It is necessary to observe, that the History of Italian Literature, which is sometimes referred to in the notes, is a part of M. Bouterwek’s General History of Poetry and Eloquence. It forms the two first volumes of the German work; some other parts of which the translator will be prepared to send to the press, should the merits of the original procure from the public a favourable reception for these volumes on Spanish and Portuguese Literature.
Notwithstanding that the translator had considerable assistance in reading and revising the proofs, she regrets to find that still further correction would have been desirable. Fortunately, however, there are few errors in the Spanish and Portuguese extracts; and those which do occur in the English text, will be found to be in general of a literal or obvious nature, altogether incapable of misleading the intelligent reader. Of the mistakes of the press which have been observed, tables of errata are made. If there are others, the translator is confident, that the persons who are the best able to correct such faults, will be the most ready to pardon them.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
VOL. I.
[INTRODUCTION.]
[GENERAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF ROMANTIC POETRY AND ELOQUENCE IN THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.] |
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| Page |
| [Recollection of the general State of Spain and Portugal, about the middle of the thirteenth century] | 1 |
| [View of the principal idioms of the romance spoken in the Pyrenean Peninsula] | 5 |
| [Original separation of the Catalonian and Limosin poetry from the Castilian and Portuguese] | 15 |
| [National metres and rhymes common to the Spaniards and Portuguese] | 20 |
[BOOK I.]
[FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.] |
|---|
| [Probable period of the first romances] | 27 |
| [Poema del Cid] | 28 |
| [Poema de Alexandro Magno] | 30 |
| [Gonzalo Berceo] | 31 |
| [Alphonso X.; his literary merits.—Nicolas and Antonio de los romances, &c.] | 32 |
| [Alphonso XI.] | 35 |
| [Early cultivation of Castilian prose.—Don Juan Manuel; his Conde Lucanor; his romances] | 36 |
| [Satirical poem of Juan Ruyz, arch-priest of Hita] | 44 |
| [More precise account of the origin of the Spanish poetic romances and songs.—Probable rise of the romances of chivalry in prose.—Original relationship of the poetic and prose romances] | 47 |
| [The different kinds of poetic romance] | 53 |
| [Castilian poetry in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries] | 72 |
| [Poetical court of John II.] | 76 |
| [The Marquis of Villena] | 78 |
| [The Marquis of Santillana—his poetical works—his historical and critical letter] | 82 |
| [Juan de Mena] | 90 |
| [Perez de Guzman, Rodriguez de Padron, and other Spanish lyric poets of the age of John II.] | 100 |
| [Of the Cancionero General, and the different kinds of ancient Spanish songs] | 102 |
| [Of the Romancero General] | 121 |
| [First traces of the origin of Spanish dramatic poetry in the Mingo Rebulgo.—Juan del Enzina.—Calistus and Melibœa, a dramatic tale] | 128 |
| [Further account of Spanish prose.—Rise of the historical art.—Early progress of the epistolary style] | 137 |
| [Juan de la Enzina’s Art of Castilian poetry] | 145 |
[BOOK II.]
[FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH TO THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.] |
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| [Introduction.]—[General view of the state of poetical and rhetorical cultivation in Spain during the above period] | 148 |
| [First Section.—History of Spanish poetry and eloquence from the introduction of the Italian style to the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega] | 161 |
| [Occasion of the introduction of the Italian style] | ibid |
| [Boscan] | 162 |
| [Garcilaso de la Vega] | 176 |
| [Diego de Mendoza] | 186 |
| [Mendoza’s account of the rebellion of Granada, the first classical history in Spanish literature] | 205 |
| [Saa de Miranda—(Commencement of elevated pastoral poetry in Spanish literature)] | 210 |
| [Montemayor; his Diana—the first Spanish pastoral romance] | 217 |
| [Herrera; first developement of the ode style in Spanish poetry] | 228 |
| [Luis de Leon] | 240 |
| [Minor Spanish poets during the period of this section, viz. Acuna—Cetina—Padilla—Gil Polo] | 254 |
| [Obstacles to the imitation of the romantic epopee in Spain—Unsuccessful essays in serious epopee—translations of classical epic poetry] | 262 |
| [Progress of the romantic poetry.—Castillejo; his contest with the partizans of the Italian style] | 267 |
