[5.] el ave placentera: a well-known Spanish-American poet calls this a mere ripio (stop-gap), and says it may mean one bird as well as another.
The Catalan Joaquín María Bartrina (born at Reus in 1850) published in 1876 a volume of pessimistic and iconoclastic verses, entitled Algo. After his death (1880) his works were published under the title of Obras en prosa y verso, escogidas y coleccionadas por J. Sardá, Barcelona, 1881. Cf. Blanco García, II, 349-350.
[148.—15-19.] These lines give expression to the pessimism that has obtained in Spain for two centuries past.
[149.—14.] The reference is, of course, to the paintings, of which there are many, of "The Last Supper" of Jesus.
Manuel Reina (1860-) was born in Puente Genil. Like Bartrina, Reina is an imitator of Núñez de Arce, in that he sings of the degeneracy of mankind. He undertook, with but little success, to revive the eleven-syllable romance of the neo-classic Spanish tragedy of the eighteenth century.
Cf. Blanco García, II, 354-355. For his verses, see Andantes y allegros and Cromos y acuarelas, cantos de nuestra época, con un prólogo de D. José Fernández Bremón.
The Valencian Teodoro Llorente (b. 1836) is best known for his translations of the works of modern poets. He is also the author of verses (Amorosas, Versos de la juventud, et al.).
[151.]—Argentina. The development of letters was slower in Argentina than in Mexico, Peru and Colombia, since Argentina was colonized and settled later than the others. During the colonial period there was little literary production in the territory now known as Argentina. Only one work of this period deserves mention. This is Argentina y conquista del río de la Plata, etc. (Lisbon, 1602), by Martín del Barco Centenera, a long work in poor verses and of little historical value. During the first decade of the nineteenth century there was an outpouring of lyric verses in celebration of the defeat of the English by the Spaniards at Buenos Aires, but to all of these Gallego's ode Á la defensa de Buenos Aires is infinitely superior.
During the revolutionary period the best-known writers, all of whom may be roughly classified as neo-classicists, were: Vicente López Planes (1784-1856), author of the Argentine national hymn; Esteban Luca (1786-1824); Juan C. Lafinur (1797-1824); Juan Antonio Miralla (d. 1825); and, lastly, the most eminent poet of this period, Juan Cruz Varela (1794-1839), author of the dramas Dido and Argía, and of the ode Triunfo de Ituzaingó (Poesías, Buenos Aires, 1879).
The first Argentine poet of marked ability, and one of the greatest that his country has produced, was the romanticist (who introduced romanticism into Argentina directly from France), Esteban Echeverría (1805-1851), author of Los Consuelos (1834), Rimas (1837) and La cautiva. The latter poem is distinctively "American," as it is full of local color. Juan Valera, in his letter to Rafael Obligado (Cartas americanas, primera serie), says truly that Echeverría "marks the point of departure of the Argentine national literature." (Obras completas, 5 vols., Buenos Aires, 1870-74).