192).

[7.—El prisionero.] Twelve lines of this poem were printed in 1511. It seems to be rather troubadouresque than popular in origin, but it became very well known later. Lockhart's version is called "The Captive Knight and the Blackbird."

[16.] This line is too short by one syllable, or has archaic hiatus. See Versification,(4) a.

[19. las mis manos:] in old Spanish the article was often used before a possessive adjective that preceded its noun. This usage is now archaic or dialectic.

[21. hacía] is here exactly equivalent to hace in 1. 23: see note, p. 2, 1. 5.

[25. quien...me diese:] see note, p. 4, 1. I.

[8.—12. Oídolo había] = lo había oído.

[13.] This line is too long by one syllable.

[14.] Gil Vicente (1470?-1540?), a Portuguese poet who wrote dramas in both Portuguese and Castilian. A strong creative artist and thinker, Vicente is the greatest dramatist of Portugal and one of the great literary figures of the Peninsula. This Canción to the Madonna occurs in El auto de la Sibila Casandra, a religious pastoral drama. Vicente himself wrote music for the song, which was intended to accompany a dance. John Bowring made a very good metrical translation of the song (Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain, 1824, p. 315). Another may be found in Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, I, 259.

[16. digas tú:] see note, p. 4, I. 22. el marinero: omit el in translation. In the Spanish of the ballads the article is regularly used with a noun in the vocative.

[24. pastorcico:] see note, p. 3, I. 3.

[9.]—Santa Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582), born at Ávila; became a Carmelite nun and devoted her life to reforming her Order and founding convents and monasteries. Saint Theresa believed herself inspired of God, and her devotional and mystic writings have a tone of authority. Her chief works in prose are the Castillo interior and the Camino de perfección. She is one of the greatest of Spanish mystics, and her influence is still potent (cf. Juan Valera, Pepita Jiménez; Huysmans, En route; et al.). Cf. Bibl. de Aut. Esp., vols. 53 and 55, for her works. This Letrilla has been translated by Longfellow ("Santa Teresa's Book-Mark," Riverside ed., 1886, VI., 216.)

[9.]—Fray Luis Ponce de León (1527-1591), born at Belmonte; educated at the University of Salamanca; became an Augustinian monk. While a professor at the same university he was accused by the Inquisition and imprisoned from 1572 to 1576, while his trial proceeded. He was acquitted, and he taught till his death, which occurred just after he had been chosen Vicar-General of his Order. The greatest of the mystic poets, he wrote as well religious works in prose (Los nombres de Cristo, La perfecta casada), and in verse translated Virgil, Horace and other classical authors and parts of the Old Testament. In gentleness of character and in the purity in which he wrote his native tongue, he resembles the Frenchman Pascal. His poems are in vol. 37 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. Ticknor, Period II, Cap. IX, and Introduction, p. xxii. La vida retirada is written in imitation of Horace's Beatus ille.

[9.—17 to 10.—3.] In these lines there is much poetic inversion of word-order. The logical order would be: Que ('for') el estado de los soberbios grandes no le enturbia el pecho, ni se admira del dorado techo, en jaspes sustentado, fabricado del sabio moro.

[5. pregonera], as its gender indicates, modifies voz.

[12.—10.] In the sixteenth century great fortunes were made by Spaniards who exploited the mines of their American colonies across the seas.

[11.] Note, this unusual enjambement; but the mente of adverbs still has largely the force of a separate word.

Soneto: Á Cristo Crucificado. This famous sonnet has been ascribed to Saint Theresa and to various other writers, but without sufficient proof. Cf. Fouché-Delbosc in Revue Hispanique, II, 120-145; and ibid., VI, 56-57. The poem was translated by J.Y. Gibson (The Cid Ballads, etc., 1887, II, 144), and there is also a version attributed to Dryden.

[13.]—Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) was the most fertile playwright ever known to the world. Alone he created the Spanish drama almost out of nothing. Born at Madrid, where he spent most of his life, Lope was an infant prodigy who fulfilled the promise of his youth. His first play was written at the age of thirteen. He fought against the Portuguese in the expedition of 1583 and took part in the disastrous Armada of 1588. His life was marked by unending literary success, numerous love-affairs and occasional punishments therefor. In 1614 he was ordained priest. For the last twenty years of his life he was the acknowledged dictator of Spanish letters.

Lope's writings include some 2000 plays, of which perhaps 500 are extant, epics, pastorals, parodies, short stories and minor poems beyond telling. He undertook to write in every genre attempted by another and seldom scored a complete failure. His Obras completas are being published by the Spanish Academy (1890-); vol. 1 contains his life by Barrera. Most of his non-dramatic poems are in vol. 38 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp.; others are in vols. 16 and 35. There is a Life in English by H.A. Rennert (1904). Cf. also Introduction, p. xxiv.

Canción de la Virgen is a lullaby sung by the Madonna to her sleeping child in a palm grove. The song occurs in Lope's pastoral, Los pastores de Belén (1612). In Ticknor (II, 177), there is a metrical translation of the Canción.

The palm has great significance in the Roman Catholic Church. On Palm Sunday,—the last Sunday of Lent,—branches of the palm-tree are blessed and are carried in a solemn procession, in commemoration of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (cf. John, xii).

[14.] Ticknor translates these lines as follows:

Holy angels and blest,

Through these palms as you sweep,

Hold their branches at rest,

For my babe is asleep.

The literal meaning is: Since you are moving among the palms, holy angels, hold the branches, for my child sleeps. When the wind blows through the palm-trees their leaves rustle loudly.

[14.—Mañana:] translated by Longfellow (Riverside ed., 1886, VI, 204).

[15.]—Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645), the greatest satirist in Spanish literature, was one of the very few men of his time who dared criticize the powers that were. He was born in the province of Santander and was a precocious student at Alcalá. His brilliant mind and his honesty led him to Sicily and Naples, as a high official under the viceroy, and to Venice and elsewhere on private missions; his plain-speaking tongue and ready sword procured him numerous enemies and therefore banishments. He was confined in a dungeon from 1639 to 1643 at the instance of Olivares, at whom some of his sharpest verses were directed.

Quevedo was a statesman and lover of his country driven into pessimism by the ineptitude which he saw about him. He wrote hastily on many subjects and lavished a bitter, biting wit on all. His best-known works in prose are the picaresque novel popularly called El gran tacaño (1626) and the Sueños (1627). His Obras completas are in course of publication at Seville (1898-); his poems are in vol. 69 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. E. Mérimée, Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres de Francisco de Quevedo (Paris, 1886), and Introduction, p. xxv. For a modern portrayal of one side of Quevedo's character, see Bréton de los Herreros, ¿Quién es ella?

Epístola satírica: this epistle was addressed to Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Conde-Duque de Olivares (d. 1645), the favorite and prime minister of Philip IV. It is a remarkably bold protest, for it was published in 1639 when Olivares was at the height of his power. His disgrace did not occur till 1643.

[8.] Note the double meaning of sentir,—'to feel' and 'to regret.'

[9. libre] modifies ingenio. Translate: its freedom.

[16. Que es lengua la verdad de Dios severo] = que la verdad es lengua de Dios severo.

[16.—Letrilla Satírica] was published in 1640.

[.14] Genoa was then, as now, an important seaport and commercial center. As the Spaniards bought many manufactured articles from Genoa, much of their money was "buried" there.

[17.]—Esteban Manuel de Villegas (d. 1669) was a lawyer who wrote poetry only in his extreme youth. His Eróticas ó Amatorias were published in 1617, and he says himself that they were written at fourteen and polished at twenty. Later the cares of life prevented him from increasing the poetical fame that he gained thus early. He had a reputation for excessive vanity, due partly to the picture of the rising sun which he placed upon the title-page of his poems with the motto Me surgente, quid istae? Istae referred to Lope, Quevedo and others. Villegas' poems may be found in vol. 42 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, Hist. de los heterodoxos españoles, III, 859-875.

There is a parody of this well-known cantilena by Iglesias in the Bibl. de Aut. Esp., vol. 61, p. 477.

[18.]—Pedro Calderón de la Barca Henao de la Barreda y Riaño (1600-1681) was the greatest representative of the second generation of playwrights in the Siglo de oro. He took some part in the nation's foreign wars, but his life was spent mostly without event at court as the favorite dramatist of the aristocracy. He became a priest in 1651 and was made chaplain of honor to Philip IV in 1663. There are extant over two hundred of his dramatic works, comedias, autos, entremeses, etc. Calderón constructed his plots more carefully than Lope and was stronger in exalted lyric and religious passages; but he was more mannered, more tainted with Gongorism and less skilled in creating characters.

His Comedias are contained in vols. 7, 9, 12 and 14 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp.; a few of his autos are in vol. 58, and some of his poems are in vols. 14 and 35. Cf. also Poesías inéditas, Madrid, 1881; Menéndez y Pelayo, Calderón y su teatro, Madrid, 1884; R.C. Trench, Calderón, London, 1880.

The sonnet, Estas que fueron..., is found in El príncipe constante, II.

[20.]—Diego Tadeo González (1733-1794) was born at Ciudad-Rodrigo. He entered the order of Augustinians at eighteen, and filled various important offices within the Order during his life. His duties took him to Seville, Salamanca and Madrid. From youth he showed a particular bent for poetry, and Horace and Luis de León were his admiration. He was an intimate friend of Jovellanos, who induced him to forsake light subjects and attempt a didactic poem, Las edades, which was left unfinished. Fray Diego's modest and lovable character and his friendly relations with other men of letters made him an attractive figure. His poems are in vol. 61 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. Introduction, p. xxx.

[11.]— Mirta was a lady with whom the author long corresponded and to whom he addressed many poems. Delio (l. 15) was the name by which Fray Diego González was known among his literary intimates: Jovellanos was called "Jovino"; Meléndez Valdés, "Batilo"; etc.

[21.—4. recogellos] = recogerlos.

[12. á la ave:] a more usual construction would be al ave, although the sound wouhd be approximately the same in either case. See also below in line 24, á la alba.

[22—4. reluciente:], modified by an adverb, here = reluciendo.

[6. recio:] a predicate adjective with the force of an adverb.

[26.]—Nicolás Fernández de Moratín (1737-1780) was born in Madrid of a noble Asturian family. He studied for the law and practised it in Madrid, but irregularly, devoting most of his time to literary work. Besides his poems in the national style (see Introduction, p. xxix) he wrote an epic on the burning of the ships of Cortés and several plays in the French manner, of which only one, Hormesinda (1770), ever had a stage production. His works, with his Life written by his son Leandro, are printed in vol. 2 of the Bibl. de Ant. Esp.

Fiesta de toros en Madrid. Baedeker's guide-book to Spain and Portugal says: "Bull-fights were instituted for the encouragement of proficiency in the use of martial weapons and for the celebration of festal occasions, and were a prerogative of the aristocracy down to the sixteenth century. As the mounted caballero encountered the bull, armed only with a lance, accidents were very frequent. No less than ten knights lost their lives at a single Fiesta de Toros in 1512. The present form of the sport, so much less dangerous for the man and so much more cruel for the beast, was adopted about the beginning of the seventeenth century. The construction, in 1749, of the first great Plaza de Toros in Madrid definitely converted the once chivalrous sport into a public spectacle, in which none took part but professional Toreros." The padded picador of to-day, astride a blinded, worn-out old hack, is the degenerate successor of the knight of old. In the seventeenth century bull-fights in Madrid were sometimes given in the Plaza Mayor (or Plaza de la Constitución).

[6. Aliatar:] this, like most of the names of persons in this poem, is fictitious; but in form these words are of Arabic origin, and it is probable that Moratin borrowed most of them from the romances moriscos. The names of places, it should be noticed, are also Arabic, but the places still retain these names. See Alimenón, and all names of places, in the Vocab.

[28.—19. Hecho un lazo por airón], tied in a knot [to look] like a crest of plumes. This was doubtless the forerunner of the modern banderilla (barbed dart ornamented with streamers of colored paper).

[30.—26-28.] Cual... nube = cual la ardiente madeja del sol deja mirarse tal vez entre cenicienta nube.

[31.—12. blasones de Castilla:] as at this time (in the reign of Alfonso VI) León and Castile were united, the blasones were probably two towers (for Castile) and two lions (for León), each one occupying a corner of the shield.

[14. Nunca mi espada venciera] apparently means: Never did he conquer my sword. This may refer to any adversary, or to some definite adversary in a previous combat.

[26.] The best bulls raised for bull-fights come from the valley of the Guadalquivir.

[32.—22-26.] Así... acerquen á..., Como, may... bring to..., just as surely as.

[33.—8.] Fernando I: see in Vocab.

[35.—28.] The stanzas of pages 34 and 35 are probably known to every Spaniard: schoolboys commit them to memory for public recitation.

[36.—15.] dignáredes = dignareis. In modern Spanish the d (from Lat. t) of the 2d pers. plur. verb endings has fallen.

[38.—4.] Y... despedir = y [si no vieran] á Zaida que le despedía.

[13.] cruz: the cross of a sword is the guard which, crossing the hilt at right angles, gives the sword the shape of a cross. The cross swords were held in especial veneration by the medieval Christians.

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (or Jove-Llanos) (1744-1811) was one of the loftiest characters and most unselfish statesmen ever produced by Spain. Educated for the law, he filled with distinction important judicial offices in Seville and Madrid. In 1780 he was made a member of the Council of Orders. He attached himself to the fortunes of Count Cabarrús, and when that statesman fell from power in 1790, Jovellanos was exiled to his home in Gijón (Asturias). There he devoted himself to the betterment of his native province. In 1797 the favorite, Godoy, made him ministro de gracia y justicia; but he could not be other than an enemy of the corrupt "Prince of the Peace," and in 1798 he was again sent home. In 1801 he was seized and imprisoned in Majorca and was not released till the invasion of Spain by the French in 1808. He refused flattering offers of office under the French, and was the most active member of the Junta Central which organized the Spanish cortes. Unjustly criticized for his labors he retired home, whence he was driven by a sudden incursion of the French. He died a few days after in an inn at Vega (Asturias).

