(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER XXXI.
Satirical Poetry: The Argensolas, Quevedo, and others. — Elegiac Poetry and Epistles: Garcilasso, Herrera, and others. — Pastoral Poetry: Saa de Miranda, Balbuena, Esquilache, and others. — Epigrams: Villegas, Rebolledo, and others. — Didactic Poetry: Rufo, Cueva, Céspedes, and others. — Emblems: Daza, Covarrubias. — Descriptive Poetry: Dicastillo.
Satirical poetry, whether in the form of regular satires, or in the more familiar guise of epistles, has never enjoyed a wide success in Spain. Its spirit, indeed, was known there from the times of the Archpriest of Hita and Rodrigo Cota, both of whom seem to have been thoroughly imbued with it. Torres Naharro, too, in the early part of the sixteenth century, and Silvestre and Castillejo a little later, still sustained it, and wrote satires in the short national verse, with much of the earlier freedom, and all the bitterness, that originally accompanied it.
But after Mendoza and Boscan, in the middle of that century, had sent poetical epistles to one another written in the manner of Horace, though in the Italian terza rima, the fashion was changed. A rich, strong invective, such as Castillejo dared to use when he wrote the “Satire on Women,” which was often reprinted and greatly relished, was almost entirely laid aside; and a more cultivated and philosophical tone, suited to the stately times of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, took its place. Montemayor, it is true, and Padilla, with a few wits of less note, wrote in both manners; but Cantorál with little talent, Gregorio Murillo with a good deal, and Rey de Artieda in a familiar style that was more winning than either, took the new direction so decidedly, that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the change may be considered as substantially settled.[1]
Barahona de Soto was among the earliest that wrote in this new form, which was a union of the Roman with the Italian. We have four of his satires, composed after he had served in the Morisco wars; the first and the last of which, assailing all bad poets, show plainly the school to which he belonged and the direction he wished to follow. But his efforts, though seriously made, did not raise him above an untolerated mediocrity.[2]
A single satire of Jauregui, addressed to Lydia, as if she might have been the Lydia of Horace, is better.[3] But in the particular style and manner of the philosophical Horatian satire, none succeeded so well as the two Argensolas. Their discussions are, it is true, sometimes too grave and too long; but they give us spirited pictures of the manners of their times. The sketch of a profligate lady of fashion, for instance, in the one to Flora, by Lupercio, is excellent, and so are long passages in two others against a court life, by Bartolomé. All three, however, are too much protracted, and the last contains a poor repetition of the fable of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse, in which, as almost everywhere else, its author’s relations to Horace are apparent.[4]
Quevedo, on the other hand, followed Juvenal, whose hard, unsparing temper was better suited to his own tastes, and to a disposition embittered by cruel persecutions. But Quevedo is often free and indecorous, as well as harsh, and offends that sensibility to virtue which a satirist ought carefully to cultivate. It should, however, be remembered in his favor, that, though living under the despotism of the Philips, and crushed by it, no Spanish poet stands before him in the spirit of an independent and vigorous satire. Góngora approaches him on some occasions, but Góngora rarely dealt with grave subjects, and confined his satire almost entirely to burlesque ballads and sonnets, which he wrote in the fervor of his youth. At no period of his life, and certainly not after he went to court, would he have hazarded a satirical epistle like the one on the decay of Castilian spirit and the corruption of Castilian manners, which Quevedo had the courage to send to the Count Duke Olivares, when he was at the height of his influence.[5]
The greatest contemporaries of both of them hardly turned their thoughts in this direction; for as to Cervantes, his “Journey to Parnassus” is quite too good-natured an imitation of Caporali to be classed among satires, even if its form permitted it to be placed there; and as to Lope de Vega, though some of his sonnets and other shorter poems are full of spirit and severity, especially those that pass under the name of Burguillos, still his whole course, and the popular favor that followed it, naturally prevented him from seeking occasions to do or say any thing ungracious.