José Heriberto García de Quevedo (1819-1871) was a cultivated and ambitious scholar who collaborated with Zorrilla in María, Ira de Dios and Un cuento de amores. Among his better works are the three philosophical poems: Delirium, La segunda vida and El proscrito (Obras poéticas y literarias, Paris, 1863). Among the lesser writers of this period are Antonio Maitín (1804-1874), the best of Venezuelan romanticists (cf. El canto fúnebre, a poem of domestic love); Abigail Lozano (1821-1866), a romanticist and author of musical but empty verses ("versos altisonantes"); José Ramón Yepes (1822-1881), an army officer and the author of legends in verse, besides the inevitable Poesías; Eloy Escobar (1824-1889), an elegiac poet; and Francisco G. Pardo (1829-1872), a mediocre imitator of Zorrilla.
Next to Bello alone, the most distinguished poet of Venezuela is José Pérez Bonalde (1846-1892), who was a good German scholar and left, besides his original verses, excellent translations of German poets. His metrical versions of Heine, especially, exerted considerable influence over the growth of literary feeling in Spanish America (Estrofas, N.Y., 1877; El poema del Niágara, N.Y., 1880). At least two other writers of the second half of the nineteenth century deserve mention: Miguel Sánchez Pesquera and Jacinto Gutiérrez Coll.
Among the present-day writers of Venezuela, Luis López Méndez was one of the first to introduce into Spanish America a knowledge of the philosophy and metrical theories of Paul Verlaine. Manuel Díaz Rodríguez (1868-___) has written little verse; but he is the best known Venezuelan novelist of to-day [Sangre patricia, Camino de perfección (essays), Ídolos rotos, Cuentos, 2 vols., Confidencias de Psiquis, Cuentos de color, Sensaciones de viaje, De mis romerías]. The most influential of the younger writers is Rufino Blanco-Fombona, who was expelled from his native country by the present andino ("mountaineer") government and now lives in exile in Paris. At first a disciple of Musset and then of Heine and Maupassant, he is now an admirer of Darío and a pronounced modernista. His Letras y letrados de Hispano-America is the best recent work of literary criticism by a Spanish-American author. Blanco-Fombona is a singer of youthful ambition, force and robust love. His verses have rich coloring, but are at times erotic or lacking in restraint (prose works: Cuentos de poeta, Maracaibo, 1900; Más allá de los horizontes, Madrid, 1903; Cuentos americanos, Madrid, 1904; El hombre de hierro, Caracas, 1907; Letras y letrados de Hispano-America, Paris, 1908. Verses: Patria, Caracas, 1895; Trovadores y trovas, Caracas, 1899; Pequeña ópera lírica, Madrid, 1904; Cantos de la prisión, Paris, 1911).
References: Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., II, p. cx f.; Blanco García, III, p. 321 f.; Reseña histórica de la literatura venezolana (1888) and Estado actual de la literatura en Venezuela (1892), both by Julio Calcaño, Caracas; La literatura venezolana en el siglo XIX, Gonzalo Picón Febres, Caracas, 1906; Parnaso venezolano, 12 vols., Julio Calcaño, Caracas, 1892; Biblioteca de escritores venezolanos, José María Rojas, Paris, 1875; Parnaso venezolano, Barcelona, 1906.
Bello: see preceding note.
[1.] The Lion symbolizes Spain, since from the medieval kingdom of Leon modern Spain sprang. The battle of Bailén (see in Vocab.) took place in 1808 when Bello was twenty-seven years of age and still loyal to Spain.
[214.—16 to 215.—3.] Que... concibes = que circunscribes el vago curso al (= del) sol enamorado, y (tú), acariciada de su luz, concibes cuanto ser (= every being that) se anima en cada vario clima.
[18.] The use of quien referring to inanimate objects is now archaic.
[216.—19 to 217.—3.] It is said that the banana gives nourishment to more human beings than does any other plant. The fruit is taken when it is still green, before the starch has turned to sugar, and it is boiled, or baked, or it is ground and made into a coarse bread.
[6-8.] En que... bondadosa! = en que (la) naturaleza bondadosa quiso hacer reseña de sus favores...