Jovellanos' best literary work is really his political prose, such as the Informe sobre un proyecto de ley agraria (1787) and Defensa de la junta central (1810). His Delincuente honrado (1773), a comédie larmoyante after the manner of Diderot's Fils naturel, had wide success on the stage. His works are in vols. 46 and 50 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. Cf. E. Mérimée, Jovellanos, in the Revue hispanique, I, pp. 34-68.

¿Quis tam patiens ut teneat se? who is so long-suffering as to control himself?

[21.] prisión: see mention above of Jovellanos' imprisonment in Majorca.

[39.—2.] It is scarcely accurate to call Juvenal a bufón, since he was rather a scornful, austere satirist of indignation.

[40.—26.] cuánto de is an unusual expression; but if the line read: ¡Ay, cuánta amargura y cuánto lloro, it would lack one syllable.

[41.—4-6.] cuesta... infanta. Evidently the world has changed little in a hundred years!

[42.]—Juan Meléndez Valdés (1754-1817) was born in the district of Badajoz (Estremadura). He studied law at Salamanca, where he was guided in letters by Cadalso. In 1780 he won a prize offered by the Academy for the best eclogue. He then accepted a professorship at Salamanca offered him by Jovellanos. Literary success led him to petition a position under the government which, involving as it did loss of independence, proved fatal to his character. He filled honorably important judicial posts in Saragossa and Valladolid, but court intrigue and the caprices of Godoy brought him many trials and undeserved punishments. In 1808 he accepted a position under the French, and nearly lost his life from popular indignation. Later his vacillations were pitiful: he wrote spirited poems now for the French and now against them. When they were finally expelled in 1813, he left the country with them and died in poverty and sorrow in Montpellier.

Most of his poems are in vol. 63 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp.; others have been published in the Revue hispanique, vols. I. and IV. Cf. his Life by Quintana in Bibl. de Aut. Esp., vol. 19; E. Mérimée, Meléndez Valdés, in Revue hispanique, I, 166-195; Introduction, p. xxx.

[44.—5.] Muy más: this use of muy is not uncommon in the older classics, but the usual expression now is mucho más.

[28.] benigna: see note, p. 22, l. 6.

[46.]—Manuel José Quintana (1772-1857) was born in Madrid. He went to school in Cordova and later studied law at Salamanca. He fled from Madrid upon the coming of the French. In the reign of Ferdinand VII he was for a time confined in the Bastile of Pamplona on account of his liberal ideas. After the liberal triumph of 1834 he held various public offices, including that of Director General of Public Instruction. In 1855 he was publicly crowned in the Palace of the Senate.

See [Introduction], p. xxxii; Ticknor, III, 332-334; Blanco García, La literatura española en el siglo XIX, 2d ed., Madrid, 1899, I, 1-13; Menéndez y Pelayo, D. Manuel José Quintana, La poesía lírica al principiar el siglo XIX, Madrid, 1887; E. Piñeyro, M.-J. Quintana, Chartres, 1892; Juan Valera, Florilegio de poesías castellanas, Madrid, 1903, V, 32-38. His works are in vols. 19 and 67 of Bibl. de Aut. Esp.

The Spanish people, goaded by the subservience of Charles IV and his prime minister and favorite, Godoy, to the French, rose in March, 1808, swept away Godoy, forced the king to abdicate and placed his son Ferdinand upon the throne. It was believed that this change of rulers would check French influence in the Peninsula, but Ferdinand was forced by Napoleon into a position more servile than that occupied formerly by Charles.

[2.] Note the free word-order in Spanish which permits, as in this line, the subject to follow the verb, the object to precede.

[14.] Oceano: note the omission of the accent on e, that the word may rime with soberano and vano; but here oceano still has four syllables.

[47.—28.] tirano del mundo = Napoleon Bonaparte.

[48.—24.] By los colosos de oprobio y de vergüenza are probably meant Charles IV and Godoy.

[49.—29.] hijo de Jimena: see Jimena and Bernardo del Carpio, in Vocab.

[50.—2.] En... y, with a... and in.

[51.]—Dionisio Solís y Villanueva (1774-1834) was born in Cordova: he never rose higher in life than to be prompter in a theater. He fought against the French, and he was exiled for a time by Ferdinand VII. Solís wrote some plays and translated many from other languages into Spanish. The best that can be said of Solís as a poet is that his work is spontaneous and in parts pleasing. Cf. Blanco García, I, 50 and 61-63; Valera, Florilegio, V, 44-46.

[53.—18-19.] Esta... enfermedad = esta dulce deliciosa enfermedad que yo siento.

[25.] si puede (here meaning if it is possible) is understood before que trate.

[54.]—Juan Nicasio Gallego (1777-1853) was born at Zamora. He was ordained a priest: later he went to court, and was appointed Director of His Majesty's Pages. He frequented the salon of his friend Quintana, and was elected deputy from Cadiz. In 1814, during the reign of Ferdinand VII, Gallego was imprisoned for his liberal ideas and later was banished from Spain. He spent some years in France and returned to Spain in 1828. Later he was appointed Perpetual Secretary of the Spanish Academy.

See [Introduction], p. xxxii; Blanco García, I, 13 f.; Valera, Florilegio, V, 38-44. His poems are in vol. 67 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. There is also an edition of his poems by the Academia de la Lengua, Madrid, 1854.

El Dos de Mayo: on the second of May, 1808, the Spanish people, unarmed and without strong leaders, rose against Napoleon's veteran troops. Aided by the English, they drove out the French after a long and bloody war, thus proving to the world that the old Spanish spirit of independence was still alive. This war is known to the Spaniards as the Guerra de la independencia and to the English as the Peninsular War. The popular uprising began with the seizure of a powder magazine in Madrid by Velarde and Daoiz (see in Vocab.). These men and their followers were killed and the magazine was retaken by the French, but the incident roused the Spanish people to action.

[9.] al furor, in the glare.

[55.—4.] Mantua: a poetic appellation of Madrid. Cf. article by Prof. Milton A. Buchanan in Romanic Review, 1910, p. 211 f. See also p. xxxiii, Introduction to this volume.

[11-12.] ¿Quién habrá... que cuente, who may there be to tell...

[58.—26 to 59.]—3. Note how the poet refers to the various parts of the Spanish peninsula: hijos de Pelayo = the Spaniards in general, or perhaps those of northernmost Spain; Moncayo = Aragon, Navarre and Castile; Turia = Valencia; Duero = Old Castile, Leon and Portugal; and Guadalquivir = Andalusia. See Pelayo and Moncayo and these names of rivers in Vocab.

[5.] Patrón = Santiago, or St. James, the patron saint of Spain. According to the legend James "the Greater," son of Zebedee, preached in Spain, and after his death his body was taken there and buried at Santiago de Campostela. It was believed that he often appeared in the battle-fields fighting with the Spaniards against the Moslems.

[14-15.] á... brindó felicidad, drank in fire and blood a toast to her prosperity.

[60.]—Francisco Martínez de la Rosa (1787-1862) was born at Granada. During the War of Independence he was sent to England to plead for the support of that country against the French. Later he was exiled by Ferdinand VII, and was for five years a prisoner of state in a Spanish prison on the African coast. After his release he became prominent in politics, and was forced to flee to France. In 1834 he was called into power by the queen regent, Maria Cristina. He represented his country at Paris, and later at Rome, and held several important posts as cabinet minister.

See [Introduction], p. xxxvi; Menéndez y Pelayo, Estudios de crítica literaria, Madrid, 1884, pp. 223, f.; Blanco García, I, 115-128; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 56-63. His Obras completas, 2 vols., ed. Baudry, were published at Paris in 1845. Several of his articles of literary criticism are in vols. 5, 7, 20 and 61 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp.

[3.] riyendo = riendo.

[61.]—Angel de Saavedra, Duque de Rivas (1791-1865) was born at Cordova. He prepared for a military career. By reason of his liberal ideas he was compelled to leave Spain and went to England, France and the Island of Malta. He returned to Spain in 1834 and became a cabinet minister, but was again forced to flee the country. Later he was welcomed back and represented Spain at Naples. He retired from politics and was appointed Director of the Spanish Academy.

See [Introduction], p. xxxvi; Blanco García, I, 129-153; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 184-195. His Obras completas, in 5 vols., were published by the Spanish Academy, Madrid, 1854-1855, with introductory essays by Pastor Díaz and Cañete. His works were also published in the Colección de Escritores castellanos, 1894-.

[4.] De... pro = en pro de mi sangre y casa.

[62.—3.] á la que: translate, before which.

[10.] duque de Borbón is the subject of estaba, l. 3.

[18.] Empérador = Charles V.

[64.—8.] Condestable = Velasco, Constable of Spain, who in 1521 defeated the comuneros who had rebelled against the rule of Charles V.

[65.—22.] Y con los que, with whom.

[23.] estrecho stands in antithesis to ancho: for his glory the broad world will be narrow.

[66.—18-19.] Y... leonesa = y un coleto á la leonesa de recamado ante.

[68.—20-21.] Que... resuelta = que es voluntad suya resuelta (el) que aloje á Borbón.

[69.—22]. de un su pariente is archaic. The regular expression to-day would be de un pariente suyo.

[71.]—Juan Arolas (1805-1849) was born in Barcelona, but spent most of his life in Valencia. In 1821, when sixteen years old, Arolas, much against the wishes of his parents, joined a monastic order. Arolas wrote in all the literary genres of his time, but he distinguished himself most as a poet by his romantic "oriental" and love poems.

Cf. El P. Arolas, su vida y sus versos, Madrid, 1898, by José R. Lomba y Pedraja; Blanco García, I, 186-189; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 121-130. A new edition of Arolas' verses was published at Valencia in 1883.

[73.]—José de Espronceda (1808-1842), Spain's greatest romantic poet, was born in Almendralejo (Badajoz). At the Colegio de San Mateo Espronceda was considered a precocious but wayward pupil. His poetic gifts won for him the lasting friendship of his teacher, Alberto Lista. At an early age he became a member of a radical secret society, Los Numantinos. Sent into exile to a monastery in Guadalajara, he there composed the fragmentary heroic poem Pelayo. After his release he went to Lisbon and then to London. Enamored of Teresa, though another's wife, he fled with her to Paris, where he took an active part in the revolution of 1830. Espronceda returned to Spain in 1833, and engaged in journalism and politics. Worn out by his tempestuous life, he died at the early age of thirty-four years.

See [Introduction], p. xxxvii; E. Rodríguez Solís, Espronceda, su tiempo, su vida y sus obras, Madrid, 1883; Blanco García, I, 154-171; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 197-207; Antonio Cortón, Espronceda, Madrid, 1906; Philip H. Churchman, Espronceda's Blanca de Borbón, Revue hisp., 1907; and Byron and Espronceda, ibid., 1909. For his poems, see Obras poéticas, in the Biblioteca amena é instructiva, Barcelona, 1882; Obras poéticas y escritos en prosa, colección ordenada por D. Patricio de la Escosura, Madrid, 1884.

[79.]—José de Zorrilla (1817-1893) was born in Valladolid. After receiving his secondary education in the Jesuit Semanario de Nobles he began the study of law; but he soon turned to the more congenial pursuit of belles-lettres. In 1855 he went to Mexico where he resided eleven years. Though a most productive writer, Zorrilla spent most of his life in penury until, in his old age, he received from the government an annual pension of 30,000 reales. He became a member of the Spanish Academy in 1885, and four years later he was "crowned" in Granada. Zorrilla died in Madrid in his seventy-sixth year.

See [Introduction], p. xxxvii; an autobiography, Recuerdos del tiempo viejo, 3 vols.; Fernández Flórez, D. José Zorrilla, in Autores dramáticos contemporáneos, 1881, vol. I; Blanco García, I, 197-216; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 258-270. For his works, see Poesías, 8 vols., Madrid, 1838-1840; Obras, edition Baudry, 3 vols., Paris, 1852; Poesías escogidas, published by the Academia de la lengua, Madrid, 1894; Obras dramáticas y líricas, Madrid, 1895.

[85.—10.] Fantasmas = como fantasmas.

[86.]—Á Buen Juez Mejor Testigo, A Good Judge, But a Better Witness. In Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora there is a similar legend of a crucifix summoned as witness.

[91.—4-5.] Como... bañe: this passage is obscure, but the meaning seems to be, as a pledge that the river should so zealously bathe it.

[18. ]la hermosa, according to tradition, was Florinda, daughter of Count Julian. Roderick (Roderico or Rodrigo), the last king of the Goths in Spain, saw Florinda bathing in the Tagus, conceived a passion for her and dishonored her. In revenge Julian is said to have brought the Saracens into Spain.

[27. ]puerta: this may refer to the Puerta Visagra Antigua, an ancient Arabic gate of the ninth century, now closed.

[92.—12.] Las... horadarle = al horadarle las palmas (al rey). According to tradition Alfonso, who became afterward King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile, when a refugee at the court of Alimenón, the Moorish king of Toledo, overheard the Moorish sovereign and his advisers talking about the defences of the city. The Moors said that the Christians, by a siege, could probably starve Toledo into submission. Upon perceiving Alfonso near at hand apparently asleep, the Moors, to prove whether he was really asleep or not, poured molten lead into his hand, and he had sufficient will power to remain motionless while the lead burned a hole through it.

Mariana (Historia de España, Libro IX, Cap. VIII) relates this story, but rejects it and says that the real cause of Alfonso's nickname ("el rey de la mano horadada") was his extreme generosity.

