It was, however, in the commencement of the eighteenth century that the French taste found its way into the Spanish academy; and this circumstance, which was not the effect of accident, serves to mark a kind of epoch in the history of Spanish poetry.
Ignacio de Luzan, who has become the authority to whom most Spanish critics refer, must be regarded as the founder of the French school in Spanish literature. He was a member of the royal Spanish academy, a member of the academy of history, an honorary member of the academy of painting, sculpture, and architecture; and at the same time counsellor of state and minister of commerce. In addition to these dignities, he was distinguished for extraordinary learning; and he was in particular very deeply versed in ancient literature. He studied with great assiduity Aristotle’s Art of Poetry and Rhetoric, and also the rhetorical works of Cicero. He was a lover of poetry, and composed very elegant verses in his native tongue. Being, as his writings sufficiently prove, a man of candid and enlightened mind, national pride did not deter him from making himself intimately acquainted with French literature; and comparing it without prejudice, under its best point of view, with the literature of his own country. This was certainly a course altogether new for a Spanish author.
In order to form a just estimate of the spirit of Luzan’s labours, it is necessary to bear in mind that the theoretical literature of Spain furnished him with scarcely a single trace of sound criticism; that even those Spanish poets who possessed the justest feeling for poetic beauty, propounded, in their theoretic explanations, the most erroneous notions on the value and the essence of poetry; that only a critical tact, and an instinctive imitation of good models, had preserved the most correct among the Spanish poets from wanderings of the imagination and perversions of judgment; and that in the age of Luzan, the only art of criticism which was theoretically taught in Spain, had issued from the school of Gongora, and was consequently only calculated to assist the systematic propagation of absurdity and affectation. Moreover, the elegant correctness of the French poets was, in that age, calculated to dazzle by the charm of novelty. Finally, the delicate subtleties whereby the principles of French criticism and of French poetry, since the age of Moliere and Corneille, were derived from the classic school of antiquity, and the moral syllogisms with which those principles were entrenched behind Aristotle’s Art of Poetry, as their last bulwark, were well calculated to seduce a man of Luzan’s erudition. His partiality for the French school, and his efforts to reform the Spanish taste according to the principles of that school, are therefore no proofs of narrowness of mind, though genuine poetic feeling certainly was not within the sphere of his talent. He possessed a delicate sense for elegance and the dress of poetry, but not for the energy and loftiness of poetic genius. It is thus easy to account for his having, with the best intentions, theoretically misunderstood the essence and design of poetry; and for his also having, in conformity with the spirit of French criticism, confounded the objects of the poet with the duties of the orator and the moralist.
It was then with the view of fundamentally reforming the literary taste of his countrymen, that Luzan wrote his celebrated Art of Poetry. It was first published at Saragossa in the year 1737, in a folio volume containing five hundred and three pages;[582] and it has ever since been the code to which Spanish critics and authors have referred for the decision of all cases of doubt. Sound judgment and classic erudition are the chief characteristics of the work. The diction too is simple and elegant, and prolixity is avoided, though in order to attain that degree of perspicuity which was necessary for subduing Spanish prejudice, much detail was indispensable. Newly discovered truths must not be looked for in Luzan’s Art of Poetry. He even claims credit for the doctrines he developes on account of their venerable antiquity. His theory is declared by himself to be in the main no other than that of Aristotle, the greatest of philosophers. To the neglect of that theory he attributes the multitude of monstrous excrescences by which Spanish literature is disfigured. He therefore conceived he was rendering, though at the risk of being reproached with pedantary,[583] an important service to the literature of his country, by the restoration and just application of those ancient and only true principles which had long been acknowledged and valued by the critics of foreign nations. In support of his doctrines, Luzan regards the critical observations of various French writers, particularly Rapin, Corneille, Crousaz, Lamy, and Madame Dacier, as next in authority to the works of Aristotle. He also availed himself of the Italian works of Gravina and Muratori. These, and other foreign authors, are quoted by name. Spanish readers must, doubtless, have been not a little surprised to find among the quotations passages from French authors, given in the French language, under the Spanish text. This was an unexampled phænomenon in Spanish literature; and though a trifling circumstance it serves to prove the increasing influence of the French language in Spain.
