Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

These narrative and heroic poems continued long in favor in Spain, and they retained to the last those ambitious feelings of national greatness which had given them birth. Devoted to the glory of their country, they were produced when the national character was on the decline; and as they sprang more directly from that character, and depended more on its spirit than did the similar poetry of any other people in modern times, so they now visibly declined with them.

7. LYRIC POETRY.—The number of authors in the various classes of Spanish lyric poetry, whose works have been preserved between the beginning of the reign of Charles V. and the end of that of the last of his race, is not less than a hundred and twenty; but the number of those who were successful is small. A little of what was written by the Argensolas, more of Herrera, and nearly the whole of the Bachiller de la Torre and Luis de Leon, with occasional efforts of Lope de Vega and Quevedo, and single odes of other writers, make up what gives its character to the graver and less popular portion of Spanish lyric poetry. Their writings form a body of poetry, not large, but one that from its living, national feeling on the one side, and its dignity on the other, may be placed without question among the most successful efforts of modern literature.

The Argensolas were two brothers who flourished in Spain at the beginning of the seventeenth century; both occupy a high place in this department of poetry. The original poems of Luis de Leon (1528-1591) fill no more than a hundred pages, but there is hardly a line of them which has not its value, and the whole taken together are to be placed at the head of Spanish lyric poetry. They are chiefly religious, and the source of their inspiration is the Hebrew Scriptures. Herrera (1534-1597) is the earliest classic ode writer in modern literature, and his poems are characterized by dignity of language, harmony of versification, and elevation of ideas. Luis de Leon and Herrera are considered the two great masters of Spanish lyric poetry.

Quevedo (1580-1645) was successful in many departments of letters. The most prominent characteristics of his verse are a broad, grotesque humor, and a satire often imitated from the ancients. His amatory and religious poems are occasionally marked by extreme beauty and tenderness. The works upon which his reputation principally rests, however, are in prose, and belong to theology and metaphysics rather than to elegant literature. They were produced during the weary years of an unjust imprisonment. His prose satires are the most celebrated of his compositions, and by these he will always be remembered throughout the world.

In the early part of the seventeenth century there arose a sect who attempted to create a new epoch in Spanish poetry, by affecting an exquisite refinement, and who ran into the most ridiculous extravagance and pedantry. The founder of this "cultivated style," as it was called, was Luis Gongora (1561-1627), and his name, like that of Marini in Italy, has become a byword in literature. The style he introduced became at once fashionable at court, and it struck so deep root in the soil of the whole country, that it has not yet been completely eradicated. The most odious feature of this style is, that it consists entirely of metaphors, so heaped upon one another that it is as difficult to find out the meaning hidden under their grotesque mass, as if it were a series of confused riddles. The success of this style was very great, and inferior poets bowed to it throughout the country.

8. SATIRICAL AND OTHER POETRY.—Satirical poetry never enjoyed a wide success in Spain. The nation has always been too grave and dignified to endure the censure it implied. It was looked upon with, distrust, and thought contrary to the conventions of good society to indulge in its composition. Neither was elegiac poetry extensively cultivated. The Spanish temperament was little fitted to the subdued, simple, and gentle tone of the proper elegy. The echoes of pastoral poetry in Spain are heard far back among the old ballads; but the Italian forms were early introduced and naturalized. Two Portuguese writers, Montemayor and Miranda, were most successful in this department of poetry. Equally characteristic of the Spanish genius, with its pastorals, were the short epigrammatic poems which appeared through the best age of its literature. They are generally in the truest tone of popular verse. Of didactic poetry, there were many irregular varieties; but the popular character of Spanish poetry, and the severe nature of the ecclesiastical and political constitutions of Spain, were unfavorable to the development of this form of verse, and unlikely to tolerate it on any important subject. It remained, therefore, one of the feeblest and least successful departments of the national literature.

In the seventeenth century, ballads had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced himself with them in his tent, the maiden danced to them on the green, the lover sang them for his serenade, the street beggar chanted them for alms; they entered into the sumptuous entertainments of the nobility, the holiday services of the church, and into the orgies of thieves and vagabonds. No poetry of modern times has been so widely spread through all classes of society, and none has so entered into the national character. They were often written by authors otherwise little known, and they were always found in the works of those poets of note who desired to stand well with the mass of their countrymen.

9. HISTORY AND OTHER PROSE WRITINGS.—The fathers of Spanish history are Zurita and Morales. Zurita (1512-1580) was the author of the "Annals of Aragon," a work more important to Spanish history than any that had preceded it. Morales (1513-1591) was historiographer to the crown of Castile, and his unfinished history of that country is marked by much general ability. Contemporary with these writers was Mendoza, already mentioned. The honor of being the first historian of the country, however, belongs to Mariana (1536-1623), a foundling who was educated a Jesuit. His main occupation for the last thirty or forty years of his life was his great "History of Spain." There is an air of good faith in his accounts and a vividness in his details which are singularly attractive. If not in all respects the most trustworthy of annals, it is at least the most remarkable union of picturesque chronicling with sober history that the world has ever seen. Sandoval (d. 1621) took up the history of Spain where Mariana left it; but while his is a work of authority, it is unattractive in style. "The General History of the Indies," by Herrera, is a work of great value, and the one on which the reputation of the author as a historian chiefly rests.

One of the most pleasing of the minor Spanish histories is Argensola's account of the Moluccas. It is full of the traditions found among the natives by the Portuguese when they first landed there, and of the wild adventures that followed when they had taken possession of the island. Garcilasso de la Vega, the son of one of the unscrupulous conquerors of Peru, descended on his mother's side from the Incas, wrote the "History of Florida," of which the adventures of De Soto constitute the most brilliant portion. His "Commentaries on Peru" is a striking and interesting work.

The last of the historians of eminence in the elder school of Spanish history was Solis, whose "Conquest of Mexico" is beautifully written, and as it was flattering to the national history, it was at once successful, and has enjoyed an unimpaired popularity down to our times.