Previously to this period, before the poets had rendered the court of John II. the most brilliant society of the age, an eminent nobleman, the Marquis Enrique de Villena, was distinguished for his literary efforts. He sought to adorn his erudition with the lyric graces of the Limosin Troubadours, who had then attained their highest and final celebrity at the court of Arragon; and, thus united, to adapt both the learning and the poetry to the Castilian taste. He seemed called by birth to the performance of this task; for he was descended by the paternal side from the kings of Arragon, and by the maternal from those of Castile. His reputation for metaphysical and natural knowledge was so great, that he came, at last, in that ignorant age, to be regarded as a magician, and on that account he and his books were never mentioned but with horror. His talent for poetic invention was, however, an object of particular admiration with many of the poets of the age of John II. and among others of the Marquis de Santillana and Juan de Mena.
The Marquis of Villena was the author of an allegorical drama, which was performed at the court of Arragon in celebration of a marriage, and which may, therefore, be supposed to have been written in the Limosin rather than in the Castilian language. Among the characters stated to have been introduced into this drama, are Justice, Truth, Peace, and Clemency.[70] Rhetorical and poetical competitions were instituted at Toulouse, in the year 1324, under the name of the Floral Games, to foster, by prizes and gallant ceremonies, the Troubadour spirit. This institution, which was soon after imitated in Arragon, was transplanted by the Marquis of Villena to Castile, but the result of that enterprize was not successful.[71] The Marquis died at Madrid in 1434. A work supposed to have been printed at Burgos in 1499, under the title of Los trabajos de Hercules, (The Labours of Hercules), used formerly to be quoted as one of his poems; but from more recent investigations, it appears that this pretended poem was a mythological tale in prose.[72] A translation of the Æneid by the Marquis, is besides mentioned, but this work appears also to be lost. A kind of art of poetry, which he wrote under the title of La Gaya Ciencia, has been more fortunate; for it has been partially preserved, and is still regarded with respect as the oldest work of the kind in the Spanish language.[73] This treatise, however, does not deserve to be called an Art of Poetry, except in a very limited sense. It must have been intended as a necessary instruction, in the first place, for the Marquis of Santillana, to whom it is directly addressed, and doubtless, in the next, for the other members of the Institute of the Gay Science, (El Consistorio de la gaya Ciencia), which the Marquis of Villena had formed in Castile. In conformity with this object, the author relates the history of the Institute, endeavours to prove its utility, takes that opportunity of expressing his opinion on the object of poetry in general, and concludes with laying down the principles of Castilian prosody. These principles appear to have been particularly useful with reference to the conflict which then subsisted between the Castilian and Limosin tongues. Among his general observations on poetry, he says—“Great are the benefits which this science confers on civil society, by banishing indolence, and employing noble minds in laudable speculations: other nations have, accordingly, wished for and established among themselves, schools of this science, by which it has been diffused over different parts of the world.”[74] It is obvious that this active nobleman was full of zeal for the improvement of the poetry of his country, and for the honour of that art which was cultivated with method and dignity in the Arragonian provinces, but which in Castile, where it was left to itself, appeared to stand in need of direction and encouragement. The difference between science and art was not more clearly perceived by the Marquis of Villena than by the other poets and men of learning of his age; and to distinguish the Castilian forms of romantic poetry from the Limosin, did not appear to him necessary. Thus, while his labours contributed to heighten the respect in which poetry and liberal pursuits were held, they had only an indirect influence on the improvement of Castilian poetry.
THE MARQUIS OF SANTILLANA; HIS POETICAL WORKS; HIS HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL LETTER.