[13.] circo romano: to the east of the Hospital de San Juan Bautista of Toledo lies the suburb of Covachuelas, the houses of which conceal the ruins of a Roman amphitheater.

[15.] Basílica: in the lower Vega, to the northwest of Toledo, is the hermitage of El Cristo de la Vega, formerly known as the Basílica de Santa Leocadia, which dated from the fourth century. This edifice was the meeting-place of several Church councils. The ancient building was destroyed by the Moors and has been repeatedly rebuilt.

[95.—21.] el templo: the Ermita del Cristo de la Vega. See preceding note.

[27.] Víase = veíase: vía, for veía, is not uncommon in poetry.

[105.—3-5.] Gritan... valor = los que en el mercado venden, gritan en discorde son lo vendido y el valor (= what they have for sale and its price).

[107.—13-14.] y... honor = y dispensad que (yo) dudara de vuestro honor acusado.

[108.—10.] See note, p. 92, l. 15.

[112.—16.] cada un año = cada año.

Antonio de Trueba (1821-1889) was born at Montellano (Viscaya). At the age of fifteen or sixteen years he removed to Madrid and engaged in commerce. In 1862 he was appointed Archivist and Chronicler of the Señorío de Vizcaya, which post he held for ten years. Trueba, best known as a writer of short stories, published two volumes of mediocre verses which achieved considerable popularity during the author's lifetime, but are now nearly forgotten.

Cf. Notas autobiográficas in La Ilustración Española y Americana, Enero 30, 1889; Blanco García, II, 26-28 and 301-308; Juan Valera, Florilegio, V, 307-311. For his verses, see El libro de los cantares (1851) and El libro de las montañas (1867).

[113.—14.] Cantos: note the double meaning of canto.

[114.]—José Selgas y Carrasco (1821-1882) was born in Murcia. A writer on the staff of the satirical and humorous journal, El Padre Cobos, Selgas won the attention of the public by his ironical and reactionary articles and was elevated to an important political office by Martínez Campos. He is the author of two volumes of verses, La Primavera (1850) and El estío.

See [Introduction], p. xxxix; and Blanco García, II, 19-23 and 244-250. For Selgas' verses, see his Poesías, Madrid, 1882-1883.

[117.]—Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891) was born in Guadix. He studied law, served as a volunteer in an African war and became a writer on the staff of several revolutionary journals. His writings, which at first were sentimental or radical, became more subdued in tone and more conservative with his advancing years. In 1877 he was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy. Primarily a journalist and novelist, Alarcón published a volume of humorous and descriptive verses, some of which have merit.

Cf. Blanco García, II, 62-63 and 452-467; and articles in the Nuevo Teatro Crítico (Sept., Oct. and Nov., 1891). For his verses, see Poesías serias y humorísticas, 3d ed., Madrid, 1885.

[121.]—Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) was born in Seville, and became an orphan in his tenth year. When eighteen years of age he went penniless to Madrid, where he earned a precarious living by writing for journals and by doing literary hack-work.

See [Introduction], p. xxxix; Blanco García, II, 79-86 and 274-277. For his works, see his Obras, 5th ed., Madrid, 1898 (with a Prólogo by Correa: the Rimas are in vol. III).

[122.—12-13.] Del salón... olvidada = en el ángulo obscuro del salón, tal vez olvidada de su dueño. Bécquer, in his striving after complicated metrical arrangements, often inverts the word-order in his verse. See also Introduction, Versification, p. lxxii.

[19.] arrancarlas: las refers to Cuánta nota, which seems to have here the force of a plural.

[24.] See Introduction, Versification, [p. lxv.]

[124.—14.] intérvalo: the standard form is intervalo.

[126.—12.] El nicho á un extremo: the meaning is, one end of the recess, in which the coffin will be placed. The graveyards of Spain and Spanish America have lofty walls with niches or recesses large enough to contain coffins. After receiving the coffin, the niche is sealed with a slab that bears the epitaph of the deceased.

[128.]—The Valencian Vicente W. Querol (1836-1889) gave most of his time to commerce, but he occasionally wrote verses that had the merit of correctness of language and strong feeling.

Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 376-378. For his verses, see Rimas (Prólogo by Pedro A. de Alarcón), 1877; La fiesta de Venus, in the Almanaque de la Ilustración, 1878.

[7.] Ó en el que = ó en el día en que: the reference is to the anniversaries of the wedding day and the saints' days of the parents.

[129.—19.] las que... son, what is...

[131.—15-16.] la que... agonía = la lenta agonía que sufristeis...

[133.]—Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio (1817-1901) was born in Navia (Asturias). He studied medicine but soon turned to poetry and politics. A pronounced conservative, he won favor with the government and received appointment to several important offices including that of governor of Alicante and Valencia.

Cf. [Introduction], p. xli; Juan Valera, Obras poéticas de Campoamor, in Estudios críticos sobre literatura, Seville, 1884; Peseux-Richard, in the Revue hispanique, I, 236 f.; Blanco García, II, Cap. V. For his works, see Doloras y cantares, 16th ed., Madrid, 1882; Los pequeños poemas, Madrid, 1882-1883; Poética, 1883; El drama universal, 3d ed., Madrid, 1873; El licenciado Torralba, Madrid, 1888; Obras escogidas, Leipzig, 1885-1886; Obras completas, 8 vols., Madrid, 1901-03.

[135.—3.] se va y se viene y se está: note the use of se in the sense of people, or an indefinite we.

[5.] Y... procura = y si tu afecto no procura volver.

[136.—18.] See note, p. 3, l. 7.

[137.]—Valladolid was the birthplace of Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1834-1903). When a child, he removed with his family to Toledo. At the age of nineteen years he entered upon a journalistic career in Madrid. As a member of the Progresista party, Núñez de Arce was appointed Civil Governor of Barcelona, and afterward he became a cabinet minister.

Cf. [Introduction], p. xlii; Menéndez y Pelayo's essay in Estudios de crítica literaria, 1884; Juan Valera's essay on the Gritos del combate, Revista europea, 1875, no. 60; Blanco García, Cap. XVIII; José del Castillo, Núñez de Arce, Apuntes para su biografía, Madrid, 1904. For his works, see Gritos del combate, 8th ed., 1891; Obras dramáticas, Madrid, 1879. Most of his longer poems are in separate pamphlets, published by M. Murillo and Fernando Fe, Madrid, 1895-1904.

[137.]—Tristezas shows unmistakably the influence of the French poet Alfred de Musset, and especially perhaps of his Rolla and Confession d'un enfant du siècle.

[138.—16 f.] Compare with the author's La duda and Miserere, and Bécquer's La ajorca de oro.

[142.—1-3.] The poet seems to compare the nineteenth century, amidst the flames of furnaces and engines, to the fallen archangel in hell.

[16.] mística, that is, of communion with God, heavenly.

[144.]—¡Sursum Corda!: the lines given are merely the introduction to the poem, and form about one fourth of the entire work. They were written soon after the Spanish-American War. See Sursum Corda!, Madrid, 1904; and also Juan Valera's Florilegio, IV, 413 f.

[8.] The plains of Old Castile may well be called "austere."

[145.—10-16.] Cf. Á España (1860) and Á Castelar (1873).

[147.—11-19]. There are few stronger lines than these in all Spanish poetry.

[148.]—Manuel del Palacio (1832-1895) was born in Lérida. His parents removed to Granada, and there he joined a club of young men known as La Cuerda. Going to Madrid, he devoted himself to journalism and politics, first as a radical and later as a conservative.

Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 40. For his works, see his Obras, Madrid, 1884; Veladas de otoño, 1884; Huelgas diplomáticas, 1887.

[5.] el ave placentera: a well-known Spanish-American poet calls this a mere ripio (stop-gap), and says it may mean one bird as well as another.

The Catalan Joaquín María Bartrina (born at Reus in 1850) published in 1876 a volume of pessimistic and iconoclastic verses, entitled Algo. After his death (1880) his works were published under the title of Obras en prosa y verso, escogidas y coleccionadas por J. Sardá, Barcelona, 1881. Cf. Blanco García, II, 349-350.

[148.—15-19.] These lines give expression to the pessimism that has obtained in Spain for two centuries past.

[149.—14.] The reference is, of course, to the paintings, of which there are many, of "The Last Supper" of Jesus.

Manuel Reina (1860-) was born in Puente Genil. Like Bartrina, Reina is an imitator of Núñez de Arce, in that he sings of the degeneracy of mankind. He undertook, with but little success, to revive the eleven-syllable romance of the neo-classic Spanish tragedy of the eighteenth century.

Cf. Blanco García, II, 354-355. For his verses, see Andantes y allegros and Cromos y acuarelas, cantos de nuestra época, con un prólogo de D. José Fernández Bremón.

The Valencian Teodoro Llorente (b. 1836) is best known for his translations of the works of modern poets. He is also the author of verses (Amorosas, Versos de la juventud, et al.).

[151.]—Argentina. The development of letters was slower in Argentina than in Mexico, Peru and Colombia, since Argentina was colonized and settled later than the others. During the colonial period there was little literary production in the territory now known as Argentina. Only one work of this period deserves mention. This is Argentina y conquista del río de la Plata, etc. (Lisbon, 1602), by Martín del Barco Centenera, a long work in poor verses and of little historical value. During the first decade of the nineteenth century there was an outpouring of lyric verses in celebration of the defeat of the English by the Spaniards at Buenos Aires, but to all of these Gallego's ode Á la defensa de Buenos Aires is infinitely superior.

During the revolutionary period the best-known writers, all of whom may be roughly classified as neo-classicists, were: Vicente López Planes (1784-1856), author of the Argentine national hymn; Esteban Luca (1786-1824); Juan C. Lafinur (1797-1824); Juan Antonio Miralla (d. 1825); and, lastly, the most eminent poet of this period, Juan Cruz Varela (1794-1839), author of the dramas Dido and Argía, and of the ode Triunfo de Ituzaingó (Poesías, Buenos Aires, 1879).

The first Argentine poet of marked ability, and one of the greatest that his country has produced, was the romanticist (who introduced romanticism into Argentina directly from France), Esteban Echeverría (1805-1851), author of Los Consuelos (1834), Rimas (1837) and La cautiva. The latter poem is distinctively "American," as it is full of local color. Juan Valera, in his letter to Rafael Obligado (Cartas americanas, primera serie), says truly that Echeverría "marks the point of departure of the Argentine national literature." (Obras completas, 5 vols., Buenos Aires, 1870-74).

Other poets of the early period of independence are: the literary critic, Juan María Gutiérrez (1809-1878), one-time rector of the University of Buenos Aires and editor of an anthology, América poética (Valparaíso, 1846); Dr. Claudio Mamerto Cuenca (1812-1866; cf. Obras poéticas escogidas, Paris, 1889); and José Mármol (1818-1871), author of El peregrino and of the best of Argentine novels, Amalia (Obras poéticas y dramáticas, coleccionadas por José Domingo Cortés, 3d ed., Paris, 1905).

In parenthesis be it said that Argentina also claims as her own the poet Ventura de la Vega (1807-1865), who was born in Buenos Aires, as Mexico claims Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, and as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is claimed by Cuba.

As in Spain Ferdinand VII had driven into exile most of the prominent writers of his period, so the despotic president, Juan Manuel Rosas (1793-1877: fell from power in 1852), drove from Argentina many men of letters, including Varela, Echeverría and Mármol.

Down to the middle of the nineteenth century it may be said that the Spanish-American writers followed closely the literary movements of the mother country. Everywhere across the sea there were imitators of Meléndez Valdés and Cienfuegos, of Quintana, of Espronceda and Zorrilla. During the early years of romanticism some Spanish-American poets,—notably the Argentine Echeverría,—turned for inspiration directly to the French writers of the period; but, in the main, the Spanish influence was predominant. The Spanish-American 281 verses, for the most part, showed insufficient preparation and were marred by many inaccuracies of diction; but here and there a group of writers appeared,—as in Colombia,—who rivaled in artistic excellence the poets of Spain. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Spanish-American writers became more independent in thought and speech. It is true that many imitated the mysticism of Bécquer or the pessimism of Núñez de Arce, but many more turned for inspiration to native subjects or to the literary works of other lands than Spain, and particularly of France and Italy.

The extreme in local color was reached in the "literatura gauchesca," which consists of collections of popular or semi-popular ballads in the dialect of the gauchos, or cowboys and "ranchers," of the Pampas. The best of these collections,—Martín Fierro (1872), by José Fernández,—is more artistic than popular. This long poem, which in its language reminds the English reader of Lowell's Biglow Papers, is the best-known and the most widely read work by an Argentine author.

The greatest Argentine poets of the second half of the century have been Andrade and Obligado. Olegario Víctor Andrade (1838-1882), the author of Prometeo and Atlántida, is generally recognized as one of the foremost modern poets of Spanish America, and probably the greatest poet that Argentina has as yet given to the world. In art, Andrade was a disciple of Victor Hugo; in philosophy, he was a believer in modern progress and freedom of thought; but above all else was his loyal patriotism to Argentina. Andrade's verses have inspiration and enthusiasm, but they are too didactic and they are marred by occasional incorrectness of speech. Atlantida, a hymn to the future of the Latin race in America, is the poet's last and noblest work (Obras, Buenos Aires, 1887).

It is said of Rafael Obligado (1852-) that he is more elegant and correct than Andrade, but his muse has less inspiration. He has, moreover, the distinction of showing almost no French influence, which is rare to-day among Spanish-American writers. Juan Valera regrets Obligado's excessive "Americanism," and laments the fact that the poet uses many words of local origin that he, Valera, does not understand. The poet's better works are, for the most part, descriptions of the beauties of nature or the legendary tales of his native land (Poesías, Buenos Aires, 1885).

