[Page 186].—ll. 11-12. Para ... Lucrecia, a Lais—with allusion to the celebrated courtesan of Corinth—when courted, a Lucretia—i.e., a model of virtue—when won.
POESÍAS DEL SIGLO XVIII
[IGNACIO DE LUZÁN]. The founder of the so-called French school of writers of the eighteenth century, who by subordinating literary production in Spain to the rigid rules that obtained in French literature sought to correct the license that prevailed in Spanish letters of the time. Luzán declared the aims and tenets of the new school in his Poética (1737). He was stronger as a critic than as a creative spirit. Cf. vol. I of the Poetas líricos del siglo XVIII in the Biblioteca de autores españoles; Ticknor III, 263 ff. 375 See, in general, on the eighteenth century, Cueto’s Bosquejo histórico-crítico de la poesía castellana en el siglo XVIII, prefixed to vol. 61 (tome I) of the Biblioteca de autores españoles.
[Page 191].—l. 2. Sármata: the Sarmatian, regarded as the ancestor of the Russian and Pole.
l. 6. rifeos montes: the Rhyphean mountains, said to be to the north of Scythia and sometimes identified with the Carpathians.
l. 12. Ceto, i.e., the whale.
[GARCÍA DE LA HUERTA]. A fierce opponent of the French school inaugurated by Luzán. He published at Madrid in 1778, a volume of poems in the old Spanish manner, without obtaining any degree of success. Cf. vol. I of the Poetas líricos del siglo XVIII in the Biblioteca de autores españoles.
[JORGE PITILLAS]. A pseudonym for José Gerardo de Hervás. The famous satire in which he attacked the bad writers of his time argues for the doctrines of the French law-giver Boileau, and in form strongly suggests Quevedo’s Epistle to Olivares (cf. [p. 163]). Attributed to Isla, it was published in the Rebusco de las obras literarias de J. F. de Isla, Madrid, 1790. Cf. E. Brinckmeier, Floresta de sátiras, etc., Leipzig, 1882; Fitzmaurice-Kelly, p. 348.
[Page 193].—l. 13. Las piedras, etc.: cf. the idiom, Quien calla, piedras apaña, said of one who picks up remarks, intending to use them later.
[Page 194].—l. 18. Marin, etc.: publishers.