History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 2 of 2)

by Friedrich Bouterwek

The comparatively correct style of poetry introduced into Portuguese literature by Saa de Miranda, and the still more coldly correct style of Antonio de Ferreira, though favoured by that portion of the polite world which valued a reputation for learning, were but little esteemed by the great bulk of the public. The poets of this sect may fairly be said to constitute a classical school, without thereby admitting them to an equal rank with the incorrect men of genius whose irregular effusions could scarcely fail to possess more poetic character, than other works which are now to be noticed; such, for example, as the poems of Andrade Caminha, who formed himself entirely on the model of Ferreira. The efforts made by the poets of this classic school to attain the correctness of the ancients seem to have checked their powers of fancy, and it may be presumed that imaginations which were so easily repressed, could not be very creative and energetic. Those who, like some modern German writers would, in defiance of every rule of language, render genius the measure of classic excellence, must find a new term to designate that poetry, the greatest merit of which is the elegant perfection and pure rounding of poetic forms after the example of the ancients. This, which is in other respects an inferior style of poetry, is nevertheless held in consideration by all cultivated nations. To reject it as altogether worthless would indeed be very unjust, since it serves to shew how judgment, talent, and taste, can by the study of ancient models, produce, even without the aid of genius, a certain kind of poetic beauty, which is not unmeritorious, though it frequently presents scarcely a shadow of that pure and sublime beauty which is the offspring of real genius. Poetry of this kind is therefore styled classical, merely in reference to a certain degree of affinity which its forms bear to the classical forms of Greek and Roman art.

ANDRADE CAMINHA.

One of the warmest friends, admirers and imitators of Ferreira, was Pedro de Andrade Caminha, Camareiro (gentleman of the chamber) at the court of the Infante Dom Duarte, brother to King John III. He survived his friend Ferreira six-and-twenty years. During his life his poems seem rather to have been esteemed by a small circle of connoisseurs and dilettanti, than to have been favourites with the public. Thus it happened that at that period they were only circulated in manuscript, and that afterwards, with the exception of a few which had been admitted into spiritual collections, they totally disappeared; they have, however, been recently discovered, and have been printed at the expense of the Portuguese Royal Society.[185] Andrade Caminha seems to have had no notion of any thing more perfect in poetic composition than the works of his friend Ferreira, who, however, barely avoided the dangerous boundary where poetry ends and versified prose begins. Caminha’s compositions in elegant verse are, however, still more deficient in genuine poetry, than the works of Ferreira, and indeed they can scarcely be termed poems. His eclogues are cold, and their coldness is the more striking, as they are intended to express forcibly the language of romantic love. His epistles are better deserving of attention. They possess just about as much poetic warmth as is necessary to maintain the character of didactic poems. In these epistles Caminha, as a painter of manners and a moralist, alternately describes and reasons energetically and without pedantry in the style of Ferreira, and his unassuming manner gives more effect to the agreeable colouring of that style.[186] But Andrade Caminha is by no means so rich in ideas as Ferreira. He limits the circle of his free reflections, by constant reference to the relations in which he lived. In the epistles to his brother, and in those to Ferreira, he, however, indulges in a more unconstrained expression of feeling.[187] Of all these epistles, the seventeenth, in which he inveighs against impertinent critics, possesses most didactic merit.[188] Andrade Caminha seems to have supposed that he possessed a particular talent for elegiac poetry. Twenty of the elegies he composed are still preserved, exclusive of many songs of complaining love in redondilhas, to which the title of elegies is likewise given. But the sorrow for the death of the royal personages and ingenious friends, which is lavished in the first half of Caminha’s elegies, and the tender anguish occasioned by the inexorableness of his beloved Phyllis, which appears in the second half, seldom rouses any poetic sympathy in the reader, notwithstanding the beauty of language with which the sorrow and anguish are expressed. In some of the elegies to Phyllis, the descriptions of natural scenery possess considerable merit.[189]