After the death of the Marquis of Villena, his pupil, Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Marquis of Santa Juliana, or Santillana, appears at the head of the brilliant society of poets who adorned the court of John II. Whenever a Marquis of Santillana is mentioned in the history of Spanish literature, without any more particular description, it is this nobleman that is meant. He was born in the year 1398. His elevated rank and great fortune, joined to the military and political talents by which he was distinguished from youth upwards, placed him in a situation in which he was called upon to perform a principal part among the nobles of Castile. His intellectual culture had for its basis the philosophy of Socrates; and his strict morality procured him no less celebrity than his sound understanding and love of science.[75] This uncommon union of rank, influence, character, talents, and learning, could not fail to render the Marquis of Santillana highly respected; and he was indeed regarded as so extraordinary a man, that foreigners are said to have undertaken journies to Castile for the sole purpose of seeing him. He was greatly esteemed by king John, who, during the civil wars, constantly received from him, in return, the homage which was due to a protector of learning, though the Marquis was not always of that prince’s party. After the death of John II. in the latter years of his life, this eminent man assisted with his counsels Henry IV. under whom the regal authority in Castile was subsequently almost annihilated. He died in the year 1458.
The Marquis of Santillana possessed no uncommon poetic talent. But he studied to give to the poetry of his age a moral tendency, to extend its sphere by allegorical invention, and to adorn poetic description with the stores of learning. Two poems, in which he has best succeeded in realizing these objects, are also the most celebrated of his works. The first is an elegy on the death of the Marquis of Villena;[76] a lyric allegory in twenty-five dactylic stanzas, constructed according to the ancient form. The idea is very simple, and the commencement of the piece brings to recollection the hell of Dante, of which it is probably an imitation.[77] The poet loses himself in a desert, finds himself surrounded by wild and frightful animals, advances forward, hears dismal tones of lamentation, and finally discovers some nymphs in mourning, who bewail the loss and chaunt the merits of the deceased Marquis of Villena. On this poem, which does not discover much ingenuity of invention, the Marquis of Santillana probably expended all his stock of learning. He cites as many deities and ancient authors, as the nature of his work will permit him to notice.[78] Such a display of erudition had never before been seen in the Castilian language. No genial poetic spirit is to be found except in the descriptions and in some other scattered passages of this lyric allegory;[79] but the verse is not destitute of harmony. The other considerable poem of the Marquis, consists of a series of moral reflections, occasioned by the unfortunate fate of Don Alvaro de Luna, the favourite of John II.; the Marquis called this work, El doctrinal de Privados, (the Manual of Favourites.) It must be regarded as the earliest didactic poem in the Spanish language, unless that title be given to any series of moral maxims in verse. The work which is divided into fifty-three stanzas in redondillas, receives a poetic colouring from the manner in which the shade of Don Alvaro is introduced confessing his faults, and uttering those moral truths, which the author wished to impress on the hearts of the restless Castilians.[80] He was less successful in his love songs composed in the Castilian manner, to which he unfortunately thought a new dignity would be given, by rendering them the vehicles of learned allusions. He possessed, however, the art of reconciling this pedantry with a pleasing style of versification.[81] A kind of hymn, which he composed, under the title of Los Gozos de neustra Señora, (the Joys of our Lady) has been preserved, but it possesses no poetic merit.[82] He also wrote a collection of proverbs and maxims in verse, for the use of the Prince Royal of Castile, who afterwards ascended a tottering throne under the title of Henry IV.[83] However low a critical examination might reduce the value of these works, still the Marquis of Santillana deserves to retain the place assigned to him in the history of Spanish literature by his contemporaries, by whom he was generally admired, as the “representative of the honour of poetry.”
