Success in epic poetry was still denied to the Spanish muse. The confounding of epic poetry with relations of actual events embellished with poetic language, seems to have perverted the talent for true epopee. The Spanish poets who attempted this style, studied after the deceitful model of Lucan, and, according to an old critical phrase, endeavoured to be more Lucanists than Lucan himself. The imagination which possessed unbounded dominion over the stage, seems to have obtained in narrative poetry only the scanty privilege of inventing a few ornaments.
Among the unsuccessful attempts at epopee, particular distinction is due to the Araucana of the heroic and amiable Alonzo de Ercilla y Zuñiga, a poem which has the accidental advantage of being better known on this side of the Pyrenees than many other Spanish works of far superior merit. Ercilla has recorded the most remarkable events of his own biography in the Araucana, and the remainder of the poem also reflects an interest on the author. He was born at Madrid in 1540, or according to some in 1533, and became page to the prince of Asturias, Don Philip, with whom he travelled to Italy, the Netherlands, and England. At the age of twenty-two, he embarked as an officer for America, along with a newly appointed viceroy of Peru. He distinguished himself in the war against the Araucans, the bravest of the South American tribes. In the midst of his exploits, he conceived with a youthful ambition the plan of writing a narrative of the conquest of Arauco in an epic form, but with the strictest regard to historical truth. He executed his project in spite of the dangers which surrounded him, and the fatigues he had to undergo. In a wilderness inhabited by savages, in the midst of enemies, and under no other cover than that of heaven, he composed at night the verses which were to be the memorials of the events of the day. In prosecution of his purpose, he was obliged to use scraps of waste paper, which often could not contain more than six lines, or to make pieces of leather supply the total want of paper. In this way he completed the first part of his poem, consisting of fifteen cantos. Before he was thirty years of age he returned to Spain, full of hope, both as a soldier and a poet; but the gloomy Philip, to whom he enthusiastically dedicated the Araucana, took little notice of him, and less of his work. Ercilla deeply felt this neglect; but nothing could damp his romantic attachment to his cold-hearted sovereign, whom he still persisted in celebrating in the sequel of his poem. He received no mark of favour except from the Emperor Maximilian II. who appointed him one of his chamberlains. Dissatisfied with his fate, Ercilla travelled from place to place; but his journies did not prevent him from proceeding with his poem until he completed it by the addition of a third part. When he died is not known, but it was after he had attained his fiftieth year.
The Araucana, so called from the country Arauco, is really no poem. It is, however, impossible to read the work without becoming attached to the author, and being delighted by his talent for lively description, and for painting situations, his possession of which no just critic can call in question. But notwithstanding that talent, Ercilla is merely a versifying historian, capable of clothing his subject in a poetic garb, but not of elevating it to the sphere of true poetry. His diction is natural and correct; and to this the Araucana is in a great measure indebted for its celebrity. Its descriptive beauties, and some scenes in the style of romantic love, certainly make the composition approximate to poetry; but the heroic spirit which pervades the whole work, is by no means a poetic spirit. The principal events follow each other in chronological order. The combats are described in succession, as they actually arose, without any regard to poetic interest. Ercilla, indeed, prided himself on this historical precision, and he challenged any of his countrymen who were acquainted with the war in Arauco, to detect a single inaccuracy in his narrative. The historical succession of events imparts, however, a sort of epic unity to the work. The Spaniards in Arauco are surrounded by dangers, which gradually augment until they reach a crisis; when a reinforcement arrives from Peru, and the Spaniards experience a favourable change of fortune. The capture of Caupolican, the Araucan commander, who is put to death in a way repugnant to humanity, closes the narrative, though it does not terminate the war; but the barbarous and unjust execution of this brave chief being decreed by a Spanish council of war, is not censured by Ercilla. From the manner in which the poem concludes, it must be regarded as incomplete, considered as an historical narrative. Even the moral interest of the events operates in a way contrary to the intention of the author; for the feelings of the unprejudiced reader are, from the commencement excited in favour of the brave savages, who half-naked, and destitute of fire arms, contend for their natural freedom against enemies so superior in the art of war. The style of historical truth in which the principal events are narrated, forms a disagreeable contrast with the fiction in the details, which is intended to diffuse a poetic character over the whole work; for Ercilla at length found it necessary to depart from his plan in order to escape from the monotony into which he had fallen. In the first fifteen cantos the poetic colouring is merely confined to the descriptions; but in the two following parts,[411] the author has interwoven a number of fabulous accessaries. He has introduced, for example, a poetic account of the magician Fiton’s wonderful skill and garden of paradise,[412] and also the story of the fair savage Glaura, who recounts the incidents of her life in the style of a Spanish romance.[413] Ercilla likewise relates the death of Dido after Virgil, and in honour of his king he gives a detailed account of the battle of Lepanto. In addition to the descriptions, some of the speeches, particularly that delivered by the Cacique Colocolo in the second canto,[414] may be referred to as the best parts of this unpoetic poem.