But the most remarkable of all Caminha’s works are his epitaphs and epigrams, of which no Portuguese poet has bequeathed so many to posterity. His Epitafios which amount to eighty-one, and his Epigrammas which exceed two hundred and fifty in number, are almost all written in octave verse. In these little pictures of reflection and sentiment, which derive so much of their value from correctness and elegance, a limited fancy aided by solid taste is capable of rising above the level of prose. The labour which Andrade Caminha bestowed on the composition of his epitaphs and epigrams, sufficiently proves that he felt what was his proper vocation at the foot of Parnassus. But even there he could not travel without a guide, and the spirit of his age induced him to choose Ausonius for his conductor. He had, like Ausonius, sufficient talent for the proper keeping of the tenderness, precision and energy which distinguish the serious epigram of the Greeks; but in his imitation of the style of the Greek epigram, he missed the refined correctness of Ausonius by confounding poetic with prosaic simplicity. Of the eighty-one epitaphs which Caminha composed in honour of celebrated and exalted individuals, not one can claim an equal rank with the best ancient productions of the same kind. In most of them the reader finds only dry encomiums accompanied by trivial reflections.[190] In others the ideas rise but very little above the level of the commonest observation.[191] In Caminha’s epitaphs the result of the epigrammatic compound of the ideas, where he wishes to be uncommon, has sometimes a singularly frigid effect; as, for example, when speaking of the hero Affonso d’Albuquerque, he pompously says: “He sprang from kings, he honoured kings, and he subdued kings.”[192] Even the language of powerful feeling sinks, as in the epitaph on Ferreira, beneath the common place of the reflections.[193] The serious epigrams are more ingenious, though even they are, for the most part, merely agreeable plays of fancy.[194] In some the formality of the diction produces a very happy effect; in others the epigrammatic expression of feeling displays an astonishing degree of romantic intensity;[195] a few are truly excellent.[196] To this last class, however, the comic epigrams of Caminha do not belong. A truly comic turn of thought is scarcely ever to be found in them, and it is only occasionally that they betray a poignant conceit.[197] But it must be acknowledged that a poet of more fertile fancy would find it difficult to write nineteen strictly comic epigrams on an ugly face, (a uma feissima.)

BERNARDES.

Diogo Bernardes was the friend of Andrade Caminha, and like him an admirer and disciple of Ferreira. He was capable of receiving more lively impressions than Caminha, and he passed less tranquilly through life. At first he only endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet, and he succeeded in gaining a degree of celebrity in his native town Ponte de Lima, whence he is called the poet of Lima. He then wished to become the historian of his native country, but in this undertaking he did not experience the support on which he had calculated. It is probable that he became intimately acquainted with Ferreira at the court of Lisbon. Desirous of entering upon a life of active occupation, he visited the court of Philip II. at Madrid, where he resided for some time in quality of secretary to the Portuguese embassy. Fate at length involved him in the unfortunate expedition of King Sebastian. After fighting valiantly in the battle of Alcacer Seguer in Africa, he was made prisoner by the victorious Moors. During his captivity he composed several elegies and spiritual songs. On recovering his freedom he returned to his native country where he lived until the year 1596. Since his death he has been the object of severe animadversion, owing particularly to the supposition, which has already been noticed, of his having appropriated to himself some poems of Camoens. But were there no reason to doubt the fact of this plagiarism, Bernardes has sufficiently suffered for it in the esteem of posterity, by the unjust depreciation of his poetic talent in the critical writings of some Portuguese authors of the seventeenth century, more particularly in those of Manoel de Faria e Sousa, with whom this tone of criticism originated. In the eighteenth century, however, justice was rendered both to him and to Ferreira.[198] Without striking out a new course in poetry, and indeed without paying any rigid regard to the distinction between poetry and prose, Bernardes evinces a far greater share of poetic feeling than Ferreira; and, as a poet, if not as an elegant versifier, he is far superior to Andrade Caminha. His spiritual poems are among the very best in the class to which they belong. The title which he gave them, namely:—“Miscellaneous poems to the good Jesus, and the glorious Virgin his mother, &c.”[199] is quite in the spirit of the poetry of the catholic religion. But Bernardes was not capable of viewing catholic Christianity on its only true poetic side, that is to say, the bold character of a miraculous working faith. He confined himself to the representation of the inconceivable grace of the Saviour, of the anguish of heart which the sinner should feel in the deep consciousness of his unworthiness, and of similar dogmata, which certainly may be expressed in poetic phrases, but which unavoidably fetter the imagination, and convert even hymns into litanies.[200] It is only through a pious childishness of feeling, to which catholic Christianity gives birth, that some portion of poetic life has been imparted to the spiritual songs, sonnets, and estancias of Bernardes. That feeling led him to introduce into his sonnets to the holy virgin, a mixture of romantic love; for example, when the poet complains to the virgin that he loves something beside herself;[201] or, when he admires her beauty in a picture, and reflects how beautiful she herself must be. The spiritual songs in the popular style, which are included among the works of Bernardes, are written in Spanish. The temporal songs, elegies, and sonnets of this poet, have the same soft and infantine character, and are therefore not inappropriately presented to the public as an appendix to his pictures of spiritual feeling.[202] A few elegies which he composed during his captivity among the Moors,[203] and some endechas in the old national style,[204] belong to this class. Bernardes has also left behind him eclogues, epistles, and numerous sonnets. His epistles shew the veneration he entertained for the critical judgment of Ferreira, whose cold style, however, certainly could not please him.[205] Many of his sonnets are expressive of the homage with which he submitted his poetry to the judgment of Ferreira, as he did his faith to the doctrines of the church. The elegy in which he laments the death of Ferreira may, therefore, be numbered among his sincerest effusions of the heart.[206]