| [History of Spanish dramatic poetry during the first half and ten succeeding years of the sixteenth century] | 277 |
| [The Erudite party] | 279 |
| [The party of the moralists] | 281 |
| [The first national party—Torres Naharro] | 282 |
| [The second national party—Lope de Rueda; collections of his dramas by Juan Timoneda] | 286 |
| [Naharro of Toledo] | 289 |
| [Juan de la Cueva; his art of poetry] | 290 |
| [Probable rise of the spiritual drama in Spain] | 293 |
| [Entremeses and Saynetes] | 294 |
| [Spanish tragedies, by Geronymo Bermudez] | 296 |
| [History of Spanish prose during the first half and ten succeeding years of the sixteenth century] | 303 |
| [Prose romances of chivalry] | 304 |
| [Romances of knavery—Lazarillo de Tormes] | 305 |
| [Tales of Juan Timoneda] | 306 |
| [Didactic prose]—[Perez de Oliva]—[Ambrosio de Morales]—[Pedro de Valles]—[Francisco Cervantes de Salazar] | 308 |
| [Historical prose—Annals of Zurita] | 315 |
| [Oratorical prose—Perez de Oliva] | 320 |
| [Epistolary prose] | 321 |
| [Spanish criticism during the period of this section—Alonzo Lopez Pinciano] | 323 |
| [SECOND SECTION.—History of Spanish poetry and eloquence from the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega to the middle of the seventeenth century] | 327 |
| [Cervantes] | ibid |
| [Brief character of Don Quixote] | 333 |
| [The moral tales of Cervantes] | 340 |
| [The Galatea] | 342 |
| [The journey to Parnassus] | 346 |
| [Dramatic works of Cervantes] | 350 |
| [The romance of Persiles and Sigismunda] | 357 |
| [Lope de Vega] | 359 |
| [General characteristics of his poetry] | 363 |
| [Explanation of the idea of a Spanish comedy as it is exemplified in the dramas of Lope de Vega] | 364 |
| [Various species of dramas by this poet] | 368 |
| [Brief notice of his other poetic works] | 390 |
| [The Brothers Leonardo de Argensola—Classic cultivation of the didactic satire and epistle in Spanish literature] | 392 |
| [Tragedies by the elder Argensola] | 394 |
| [Epistles, odes, &c. by the younger Argensola] | 400 |
| [Continuation of the history of Spanish poetry and eloquence, during the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega] | 406 |
| [Fresh failures in epic poetry—Ercilla’s Araucana] | 407 |
| [Lyric and bucolic poets of the classic school of the sixteenth century] | 413 |
| [Vicente Espinel] | 414 |
| [Christoval de Mesa] | 415 |
| [Juan de Morales] | 416 |
| [Agustin de Texada, &c.] | 417 |
| [Rise of a new irregular and fantastical style in Spanish poetry] | 428 |
| [Gongora and his Estilo Culto—the Cultoristos—the Conceptistos] | 431 |
| [Two dramatic poets of the age of Lope de Vega] | 441 |
| [Christoval de Virues] | 442 |
| [Perez de Montalvan] | 446 |
| [Novels in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega] | 450 |
| [Progressive cultivation of the historical art—Mariana] | 455 |
| [Fluctuation of Spanish taste from the classic to the corrupt style] | 459 |
| [Quevedo] | 460 |
| [Character of his best works] | 465 |
| [Villegas] | 475 |
| [Continuation of the history of lyric, bucolic, epic, didactic and satirical poetry, to the close of the period embraced by this section] | 485 |
| [Jauregui] | 486 |
| [Borja y Esquillache] | 488 |
| [Other poets of this period—the Sylvas or Poetic Forests] | 492 |
| [Rebolledo] | 493 |
| [Continuation of the history of the Spanish drama] | 499 |
| [Calderon] | 500 |
| [Character of the different species of Calderon’s dramas] | 503 |
| [History of the Spanish drama continued to the close of the period of this section] | 521 |
| [Antonio de Solis] | 524 |
| [Moreto] | 526 |
| [Juan de Hoz] | ibid |
| [Tirso de Molina] | 527 |
| [Francisco de Roxas] | ibid |
| [Agustin de Salazar y Torres] | ibid |
| [Mira de Mescua] | 528 |
| [Collections of Spanish dramas published in the seventeenth century] | 529 |
| [Conclusion of the history of Spanish eloquence and criticism, within the period of this section] | 530 |
| [Antonio de Solis considered as a historian] | 531 |
| [Introduction of Gongorism into Spanish prose—Balthazar Gracian] | 533 |
| [BOOK III.] |
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| [History of Spanish literature from its decline in the latter half of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century] | 538 |
| [CHAP. I.] |
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| [General view of the state of poetical and rhetorical cultivationin Spain during this period] | 540 |
| [CHAP. II.] |
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| [Decay of the old Spanish poetry and eloquence, and introduction of the French style into Spanish literature] | 547 |
| [Candamo, Zamora and Cañizares, dramatists in the old national style] | ibid |
| [Doña Juana Inez de la Cruz] | 551 |
