Chapter III

CONCLUDING PERIOD OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH POETRY AND ELOQUENCE.

The Spanish writers who lived about the middle of the eighteenth century, began to be ashamed of the unworthy bondage which had severed them from all common feeling with the public taste. It is doubtful whether at this particular period, the nation in general began once more to be roused to a sense of its own importance; but this is certain, that a literary patriotism imperceptibly revived within the narrow circle of Spanish authorship. Even several members of the Spanish academy proved that they were no longer to be satisfied with mere French elegance. The works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were again received into favour. Men of superior talents arose, who endeavoured to combine Spanish genius with French elegance; and the literature of Spain began to acquire a new life.

LA HUERTA.

One of the first who openly attacked the party of the Gallicists, was the patriotic Vicente Garcia de la Huerta, a member of the Spanish academy, and librarian to the king. None but a man whose literary judgments were accredited by the same honourable posts which gave peculiar weight to those of the Gallicists, could at that time hope to oppose with success the fashionable opinion concerning Spanish literature. La Huerta, however, undertook a dangerous task, for with every talent and right feeling for genuine poetry, he was by no means a skilful critic. In systematic coolness of judgment he was incompetent to enter the lists with men of Luzan’s critical ability. The true principles on which Spanish poetry was to be defended against French criticism, were at that period not at all understood; and La Huerta was not the man to discover them. But his feeling acted in the place of his judgment. It groped on when abandoned by theory, and rejected every theory to which it could not be reconciled. Conscious of his deficiency, La Huerta was extremely diffident whenever his opinions came into collision with those of Luzan and other academicians. But when his task was to reply to the observations of French critics, his patriotic enthusiasm knew no bounds. In exercising the law of retaliation, he attacked the admired Coryphæi of the French Parnassus with a grossness which would cast a stigma on his reputation for taste, did not his other works sufficiently prove him to have been unjust, only through the excess of a just indignation. Fortunately for La Huerta, it was not until his works had obtained decided credit that he openly avowed his hostility to the Gallicists. Among the poems which first conferred celebrity on his name, is a piscatory eclogue, which he read at a distribution of academic prizes in the year 1760. This purely occasional effusion is written in the national lyric style of the eclogues of the best period of Spanish poetry, and is free from orientalisms.[602] Three years afterwards, on a similar occasion, he read a mythological poem in stanzas. These were succeeded by other poems, also of occasional origin, by which La Huerta disarmed the critics, who might have been disposed to assert that he was destitute of the necessary feeling for French elegance. The romances by which he sought to give to that style of national poetry a new existence in the elegant world, seem to have been written at various periods of his life. Besides lyric romances, which had not entirely lost their ancient consideration, he composed narrative romances in the old style. In one of the latter compositions his success is remarkable.[603] He likewise revived the Spanish custom of composing poetic glosses; and some of his sonnets deserve the highest praise. That he was well acquainted with latin and French poetry is evident from his metrical translations of some of Horace’s odes, and of several fragments from the works of the French poets.[604]

But he had greater difficulties to overcome in his endeavours to restore the Spanish drama to its former lustre. He was not so great a poet as to be able to advance, accompanied by French elegance, in the same course in which Calderon had stopped. Calderon’s dramas were, however, still performed with approbation, in spite of all that was said by the critics, and La Huerta wrote for one of these pieces a prologue (_loa_) in the old style. At length when he thought he could rely on the favour of a certain portion of the public, he came forward with his first essay in tragic art. His _Raquel_, (Rachel), a tragedy, which was intended to combine the old Spanish forms with the dignity of the French tragic style, without being subject to the French rules of dramatic art, was first performed at the court theatre of Madrid in 1778. For upwards of half a century no new drama had been received with such enthusiasm by the Spanish public. It was represented at every theatre in Spain; and even before it was printed upwards of two thousand copies were taken, and many sent as far as America.[605] The Gallicists in Spain now rose in opposition to La Huerta; but he replied to them in a tone of contemptuous haughtiness, while he always observed the strictest modesty in addressing the public.

