The most copious vein of fancy, in that day, was turned in the direction of the prose romance of chivalry; now seldom disturbed, even in its own country, except by the antiquary. The circumstances of the age naturally led to its production. The romantic Moorish wars, teeming with adventurous exploit and picturesque incident, carried on with the natural enemies of the Christian knight, and opening moreover all the legendary stores of Oriental fable,—the stirring adventures by sea as well as land,—above all, the discovery of a world beyond the waters, whose unknown regions gave full scope to the play of the imagination, all contributed to stimulate the appetite for the incredible chimeras, the magnanime menzogne, of chivalry. The publication of "Amadis de Gaula" gave a decided impulse to this popular feeling. This romance, which seems now well ascertained to be the production of a Portuguese in the latter half of the fourteenth century, [2] was first printed in a Spanish version, probably not far from 1490. [3] Its editor, Garci Ordoñez de Montalvo, states, in his prologue, that "he corrected it from the ancient originals, pruning it of all superfluous phrases, and substituting others of a more polished and elegant style." [4] How far its character was benefited by this work of purification may be doubted; although it is probable it did not suffer so much by such a process as it would have done in a later and more cultivated period. The simple beauties of this fine old romance, its bustling incidents, relieved by the delicate play of Oriental machinery, its general truth of portraiture, above all, the knightly character of the hero, who graced the prowess of chivalry with a courtesy, modesty, and fidelity unrivalled in the creations of romance, soon recommended it to popular favor and imitation. A continuation, bearing the title of "Las Sergas de Esplandian," was given to the world by Montalvo himself, and grafted on the original stock, as the fifth book of the Amadis, before 1510. A sixth, containing the adventures of his nephew, was printed at Salamanca in the course of the last-mentioned year; and thus the idle writers of the day continued to propagate dulness through a series of heavy tomes, amounting in all to four and twenty books, until the much- abused public would no longer suffer the name of Amadis to cloak the manifold sins of his posterity. [5] Other knights-errant were sent roving about the world at the same time, whose exploits would fill a library; but fortunately they have been permitted to pass into oblivion, from which a few of their names only have been rescued by the caustic criticism of the curate in Don Quixote; who, it will be remembered, after declaring that the virtues of the parent shall not avail his posterity, condemns them and their companions, with one or two exceptions only, to the fatal funeral pile. [6]
These romances of chivalry must have undoubtedly contributed to nourish those exaggerated sentiments, which from a very early period entered into the Spanish character. Their evil influence, in a literary view, resulted less from their improbabilities of situation, which they possessed in common with the inimitable Italian epics, than from the false pictures which they presented of human character, familiarizing the eye of the reader with such models as debauched the taste, and rendered him incapable of relishing the chaste and sober productions of art. It is remarkable that the chivalrous romance, which was so copiously cultivated through the greater part of the sixteenth century, should not have assumed the poetic form, as in Italy, and indeed among our Norman ancestors; and that, in its prose dress, no name of note appears to raise it to a high degree of literary merit. Perhaps such a result might have been achieved, but for the sublime parody of Cervantes, which cut short the whole race of knights-errant, and by the fine irony, which it threw around the mock heroes of chivalry, extinguished them for ever. [7]
The most popular poetry of this period, that springing from the body of the people, and most intimately addressed to it, is the ballads, or romances, as they are termed in Spain. These indeed were familiar to the Peninsula as far back as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; but in the present reign they received a fresh impulse from the war with Granada, and composed, under the name of the Moorish ballads, what may perhaps be regarded, without too high praise, as the most exquisite popular minstrelsy of any age or country.
The humble narrative lyrics making up the mass of ballad poetry, and forming the natural expression of a simple state of society, would seem to be most abundant in nations endowed with keen sensibilities, and placed in situations of excitement and powerful interest, fitted to develop them. The light and lively French have little to boast of in this way. [8] The Italians, with a deeper poetic feeling, were too early absorbed in the gross business habits of trade, and their literature received too high a direction from its master spirits, at its very commencement, to allow any considerable deviation in this track. The countries where it has most thriven, are probably Great Britain and Spain. The English and the Scotch, whose constitutionally pensive and even melancholy temperament has been deepened by the sober complexion of the climate, were led to the cultivation of this poetry still further by the stirring scenes of feudal warfare in which they were engaged, especially along the borders. The Spaniards, to similar sources of excitement, added that of high religious feeling in their struggles with the Saracens, which gave a somewhat loftier character to their effusions. Fortunately for them, their early annals gave birth, in the Cid, to a hero whose personal renown was identified with that of his country, round whose name might be concentrated all the scattered lights of song, thus enabling the nation to build up its poetry on the proudest historic recollections. [9] The feats of many other heroes, fabulous as well as real, were permitted to swell the stream of traditionary verse; and thus a body of poetical annals, springing up as it were from the depths of the people, was bequeathed from sire to son, contributing, perhaps, more powerfully than any real history could have done, to infuse a common principle of patriotism into the scattered members of the nation.
There is considerable resemblance between the early Spanish ballad and the British. The latter affords more situations of pathos and deep tenderness, particularly those of suffering, uncomplaining love, a favorite theme with old English poets of every description. [10] We do not find, either, in the ballads of the Peninsula, the wild, romantic adventures of the roving outlaw, of the Robin Hood genus, which enter so largely into English minstrelsy. The former are in general of a more sustained and chivalrous character, less gloomy, and although fierce not so ferocious, nor so decidedly tragical in their aspect, as the latter. The ballads of the Cid, however, have many points in common with the border poetry; the same free and cordial manner, the same love of military exploit, relieved by a certain tone of generous gallantry, and accompanied by a strong expression of national feeling.
