History of Spanish Literature, vol. 2 (of 3)

by George Ticknor

Complaints, not entirely without foundation, have been made against Herrera’s poetry, on the ground that he wants a sufficiently discriminating taste in the choice of his words. Quevedo, who, when he printed the poems of the Bachiller de la Torre as models of purity in style, first made this suggestion, intimates that his objections do not apply to the volume of poetry published by Herrera himself, but to the additions that were made to it after the author’s death by his friend Pacheco.[859] But, without stopping to inquire whether this intimation be strictly true or not, it is enough to say, that, when Herrera’s taste was formed and forming, the Castilian was in the state in which it was described to have been about 1540 by the wise author of the “Dialogue on Languages”;—that is, it was not, in all respects, fitted for the highest efforts of the more cultivated lyric poetry. Herrera felt this difficulty, and somewhat boldly undertook to find a remedy for it.

The course he pursued is sufficiently pointed out in the acute, but pedantic, notes which he has published to his edition of Garcilasso.[860] He began by claiming the right to throw out of the higher poetry all words that gave a common or familiar air to the thought. He introduced and defended inversions and inflections approaching those in the ancient classical languages. And he adopted, and sometimes succeeded in naturalizing in the Castilian, words from the Latin, the Italian, and the Greek. A moderate and cautious use of means like these was, perhaps, desirable in his time, as the author of the “Dialogue on Languages” had already endeavoured to show. But the misfortune with Herrera was, that he carried his practice, if not his doctrines, too far, and has thus occasionally given to his poetry a stiff and formal air, and made it, not only too much an imitation of the Latin or the Italian, but a slight anticipation of the false taste of Góngora, that so soon became fashionable. This is particularly true of his sonnets and sestinas, which are often involved and awkward in their structure; but in his more solemn odes, and especially in those where the stanzas are regular, each consisting of thirteen or more lines, there is a “long-resounding march” and a grand lyric movement, that sweep on their triumphant way in old Castilian dignity, quite unconscious of a spirit of imitation, and quite beyond its reach.

Perhaps a better idea of the lyric poetry in highest favor among the more cultivated classes of Spanish society, at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, can be obtained from the collection of Pedro Espinosa, entitled “Flowers from the Most Famous Poets of Spain,” than from any other single volume, or from any single author.[861] It was printed in 1605, and contains more or less of the works of about sixty poets of that period, including Espinosa himself, of whom we have sixteen pieces that are worthy of their place. Most of the collection consists of lyric verse in the usual forms,—chiefly Italian, but not unfrequently national,—and many of the writers are familiar to us. Among them are Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and others already noticed, together with Góngora, the Argensolas, and some of their contemporaries.

Several of the poets from whom it gives selections or contributions are to be found nowhere else,—such as two ladies named Narvaez, and another called Doña Christovalina; while, from time to time, we find poems by obscure authors, like those of Pedro de Liñan and Agustin de Texada Paez, which, from their considerable merit, it would have been a misfortune to lose.[862] But Fernando de Herrera does not appear there at all; and of more than two thirds of its authors, only one or two short pieces are given. It is to be regarded, therefore, as an exhibition of the taste of the age when it appeared, rather than as a selection of what was really best and highest in the older and more recent Spanish lyric poetry at the opening of the seventeenth century. But, whatever we may think of it in this point of view, it is certainly among the more curious materials for a history of that poetry; and before we condemn Espinosa for selecting less wisely than he might have done, we should remember, that, after all, his taste was probably more refined than that of his age, since a second part of his collection which he proposed to publish was not called for, though he continued to be known as an author many years after the appearance of the first.

But Herrera is not the only lyrical poet of the period who does not appear in Espinosa’s collection. Rey de Artieda, whose sonnets are among the best in the language,—Manoel de Portugal, whose numerous religious poems are often in the national forms,—and Carrillo, a soldier of promise, who died young, and who wrote sometimes with a simplicity and freshness that never fail to be attractive,—are all omitted; though their works, published at just about the same time with the collection of Espinosa, had been known in manuscript long before, as much as those of Luis de Leon and Góngora.[863]

Christóval de Mesa comes a little later. His lyric poems were printed in 1611, and again, more amply, in 1618. He professes to have taken Herrera for his master, or for one of his masters; but he was long in Italy, where, as he tells us, he changed his style, and from this time, at least, he belongs with absolute strictness to the school of Boscan and Garcilasso.[864]

Francisco de Ocaña and Lope de Sosa, on the contrary, are as strictly of the old Spanish school. The reason may be that their poetry is almost all religious,—such as is found among the sacred verses of Silvestre and Castillejo in the preceding century,—and that they wrote for popular effect, seeking to connect themselves with feelings that had grown old in the hearts of the multitude. The little hymns of the former, on the Approach of the Madonna to Bethlehem, vainly asking for Shelter, and one by the latter, on the Love and Grief of a Penitent Soul, are specimens of what is best in this peculiar style of Spanish poetry, which, marked as it is with some rudeness, carries back our thoughts to the spirited old villancicos in which it originated.[865]

Alonso de Ledesma, of Segovia, who was born in 1552, and died in 1623, wrote, or rather attempted to write, in the same style, but failed; though he succeeded in what may be regarded as a corruption of it. His “Spiritual Conceits,” as he called a volume which was first printed in 1600, and which afterwards appeared six times during its author’s life, are so full of quaintnesses and exaggerations as to take from them nearly all poetical merit. They are religious, and owed their success partly to the preservation of the old familiar forms and tones, but more to the perverse ingenuity with which they abound, and which they contributed much to make fashionable. Indeed, at that time, and very much under the leading influence of Ledesma, there was a well-known party in Spanish literature called the “Conceptistas”;—a sect composed, in a considerable degree, of mystics, who expressed themselves in metaphors and puns, alike in the pulpit and in poetry, and whose influence was so extensive, that traces of it may be found in many of the principal writers of the time, including Quevedo and Lope de Vega. Of this school of the Conceptistas, though Quevedo was the more brilliant master, Ledesma was the original head. His “Monstruo Imaginado,” or Fanciful Monster, first printed in 1615, is little else than a series of allegories hidden under the quibbles that are heaped upon them; beginning with ballads, and ending with the short prose fiction that gives its name to the volume. Several of the poems it contains are on the death of Philip the Second, and sound very strangely, from the irreverence with which that important event is treated, both in its political and its religious aspects. Others, which are on secular subjects, are in a tone even more free. But the little he has left that is worth reading is to be sought in his “Spiritual Conceits,” where there are a few sonnets and a few lyrical ballads that are not likely to be forgotten.[866]

But there was a more formidable party in Spanish literature than that of the Conceptistas; one that arose about the same time, and prevailed longer and more injuriously. It was that of the “Cultos”; or the writers who claimed for themselves a peculiarly elegant and cultivated style of composition, and who, while endeavouring to justify their claims, ran into the most ridiculous extravagances, pedantry, and affectations.

That such follies should thrive more in Spain than elsewhere was natural. The broadest and truest paths to intellectual distinction were there closed; and it was not remarkable, therefore, that men should wander into by-ways and obscure recesses. They were forbidden to struggle honestly and openly for truth, and pleased themselves with brilliant follies that were at least free from moral mischiefs. Despotic governments have sometimes sought to amuse an oppressed multitude with holiday shows of rope-dancers and fireworks. Neither the ministers of Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth nor the Inquisition particularly patronized the false style of writing that prevailed in their time, and served to amuse the better educated portions of society. But they tolerated it; and that was enough. It became fashionable at court immediately, and in time struck such root in the soil of the whole country, and so flourished there, that it has not yet been completely eradicated.[867]