La Huerta’s Rachel is not a master-piece; but it is a noble testimony of the poetic national feeling of an ingenious writer, who exerted his utmost endeavours to restore the credit of the Spanish drama. The subject is taken from the old history of Castile. King Alphonso VIII. who has resigned his heart and his royal dignity to the fair Jewess Rachel, is implored by the people and the nobility to shake off the dishonourable yoke. He hesitates between love and duty, until the spirit of discontent, which has been with difficulty repressed, breaks forth in rebellion. While the king is out hunting, Rachel is surprised in the palace, and her base counsellor, Ruben, murders her to save his own life; which he only preserves until the arrival of the king, by whom he is killed in return. The tragedy is divided, according to the old practice, into three _jornadas_; but, in other respects, it is obvious that the author took considerable pains to conform, under certain limitations, to the French rules of dramatic art. The dialogue proceeds uniformly in iambic blank verse, without the introduction of sonnets, or any other kind of metre. All irregular theatrical pageantry is avoided. The language, upon the whole, preserves a dignified character; and in several scenes the tragic pathos is complete.[606] But the composition fails in the distribution of the characters. Only a feeble light is thrown on Rachel, the heroine of the tragedy. Her counsellor, Ruben, is a stupid contemptible Jew, whose lamentations in the moment of danger border closely on the ludicrous;[607] and the weak character of the king, who changes his resolutions on every new impression, frequently approaches caricature. The author has, however, succeeded admirably in exhibiting a striking contrast in the characters of two Spanish grandees:--the one is a base courtier, named Manrique; while the other, Garcia de Castro, in all his sentiments and actions is a correct representative of the spirit of ancient Spanish chivalry in its purest dignity. In the patriotic portraiture of this character, La Huerta’s whole soul is developed;[608] and the national spirit which pervades the tragedy, doubtless contributed in no small degree to ensure its celebrity.

La Huerta’s tragedy of _Agamemnon Vengado_, is a work of trivial importance compared with Rachel. It is founded on the prose translation of the Electra of Sophocles, which Perez de Oliva produced two hundred years earlier;[609] but it is a remarkable, and by no means unsuccessful attempt to unite the romantic and the classic forms, according to the conditions required by a modern audience. La Huerta wrote his Agamemnon in compliance with the wishes of some ladies of Madrid, who were desirous of seeing a tragedy in the Grecian costume. The place of the chorus is, after the French manner, supplied by a female confidante. Part of the scenes are entirely taken from Sophocles, others are those of the original remoulded, and some are new. From the beginning to the end of the tragedy, the poetic language is admirably preserved; and the alternation of the rhymeless iambics with octaves and lyric metres, completes the beauty of the whole.[610]

Finally, La Huerta adapted Voltaire’s _Zaire_ to the Spanish stage. After he had unquestionably acquired the right of pronouncing a decided opinion on the literature of his country, he published his _Theatro Hespañol_; and in his prefaces to some of the volumes of that collection, he launched forth his invectives against the French drama.[611] La Huerta’s _Theatro Hespañol_ is a classic selection from the incalculable store of Spanish dramas; and the selection is certainly well made consistently with the plan which he had adopted. With the view of marking his hostility towards the Gallicists, he selected only those Spanish comedies which are particularly distinguished for elegant ingenuity in point of invention and execution. Thus upwards of three-fourths of the whole collection consists of _comedias de capa y espada_, chiefly from the pen of Calderon. But for this very reason the work does not properly fulfil its title, as it exhibits the Spanish theatre only under one point of view. La Huerta has not even selected a single piece from Lope de Vega, because the plays of that great dramatist were not sufficiently elegant for his purpose: neither has he granted a place to the most beautiful of Calderon’s heroic comedies, being deterred from inserting them by their irregularity; and in conformity with the plan he had laid down, he could with still less propriety admit an _Auto_ into his collection. By this work he, however, attained the objects he had in view, which were to restore the Spanish national comedy to its honourable place in literature, and to vent his feelings of indignation against the Gallicists. He treats the Italian authors, who had openly avowed their disapproval of the Spanish drama, with no less severity than he had evinced towards the French critics. Quadrio, Tiraboschi, Bettinelli, and other writers “of the same breed,” (_de la misma raza_), are denounced by La Huerta as malignant and envious critics. He accuses Signorelli, of “notorious falsehood.” “Childish egotism,” he says, is the soul of French criticism. The icy coldness of French tragedy was with him more offensive than the neglect of rules in the Spanish drama. Racine, the favourite tragic writer of the French school, owed his fame solely to the “tedious scrupulosity,” which he observed in composing his tragedies, but not to the “masculine vigour of genius, or the fire and spirit of fancy.” The “natural sublimity” of Spanish genius could not be restrained by the fetters of the French school. Luzan, though in many respects a very estimable author, was imbued with prejudices. Velasquez, with all his delicacy and erudition had fallen into the errors and misconceptions of Luzan. In general, Spanish poetry had, like the Spanish nation, a certain _oriental_ character, which it was fit it should preserve. French imitations of Spanish dramas of intrigue are declared perfectly insupportable; and, in particular, the Marriage of Figaro, “a comedy altogether contemptible,” (_despreciada en todas sus partes_.[612])