The want of novelty in the principles of Luzan’s Art of Poetry, is compensated by the new application of those principles to Spanish literature. The arrangement of the theory, which was introduced, also belongs, at least in part, to himself; and in the developement of that theory it is easy to recognize the man of judgment, and the perfect master of his subject, though he only improved what had been previously produced. The work is divided into four parts or books. The first developes, according to the notions of the author, the origin, progress, and essence of poetry, (el origen, progressos y essencia de la poesia.) The second book explains the usefulness and pleasure of poetry, (utilidad y deleyte de la poesia.) The third book treats, at ample length, of tragedy, comedy, and other kinds of dramatic composition; and the fourth of epic poetry. These chief divisions present, indeed, only the outline of Aristotle’s Art of Poetry; and Luzan’s work, can no more than its prototype, be regarded as a complete theory of the poetic art. In this respect Luzan went no further than his predecessor, Lopez Pinciano, who had long before equally clearly perceived that the work, called Aristotle’s Art of Poetry, was, in fact, merely a fragment.[584] It is singular enough that Luzan takes no notice of Pinciano’s remarkable work; but whether he was unacquainted with it, or whether he was intentionally silent, cannot now be known. Within the boundaries of his four unsystematic divisions, Luzan pursues his own course; but the present is not the proper occasion for accompanying him step by step. As, however, the publication of Luzan’s book has been attended by important consequences, it will be proper to explain the manner in which this critic understood the principles of Aristotle, and how he applied them to Spanish literature.
Luzan in his exposition and application of Aristotle’s theory, takes his departure from the same false principle which misled all the French critics in the age of Louis XIV. He views poetry closely and directly on its moral side; but not in that comprehensive manner in which every thing, when contemplated on its moral side, ought to be examined; he regards it merely as an art destined to aid morality, properly so called; and that aid appears to him the more easily given, because he adopts the maxim that the object of poetry is to be at once useful and agreeable.[585] Deceived by this gothic idea, which seems to have been founded on the misunderstanding of a verse of Horace, and which is certainly as old as modern literature, it became impossible for him either to attain a just notion of the poetic workings of the imagination, in relation to the beautiful, or to discover the truth of the proposition that such employment of the imagination possesses in itself, under the proper restrictions, a moral value, and ennobles human existence. Having fallen into the common error, Luzan, like the French poets and critics, was capable of taking only a very contracted view of poetic beauty. Genuine simplicity and elegance, and in both a delicate infusion of wit, formed with Luzan, as with the French poets and critics, the summary of all poetic excellence. According to these principles, the imagination was regarded as merely the handmaid of the recreative wit and the moralizing judgment. Genius was to be tied down by rules in conformity with these narrow ideas of the spirit and object of poetry. To satisfy the taste, in the exercise of wit and judgment, was regarded as the highest object of the poet’s efforts. The bold flight to a freer and fairer world, whence the true poet derives the spirit of his imaginings, in the imitation of nature, was deemed merely an agreeable accessary. In a word, the genuine essence of poetry was held to be an adventitious ornament, while its station was usurped by mere natural sentiment, and elegant or ingenious simplicity.