Among recent poets, two have especially distinguished themselves. Leopoldo Díaz (1868-) began as a disciple of Heredia, and has become a pronounced Hellenist, now a rare phenomenon in Spanish America. Besides many sonnets imbued with classicism, he has written odes to the conquistadores and to Atlántida conquistada. Like Darío, Blanco-Fombona and many other Spanish-American poets of to-day, Diaz resides in Europe; but, unlike the others, he lives in Morges instead of Paris (Sonetos, Buenos Aires, 1888; Bajo-relieves, Buenos Aires, 1895; et al.). A complete "modernista" (he would probably scorn the title of "decadent") is Leopoldo Lugones (1875?-), whose earlier verses are steeped in an erotic sensualism rare in the works of Spanish-American poets. He seeks to be original and writes verses on every conceivable theme and in all kinds of metrical arrangements. Thus, in Lunario sentimental there are verses, essays and dramatic sketches, all addressed to the moon. For an example of his versos libres, see Introduction to this volume, p. xlvi (Las montañas de oro, Los crepúsculos del jardín; Lunario sentimental, Buenos Aires, 1909; Odas seculares, Buenos Aires, 1910).

For studies of Argentine literature, see Blanco García, Hist. Lit. Esp., III, pp. 380 f.; Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., IV, pp. lxxxix f.; Juan Valera, Poesía argentina, in Cartas americanas, primera serie, Madrid, 1889, pp. 51-119; Literatura argentina, Buenos Aires, 1903; Poetas argentinos, Buenos Aires, 1904; Antología argentina, B.T. Martínez, Buenos Aires, 1890-91; Compendio de literatura argentina, E. Alonso Criado, Buenos Aires, 1908; Miscelánea, by Santiago Estrada; La lira argentina, Buenos Aires, 1824. Other important works, treating of Spanish-American literature, are: Biblioteca hispano-americana (1493-1810), José Toribio Medina, 6 vols., Santiago de Chile, 1898-1902; Bibliography of Spanish-American Literature, Alfred Coester, Romanic Review, III, 1; Escritores hispano-americanos, Manuel Cañete, Madrid, 1884; Escritores y poetas sud-americanos, Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1890; Juicio crítico de poetas hispano-americanos, M.L. Amunátegui, Santiago de Chile, 1861; La joven literatura hispano-americana, Manuel Ugarte, Paris, 1906.

Echeverría: see preceding note.

Canción de Elvira. This Gutiérrez calls the "song of the American Ophelia."

[152.]—Andrade: see note to p. 151.

[18.] Á celebrar las bodas, to be the bride.

[153.—3.] The Argentines, especially, seem to take delight in calling themselves a Latin, rather than a Spanish, race. This may be due to the fact that fully one third of the population of Argentine is Italian. Both Juan Valera and Menéndez y Pelayo have chided the Argentines for speaking of themselves as a raza latino-americana, instead of hispano-americana.

[15.] arcano, secret, seems to have the force here of a secret ark, or secret sanctuary, which is broken open that its secrets may be disclosed.

[154.—6-10.] These lines refer, of course, to the Christian religion, spoken of symbolically as an altar, which has replaced the heterogeneous pagan cults of ancient Rome, and which the Spaniards first brought to America.

[11.] ciclopeas: note the omission of the accent on o that the word may rime with ideas.

[155.—5.] Tequendama: see in the Vocab. Several Colombian poets, including Don José Joaquín Ortiz and Doña Agripina Montes del Valle, have written odes to this famous waterfall. See Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., II; and Parnaso colombiano, II, Bogotá, 1887.

[17-18.] A revolutionary hero, Antonio Ricaurte (b. 1786), blew up the Spanish powder magazine on the summit of a hill near San Mateo, and lost his life in the explosion. See Mateo in Vocab.

[156.—5.] The colors of the Peruvian flag are red and white, mainly red. The red,—symbolical of bloodshed,—shall be largely replaced by the golden color of ripening grain,—symbolical of industry.

[8.] Caracas, where Bolivar was born, lies at the foot of Mount Ávila.

[11.] This line, and line 16, would indicate that Atlántida was written soon after the war, begun in 1876, between Chile and the allied forces of Bolivia and Peru, in which Chile was victorious.

[12-15.] When this was written there was little immediate prospect of other railways than the narrow-gage road from Oruro to the Chilean frontier, about five hundred miles in length; but now Bolivia has the promise of becoming the railway center of lines connecting both Argentina and Chile with Peru. These lines are now completed or building.

[27.] Andrade died in 1882, and seven years after his death, in 1889, the emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed, and a republican form of government was adopted by Brazil.

[157.]—3. Andrade now sings of his own country, hence ¡De pie para cantarla!

[8.] There is a larger immigration of Europeans into Argentina than into any other South-American country. The immigrants come mostly from northern Italy and from Spain.

[12-16.] As the Atlántida was the last poetic work of Andrade, these lines may refer to the treaty of 1881 between Argentina and Chile, by which Argentina acquired all the territory east of the Andes, including Patagonia and the eastern part of Tierra del Fuego.

By the conquest and settlement of the broad plains (pampas) and the frozen region of the south, a new world was created, much as in the United States of America a new world was created by the acquirement and settlement of the western plains, mountain lands and Pacific coast.

[21.] Vast areas in Argentina are given over to the cultivation of wheat, barley and oats.

[159.]—These are the last stanzas of Prometeo, a poem in which the author addresses the human mind and urges it to break its bonds and free itself from tyranny and prejudice: see also in Vocab.

[160.]—Obligado: see note to p. 151.

[162.]—Colombia. Colombia was formerly known as Nueva Granada, and its inhabitants are still sometimes called Granadinos. An older and larger Colombia was organized in 1819, toward the close of the revolutionary war; but this state was later divided into three independent countries, viz., Venezuela, Nueva Granada and Ecuador. In 1861 Nueva Granada assumed the name of Estados Unidos de Colombia, and only recently the Colombian part of the Isthmus of Panama established itself as an independent republic. The present Colombia has, therefore, only about one third the area of the older state of the same name. In treating of literature, the terms Colombia and Colombian are restricted to the present-day Colombia and the older Nueva Granada. The capital of the Republic is Santa Fe de Bogotá, to-day generally known simply as Bogotá. It is at an elevation of 8700 feet above the level of the sea, and has a cool and equable climate.

It is generally conceded that the literary production of Colombia has excelled that of any other Spanish-American country. Menéndez y Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., III, Introd.) speaks of Bogotá as the "Athens of South America," and says further: "the Colombian Parnassus to-day excels in quality, if not in quantity, that of any other region of the New World." And Juan Valera in his Cartas americanas (primera serie, p. 121 f.) says: "Of all the people of South America the Bogotanos are the most devoted to letters, sciences and arts"; and again: "In spite of the extraordinary ease with which verses are made in Colombia, and although Colombia is a democratic republic, her poetry is aristocratic, cultivated and ornate." Blanco García characterizes Colombia as one of the most Spanish of American countries.

During the colonial period, however, Nueva Granada produced few literary works. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the conquistador of New Granada, wrote memoirs, entitled Ratos de Suesca (1573?), of little historical value. The most important work of the period is the chronicles in verse of Juan de Castellanos (b. 1522? in the Spanish province of Seville). This work is largely epic in character; and, with its 150,000 lines, it is the longest poem in the Spanish language. Though for the most part prosaic and inexact, yet it has some passages of high poetic worth, and it throws much light on the lives of the early colonists. The first three parts of the poem, under the title of Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (the first part only was published in 1589), occupies all of vol. IV of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp. The fourth part is contained in two volumes of the Colección de Escritores Castellanos, under the title of Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada.

In the seventeenth century the colonists were still too busy with the conquest and settlement of the country to spare time for the cultivation of letters. A long epic poem, the Poema heroico de San Ignacio de Loyola, with much Gongorism and little merit, was published at Madrid in 1696, after the death of the author, the Colombian Hernando Domínguez Camargo. A few short lyrics by the same author also appeared in the Ramillete de varias flores poéticas (Madrid, 1676) of Jacinto Evia of Ecuador.

Early in the eighteenth century Sor Francisca Josefa de la Concepción, "Madre Castillo" (d. 1742), wrote an account of her life and her Sentimientos espirituales, in which there is much of the mysticism of Saint Theresa.

About 1738 the printing-press was brought to Bogotá by the Jesuits, and after this date there was an important intellectual awakening. Many colleges and universities had already been founded,—the first in 1554. The distinguished Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, in 1762, took the chair of mathematics and astronomy in the Colegio del Rosario, and under him were trained many scientists, including Francisco José de Caldas. An astronomical observatory was established, the first in America. In 1777 a public library was organized, and a theater in 1794. And of great influence was the visit of Humboldt in 1801. Among the works published in the second half of the eighteenth century mention should be made of the Lamentaciones de Pubén by the canon José María Grueso (1779-1835) and El placer público de Santa Fe (Bogotá, 1804) by José María Salazar (1785-1828).

During the revolutionary period two poets stand preeminent. Dr. José Fernández Madrid (d. 1830) was a physician and statesman, and for a short time president of the Republic. His lyrics are largely the expression of admiration for Bolivar and of hatred toward Spain: his verses are usually sonorous and correct (Poesías, Havana, 1822; London, 1828). The "Chénier" of Colombia was Luis Vargas Tejada (1802-1829), the author of patriotic verses, some of which were directed against Bolivar, and of neo-classic tragedies. He died by drowning at the age of twenty-seven (Poesías, Bogotá, 1855).

The four most noted poets of Colombia are J.E. Caro, Arboleda, Ortiz and Gutiérrez González. A forceful lyric poet was José Eusebio Caro (1817-1853), a philosopher and statesman, a man of moral greatness and a devout Christian. In the bloody political struggles of his day he sacrificed his estate and his life to his conception of right. He sang of God, love, liberty and nature with exaltation; but all his writings evince long meditation. Like many Spanish-American poets of his day Caro was influenced by Byron. In his earlier verses he had imitated the style of Quintana (cf. El ciprés); but later, under the influence of romantic poets, he attempted to introduce into Spanish prosody new metrical forms. Probably as a result of reading English poetry, he wrote verses of 8 and 11 syllables with regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, which is rare in Spanish. So fond did he become of lines with regular binary movement throughout that he recast several of his earlier verses (Obras escogidas, Bogotá, 1873; Poesías, Madrid, 1885).

Julio Arboleda (1817-1861), "Don Julio," was one of the most polished and inspired poets of Colombia. He was an intimate friend of Caro and like him a journalist and politician. He was a good representative of the chivalrous and aristocratic type of Colombian writers of the first half of the nineteenth century. His best work is the narrative poem Gonzalo de Oyón which, though incomplete, is the noblest epic poem that a native Spanish-American poet has yet given to the world. After studying in Europe he engaged in journalism and politics. He took part in several civil wars. A candidate for the presidency of the Republic, he was assassinated before election (Poesías, colección formada sobre los manuscritos originales, con prólogo por M.A. Caro, New York, 1883).

The educator and journalist José Joaquín Ortiz (1814-1892) imitated Quintana in form but not in ideas. Though a defender of neo-classicism, he did not entirely reject romanticism. Ortiz was an ultra-catholic, sincere and ascetic. His verses are impetuous and grandiloquent, but often lacking depth of thought (Poesías, Bogotá, 1880).

The poet Gregorio Gutiérrez González, "Antioco" (1820-1872), was a jurist and politician. He began as an imitator of Espronceda and Zorrilla and is the author of several sentimental poems (Á Julia, ¿Por qué no canto? Una lágrima, et al.) that are the delight of Colombian young ladies. His fame will doubtless depend on the rustic Georgic poem, Memoria sobre el cultivo del maíz en Antioquia. This work is an interesting and remarkably poetic description of the homely life and labors of the Antioquian country folk (Poesías, Bogotá, 1881; Paris, 1908).

The minor poets of this generation are legion. Among these are: Manuel María Madiedo (b. 1815), a sociologist; Germán Gutiérrez de Piñeres (1816-1872), author of melancholy verses; José María Rojas Garrido (1824-1883), a noted orator, one-time president of Colombia; Joaquín Pablo Posada (1825-1880), perhaps the most clever versifier of Spanish America, but whose décimas were mostly written in quest of money; Ricardo Carrasquilla (b. 1827), an educator and author of genial verses; José Manuel Marroquín (b. 1827), a poet and author of articles on customs and a foremost humorist of South America (he was president when Colombia lost Panama); José María Samper (b. 1828), a most voluminous writer; Rafael Núñez (1825-1897), a philosopher and skeptic, and one-time president of the Republic; Santiago Pérez (1830-1900), educator, journalist and one-time president; José María Vergara y Vergara (1831-1872), a Catholic poet and author of a volume of sentimental verses (Libro de los cantares); Rafael Pombo (1833-1912), an eminent classical scholar and literary critic, and "perpetual secretary" of the Colombian Academy; Diego Fallón (b. 1834), son of an English father, and author of several highly finished and beautiful poems; Pinzón Rico (b. 1834), author of popular, romantic songs; César Conto (b. 1836), a jurist and educator; Jorge Isaacs (1837-1895), better known as author of the novel María; and Felipe Pérez (b. 1834).

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the most eminent man of letters in Colombia has been Miguel Antonio Caro (1843-1909), a son of J.E. Caro. A neo-Catholic and "traditionalist," a learned literary critic and a poet, the younger Caro, like Bello before him and like his distinguished contemporary Rufino José Cuervo, has worked for purity of diction and classical ideals in literature. Caro is also the translator of several classic works, including one of Virgil which is recognized as the best in Spanish.