La Huerta remained a debtor to the public for the critical grounds of these denunciations, which called forth the bitterest answers from the adverse party, and also for a reply to his opponents. He asserted briefly and bluntly that those opponents were merely “a ludicrous pack of cynical and drivelling critics, the vehicles of envy, ignorance, and imbecility.” What might not this patriotic author have effected had he been as energetic in his reasoning as in his abuse! He nevertheless appears to have contributed more than any of his contemporaries to produce a re-action in Spanish literature, which was indispensable to give to that literature the opportunity of again acquiring a poetic elevation.

SEDANO.

The publication of the choice Spanish poems, collected by Don Juan Joseph Lopez de Sedano, was a circumstance very favourable to the restoration of the poetry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to its proper place in Spanish literature. This work appeared in the year 1768, under the title of the _Parnaso Español_; but there certainly would have been little difficulty in producing a better collection. The notions which Sedano entertained respecting religion and morality have induced him to mingle not a few bad and indifferent productions with poems of superior merit; and it was by no means a happy idea to reprint long translations, such, for example, as the whole of Tasso’s Amynta, when so much of the rich fruit of the original Spanish stock remained ungathered. But the undertaking was praiseworthy; and the biographical and literary notices annexed to the work rendered the Spanish public once more acquainted with estimable authors whom it ought never to have forgotten.

YRIARTE.

Tomas de Yriarte, general archivist to the high council of war, and translator to one of the ministerial departments of state in Madrid, combined French elegance with the ancient forms of Spanish poetry in a manner very different from that of La Huerta. After he had acquired a certain degree of reputation by several translations of French dramas, by original poems in the latin language, and various other literary labours, he obtained more decidedly the favour of the elegant portion of the Spanish public by his _Fabulas Literarias_, (Literary Fables), which were first printed in the year 1782.[613] Yriarte conceived the novel idea of rendering literary truths, many of which may at the same time be regarded as moral truths, themes for fables in the style of Æsop; and of composing these fables in every variety of verse which was in any way applicable to them. No classical fabulist had hitherto appeared in Spanish literature. Yriarte’s fables are, however, not only remarkable for their classic language and excellent versification, but they possess a peculiar charm of style which may be mistaken for a happy imitation of the manner of Lafontaine, though it is to be traced to a different source. Like Lafontaine, Yriarte had a true feeling for that delicate harmony which is so indispensable to the fabulist, and for that spirited infantine style, which, in a graceful prattling, playfully unfolds the truth as it were intuitively, and, as it ought always to be disclosed, in apologue, without the slightest trace of didactic design. He had no need to turn to the writings of foreigners in quest of the literary elements of such a style. It was only necessary to combine the exquisite simplicity of many old Spanish romances and songs, with the true spirit of Æsopian fable, and his narrative style could not fail to assume the tone in which it so successfully rivalled the manner of Lafontaine. Accordingly among Yriarte’s sixty-seven literary fables, those which are composed in redondillas and other kinds of Spanish national measures, possess the superiority in point of graceful execution. Some are not remarkable for their didactic merits. But even when the idea, or what is styled the moral, presents no particular interest, Yriarte’s fables please by the graceful handling of the subject: an example of this may be seen in the fable of the Ass, which finding a flute in a meadow, accidentally breathes into the lip-hole with his nose, and on hearing the tone of the instrument, persuades himself that nature has qualified him for a musician.[614] Whether Yriarte wholly invented these fables, is a question which can only be decided by laborious investigation. One of the number, in so far as regards the lesson or moral, precisely resembles Gellert’s fable of the Painter in Athens.[615] Yet this circumstance by no means warrants the inference that it is borrowed.

Considerable praise has been bestowed on a didactic poem by Yriarte, entitled Music;[616] but with all the merits which this production may in other respects possess, it is no less deficient in the true characteristics of a didactic poem, than are the earlier essays of the Spaniards in the same class. It is judiciously conceived, executed with the requisite elegance of language, and contains many passages which are by no means destitute of poetic beauty.[617] But the systematic form is not disguised by poetic composition. Instead of diffusing a poetic interest over the truths which were to be inculcated, and presenting even the instruction as a picture of the imagination, according to the proper though seldom realized idea of a didactic poem, Yriarte, like most didactic poets, regarded instruction as the main object, and the creations of poetic fancy merely as accessory embellishments: thus three-fourths of his work consist only of elegantly versified prose.[618]

LEON DE ARROYAL.

