Towards 1840 classicism gave way to romanticism. The Revolution, the protest of individualism against the Spanish rule, disdained the old literary canons, having first condemned the old political system. The poets, still numerous, sought models in Spain. Arolas, Espronceda; Zorilla, the Duke de Rivas; and in France, Victor Hugo, de Musset, and Lamartine. Byron, too, had his disciples. All were romantic in life and work, pilgrims à la Childe Harold, who described Châtiments and were persecuted for liberty. Disorderly, imperfect, dominated by an inward dæmon who produced a continual exaltation, they portrayed the constant restlessness of their spirits. Romanticism in Europe was the triumph of the individual, of liberty, the lyrical poetry of confessions—the melancholy of René or the satanic pride of Manfred—the revenge, in short, of sentiment against reason. In art this stood for liberty, the cult of the exotic, the return to nature, the Gothic restoration, and war upon classic conventions.
Which among these elements could give the new generation in South America that enthusiasm which might evoke a romantic state of mind? Certainly not the national antiquities, remote and misunderstood. Although a few poets wrote Orientales without much sincerity, none sought to renew his lyrical gifts in the Aztec or Quechua traditions. But this imitation of the tendencies of French and Spanish letters was assisted by the lack of discipline found in the American character, which was more attracted by idealism and sentiment than by classic rigidity or reason. All things favoured romanticism; the political conflicts and the anarchy of the time formed Byronic heroes; tropical passion found its food in the sentimentalism of Lamartine and the ardour of De Musset, while the individual was developed by struggling against the tyrants. In the uncertain and barbaric life of these young democracies there was a confusion of rôles; the poet became the vates, the leader of the crowd, only to feel himself exiled among mediocrities, the victim of illiterates. Melancholy, exasperated individualism, the high mission of the poet, and solitude—these are romantic elements which are reflected in American literature.
The Colombian Caro believed in the "consoling mission" of the poet, and this mission, for the Argentine Andrade, was a priesthood and a prophetic gift. The poet appears "when the human caravan changes its route in the desert." But as a result of this mission Nemesis inflicts solitude and suffering. The South American poets abandon the world as a result of their despair:—
"Sufrirás el martirio
Que al nació poeta
Reserva el hado impío,"[[3]]
sings the Argentine Echeverria.
And Marmol:—
"Yo vivo solamente cuando feliz deliro
Que los terrenos lazos mi corazón rompió.
. . . . .
Venid porque yo gozo yo vivo solamente
Si pienso que he dejado la humanidad detras."[[4]]
The Peruvian Salaverry contemplates his heart:—
"Cual la ruina de un templo silencioso
Vacío, abandonado, pavoroso,
Sin luz y sin rumor."[[5]]
José Eusebio Caro, who has sung of liberty in admirable strophe, would hide himself in the forest:—