| [Gerardo Lobo] | 556 |
| [Diffusion of the French taste—Luzan, his art of poetry, &c.] | 557 |
| [Luzan’s poetic compositions] | 568 |
| [Mayans y Siscar and Blas Nasarre] | 570 |
| [Montiano’s tragedies in the French style] | 571 |
| [Velasquez] | 574 |
| [CHAP. III.] |
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| [Concluding period of the history of Spanish poetry and eloquence] | 575 |
| [La Huerta] | 576 |
| [His tragedies] | 580 |
| [His Spanish theatre] | 584 |
| [Sedano] | 587 |
| [Yriarte] | 588 |
| [Leon de Arroyal] | 593 |
| [Juan Melendez Valdes] | 595 |
| [Brief notice of some of the more recent literary productions of Spain] | 600 |
| [Conclusion] | 605 |
INTRODUCTION.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF ROMANTIC POETRY AND ELOQUENCE, IN THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
When modern refinement began, during the thirteenth century, to emerge from the rudeness of the middle ages, that part of Europe which geographers have called the Pyrenean Peninsula, and which, according to its present political division, forms Spain and Portugal, contained four Christian kingdoms and some Mahometan principalities, to which the title of kingdom has also been given. More than five hundred years had elapsed since the battle of Xerez de la Frontera;[4] and the Moors, who, by the result of that conflict, obtained the dominion of the greater part of Spain and Portugal, had, by the repeated victories of the Christians, been, in their turn, driven back to the southern extremity of the country, and were obviously not destined to maintain themselves much longer even in that quarter.
During these five centuries of almost uninterrupted warfare between the race of Moorish Arabs and the Christians of ancient European descent, both parties, notwithstanding that their reciprocal hostility was influenced by fanaticism, had unconsciously approximated in mind and in manners. The intervals of repose, which formed short links in the chain of their sanguinary conflicts, afforded them some opportunities for the interchange of the arts of peace, and they were soon taught to feel for each other that involuntary respect which the brave can never withhold from brave adversaries. Love adventures, in which the Moorish knight and Christian lady, or the Christian knight and Moorish lady, respectively participated, could not be of rare occurrence. The Arab, who, in his native deserts, had not been accustomed to impose on women half the despotic restraints to which the sex is subject in the harems of Mahometan cities, was soon disposed to imitate the gallantry of the descendants of the Goths; and still more readily did the imagination of the Christian knight, in a climate which was far from being ungenial, even to African invaders, acquire an oriental loftiness. Thus arose the spirit of Spanish knighthood, which was, in reality, only a particular form of the general chivalrous spirit then prevailing in most of the countries of Europe, but which, under that form, impressed in an equal degree, on the old European Spaniard an oriental, and on the Spanish Moor a European character.
In the first period of this long contest the Arabs carried learning and the arts to a degree of cultivation far beyond any thing known in the Christian parts of Spain. Those wild enthusiasts learned, on the European soil, to estimate the value of civilized life with a rapidity as astonishing as that which distinguished the social improvement of their brethren, whom they had left behind in Asia, under the government of the Caliphs. Before the era of Mahomet, their language had been cultivated and adapted to poetry and eloquence, according to the laws of oriental taste. In Spain, it soon acquired, even among the conquered Christians, the superiority over the barbarous Romance, or dialect of the country, which was then governed by no rule: for in the eighth century, when the Moors penetrated into Spain, the Visigoths, who had been masters of the territory since the fifth century, were not yet completely intermixed by matrimonial alliances with the Provincials, or descendants of the Roman subjects; and the new national language, which had grown out of a corrupt latin, was still the sport of accident. The conquered Christians, in the provinces under Moorish dominion, soon forgot their Romance. They became, indeed, so habituated to the Arabic, that, according to the testimony of a bishop of Cordova, who lived in the ninth century, out of a thousand Spanish Christians, scarcely one was to be found capable of repeating the latin forms of prayer, while many could express themselves in Arabic with rhetorical elegance, and compose Arabic verses.[5]