The useful and the agreeable, in the trivial signification of the terms, are therefore the verbal pivots around which Luzan’s whole poetic theory turns. It is easy to conceive what degree of excellence and truth was to be derived from such principles in their application to Spanish literature. Luzan zealously supported the cause of good taste against the absurdities of the Gongorists.[586] He exposed, without reserve, the weak side of Lope de Vega’s poetry; and the examples he selects from the works of that poet, in order to shew how far they are at variance with nature and reason, prove precisely what they are intended to prove. But to admire genius in its wanderings, and even in many cases to prize those wanderings more than a frigid elegance, required a view of the subject which Luzan’s mind did not embrace. He was precisely the man to detect and enumerate the errors of the favourite poetry of his country; but he wanted the critical eye which would have enabled him to do justice to its beauties. After defining poetry to be an “imitation of nature, either general or particular, made in verse, for utility or amusement, or for both together,”[587] he goes on to say, that little plays of wit, such as sonnets, madrigals, and songs, may sometimes have no other object than agreeable amusement; but that in poetry of a more important kind, such as comedies, tragedies, and epopee, the useful and the agreeable must necessarily be combined together, that is to say, the work must at once instruct and entertain. Accordingly, when he comes to treat more particularly of dramatic poetry, he says, “tragedy is such an imitation of an action as is calculated to correct fear, pity, or other passions; but a comedy must be an action so represented as to inspire love of some virtue, or hatred and abhorrence of some vice or fault.”[588] It is not necessary to particularize the judgments which a critic, armed with these opinions, must have pronounced on the Spanish drama. Luzan not only blamed the Spanish dramatists for the violation of the Aristotelian unities, on the ground that such violation was contrary to nature; but he even condemned as not moral, or at least not sufficiently moral, the genuine nature which he could not avoid recognizing in their works. He, however says, that what is first to be esteemed in the Spanish dramatists, “is in general their ingenious invention, their extraordinary wit and judgment, admirable and essential qualities in great poets. Lope de Vega merits particular praise for the natural facility of his style, and the adroit way in which he has in many of his comedies painted the customs and the character of certain persons. I admire in Calderon the dignity of his language, which without ever being obscure or affected is always elegant.”[589] He proceeds to eulogize the art of ingenious developement displayed in Calderon’s dramas of intrigue; and attributes a similar merit to some of the comedies of Antonio de Solis and Moretto. Under the same point of view he judges the writings of the later Spanish dramatists, on which he confers particular commendation on account of their superior regularity.[590] Next follows a list of the faults, which, according to the above principles, he imputes to the Spanish drama in general, and to the favourite dramatic poets of the Spanish public in particular; and on this subject he makes many just observations. He had good reasons for not venturing to attack the Spanish Autos. He accordingly dismisses them very briefly, pronouncing no literary judgment on them, and merely observes that they are allegorical representations in honour of “the most holy sacrament of the altar.”
Thus did a critic, whose voice a century earlier would scarcely have been heard, systematically undertake to reform Spanish taste. It appears from Luzan’s introductory observations that he was either not sufficiently acquainted with the history of the poetry of his nation, or had forgotten most essential facts, otherwise he never could have adopted the notion that Spanish taste had degenerated for want of learned critics to open the eyes of the public. The Spaniards of Luzan’s age paid no more attention to his Art of Poetry, than their ancestors had bestowed on Lopez Pinciano’s, which inculcated the same principles two hundred years earlier, when the Spanish drama was in its infancy. But the members of the Spanish academy regarded Luzan’s book with as much veneration, as if through it the light of pure taste had first been disclosed to Spain; and thus was the academy at length placed in conflict with the public it sought to improve. Whether all the members of that literary institution concurred in Luzan’s plans of critical reformation cannot now be known. This, however, is certain, that nothing was written in defence of the national style, either by an academician or by any other critic or amateur; and all the writers, who, since that period, have by means of critical treatises and new dramas, zealously laboured to improve the dramatic literature of Spain, according to French principles, have been members of the Spanish academy.
Luzan himself did his utmost to support his theory by some original poetic productions and translations from the French. He translated one of Lachausée’s comedies; but with what success it was represented on the Spanish stage is not mentioned. It was, however, followed by various translations of French dramas by other writers.
Luzan’s poetic compositions are certainly honourably distinguished by correctness, facility and elegance, and by what may be termed the poetry of language, from the works of the Gongorists which at that time were not entirely exploded in Spain. They consist of occasional poems and poetic trifles, such as might have been written without the aid of genius by any man of cultivated mind, possessing a certain degree of descriptive talent. Zealous Gallicist as Luzan was, he had too much solidity of taste to attempt an imitation of the structure of French verse in the Spanish language; and accordingly his contributions to the poetic literature of his country are in the usual national metres. A poem in octaves, which he read on the opening of the academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, in 1752, fifteen years before the publication of his Art of Poetry, received particular approbation. He read poetic compositions of the same kind on several occasions. Some of his odes and canciones were not published till after his decease; among the number are two on the re-taking of the Fortress of Oran;[591] an occasional poem, entitled, the Judgment of Paris, which is prettily conceived, and elegantly executed;[592] and some poems imitated from the Greek of Anacreon and Sappho.[593] Luzan died in the year 1754.