Meanwhile the passion for epic poetry, which took possession of so many Spanish writers in the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, gave birth to a torrent of heroic poems. To the Caroliads, which have already been noticed, there succeeded La Restauracion de España, (the Restoration of Spain), by Christoval de Mesa; Las Navas de Tolosa, (the Plains of Toulouse), by the same author; La Numantina, by Francisco de Mesquera; La Invencion de la Cruz, (the Invention of the Cross), by Lopez Zarate; Maltea, by Hyppolyto Sanz; El Leon de España, (the Spanish Lion), by Pedro de Vezilla; Saguntina, by Lorenzo de Zamora; Mexicana, by Gabriel Laso de Vega; Austriada, by Rufo Guttieraz; &c. None but men who make this branch of literature their particular study, now think of perusing these and similar patriotic effusions, which were at the period of their publication regarded as epic poems,[415] but which only serve to prove, with the greater certainty, that Spain is incapable of producing a Homer. A genuine subject for epopee was scarcely to be found in the national history of Spain, even during the ages of chivalry; and modern history was not then more susceptible than now of receiving a truly epic form.
LYRIC AND BUCOLIC POETS OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Lyric and bucolic poetry and also elegant satire, after the two Argensolas had given the tone to that species of composition, continued to be cultivated by various pupils of the classic school of the sixteenth century. This school which was then on the decline in Italy, still maintained its ground in Spain, and preserved its reputation in spite of the opposition made by the different parties who contended for their respective styles, particularly by that of Lope de Vega, and by one of a still more dangerous kind, which will soon be more distinctly noticed. The disciples of this classic school, together with those writers who, since the time of Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega, had formed their style on the model of the ancients and the most esteemed poets of Italy, may be called the Spanish Cinquecentisti, in a favourable sense of the term, though some of them wrote in the seventeenth century. The most distinguished among them really flourished in the sixteenth century; and the rest, whose number is incalculable, possessed, at least, the merit of endeavouring, like the Italian Cinquecentisti, to express sensible ideas in correct language.
To this classic school belongs Vicente Espinel, an ecclesiastic of the province of Granada. He was likewise celebrated as a musician, and he perfected the Spanish guitar by the addition of the fifth string. He died in poverty, in the ninetieth year of his age, at Madrid in 1634. His canciones, idyls, and elegies, though destitute of originality, are distinguished by a spirited and inartificial character, and they abound in beautiful images and descriptions. Espinel’s poetic style is extremely melodious. In his idyls he has very successfully imitated the pleasing syllabic measure which Gil Polo introduced into Spanish literature under the name of Rimas Provenzales;[416] and he was one of those writers who most contributed to bestow a metrical polish on the redondilla stanzas of ten lines, (decimas). He translated Horace’s Art of Poetry, in iambic blank verse, and several of Horace’s Odes after the manner of Luis de Leon. Some of this author’s prose works will hereafter be noticed.[417]
Christoval de Mesa, an ecclesiastic of Estremadura, was contemporary with Tarquato Tasso, with whom he maintained the most friendly intercourse. He made, however, very little improvement in epic art through his intimacy with that celebrated man. Of three compositions, which Christoval de Mesa intended for epic poems, not one has been preserved from oblivion. His tragedy of Pompey is likewise forgotten. He was nevertheless a good translator; and his translations of the Æneid and the Iliad are esteemed even at the present day. He also published a Spanish version of Virgil’s Georgics.
Juan de Morales obtained a similar reputation through his translation of Horace’s Odes and Virgil’s Georgics. The particulars of his life are not known. He wrote some good sonnets.[418] This writer must not be confounded with his namesake, Ambrosio de Morales, the historian.
Agustin de Texada, or Tejada, who was born in the year 1635, is distinguished as a writer of spiritual odes and canciones. His poems in this class vie with those of the younger Argensola in poetic dignity of composition and genuine lyric diction.[419] He has, however, committed the error of introducing mythological images in his christian poetry. But in this respect he merely conformed with the bad taste of his age, which in Spain and Portugal favoured the most absurd misapplication of the Greek mythology; for, to humour the prejudices of the church, it was necessary that the heathen deities should appear only as allegorical characters in catholic poetry.