Among the literary remains of the Marquis of Santillana, the critical and historical letter is particularly remarkable. This letter, which is frequently mentioned in the early accounts of Spanish poetry,[84] is instructive in various respects. It affords the means of accurately observing the infancy of Spanish criticism in that age, for the Marquis has added to the letter a collection of his ingenious maxims, (decires,) and of his poems for Don Pedro, a Portuguese prince; and from the embarrassment evinced by the Marquis when he attempts to give the prince an account of the rise of Castilian poetry, it is obvious, that with respect to the real origin of that poetry, less was understood at that time than is known at the present day. Poetry, or the gay science, is, according to the Marquis of Santillana, “an invention of useful things, which being enveloped in a beautiful veil, are arranged, exposed, and concealed according to a certain calculation, measurement, and weight.”[85] Thus, allegory appeared to him to belong to the essence of poetry. He could scarcely have imbibed this opinion from Dante. In Spain, as well as in Italy and France, it seems to have issued forth from the monkish cells, when endeavours were made to unite poetry with philosophy, and to make the poetic art the symbol of knowledge, in order to ensure to it estimation among the learned. The allegorical spirit which pervades the half gothic poetry of that period, is therefore inseparably connected with the characteristic origin of modern poetry. The Marquis of Santillana would have come to a totally different conclusion, had he taken an unprejudiced view of the genuine national poetry of his country. But he imagined he was laying down a principle which would ennoble it, when, according to his theory, he held allegory to be indispensable. Without scruple, therefore, he confounded the Castilian and Limosin poetry together in one mass. Respecting the origin of the former, he entered into no investigation. He commences the history of poetry with Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, and Job,[86] gives a copious account of the changes which the art of the Troubadours had undergone in the Arragonian provinces, and adds a notice of some of the earliest Galician and Portuguese poets: among the Castilian poets, he mentions king Alphonso and some others, without saying a syllable on the subject of the ancient romances.
JUAN DE MENA.
Juan de Mena, who is by some writers, styled the Spanish Ennius, ranks, as a poet, in a somewhat higher scale than the Marquis of Santillana, though he was less favoured by fortune, and was not distinguished by so many various merits as the latter. He was born in Cordova, about the year 1412. In this southern district of Spain, which but a short time before had been recovered from the Moors, the Castilian genius was doubtless very rapidly naturalized. Juan de Mena, though not descended from a family of rank,[87] was not of mean origin, and at the early age of three-and-twenty he was invested with a civil appointment in his native city. His own inclination, however, prompted him to devote himself to philosophy, and particularly to the study of ancient literature and history. From Cordova he went to the University of Salamanca. But in order more nearly to approach the source of ancient literature, he undertook a journey to Rome, where he zealously prosecuted his studies. Enriched with knowledge, he returned to his native country, and immediately attracted the notice of the Marquis of Santillana, and shortly after of king John. Both received him into their literary circles with distinguished approbation. The Marquis of Santillana attached himself with more friendship to Juan de Mena than to any other poet who enjoyed the favour of the king, although their political opinions did not always coincide. The king nominated him one of the historiographers, who, according to the arrangement which had subsisted since the time of Alphonso X. were appointed to continue the national chronicles. Juan de Mena lived in high favour at the court of John II. and was a constant adherent of the king. He died in 1456, at Guadalaxara, in New Castile, being then about forty-five years of age. The Marquis of Santillana erected a monument to his memory.