CORTEREAL.

In the same school of correct poetry with Andrade Caminha and Bernardes, arose the ingenious Jeronymo Cortereal, another of those chivalrous spirits of the sixteenth century, for whom every ordinary sphere of life was too limited. Ambitious of doing honour to his country and his distinguished family, he served in the Portuguese army against the infidels in Asia and Africa. He afterwards settled on his estate near Evora. In his residence, which was situated on a hill, and surrounded by rude precipices, and which commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country, he devoted himself to poetic composition; and sometimes, for the sake of variety, turned his attention to music and painting. This romantic abode of the muses charmed even the cold-hearted Philip II. of Spain, when he visited his kingdom of Portugal. Cortereal, who on that occasion, rendered homage to the new sovereign in verse, had previously often been unfaithful to his native tongue. He is included in the number of those Spanish poets, who indefatigably but vainly vied with each other to convert historical art into epic art, and to produce a Spanish national epopee.[207]—He related in Spanish verse and in a poem of fifteen cantos, the history of the battle of Lepanto, which has given occasion to so much Spanish poetry of every description. In the Portuguese language, he wrote two poems of a similar kind, which, at the time of their production were very much esteemed. The subject of one is the siege of the Portuguese garrison of Diu in India, which was valiantly defended by the Governor, Mascarenhas. In the other of these works Cortereal relates in the same style, the hapless story of Manoel de Souza and his wife, who on their return from India were shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and who after wandering about for a considerable time, perished among the savages. To impart poetic decoration to prosaic events of this kind, borrowed from the history of the period, was the prevailing fashion of the day in Spain and Portugal; and to banish such narrations from the region of poetry, was an idea that never suggested itself to any poet, still less to the public.[208]

OTHER PORTUGUESE POETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—FERREIRA DE VASCONCELLOS; RODRIGUEZ DE CASTRO; LOBO DE SOROPITA; &c.

Unconnected with this classical school, which became extinct about the close of the sixteenth century, several Portuguese poets pursued their own course, nearly in the same manner as Camoens, though not with the same success. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, for example, a man of considerable acquirements, who held a distinguished post in Lisbon, rendered himself celebrated as the writer of several comedies which were much esteemed. He was also the author of a new romance of the Round Table.[209]