Other poets of the closing years of the century are: Diógenes Arrieta (b. 1848), a journalist and educator; Ignacio Gutiérrez Ponce (1850), a physician; Antonio Gómez Restrepo (b. 1856), a lawyer and politician; José María Garavito A. (b. 1860); José Rivas Groot (b. 1864), an educator and literary critic, and editor of La lira nueva; Joaquín González Camargo (b. 1865), a physician; Agripina Montes del Valle (b. about the middle of the nineteenth century) noted for her ode to the Tequendama waterfall, and Justo Pastor Ríos (1870-), a philosophic poet and liberal journalist.

The "modernista" poet José Asunción Silva (1860-1896) was a sweet singer, but he brought no message. He was fond of odd forms, such as lines of 8+8, 8+8+8 and 8+8+4 syllables (Poesías, con Prólogo de Miguelde Unamuno, Barcelona, 1908).

References: Cf.: Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, 332 f.; Juan Valera, Cartas Am., primera serie, p. 121 f.; Historia de la literatura (1538-1820) en Nueva Granada, José María Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1867; Apuntes sobre bibliografía colombiana, con muestras escogidas en prosa y verso, Isidoro Laverde Amaya, Bogotá, 1882; Parnaso colombiano, J.M. Vergara y Vergara, 3 vols.; La lira granadina, J.M. Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1865; Parnaso colombiano, Julio Áñez, con Prólogo de José Rivas Groot, 2 vols., Bogotá, 1886-87; La lira nueva, J.M. Rivas Groot, Bogotá, 1886; Antología colombiana, Emiliano Isaza, Paris, 1895.

Ortiz: see preceding note.

Colombia y España: In this poem, dated July 20, 1882, the poet begins by recalling the war of independence that he witnessed as a boy and the heroic figure of Bolivar; then he laments the fratricidal struggles that rent the older and larger Colombia; and, finally, in the verses that are here given, he rejoices over the friendly treaty just made by the mother country, Spain, and Colombia, her daughter.

[8.] The colors of the Colombian flag are yellow, blue and red.

[9.] The colors of the Spanish flag are red and yellow. On the Spanish arms two castles (for Castilla) and two lions (for León) are pictured.

[164.]—J.E. Caro: see note to p. 162.

[167.]—Marroquin: see note to p. 162.

[Los cazadores y la perrilla:] compare with Goldsmith's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog."

[168.—7.] Moratín: see note to p. 26. La caza is in Bibl. de Aut. Esp., II, 49 f.

[169.—16.] describilla, archaic or poetic for describirla.

[171.]—M.A. Caro: see note to p. 162.

[174.—14-16.] sombría... alcanzarán = (siendo la Eternidad) sombría y eterna, ni el odio ni el amor, ni la fe ni la duda, alcanzarán nada en sus abismos.

[179.]—Cuba. Although the literary output of Cuba is greater than that of some other Spanish-American countries, yet during the colonial period there was in Cuba a dearth of both prose and verse. The Colegio Semanario de San Carlos y San Ambrosio was founded in 1689 as a theological seminary and was reorganized with lay instruction in 1769. The University of Havana was established by a papal bull in 1721 and received royal sanction in 1728; but for many years it gave instruction only in theological subjects. The first book printed in Cuba dates from 1720. Not till the second half of the eighteenth century did poets of merit appear in the island. Manuel de Zequeira y Arango (1760-1846) wrote chiefly heroic odes (Poesías, N.Y., 1829; Havana, 1852). Inferior to Zequeira was Manuel Justo de Rubalcava (1769-1805), the author of bucolic poems and sonnets (Poesías, Santiago de Cuba, 1848).

The Cuban poet Don José María Heredia (1803-1839) is better known in Europe and in the United States than Bello and Olmedo, since his poems are universal in their appeal. He is especially well known in the United States, where he lived in exile for over two years (1823-1825), at first in Boston and later in New York, and wrote his famous ode to Niagara. Born in Cuba, he studied in Santo Domingo and in Caracas (1812-1817), as well as in his native island. Accused of conspiracy against the Spanish government, he fled to the United States in 1823, and there eked out a precarious existence by giving private lessons. In 1825 he went to Mexico, where he was well received and where he held several important posts, including those of member of Congress and judge of the superior court. In Heredia's biography two facts should be stressed: that he studied for five years in Caracas, the city that produced Bolivar and Bello, respectively the greatest general and the greatest scholar of Spanish America; and that he spent only twelve years, all told, in Cuba. As he lived for fourteen years in Mexico, that country also claims him as her own, while Caracas points to him with pride as another child of her older educational system.

Heredia was most unhappy in the United States. He admired the political institutions of this country; but he disliked the climate of New York, and he despaired of learning English. Unlike Bello and Olmedo he was not a classical scholar. His acquaintance with the Latin poets was limited, and seldom does a Virgilian or Horatian expression occur in his verses. Rather did he stand for the manner of Chateaubriand in France and Cienfuegos in Spain. Though strictly speaking not a romantic poet, he was a close precursor of that movement. His language is not seldom incorrect or lacking in sobriety and restraint; but his numbers are musical and his thought springs directly from imaginative exaltation.

Heredia's poorest verses are doubtless his early love-songs: his best are those in which the contemplation of nature leads the poet to meditation on human existence, as in Niágara, El Teocalli de Cholula, En una tempestad and Al sol. In these poems the predominant note is that of gentle melancholy. In Cuba his best known verses are the two patriotic hymns: Á Emilia and El himno del desterrado. These were written before the poet was disillusioned by his later experiences in the turbulent Mexico of the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, and they are so virulent in their expression of hatred of Spain that Menéndez y Pelayo refused to include them in his Anthology. Heredia undertook to write several plays, but without success. Some translations of dramatic works, however, were well received, and especially those of Ducis' Abufar, Chénier's Tibère, Jouy's Sila, Voltaire's Mahomet and Alfieri's Saul. The Garnier edition (Paris, 1893) of Heredia's Poesías contains an interesting introduction by the critic Elías Zerolo (Poesías, N.Y., 1825; Toluca, 1832; N.Y., 1875; Paris, 1893).

The mulatto poet Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, better known by his pen-name "Plácido" (1809-1844), an uncultivated comb-maker, wrote verses which were mostly commonplace and often incorrect; but some evince remarkable sublimity and dignity (cf. Plegaria á Dios). Cf. Poesías, Matanzas, 1838; Matanzas, 1842; Veracruz, 1845; Paris, 1857; Havana, 1886. The greatest Cuban poetess, and perhaps the most eminent poetess who has written in the Castilian language, is Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (1814-1873). Since Avellaneda spent most of her life in Spain, an account of her life and work is given in the Introduction to this volume, p. xxxviii. Next only to Heredia, the most popular Cuban poet is José Jacinto Milanés y Fuentes (1814-1863), who gave in simple verse vivid descriptions of local landscapes and customs. A resigned and touching sadness characterizes his best verse (Obras, 4 vols., Havana, 1846; N.Y., 1865).

A lawyer, educator and patriot, Rafael María Mendive y Daumy (1821-1886) wrote musical verse in which there is spontaneity and true poetic feeling (Pasionarias, Havana, 1847; Poesías, Madrid, 1860; Havana, 1883). Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces (1826-1867) was more learned than most Cuban poets and fond of philosophizing. Some of his verse has force and gives evidence of careful study; but much is too pedantic to be popular (Poesías, Havana, 1857). A poet of sorrow, Juan Clemente Zenea,—"Adolfo de la Azucena" (1832-1871),—wrote verses that are marked by tender melancholy (Poesías, Havana, 1855; N.Y., 1872, 1874).

Heredia was not the only Cuban poet to suffer persecution. Of the seven leading Cuban poets, often spoken of as "the Cuban Pleiad," Avellaneda removed to Spain, where she married and spent her life in tranquillity; and Joaquín Luaces avoided trouble by living in retirement and veiling his patriotic songs with mythological names. On the other hand José Jacinto Milanés lost his reason at the early age of thirty years, José María Heredia and Rafael Mendive fled the country and lived in exile; while Gabriel Valdés and Juan Clemente Zenea were shot by order of the governor-general.

Since the disappearance of the "Pleiad," the most popular Cuban poets have been Julián del Casal, a skeptic and a Parnassian poet who wrote pleasing but empty verses (Hojas al viento, Nieve, Bustos y Rimas); and Francisco Sellén, whose philosophy is to conceal suffering and to put one's hand to the plow again (Libro íntimo, Havana, 1865; Poesías, N.Y., 1890). José Martí (1853-1895) spent most of his life in exile; but he returned to Cuba and died in battle against the Spanish forces. He wrote excellent prose, but few verses (Flor y lava, Paris, 1910(?)).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., II, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, p. 290 f.; E.C. Hills, Bardos cubanos (contains a bibliography), Boston, 1901; Aurelio Mitjans, Estudio sobre el movimiento científico y literario en Cuba, Havana, 1890; Bachiller y Morales, Apuntes para la historia de las letras y de la instrucción pública de la Isla de Cuba, Havana, 1859; La poesía lírica en Cuba, M. González del Valle, Barcelona, 1900; Cuba poética, Havana, 1858; Parnaso cubano, Havana, 1881.

Heredia: see preceding note.

[5.] This is quite true. On the coast of central and southern Mexico the climate is tropical; on the central plateau it is temperate; and on the mountain slopes, as at the foot of Popocatepetl, it is frigid.

[13-14.] Iztaccíhual and Popocatepec are the popular names of these mountains, but their official names are Iztaccíhuatel and Popocatépetel. These words are of Nahuatlan origin: see in Vocab.

[16—18.] do... teñirse = donde el indio ledo los mira teñirse en púrpura ligera y oro.

[181.—3.] This poem was written in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when Mexico was torn by civil war. There was peace only when some military leader assumed despotic power.

[21.] Note that the moon set behind Popocatepec, a little to the south of west from Cholula, while the sun sank behind Iztaccíhual, a little to the north of west from the city. This might well occur in summer.

[182.—14.] Fueron (lit. they were), they are no more. In this Latinism the preterit denotes that a thing or condition that once existed no longer exists. Cf. fuit Ilium (Æneid, II, 325), "Troy is no more."

[186.—4-5.] Que... seguir = que, en su vuelo, la turbada vista quiere en vano seguir.

[190.]—"Plácido": see note to p. 179.

[Plegaria á Dios]: this beautiful prayer was written a few days before the poet's death. It is said that "Plácido" recited aloud the last stanza on his way to the place of execution, and that he slipped to a friend in the crowd a scrap of cloth on which the prayer was written.

[191.—4]. del... transparencia = á (in) la clara transparencia del aire.

Avellaneda: see [Introduction], p. xxxviii.

[19.] No... modelo = (la historia) no [dió] modelo á tu virtud en lo pasado.

[21.] otra = otra copia.

[192.—1-2.] Miró... victoria = la Europa miró al genio de la guerra y la victoria ensangrentar su suelo. The genio was Napoleon Bonaparte.

[4.] Al... cielo = el cielo le diera al genio del bien. Note that le is dative and al genio accusative. This otherwise admirable sonnet is marred by the numerous inversions of the word-order.

[193.]—Ecuador is a relatively small and mountainous country, lying, as the name implies, directly on the equator. The two principal cities are Guayaquil, a port on the Pacific coast, and Quito, the capital. Quito is beautifully situated on a plateau 9300 feet above the level of the sea. The climate is mild and salubrious, and drier than at Bogotá. The early Spanish colonists repeatedly wrote of the beautiful scenery and the "eternal spring" of Quito.

All of the present Ecuador belonged to the Virreinato del Perú till 1721, after which date Quito and the contiguous territory were governed from Bogotá. In 1824 Guayaquil and southern Ecuador were forcibly annexed to the first Colombia by Bolivar. Six years later Ecuador separated from Colombia and organized as a separate state.

In the territory now known as Ecuador the first colleges were established about the middle of the sixteenth century, by the Franciscans, for the natives, and by the Jesuits, as elsewhere in America, for the sons of Spaniards. Several chronicles by priests and other explorers were written during the early years of the colonial period; but no poet appears before the seventeenth century. In 1675 the Jesuit Jacinto de Evia published at Madrid his Ramillete de varias flores poéticas which contains, beside those by Evia, verses by Antonio Bastidas, a Jesuit teacher, and by Hernando Domínguez Camargo, a Colombian. The verses are mediocre or worse, and, as the date would imply, are imbued with culteranism.

The best verses of the eighteenth century were collected by the priest Juan de Velasco (1727-1819) and published in six volumes under the title of El ocioso de Faenza. These volumes contain poems by Bautista Aguirre of Guayaquil, José Orozco (La conquista de Menorca, an epic poem in four cantos), Ramón Viescas (sonnets, romances, décimas, etc.) and others, most of whom were Jesuits.

The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 caused the closure of several colleges in Ecuador, and for a time seriously hampered the work of classical education. But even before the edict of expulsion scientific study had been stimulated by the coming of French and Spanish scholars to measure a degree of the earth's surface at the equator. The coming of Humboldt in 1801 still further encouraged inquiry and research. The new spirit was given concrete expression by Dr. Francisco Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo, a physician of native descent, in El nuevo Luciano, a work famous in the literary and the political history of South America. In this work Dr. Espejo attacked the prevailing educational and economic systems of the colonies, and his doctrine did much to start the movement toward secession from the mother country.

Although the poetry of Ecuador is of relatively little importance as compared with that of several other American countries, yet Ecuador gave to the world one of the greatest of American poets, José Joaquín de Olmedo. In the Americas that speak Castilian, Olmedo has only two peers among the classic poets, the Venezuelan Bello and the Cuban Heredia. Olmedo was born in Guayaquil in 1780, when that city still formed part of the Virreinato del Perú. Consequently, two countries claim him,—Peru, because he was born a Peruvian, and because, furthermore, he received his education at the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima; and Ecuador, since Guayaquil became permanently a part of that republic, and Olmedo identified himself with the social and political life of that country. In any case, Olmedo, as a poetic genius, looms suddenly on the horizon of Guayaquil, and for a time after his departure there was not only no one to take his place, but there were few followers of note.