From the history of Juan de Mena’s life, it might be expected that his endeavours to extend the boundaries of Castilian poetry would be made under the influence of Italian taste, more or less of which he may be presumed to have adopted, and on his return introduced into his native country. But no Italian poet, save Dante, appears to have produced any remarkable impression on him. Indeed, with the exception of Dante and Petrarch, there was, at that period, no Italian poet of classic consideration; and in the first half of the fifteenth century Italian poetry suddenly declined. Sonnets were still in favour throughout the whole of Italy, but Juan de Mena continued faithful to the old forms of the Castilian poetry, perhaps from a feeling of national pride. He certainly did not imitate the sonnet; and even from Dante himself, he copied neither metrical form nor style. In allegory alone he followed the footsteps of the Italian poet. His most celebrated poem is, the Labyrinth, (el Labyrintho) or, the Three Hundred Stanzas (las trecientas,) an allegorical historical didactic work, in old dactylic verse (versos de arte mayor.[88]) Had the Labyrinth proved what, according to the idea of the author, it was intended to be, it would have been proper, merely on account of that single work, to commence a new epoch of Spanish poetry with the reign of John II. But with all its merits, which have been highly extolled by some authors, and which are certainly by no means trivial, it can only be regarded as a mere specimen of gothic art.[89] It belongs to the period which gave it birth, and bears no traces of the superiority of a genius which might have ruled the spirit of the age. Juan de Mena formed the grand design of executing in this work an allegorical picture of the whole course of human life. His intention was, to embrace every age, to immortalize great virtues, to stigmatize with opprobrium great vices, and to represent in striking colours the irresistible power of destiny.[90] But the poetical invention of Juan de Mena was subordinate to his false learning. The three hundred stanzas, of which the poem consists, are divided into seven orders, (ordenes), in imitation of the seven planets, the influence of which, according to Juan de Mena’s doctrine, is wisely prescribed by Providence. To represent this influence figuratively, Mena resorted to a most insipid and grotesque invention. After invoking Apollo and Calliope, and earnestly apostrophising Fortune,[91] he loses himself in imitation of Dante in an allegorical world, where a female of astonishing beauty appears to him, and becomes his guide. This female is Providence:[92] she conducts him to three wheels, two of which are motionless, while the third is in a state of continual movement. These wheels, it will readily be conjectured, represent the past, the present, and the future. Human beings drop down through this mill of time. The centre wheel turns them round. Each has his name and destiny inscribed on his forehead. While the wheel of the present is revolving with all the existing human race, it is controlled astrologically in its motion by the seven orders or circles of the seven planets under the influence of which men are born. Whether or not these circles are perceptible on the wheel itself, is not clearly stated. To this description succeeds, in the order of the seven planets, a long gallery of mythological and historical pictures, which presents abundant fruits of the poet’s extensive reading. This grotesque composition is interspersed with individual passages of great interest and beauty, though none of the traits call to mind similar traits in Dante. The most glowing passages of the lyric, didactic, and narrative class, are those in which Juan de Mena gives utterance to the language of Spanish patriotism.[93] He is particularly successful in the description of the death of the Count de Niebla, a Spanish naval hero, who attempted to recover Gibraltar from the Moors; but through ignorance of the return of the tide, fell a sacrifice to the waves, because he preferred perishing with his men, to saving himself singly.[94] But particular attention is bestowed on Don Alvaro de Luna,[95] the favourite of the king, who is introduced in this poem with great pomp, under the constellation of Saturn. When Juan de Mena wrote this poem, and thus proclaimed the glory of de Luna, the latter had not yet fallen, and the energy of his character seemed to promise, as the poet prophesied, that he would ultimately triumph over all the Castilian nobles who had excited the hostility of the country against him. King John, as may naturally be supposed, is in Juan de Mena’s Labyrinth complimented on every suitable occasion. A genealogy of the kings of Spain forms the conclusion of the poem; and thus were the Spaniards made to feel a kind of national interest for the whole work, which in some measure subsists, at least among their writers at the present day. Even in Juan de Mena’s time, the learned solecisms with which he endeavoured to elevate his poetic language were uncommon;[96] but other essential faults, such, for instance, as Aristotelian definitions in verse, were then esteemed great beauties; and the gothic and fantastic hyperboles in praise of king John, with which the poem opens, as if intended to appal the reader at the outset, were not at that period considered unpoetic.[97]
But king John was not satisfied with the torrent of praise which was poured upon him by Mena’s Labyrinth. The king, with critical gravity, signified his wish that the poet should add sixty-five stanzas to the three hundred which he had already written, so that by making the number of stanzas correspond with the number of days in the year, the beauty of the composition might be heightened. The sixty-five new stanzas were also to have a political tendency, with the view of recalling the rebellious nobles to their allegiance. Juan de Mena proceeded to the prescribed task; but he could produce no more than twenty-four additional stanzas (coplas añadidas.) They are contained in the Cancionero general.