The resemblance between the minstrelsy of the two countries vanishes, however, as we approach the Moorish ballads. The Moorish wars had always afforded abundant themes of interest for the Castilian muse; but it was not till the fall of the capital, that the very fountains of song were broken up, and those beautiful ballads were produced, which seem like the echoes of departed glory, lingering round the ruins of Granada. Incompetent as these pieces may be as historical records, they are doubtless sufficiently true to manners. [11] They present a most remarkable combination, of not merely the exterior form, but the noble spirit of European chivalry, with the gorgeousness and effeminate luxury of the east. They are brief, seizing single situations of the highest poetic interest, and striking the eye of the reader with a brilliancy of execution, so artless in appearance withal as to seem rather the effect of accident than study. We are transported to the gay seat of Moorish power, and witness the animating bustle, its pomp and its revelry, prolonged to the last hour of its existence. The bull-fight of the Vivarrambla, the graceful tilt of reeds, the amorous knights with their quaint significant devices, the dark Zegris, or Gomeres, and the royal, self-devoted Abencerrages, the Moorish maiden radiant at the tourney, the moonlight serenade, the stolen interview, where the lover gives vent to all the intoxication of passion in the burning language of Arabian metaphor and hyperbole, [12]—these, and a thousand similar scenes, are brought before the eye, by a succession of rapid and animated touches, like the lights and shadows of a landscape. The light trochaic structure of the redondilla [13], as the Spanish ballad measure is called, rolling on its graceful, negligent asonante, [14] whose continued repetition seems by its monotonous melody to prolong the note of feeling originally struck, is admirably suited by its flexibility to the most varied and opposite expression; a circumstance which has recommended it as the ordinary measure of dramatic dialogue.
Nothing can be more agreeable than the general effect of the Moorish ballads, which combine the elegance of a riper period of literature, with the natural sweetness and simplicity, savoring sometimes even of the rudeness, of a primitive age. Their merits have raised them to a sort of classical dignity in Spain, and have led to their cultivation by a higher order of writers, and down to a far later period, than in any other country in Europe. The most successful specimens of this imitation may be assigned to the early part of the seventeenth century; but the age was too late to enable the artist, with all his skill, to seize the true coloring of the antique. It is impossible, at this period, to ascertain the authors of these venerable lyrics, nor can the exact time of their production be now determined; although, as their subjects are chiefly taken from the last days of the Spanish Arabian empire, the larger part of them was probably posterior, and, as they were printed in collections at the beginning of the sixteenth century, could not have been long posterior, to the capture of Granada. How far they may be referred to the conquered Moors, is uncertain. Many of these wrote and spoke the Castilian with elegance, and there is nothing improbable in the supposition, that they should seek some solace under present evils in the splendid visions of the past. The bulk of this poetry, however, was in all probability the creation of the Spaniards themselves, naturally attracted by the picturesque circumstances in the character and condition of the conquered nation to invest them with poetic interest.
The Moorish romances fortunately appeared after the introduction of printing into the Peninsula, so that they were secured a permanent existence, instead of perishing with the breath that made them, like so many of their predecessors. This misfortune, which attaches to so much of popular poetry in all nations, is not imputable to any insensibility in the Spaniards to the excellence of their own. Men of more erudition than taste may have held them light, in comparison with more ostentatious and learned productions. This fate has befallen them in other countries than Spain. [15] But persons of finer poetic feeling, and more enlarged spirit of criticism, have estimated them as a most essential and characteristic portion of Castilian literature. Such was the judgment of the great Lope de Vega, who, after expatiating on the extraordinary compass and sweetness of the romance, and its adaptation to the highest subjects, commends it as worthy of all estimation for its peculiar national character. [16] The modern Spanish writers have adopted a similar tone of criticism, insisting on its study, as essential to a correct appreciation and comprehension of the genius of the language. [17]
The Castilian ballads were first printed in the "Cancionero General" of Fernando del Castillo, in 1511. They were first incorporated into a separate work, by Sepulveda, under the name of "Romances sacados de Historias Antiguas," printed at Antwerp, in 1551. [18] Since that period, they have passed into repeated editions, at home and abroad, especially in Germany, where they have been illustrated by able critics. [19] Ignorance of their authors, and of the era of their production, has prevented any attempt at exact chronological arrangement; a circumstance rendered, moreover, nearly impossible, by the perpetual modification which the original style of the more ancient ballads has experienced, in their transition through successive generations; so that, with one or two exceptions, no earlier date should probably be assigned to the oldest of them, in their present form, than the fifteenth century. [20] Another system of classification has been adopted, of distributing them according to their subjects; and independent collections also of the separate departments, as ballads of the Cid, of the Twelve Peers, the Morisco ballads, and the like, have been repeatedly published, both at home and abroad. [21]
The higher and educated classes of the nation were not insensible to the poetic spirit, which drew forth such excellent minstrelsy from the body of the people. Indeed, Castilian poetry bore the same patrician stamp through the whole of the present reign, which had been impressed on it in its infancy. Fortunately, the new art of printing was employed here, as in the case of the romances, to arrest those fugitive sallies of imagination, which in other countries were permitted, from want of this care, to pass into oblivion; and cancioneros, or collections of lyrics, were published, embodying the productions of this reign and that of John the Second, thus bringing under one view the poetic culture of the fifteenth century.