Olmedo ranks as one of the great poetic artists of Spanish literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He is of the same semi-classic school as Quintana, and like him devoted to artistic excellence and lyric grandiloquence. The poems of Olmedo are few in number for so skilled an artist, and thoroughly imbued with the Græco-Latin classical spirit. His prosody nears perfection; but is marred by an occasional abuse of verbal endings in rime, and the inadvertent employment of assonance where there should be none, a fault common to most of the earlier Spanish-American poets. Olmedo's greatest poem is La victoria de Junín, which is filled with sweet-sounding phrases and beautiful images, but is logically inconsistent and improbable. Even Bolivar, the "Libertador," censured Olmedo in a letter for using the machina of the appearance at night before the combined Colombian and Peruvian armies of Huaina-Capac the Inca, "showing himself to be a talkative mischief-maker where he should have been lighter than ether, since he comes from heaven," and instead of desiring the restoration of the Inca dynasty, preferring "strange intruders who, though avengers of his blood, are descendants of those who destroyed his empire."

The Canto al general Flores is considered by some critics to be the poet's most finished work, though of less substance and inspiration than La victoria de Junín. This General Flores was a successful revolutionary leader during the early days of the Republic; and he was later as bitterly assailed by Olmedo as he is here praised. Of a different type is the philosophic poem, Á un amigo en el nacimiento de su primogénito, which is filled with sincere sympathy and deep meditation as to the future. With the coming of middle age Olmedo's poetic vein had apparently been exhausted, and the Peruvian bard Felipe Pardo addressed to him an ode in which he sought, though to no avail, to stimulate the older poet to renewed activity (Poesías, Valparaíso, 1848, Paris, 1853; Poesías inéditas, Lima, 1861).

For a time after Olmedo's muse had become mute, little verse of merit was produced in Ecuador. Gabriel García Moreno (1821-1875), once president of the Republic and a champion of Catholicism, wrote a few strong satires in the style of Jovellanos. Dolores Veintemilla de Galindo (1831-1857), who committed suicide on account of domestic infelicity, left a short poem, Quejas, which is unique in the older Spanish-American literature by reason of its frank confession of feeling. The reflexive and didactic poet Numa P. Llona (1832-___) was the author of passionate outpourings of doubt and despair after the fashion of Byron and Leopardi (Poesías, Paris, 1870; Cantos americanos, Paris, 1866; Cien sonetos, Quito, 1881). The gentle, melancholy bard, Julio Zalumbide (1833-1887), at first a skeptic and afterwards a devout believer in Christianity, wrote musical verse in correct language but of little force. Juan León Mera (1832-1894) was one of the most prominent literary historians and critics of the Republic. Besides his Poesías (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), León Mera left a popular novel, Cumandá (Quito, 1876; Madrid, 1891), an Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), and a volume of Cantares del Pueblo (Quito, 1892), published by the Academia del Ecuador, which contains, in addition to many semi-popular songs in Castilian, a few in the Quichua language.

A younger generation that has already done some good work in poetry includes Vicente Pedrahita, Luis Cordero, Quintiliano Sánchez and Remigio Crespo y Toral.

References: Men. Pel., Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, p. lxxxiii f.; Blanco García, III, 350 f.; Ensayo sobre la literatura ecuatoriana, Dr. Pablo Herrera, Quito, 1860; Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana, Juan León Mera, Quito, 1868, 2d ed., Barcelona, 1893; Escritores españoles é hispano-americanos, Cañete, Madrid, 1884; Lira ecuatoriana, Vicente Emilio Molestina, Guayaquil, 1865; Nueva lira ecuat., Juan Abel Echeverría, Quito, 1879; Parnaso ecuat., Manuel Gallegos Naranjo, Quito, 1879; América poética, Juan María Gutiérrez, Valparaíso, 1846 (the best of the early anthologies: contains a few poems by Olmedo); Antología ecuat., published by the Academy of Ecuador, with a second volume entitled Cantares del pueblo ecuat. (Edited by Juan León Mera), both Quito, 1892.

Peru. The literature of Ecuador is so closely associated with that of Peru, that the one cannot be properly treated without some account of the other. The Virreinato del Perú was the wealthiest and most cultivated Spanish colony in South America, and in North America only Mexico rivaled it in influence. Lima, an attractive city, thoroughly Andalusian in character and appearance, was the site of important institutions of learning, such as the famed Universidad de San Marcos. It had, moreover, a printing-press toward the close of the sixteenth century, a public theater by 1602, and a gazette by the end of the seventeenth century. The spread of learning in colonial Peru may be illustrated by the fact that the Jesuits alone, at the time of their expulsion in 1767, had twelve colleges and universities in Peru, the oldest of which dated from the middle of the sixteenth century and offered courses in philosophy, law, medicine and theology.

The Peruvians seem to have been content with their lot as a favored Spanish colony, and they declared for independence only when incited to do so and aided by Bolivar of Colombia and San Martin of Buenos Aires. After the revolution, Peru was torn by internal discord rather more than other Spanish-American countries during the period of adolescence; and it was its misfortune to lose territory after territory. Bolivar took northern Peru, including the valuable seaport of Guayaquil, and made it a part of the first Colombia; and largely through the influence of Bolivar much of Upper Peru was made a separate republic, that of Bolivia. Lastly, Chile, for centuries a dependency of Peru, became independent and even wrested a considerable stretch of the litoral from her former mistress. It is hard to realize that Peru, to-day relatively weak among the American countries, was once the heart of a vast Inca empire and later the colony whose governors ruled the territories of Argentina and Chile to the south, and of Ecuador and Colombia to the north. With the decline of wealth and political influence there has come to Peru a decadence in letters. Lima is still a center of cultivation, a city in which the Castilian language and Spanish customs have been preserved with remarkable fidelity; but its importance is completely eclipsed by such growing commercial centers as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile, and by relatively small and conservative towns such as Bogotá.

In the sixteenth century Garcilasso Inga de la Vega (his mother was an "Inga," or Inca, princess), who had been well trained in the Latin classics by Spanish priests, wrote in excellent prose his famous works, Florida del Inca, Comentarios reales and Historia general del Perú. The second work, partly historical and largely imaginary, purports to be a history of the ancient Incas, and pictures the old Peru as an earthly paradise. This work has had great influence over Peruvian and Colombian poets. Menéndez y Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, Introd.) considers Garcilasso, or Garcilaso, and Alarcón the two truly classic writers that America has given to Spanish literature.

In the Golden Age of Spanish letters several Peruvian poets were known to Spaniards. Cervantes, in the Canto de Calíope and Lope de Vega in the Laurel del Apolo make mention of several Peruvians who had distinguished themselves by their verses.

An unknown poetess of Huanuco, Peru, who signed herself "Amarilis," wrote a clever silva in praise of Lope, which the latter answered in the epistle Belardo á Amarilis. This silva of "Amarilis" is the best poetic composition of the early colonial period. Another poetess of the period, also anonymous, wrote in terza rima a Discurso en loor de la poesía, which mentions by name most of the Peruvian poets then living.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century and in the early decades of the seventeenth century, several Spanish scholars, mostly Andalusians of the Sevillan school, went to Peru, and there continued literary work. Among these were Diego Mexía, who made the happiest of Spanish translations of Ovid's Heroides; Diego de Ojeda, the best of Spanish sacred-epic poets, author of the Cristiada; Juan Gálvez; Luis de Belmonte, author of La Hispálica; Diego de Avalos y Figueroa whose Miscelánea austral (Lima, 1603) contains a long poem in ottava rima entitled Defensa de damas; and others. These men exerted great influence, and to them was largely due the peculiarly Andalusian flavor of Peruvian poetry.

The best Gongoristic Poetics came from Peru. This is the Apologético en favor de D. Luis de Góngora (Lima, 1694), by Dr. Juan de Espinosa Medrano.

In the eighteenth century the poetic compositions of Peru were chiefly "versos de circunstancias" by "poetas de ocasión." Many volumes of these were published, but no one reads them to-day. Their greatest fault is excessive culteranism, which survived in the colonies a half-century after it had passed away from the mother country. The most learned man of the eighteenth century in Peru was Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, the erudite author of some fifty volumes of history, science and letters. His best known poem is the epic Lima fundada (Lima, 1732). He wrote several dramas, one of which, Rodoguna, is Corneille's play adapted to the Spanish stage, and has the distinction of being one of the first imitations of the French stage in Spanish letters. All in all, the literary output of Peru during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is disappointingly small in quantity and poor in quality, in view of the important position held by this flourishing colony. The Peruvian writers, then and now, lack in sustained effort.

During and immediately following the revolutionary period, the greatest poet is Olmedo, who was born and educated in Peru and became a citizen first of the primitive Colombia and then of Ecuador, only as his native city, Guayaquil, formed a part of one political division after another. It is customary, however, to consider Olmedo a poet of Ecuador, and it is so done in this volume.

After Olmedo, the commanding figure among the classical poets of Peru is Felipe Pardo y Aliaga (1806-1868). Pardo was educated in Spain, where he studied with Alberto Lista. From his teacher he acquired a fondness for classical studies and a conservatism in letters that he retained throughout his life. In his later years he was induced to adopt some of the metrical forms invented or revived by the romanticists, but in spirit he remained a conservative and a classicist. He had a keen sense of wit and a lively imagination which made even his political satires interesting reading. Besides his Poesías y escritos en prosa (Paris, 1869), Pardo left a number of comedies portraying local types and scenes which are clever attempts at imitation of Spanish drama. As with all the earlier poets of Spanish America, literature was only a side-play to Pardo, although it probably took his time and attention even more than the law, which was his profession. A younger brother, José (1820-1873), wrote a few short poems, but his verses are relatively limited and amateurish. Manuel Ascensión Segura (1805-1871) wrote clever farces filled with descriptions of local customs, somewhat after the type of the modern género chico (Artículos, poesías y comedias, Lima, 1866).

The romantic movement came directly from Spain to Peru and obtained a foothold only well on toward the close of the first half of the century. The leader of the Bohemian romanticists of Lima was a Spaniard from Santander, Fernando Velarde. Around him clustered a group of young men who imitated Espronceda and Zorrilla and Velarde with great enthusiasm. For an account of the "Bohemians" of the fourth and fifth decades in Lima [Numa Pompilio Llona (b. 1832), Nicolás Corpancho (1830-1863), Luis Benjamín Cisneros (b. 1837), Carlos Augusto Salaverry (1830-1891), Manuel Ascensión Segura (b. 1805), Clemente Althaus (1835-1881), Adolfo García (1830-1883), Constantino Carrasco (1841-1877) and others, see the introduction to the Poesías (Lima, 1887) of Ricardo Palma (1833-___: till 1912 director of the national library of Peru).]

Not often could the romanticists of America go back to indigenous legend for inspiration as their Spanish cousins so often did; but this Constantino Carrasco undertook to do in his translation of the famous Quichua drama, Ollanta. It was long claimed, and many still believe, that this is an ancient indigenous play; but to-day the more thoughtful critics are inclined to consider it an imitation of the Spanish classical drama, perhaps written in the Quichua language by some Spanish priest (Valdés?). The 8-syllable lines, the rime-scheme and the spirit of the play all suggest Spanish influence. In parenthesis it should be added that Quichua verse is still cultivated artificially in Peru and Ecuador.

The two men of that generation who have most distinguished themselves are Pedro Paz-Soldán y Unanue, "Juan de Arona" (1839-1894), a poet of satire and humor; and Ricardo Palma (1833-___) a leading scholar and literary critic, best known for his prose Tradiciones peruanas (Lima, 1875 and 1899).

The strongest representative of the present-day "modernistas" in Peru is José Santos Chocano (1867-___), a disciple of Darío. Chocano writes with much grandiloquence. His many sonnets are mostly prosaic, but some are finished and musical (cf. La magnolia). He is more Christian (cf. Evangeleida) than most of his contemporaries, and he sings of the conquistadores with true admiration [cf. En la aldea, Lima, 1895; Iras santas, Lima, 1895; Alma América (Prólogo de Miguel de Unamuno), Madrid, 1906; La selva virgen, Paris, 1901; Fiat lux, Paris, 1908].

A younger man is Edilberto Zegarra Ballón of Arequipa (1880-___), author of Vibraciones, Poemas, el al. His verse is simpler and less rugged than that of the more virile Chocano.

References: Men. Pel., Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, p. cxlix f.; Blanco García, III, 362 f.; Diccionario histórico y biográfico del Perú, formado y redactado por Manuel de Mendíburu, 9 vols., Lima, 1874-80; Colección de documentos literarios del Perú, 11 vols., Manuel de Odriozola, Lima, 1863-74; América poética, Juan María Gutiérrez, Valparaíso, 1846; Parnaso peruano, J.D. Cortés, Paris, 1875; La Bohemia limeña de 1848 á 1860, Prólogo de Poesías de Ricardo Palma, Lima, 1887; Lira americana, Ricardo Palma, Paris, 1865.

[193.]—Olmedo: see preceding note.

[8.] Á, with.

[194.—15-17.] The following is a translation of a note to these lines which is given in Poesías de Olmedo, Garnier Hermanos, Paris, 1896: "Physicists have attempted to explain the equilibrium that is maintained by the earth in spite of the difference of mass in its two hemispheres" (northern and southern). "May not the enormous weight of the Andes be one of the data with which this curious problem of physical geography can be solved?"

[195.—4.] The religion of the ancient Peruvians, before they were converted to Christianity by the Spaniards, was based on the worship of the sun. The chief temple of the sun was at Cuzco.