To give an account of all the other poets, who at the latter end of the eighteenth century contributed to restore the credit of Spanish poetry, is a task which must be consigned to other historians of literature, who may possess favourable opportunities for rendering themselves intimately acquainted with the more recent productions of Spanish genius. A considerable number of bibliographic notices which would contribute to the accomplishment of this object are extant.[619]

In taking a survey, however, of the latest period of the history of Spanish poetry, the odes of Leon de Arroyal must not be overlooked.[620] Though these odes are inferior to the older Spanish productions of the same sort, yet some of them are distinguished, not indeed for bold, but for airy flights of fancy;[621] and for harmonious versification.[622] At the time of their appearance there were likewise published anonymously some anacreontic songs by a lady, who imitated Villegas with grace as well as with decorum.[623]

JUAN MELENDEZ VALDES.

But a poet of the graces, who has had but few equals even in the golden ages of Spanish poetry, and who excels in his particular sphere, remains to be noticed. This ornament of modern Spanish literature, is Juan Melendez Valdes, a doctor of law, and, perhaps, still professor of polite literature in Salamanca. A delicate fancy, ever lively, yet ever true to nature; an uncommon intensity of feeling; graceful turns of thought; a classic precision and elegance of language, and the most pleasing flow of versification, exist in so eminent a degree, and are so happily combined in this author’s works, that the critic is compelled to become a panegyrist, if he be not totally insensible to the charm which such a phenomenon presents in modern poetry.[624] At an early period of life, Melendez began to retrace the footsteps of Horace, Tibullus, Anacreon, and Villegas; but, as he must have felt that the luxuriant graces of his Spanish model were not to be excelled, his imagination appears to have spontaneously applied itself to a more exquisite painting of amatory ideas and images, and to the dignifying of that kind of poetry by a certain moral delicacy to the observance of which Villegas attached too little importance. The joys, sorrows, and sports of rustic love, rural festivals and amusements, are the materials which confer a peculiar character on the anacreontic effusions of Melendez. Were it not that the picturesque descriptions sufficiently indicate the Spaniard,[625] his verses might sometimes be mistaken for translations from an English or German poet. Nothing can surpass some of his descriptions in the graceful colouring of tender sentiment.[626] It is only necessary to bestow a slight glance on the compositions of Melendez to feel the injustice of the reproach cast on Spanish poetry, by a French traveller, who observes “that the Spaniard is so completely a citizen, that not even in his poetry does he manifest a taste for rural life.” This reproach, which is probably only directed against the poetic writers of the present day, would be unworthy of notice were it intended to apply to the Spanish poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose numerous pastoral compositions abound in descriptions of rural scenery, which evince an intuitive perception of the poetic beauties of unsophisticated nature. Be this as it may, the Spanish academy thought proper, in the year 1780, to award a prize for the best poem in praise of rural life; and on this occasion Melendez gloriously competed with Yriarte.

Besides the anacreontic poems of Melendez, his lyric romances, his popular songs, in which the old national style is combined with modern elegance, his romantic odes, his elegies and his sonnets, must be numbered among the best productions in Spanish literature.[627] How admirably he succeeded in the composition of poetic epistles is proved by the classical dedication of his poems to his friend Jovellanos.[628] He has rendered service to the Spanish theatre by dramatizing the novel of the rich Camacho from Don Quixote. He is also the author of several treatises on moral and philosophical subjects.

BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME OF THE MORE RECENT LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF SPAIN.

If the above information respecting some of the latest Spanish poets be connected with the general observations and bibliographic notices in the preceding part of this history, it will plainly appear that the revival of polite literature in Spain must have been on the one hand accelerated, and on the other retarded, by the progress which was made in the cultivation of modern science and philosophy, during the latter years of the eighteenth century. The period of the triumph of the Gallicists is doubtless past, however numerous the adherents of that party still may be. But in general the Spaniards of the educated and refined classes still blush for their ancient prejudices, and observe, with regret, that the Spanish literature is now only labouring to acquire what it long ago neglected. In order to raise the elegant literature of Spain to a level with that of other cultivated nations of modern Europe, it is deemed necessary to continue with persevering spirit to translate, adapt and imitate every foreign work which attains any degree of celebrity. In this concurrence of the spirit of foreign literature with the ancient national spirit, which is by no means suffered to perish, more than one decennial period of the present century will probably elapse ere Spanish poetry resume its original independence.

