This art of poetry and rhetoric by Gracian was, in the seventeenth century, the only work of the kind which produced any influence on the taste of writers and the public.
Gongorism peeps forth even in the published letters of the eminent men of this period, which exhibit a strained formality and an affected elegance. The letters of Quevedo form in this respect no exception. Even in those of Antonio de Solis the facility of the true epistolatory style is wanting.[569]
BOOK III.
HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE FROM ITS DECLINE IN THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
This book is intended to be only a compendious supplement to the two preceding books of the History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence. Were it even an agreeable task to describe in detail through what gradations a nation rich in intellect, which unfortunately descended from the most brilliant height of literary independence, to the servile imitation of foreign forms, passed in this lamentable decline, until the depressed national spirit began with patriotic feeling again to arise, and slowly to re-animate the native literature—it still would be proper to leave that office to the writer whose object it may be to give an account of every production which appears within the circle of polite learning. From him, however, who has rather chosen to take a general historical view of the developement and progress of literary genius and taste in modern Europe, it would be unreasonable to expect specific notices of inferior works, published during the period of an expiring and slowly reviving literature. In the eighteenth century, no poet arose in Spain to form an epoch such as that finally marked in Italian literature by Metastasio; and whatever was then accomplished in Spanish prose, was a consequence of the imitation of French models.
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that according to the laws of nature and the human mind, no distinct line of separation can exist between this period and that which precedes it. When lights are gradually and imperceptibly extinguished, it is impossible to name the moment when obscurity commenced. It would be no less difficult to fix precisely the epoch of the revival of Spanish literature, for it is marked by no particular phenomenon. The necessary division in the history of the progressive and retrogressive state of Spanish literature must therefore be referred, without any precise determination, to the reign of Charles II. from 1665 to 1700. Some dramatic authors who maintained the respectability of the Spanish national theatre, to the beginning of the eighteenth century, will consequently be included in this last book. Thus the account of the new dawn of national genius, promising better times, will be given in connexion with the immediately preceding literary transactions.
This book may be conveniently divided into three chapters. The first will contain the history of the complete decay of the Spanish national spirit in respect to literature. In the second will be given a brief account of whatever literary events appear to deserve consideration from the reign of Charles II. to the commencement of the reign of Charles III. The third chapter will be devoted to a summary notice of the more recent occurrences, which particularly in the last ten years of the eighteenth century appear to have given a new direction to Spanish literature.