[25.] Bolivar was a native of Caracas, Venezuela; but, when this poem was written, Colombia comprised most of the present States of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Moreover, Colombia is probably used somewhat figuratively by the poet to designate the "land of Columbus."

[26.] The Peruvians and the Colombians were allies. It is an interesting fact that in the war for independence waged by the Spanish Americans against Spain, the leaders of the Americans were nearly all of Spanish descent, while the majority of the rank and file of the American soldiery was Indian. To this day, a majority of the population of Spanish America, excepting only Chile, Argentina and the West Indian Islands, is indigenous, and their poets still sing of "indigenous America," but they sing in the Spanish tongue! See p. 211, l. 7.

[196.—21.] See note to p. 162, l. 8. The Peruvian flag has an image of the sun in its center.

[23.] It is reported that the first onslaught of the Spanish-American cavalry failed, partly by reason of their impetuousness, and that they would probably have been defeated if Bolivar had not rallied them and led them on to victory.

[198.—10.] The battle of Junin began at about five o'clock in the afternoon, and it is said that only night saved the Spaniards from complete destruction.

[11.] El dios oía: destiny did not permit the god to stay his course for an hour, but the god left behind him his circlet of diamonds (the stars).

[199.]—Mexico. The Virreinato de Nueva España was a favored colony, where Spanish culture took deepest root. It had the first institution of learning in America (opened in 1553 by decree of Charles I) and the first printing-press (1540?). Some 116 books were printed in Mexico City during the sixteenth century, most of which were catechisms or grammars and dictionaries in the native languages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several Spanish poets, mostly Sevillans, went to Mexico. Among these were Diego Mexía (went to Mexico in 1596); Gutierre de Cetina, Juan de la Cueva, and Mateo Alemán (published Ortografía castellana in Mexico in 1609). Certámenes poéticos ("poetic contests") were held in Mexico, as in other Spanish colonies, from time to time. The first of importance occurred in Mexico City in 1583, to which seven bishops lent the dignity of their presence and in which three hundred poets (?) competed. After the discovery and conquest of the Philippines, great opulence came to Mexico on account of its being on a direct route of Pacific trade between Europe and Asia, and Mexico became an emporium of Asiatic goods (note introduction of Mexican dollar into China).

The first native poet deserving of the name was Francisco de Terrazas (cf. Cervantes, Canto de Calíope, 1584), who left in manuscript sonnets and other lyrics and an unfinished epic poem, Nuevo mundo y conquista. It is interesting that in the works of Terrazas and other native poets of the sixteenth century the Spaniards are called "soberbios," "malos," etc. Antonio Saavedra Guzmán was the first in Mexico to write in verse a chronicle of the conquest (El peregrino indiano, Madrid, 1599). Coloquios espirituales (published posthumously in 1610), autos of the "morality" type, with much local color and partly in dialect, were written by Fernán González Eslava, whom Pimentel considers the best sacred dramatic poet of Mexico. Sacred dramatic representations had been given in Spanish and in the indigenous languages almost from the time of the conquest. According to Beristain, at least two plays of Lope were done into Nahuatl by Bartolomé de Alba, of native descent, and performed, viz.: El animal profeta y dichoso parricida and La madre de la Mejor.

The first poet whose verses are genuinely American, exotic and rich in color like the land in which written (a rare quality in the Spanish poetry of the period), was Bernardo de Balbuena (1568-1627: born in Spain; educated in Mexico). Balbuena had a strong descriptive faculty, but his work lacked restraint (cf. Grandeza mexicana, Mex., 1604; Madrid, 1821, 1829 and 1837; N.Y., 1828; Mex., 1860). The great dramatist, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón (1581?-1639), was born and educated in Mexico; but as he wrote in Spain, and his dramas are Spanish in feeling, he is best treated as a Spanish poet.

Next only to Avellaneda the most distinguished Spanish-American poetess is the Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695), whose worldly name was Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Cantillana. Sor Juana had intellectual curiosity in an unusual degree and early began the study of Latin and other languages. When still a young girl she became a maid-in-waiting in the viceroy's palace, where her beauty and wit attracted much attention; but she soon renounced the worldly life of the court and joined a religious order. In the convent of San Jerónimo she turned for solace to books, and in time she accumulated a library of four thousand volumes. Upon being reproved by a zealous bishop for reading worldly books, she sold her entire library and gave the proceeds to the poor. Sor Juana's better verses are of two kinds: those that give evidence of great cleverness and mental acuteness, and those that have the ring of spontaneity and sincerity. As an exponent of erotic mysticism, she is most interesting. In the most passionate of her erotic verses there is an apparent sincerity which makes it difficult for the lay reader to believe that she had not been profoundly influenced by human love,—as when she gives expression to the feelings of a loving wife for a dead husband, or laments the absence of a lover or tells of a great jealousy. In addition to her lyrics Sor Juana wrote several autos and dramas. Her poems were first published under the bombastic title of Inundación castálida de la única poetisa, Musa décima, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Madrid, 1689 (vol. II, Seville, 1691; vol. III, Madrid, 1700).

During the first half of the eighteenth century the traditions of the preceding century persisted; but in the second half there came the neo-classic reaction. Among the best of the prosaic poets of the century are: Miguel de Reyna Zeballos (La elocuencia del silencio, Madrid, 1738); Francisco Ruiz de León (Hernandía, 1755, based on the Conquista de México by Solís); and the priest Jorge José Sartorio (1746-1828: Poesías sagradas y profanas, 7 vols., Puebla, 1832). The Franciscan Manuel de Navarrete (1768-1809) is considered by Pimentel superior to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as a philosophic poet (the writer of this article does not so consider him) and is called the "restorer of lyric and objective poetry in Mexico" (cf. Pim., Hist. Poesía Mex., p. 442). Navarrete wrote in a variety of styles. His verses are harmonious, but altisonante and often incorrect. His best lyrics, like those of Cienfuegos, have the personal note of the romanticists to follow (Entretenimientos poéticos, Mex., 1823, Paris, 1835; Poesías, Mex., 1905).

There were no eminent Mexican poets during the revolutionary period. Andrés Quintana Roo (1787-1851) was a lawyer and journalist and president of the congress which made the first declaration of independence. Pimentel (p. 309) calls him an eminent poet and one of the best of the period. Two of the most important in the period are: Manuel Sánchez de Tagle (1782-1847), a statesman given to philosophic meditation, but a poor versifier (Poesías, 1852); and Francisco Ortega (1793-1849), an ardent republican, who opposed Iturbide when the latter had himself proclaimed emperor of Mexico in 1821 (Poesías líricas, 1839; cf. Á Iturbide en su coronación). To these should be added Joaquín María del Castillo y Lanzas (1781-1878), one-time minister to the United States (Ocios juveniles, Philadelphia, 1835); and the priest Anastasio María Ochoa (1783-1833), who translated French, Italian, and Latin (Ovid's Heroides) works, and wrote some humorous verses (Poesías, N.Y., 1828: contains two dramas).

Next to Alarcón, the greatest dramatist that Mexico has produced is Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza (1789-1851), who wrote few lyric verses, but many dramas in verse and prose. His plays, which are full of humorous contrasts, were written during his residence in Spain and are, for the most part, typically Spanish in all respects. Gorostiza, in manner and style, is considered a bridge between Moratín and Bretón. His best comedy is La indulgencia para todos (cf. Teatro original, Paris, 1822; Teatro escogido, Bruxelles, 1825; Obras dramáticas, Bibl. Aut. Mex., vols. 22, 24, 26, 45, Mex.,-1899).

Romanticism came into Mexico through Spain. It was probably introduced by Ignacio Rodríguez Galván (1816-1842), a translator, lyric poet, and dramatist. His lyrics have the merit of sincerity; pessimism is the prevailing tone and there is much invective. His Profecías de Guatimoc is considered the masterpiece of Mexican romanticism (Obras, 2 vols., Mex., 1851; Paris, 1883). Another well-known romantic lyricist and dramatist is Fernando Calderón (1809-1845), who was more correct in form than Rodríguez Galvan (Poesías, Mex., 1844 and 1849; Paris, 1883; Mex., 1902).

The revival of letters in Mexico is generally attributed to the conservative poets Pesado and Carpio, both of whom sought to be classic, although they were not altogether so in practise. Probably the best known Mexican poet, though certainly not the most inspired, is José Joaquín Pesado (1801-1861). He translated much from Latin, French and Italian, and in some cases failed to acknowledge his indebtedness (cf. Pimentel, p. 694). His best translations are of the Psalms. The Aztecas, which were published as a translation of, or an adaptation from, indigenous legends, are mostly original with Pesado in all probability. He is an unusually even writer, and some of his verses are good (cf. certain sonnets: Mi amada en la misa del alba, which reminds one of Meléndez Valdés in Rosana en los fuegos; Elegía al ángel de la guardia de Elisa; and parts of La revelación in octavas reales). Montes de Oca and Menéndez y Pelayo consider Pesado the greatest of Mexican poets; but Pimentel does not (p. 694). Cf. Poesías originales y traducciones, Mex., 1839-40 (most complete), 1886 (introduction of Montes de Oca); Biografía de Pesado, by José María Roa Bárcena, Mex., 1878. Manuel Carpio (1791-1860) began to write verses after he had reached the age of forty years, and there is, consequently, a certain ripeness of thought and also a lack of feeling in his poetry. His verses are chiefly narrative or descriptive and generally treat of biblical subjects. His language is usually correct, but often prosaic (Poesías, Mex., 1849).

Minor poets of this period are: Alejandro Arango (1821-1883), an imitator of León (Versos, 1879; Ensayo histórico sobre Fr. Luis de León, Mex., 1866); Ignacio Ramírez (1818-1879), of Indian race, who was a free lance in religion and politics, and largely responsible for the separation of Church and State in Mexico (Poesías, Mex., 1889, and Lecciones de literatura, Mex., 1884); and Ignacio M. Altamarino (1834-1893), an erotic and descriptive poet (Obras, Mex., 1899).

The most popular Mexican poets during the second half of the nineteenth century have been Acuña, Flores, Peza and Gutiérrez Nájera. A materialistic iconoclast, Manuel Acuña (1849-1873) was uneven and incorrect in language, but capable of deep poetic feeling. In his Poesías (Garnier, Paris, 8th ed.) there are two short poems that may live: Nocturno, a passionate expression of disappointment in love; and Ante un cadáver, a poem of dogmatic materialism. Acuña committed suicide at the age of twenty-four years. Manuel María Flores (1840-1885), an erotic poet largely influenced by Musset, is very popular in Mexico (Pasionarias, Paris, 1911). Probably the most widely read poet of the period is Juan de Dios Peza (1852-1910). His verses are often incorrect and weak, as he improvised much; but they are interesting, as they usually treat of homely topics (Poesías completas: El arpa del amor, 1891; Hogar y patria, 1891; Leyendas, 1898; Flores del alma; Recuerdos y esperanzas, 1899, Garnier, Paris). The romantic pessimist, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (d. 1888), was tormented throughout life by the vain quest of happiness and the thirst of truth. His verses, which are often elegiac or fantastic, are highly admired by the younger generation of Mexican poets. In a letter to the writer of this article, Blanco-Fombona praises Gutiérrez Nájera above all other Mexican poets (Poesías, Paris, 1909, 2 vols.).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., I, p. xiv f.: Blanco García, III, 304 f.; Francisco Pimentel, Historia crítica de la poesía en México, Mex., 1892; Biblioteca hispano-americana septentrional, D. José Mariano Beristain de Souza, Mex., 1816-21, 3 vols. (has more than 4000 titles),—reprinted by Fortino Hipólito de Vera, Amecameca, 1883; Bibliografía mexicana del siglo XVI (catálogo razonado de los libros impresos in México de 1539 á 1600); Biografías de mexicanos distinguidos, D. Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1884; Poetas yucatecos y tabasqueños, D. Manuel Sánchez Mármol y D. Alonso de Regil y Peón, Mérida de Yucatán, 1861; Poetisas mexicanas, Bogotá, 1889; Colección de poesias mexicanas, Paris, 1836; El parnaso mexicano, 36 vols., R.B. Ortega, Mex., 1886; Biblioteca de autores mexicanos, some 75 vols. to 1911, Mex.; Antología de poetas mexicanos, publ. by Acad. Mex., Mex., 1894; Poetas mexicanos, Carlos G. Amézaga, Buenos Aires, 1896; Los trovadores de México, Barcelona, 1900.

Pesado: see preceding note.

La Serenata: see Introduction, Versification, p. lxviii.

[200.—6-11.] These lines of Pesado are similar to those found in the first stanzas of Su alma by Milanés. See Hills' Bardos cubanos (Boston, 1901), p. 69.

Calderón: see note to p. 199.

[202.]—Acuña: see note to p. 199.

[204.—15.] The language is obscure, but the meaning seems to be: borrarte (á ti que estás) en mis recuerdos.

[19.] The forced synalepha of yo haga is discordant and incorrect.

[204.—23 to 205.—8.] That is, when the altar was ready for the marriage ceremony, and the home awaited the bride. The reference, apparently, is to a marriage at an early hour in the morning,—a favored time for marriages in Spanish lands.

[206.—1.] la alma, by poetic license, since el alma would make the line too long by one syllable.

[207.]—Peza: see note to p. 199.

