Eduard Böhmer gives a very full bibliography of Juan de Valdés in his Biblioteca Wiffeniana (Strassburg, 1874). Benjamin Barron Wiffen had for Valdés a kind of cult which found partial expression in his quarto Life and Writings of Juan Valdés, otherwise Valdesio (1865). But it is impossible to give more minute references to the voluminous literature which deals with Valdés and his brother Alfonso. An historical essay by Manuel Carrasco, published at Geneva in 1880, is interesting as the work of a modern Spanish Protestant.
CHAPTER VIII
The Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle's edition of Lope de Rueda (1894) lacks an introduction, but it is in other respects as good as possible. D. Ángel Lasso de la Vega y Arguëlles has published a Historia y Juicio crítico de la Escuela Poética Sevillana (1871), which is useful, and even exhaustive, though far too eulogistic in tone. The Argensolas may be conveniently studied in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii., which is supplemented by the Conde de Viñaza's collection of the Poesías sueltas (1889). Minor dramatists still await republication. Herrera is easiest read in Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii.; M. Morel-Fatio's critical edition of the Lepanto Ode (Paris, 1893) is of great merit, and an essay on Herrera by M. Édouard Bourciez in the Annales de la Faculté des lettres de Bordeaux (1891) is acute and suggestive. Vicente de la Fuente is the editor of Santa Teresa's writings in Rivadeneyra, vols. liii. and lv. The biography by Mrs. Cunninghame Graham (1894), a work both learned and picturesque, presents rather the woman of genius than the canonised saint. The text of the remaining mystics will, with few exceptions, be found in Rivadeneyra, vols. vi., viii., ix., xxvii., and xxxii. The lesser lights exist only in editions of great rarity.
Torre's verses are most accessible in Velázquez' edition (1753). Of Figueroa there is no recent reprint, though a poor selection is offered by Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii., which also includes Rufo Gutiérrez' minor verse: his Austriada is given in vol. xxix., and Ercilla's Araucana in vol. xvii. The Catálogo razonado biográfico y bibliográfico of the Portuguese authors who wrote in Spanish is due (1890) to Domingo García Peres. The Barcelona reprint (1886) of Montemôr is easily found: Professor Hugo Albert Rennert's monograph, The Spanish Pastoral Romances (Baltimore, 1892), is extremely thorough. Zurita is best read in the princeps. A new edition of Mendoza's Guerra de Granada is urgently called for, and is now being passed through the press by M. Foulché-Delbosc. Mendoza's burlesque of Silva will be found in Paz y Melia's Sales Españolas (1890).
CHAPTER IX
Henceforward the task of the bibliographer is lighter; for, though Cervantes, Lope, and later writers are the subjects of an enormous mass of literature, and are reprinted in editions out of number, it will only be necessary to name the most important. The twelve quartos which form the Obras Completas (1863-64) of Cervantes are open to much damaging criticism; but they contain all his writings, except the conjectural pieces gathered together by D. Adolfo de Castro in his Varias obras inéditas de Cervantes (1874). For a most exhaustive bibliography of Cervantes' writings (Barcelona, 1895) we are indebted to the late D. Leopoldo Rius y Llosellas: a posthumous volume is to follow, but even in its present incomplete state Rius' book is worth more than all previous attempts put together. Editions of Don Quixote abound, and of these Diego Clemencín's (1833-39) deserves special mention for its very learned commentary. A new edition, in course of issue by Mr. David Nutt (1898), presents a text freed from arbitrary emendations which have crept in without authority. Fernández de Navarrete's biography (1819) is still unequalled. Shelton's early English version (1612-20) has been reprinted by Mr. Henley in his series of Tudor Translations (1896). Of later renderings John Ormsby's (1885) is much the best, and is prefaced by a very judicious account of Cervantes and his work. Duffield (1881) and Mr. H. E. Watts (1894) have translated Don Quixote in a spirit of enthusiasm. The Numancia (1885) and Viaje del Parnaso (1883) were both admirably rendered by the late James Young Gibson. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo's paper on Avellaneda appeared in Los Lunes de El Imparcial (February 15, 1897).
The Obras of Lope, now printing under the editorship of D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, will be definitive; but as yet only eight quartos (including Barrera's Nueva Biografía) are available. Lope's Obras sueltas (1776-79) fill twenty-one volumes; but the best reference for readers is to Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiv., xxxv., xxxvii., xli., and xlii., where Lope is incompletely but sufficiently exhibited. M. Arturo Farinelli's Grillparzer und Lope de Vega (Berlin, 1894) is most excellent. Edmund Dorer's Die Lope-de-Vega Litteratur in Deutschland (1877) is a praiseworthy compilation. Ormsby's article in the Quarterly Review (October 1894) is, as might be expected from him, most exact and learned. I am especially indebted to it.
As to the picaresque novels, Guzmán is in Rivadeneyra, vol. iii.; the Pícara Justina in vol. xxxiii., and Marcos de Obregón in vol. xviii. A thoughtful and appreciative study on Mateo Alemán has been privately printed at Seville (1892) by D. Joaquín Hazañas y la Rua. Antonio Pérez and Ginés Pérez de Hita are to be read in Rivadeneyra, vols. xiii. and iii.: Mariana fills vols. xxx. and xxxi., but the two noble folios of 1780 are in every way preferable.
CHAPTER X
The early editions of Góngora are named in the text; Rivadeneyra, vol. xxxii., reprints him in unsatisfactory fashion, but there is nothing better. Forty-nine inedited pieces by Góngora have been recently published by Professor Rennert in the Revue hispanique, vol. iv. Churton's essay on Góngora (1862) is learned, spirited, and interesting. Villamediana figures in Rivadeneyra's forty-second volume: D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's minute and judicious study (1886) is extremely important. Lasso de la Vega's monograph, already cited, on the Sevillan school, should be consulted for the poets of that group. Villegas and the minor poets may be read in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlii. Rioja has been admirably edited by Barrera (1867), who has supplied a most scholarly biography and bibliography: the additional poems issued in 1872 are more curious than valuable. Quevedo's prose works were edited by Aureliano Fernández-Guerra y Orbe with great skill and accuracy in Rivadeneyra, vols. xxiii. and xlviii.; his verse has been printed in vol. lxix. by Florencio Janer, who was not the man for the task. The new and complete edition, issued by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Andaluces, and edited by D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, promises to be admirable, and will include much new matter—for instance, a pure text of the Buscón. As yet but one volume (1898) has been issued to subscribers. M. Ernest Mérimée, the author of an excellent monograph on Quevedo (1886), has given us a critical edition of Castro's Mocedades del Cid (Toulouse, 1890). Vélez de Guevara and Montalbán are exampled in Rivadeneyra, vol. xlv.: the prose of the former is in vol. xviii.