[211.]—Darío: with the appearance in 1888 of a small volume of prose and verse entitled Azul, by Rubén Darío (1864-) of Nicaragua, there triumphed in Spanish America the "movement of emancipation," the "literary revolution," which the "decadents" had already initiated in France. As romanticism had been a revolt against the empty formalism of later neo-classicism, so "decadence" was a reaction against the hard, marmoreal forms of the "Parnasse," and in its train there came inevitably a general attack on poetic traditions. This movement was hailed with joy by the young men of Latin America, who are by nature more emotional and who live in a more voluptuous environment than their cousins in Spain; for they had come to chafe at the coldness of contemporary Spanish poetry, at its lack of color and its "petrified metrical forms." With the success of the movement there was for a time a reign of license, when poet vied with poet in defying the time-honored rules, not only of versification, but also of vocabulary and syntax. But as in France, so in Spanish America, "decadence" has had its day, although traces of its passing are everywhere in evidence, and the best that was in it still lingers.

To-day the Spanish-American poets are turning their attention more and more to the study of sociological problems or to the cementing of racial solidarity. These notes ring clear in some recent poems of Darío, and of José S. Chocano of Peru and Rufino Blanco-Fombona of Venezuela. The lines given in the text are an ode which was addressed to Mr. Roosevelt when he was president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. The meter of the poem is mainly the Old Spanish Alexandrine, but with a curious intermingling of lines of nine, ten and eight syllables, and with assonance of the even lines throughout. In all fairness it should be stated here that Señor Darío, in a recent letter to the writer of these Notes, said: "I do not think to-day as I did when I wrote those verses" (Darío: Epístolas y poemas, 1885; Abrojos, 1887; Azul, 1888; Cantos de vida y esperanza, Madrid, 1905; El canto errante, Madrid, 1907).

[212.—8.] Argentina and Chile are the most progressive of the Spanish-American States. The Argentine flag is blue and white, with a sun in the center; the flag of Chile has a white and a red bar, and in one corner a white star on a blue background.

[11.] This refers, of course, to the colossal bronze Statue of Liberty by the French sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi, which stands in New York harbor.

[14.] In a letter to the writer of these Notes, Senor Darío explains this passage as follows: "Bacchus, or Dionysius, after the conquest of India (I refer to the semi-historical and not to the mythological Bacchus) is supposed to have gone to other and unknown countries. I imagine that those unknown countries were America. Pan, who accompanied Bacchus on his journey, taught those new men the alphabet. All this is related to the tradition of the arrival of bearded men, strangely dressed, in the American countries.... These traditions exist in the South as well as the North."

[16.] Que consultó los astros: the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans had made considerable progress in the study of astronomy.

[214.]—Venezuela. During the colonial period the development of literary culture was slower in the Capitanía de Caracas than in Colombia, Peru and Mexico. The Colegio de Santa Rosa, which was founded at Caracas in 1696, was made a university in 1721. Not till 1806 was the first printing-press set up in the colony.

Poetry in Venezuela begins with Bello, for the works of his predecessors had little merit. Andrés Bello (1781-1865) was the most consummate master of poetic diction among Spanish-American poets, although he lacked the brilliancy of Olmedo and the spontaneity of Heredia. Born in Caracas and educated in the schools of his native city, Bello was sent to England in the year 1810 to further the cause of the revolution, and he remained in that country till 1829, when he was called to Chile to take service in the Department of Foreign Affairs. His life may, therefore, be divided into three distinct periods. In Caracas he studied chiefly the Latin and Spanish classics and the elements of international law, and he made metrical translations of Virgil and Horace. Upon arriving in England at the age of twenty-nine years, he gave himself with enthusiasm to the study of Greek, Italian and French, as well as to English. Bello joined with the Spanish and Hispano-American scholars in London in the publication of several literary reviews, notably the Censor americano (1820), the Biblioteca americana (1823) and the Repertorio americano (1826-27), and in these he published many of his most important works. Here appeared his studies of Old French and of the Song of My Cid, his excellent translation of fourteen cantos of Boiardo's Orlando innamorato, several important articles on Spanish syntax and prosody, and the best of all his poems, the Silvas americanas.

In 1829, when already forty-eight years of age, Bello removed to Chile, and there entered upon the happiest period of his life. Besides working in a government office, he gave private lessons until in 1831 he was made rector of the College of Santiago. In the year 1843 the University of Chile was established at Santiago and Bello became its first rector. He held this important post till his death twenty-two years later at the ripe age of eighty-four. During this third and last period of his life Bello completed and published his Spanish Grammar and his Principles of International Law, works which, with occasional slight revisions, have been used as standard text-books in Spanish America and to some extent in Spain, to the present day. The Grammar, especially, has been extraordinarily successful, and the edition with notes by José Rufino Cuervo is still the best text-book of Spanish grammar we have. In the Grammar Bello sought to free Castilian from Latin terminology; but he desired, most of all, to correct the abuses so common to writers of the period and to establish linguistic unity in Spanish America.

Bello wrote little original verse during these last years of his life. At one time he became exceedingly fond of Victor Hugo and even tried to imitate him; but his classical training and methodical habits made success impossible. His best poetic work during his residence in Chile, however, are translations of Victor Hugo, and his free metrical rendering of La Prière pour tous (from the Feuilles d'automne), is amongst his finest and most popular verses.

It is interesting that Andrés Bello, the foremost of Spanish-American scholars in linguistics and in international law, should also have been a preëminent poet, and yet all critics, except possibly a few of the present-day "modernistas," place his American Silvas amongst the best poetic compositions of all Spanish America. The Silvas are two in number: the Alocución á la poesía and the Silva á la agricultura de la zona tórrida. The first is fragmentary: apparently the poet despaired of completing it, and he embodied in the second poem an elaboration of those passages of the first work which describe nature in the tropics. The Silvas are in some degree imitations of Virgil's Georgics, and they are the best of Spanish imitations. Menéndez y Pelayo, who is not too fond of American poets, is willing to admit (Ant., II, p. cxlii) that Bello is, "in descriptive and Georgic verse, the most Virgilian of our (Spanish) poets." Caro, in his splendid biography of Bello (in Miguel Antonio Caro's introduction to the Poesías de Andrés Bello, Madrid, 1882) classifies the Silvas as "scientific poetry," which is quite true if this sort of poetry gives an esthetic conception of nature, expressed in beautiful terms and adorned with descriptions of natural objects. It is less true of the Alocución, which is largely historical, in that it introduces and sings the praises of towns and persons that won fame in the revolutionary wars. The Silva á la agricultura, which is both descriptive and moral, may be best described in the words of Caro. It is, says this distinguished critic, "an account of the beauty and wealth of nature in the tropics, and an exhortation to those who live in the equator that, instead of wasting their strength in political and domestic dissensions, they should devote themselves to agricultural pursuits." Bello's interest in nature had doubtless been stimulated by the coming of Humboldt to Caracas in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In his attempt to express his feeling for nature in poetic terms, he probably felt the influence not only of Virgil, but also of Arriaza, and of the several poems descriptive of nature written in Latin by Jesuit priests, such as the once famous Rusticatio Mexicana by Father Landivar of Guatemala. And yet there is very little in the Silvas that is directly imitative. The Silva á la agricultura de la zona tórrida, especially, is an extraordinarily successful attempt to give expression in Virgilian terms to the exotic life of the tropics, and in this it is unique in Spanish literature. The beautiful descriptive passages in this poem, the noble ethical precepts and the severely pure diction combine to make it a classic that will long hold an honored place in Spanish-American letters (Obras completas, Santiago de Chile, 1881-93).

During the revolutionary period the most distinguished poets, after Bello, of that part of the greater Colombia which later formed the separate republic of Venezuela, were Baralt and Ros de Olano. Rafael María Baralt (1810-1860) took part in the revolutionary movement of secession from the first Colombia; but later he removed to Spain and became a Spanish citizen. His verses are usually correct, but lack feeling. He is best known as a historian and maker of dictionaries. Baralt was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy (Poesías, Paris, 1888).

General Antonio Ros de Olano (1802-1887) also removed to Spain and won high rank in the Spanish army. He joined the romantic movement and became a follower of Espronceda. Besides a volume of verses (Poesías, Madrid, 1886), Ros de Olano wrote El doctor Lañuela (1863) and other novels. Both Baralt and Ros de Olano were identified with literary movements in Spain rather than in Venezuela.

José Heriberto García de Quevedo (1819-1871) was a cultivated and ambitious scholar who collaborated with Zorrilla in María, Ira de Dios and Un cuento de amores. Among his better works are the three philosophical poems: Delirium, La segunda vida and El proscrito (Obras poéticas y literarias, Paris, 1863). Among the lesser writers of this period are Antonio Maitín (1804-1874), the best of Venezuelan romanticists (cf. El canto fúnebre, a poem of domestic love); Abigail Lozano (1821-1866), a romanticist and author of musical but empty verses ("versos altisonantes"); José Ramón Yepes (1822-1881), an army officer and the author of legends in verse, besides the inevitable Poesías; Eloy Escobar (1824-1889), an elegiac poet; and Francisco G. Pardo (1829-1872), a mediocre imitator of Zorrilla.

Next to Bello alone, the most distinguished poet of Venezuela is José Pérez Bonalde (1846-1892), who was a good German scholar and left, besides his original verses, excellent translations of German poets. His metrical versions of Heine, especially, exerted considerable influence over the growth of literary feeling in Spanish America (Estrofas, N.Y., 1877; El poema del Niágara, N.Y., 1880). At least two other writers of the second half of the nineteenth century deserve mention: Miguel Sánchez Pesquera and Jacinto Gutiérrez Coll.

Among the present-day writers of Venezuela, Luis López Méndez was one of the first to introduce into Spanish America a knowledge of the philosophy and metrical theories of Paul Verlaine. Manuel Díaz Rodríguez (1868-___) has written little verse; but he is the best known Venezuelan novelist of to-day [Sangre patricia, Camino de perfección (essays), Ídolos rotos, Cuentos, 2 vols., Confidencias de Psiquis, Cuentos de color, Sensaciones de viaje, De mis romerías]. The most influential of the younger writers is Rufino Blanco-Fombona, who was expelled from his native country by the present andino ("mountaineer") government and now lives in exile in Paris. At first a disciple of Musset and then of Heine and Maupassant, he is now an admirer of Darío and a pronounced modernista. His Letras y letrados de Hispano-America is the best recent work of literary criticism by a Spanish-American author. Blanco-Fombona is a singer of youthful ambition, force and robust love. His verses have rich coloring, but are at times erotic or lacking in restraint (prose works: Cuentos de poeta, Maracaibo, 1900; Más allá de los horizontes, Madrid, 1903; Cuentos americanos, Madrid, 1904; El hombre de hierro, Caracas, 1907; Letras y letrados de Hispano-America, Paris, 1908. Verses: Patria, Caracas, 1895; Trovadores y trovas, Caracas, 1899; Pequeña ópera lírica, Madrid, 1904; Cantos de la prisión, Paris, 1911).

References: Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., II, p. cx f.; Blanco García, III, p. 321 f.; Reseña histórica de la literatura venezolana (1888) and Estado actual de la literatura en Venezuela (1892), both by Julio Calcaño, Caracas; La literatura venezolana en el siglo XIX, Gonzalo Picón Febres, Caracas, 1906; Parnaso venezolano, 12 vols., Julio Calcaño, Caracas, 1892; Biblioteca de escritores venezolanos, José María Rojas, Paris, 1875; Parnaso venezolano, Barcelona, 1906.

Bello: see preceding note.

[1.] The Lion symbolizes Spain, since from the medieval kingdom of Leon modern Spain sprang. The battle of Bailén (see in Vocab.) took place in 1808 when Bello was twenty-seven years of age and still loyal to Spain.

[214.—16 to 215.—3.] Que... concibes = que circunscribes el vago curso al (= del) sol enamorado, y (tú), acariciada de su luz, concibes cuanto ser (= every being that) se anima en cada vario clima.

[18.] The use of quien referring to inanimate objects is now archaic.

[216.—19 to 217.—3.] It is said that the banana gives nourishment to more human beings than does any other plant. The fruit is taken when it is still green, before the starch has turned to sugar, and it is boiled, or baked, or it is ground and made into a coarse bread.

[6-8.] En que... bondadosa! = en que (la) naturaleza bondadosa quiso hacer reseña de sus favores...

[9.] The student should compare this and the following lines with Vida retirada by Fray Luis de León, p. 9.

[19.] The rime requires habita, instead of habitad.

[22-23.] Y... atada = y la razón va atada al triunfal carro de la moda, universal señora.

[219.—10-16.] ¿Esperaréis... ata? = ¿esperaréis que (el) himeneo forme más venturosos lazos do el interés, tirano del deseo, barata ajena mano y fe por nombre ó plata, que do conforme gusto, conforme edad, y (= both) elección libre y (= and) mutuo ardor ata los lazos? Note that, by poetic license, ata agrees in number with the nearest subject, although it has two.

[220.—8-11.] As this poem was written after the Spanish-American colonies had revolted against the mother country, Bello no longer rejoices at the success of Spanish arms nor grieves over their losses, as he had done when he wrote Á la victoria de Bailén.

Pérez Bonalde: see note to p. 214.

[222.—5.] The Venezuelan flag is yellow, blue and red with seven small white stars in the center.

[225.]—La carcelera: the words and music of this song and of the first that follows are taken from the Cancionero salmantino (Dámaso Ledesma), Madrid, 1907.

[227.]—La cachucha: the words and music of this song and of the five that immediately follow are taken from Poesías populares (Tomás Segarra), Leipzig, 1862.

[238.]—El trágala: (lit., the swallow it) a song with which the Spanish liberals taunted the partizans of an absolute government.

[242.]—Himno de Riego: a song to the liberal general, Rafael de Riego (1784-1823), who initiated the revolution of 1820 in Spain and proclaimed at Cabezas de San Juan the constitution of 1812. Cf. Versification, p. lxxix.

[251.]—Himno Nacional de Cuba, called also the Himno de Bayamo, on account of the importance of Bayamo (see in Vocab.) in the Cuban revolution of 1868. Note the ternary movement of this song, and see Versification, p. lxxiii.