Among their modern dramas, the Spaniards particularly esteem the regular tragedies of Nicolas Fernandez de Moratin, and the comedies of Ramon de la Cruz, who, previous to the year 1784, was computed to have written upwards of two hundred interludes in the old style. Spanish translations of the tragedies of Corneille and Voltaire, of the plays of Moliere, and other French comic writers, and of the sentimental dramas of Mercier, have also been received with approbation. Don Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, who must not be confounded with his namesake, travelled at the expense of the Spanish government to study the dramatic literature of the different nations of Europe; and since his return to Spain, a considerable pension has been granted to him as a reward for one of his dramatic productions. He has rendered the tragedy of Hamlet into Spanish, and is expected to give to his countrymen a complete translation of Shakespeare. Don Luciano Francisco Comella, who is mentioned in literary journals as one of the rivals of Leandro de Moratin in comic poetry, appears to be a very prolific writer, and inclined to the old national style. Don Theodoro de la Calla has attempted to give Shakespeare’s Othello in Spanish, from a French translation. Comella has also dramatized several recent historical events, among which are some points in the history of Peter the Great, and Catharine II. of Russia.

The Count de Noroña has particularly distinguished himself as a writer of lyric poetry, and he has also translated Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast into Spanish verse.

Joseph Vasquez Cadalso, and the younger Moratin, may be ranked among the most successful writers of satirical poetry which Spain has recently produced.

_Diana_, or the _Hunt_, by the elder Moratin; the _Happy Man_, by Almeida; and the _Happy Woman_, by Morino, are the latest productions in didactic poetry. A Spanish translation of _How to be always Merry_, from the German of Uz, also occurs in the notices of new Spanish poems.

The old ambition of the Spaniards to distinguish themselves by some production in epic art has again revived. A work of this class, entitled, _Mexico Conquistada_, by Don Juan de Escoiquiz, has excited some attention.

Spanish pastorals in the old national style are associated with translations from the German of Gessner.

The collision of the natural and foreign styles is strikingly exemplified in the Spanish romance literature of the present period. The old romance of _Cassandra_ has lately been re-printed; and a new one in the old style, entitled, _Leandra_, has also made its appearance. All the English and French novels which obtain any celebrity, are now translated into Spanish.

Elegant prose, which was earlier cultivated in Spain than in any other country in Europe, seems at length to have emancipated itself from the Gongorism which threatened its destruction. The prevailing study of French prose in Spain, has no doubt proved favourable to the revival of the pure eloquence of the writers of the sixteenth century. None, indeed, of the more recent works in Spanish prose is eminently distinguished for rhetorical composition. But on the other hand, among these publications it would be difficult to mention a single book of science, whether original or translated, which is not written with a certain degree of purity and elegance. An historical work in the Spanish language has been for some time announced, and is probably now before the public. It is a History of America, by D. Juan Bautista Muñoz, professor of philosophy at Valencia. The intention of the author is to exhibit the conduct of the Spaniards in America in a point of view different from that taken by Robertson; and the work is said to be remarkable for beauty of style.

The Art of Rhetoric,[629] by Don Antonio de Capmany, a member of the Spanish Academy of History, affords a new proof of the importance which the Spaniards attach to the cultivation of elegant prose. The preface to this work is particularly instructive. The book itself contains no new truths, but it presents the old ones well arranged and judiciously selected. Capmany’s work, and particularly the preface, clearly shews that Spanish eloquence is still, in some measure, in a divided state. The classic prose of the sixteenth century is again esteemed. But in any endeavour to restore this prose unchanged, it must be difficult to avoid the appearance of affectation; for since the prevalence of the French taste, many Spanish words and phrases, which were formerly classical, have now become antiquated, while on the other hand, old words and phrases have been introduced from the French. The party of the _purists_, as the adherents of the old style are denominated, have the prevailing language of the polite world against them; while the polite world and the partizans of the French style, can adduce no good reasons for rejecting the old style, which is acknowledged to be pure Castilian. Capmany is decidedly favourable to the new style.[630] However, this conflict will not prove injurious to Spanish eloquence, if each party be willing to make concessions, in order that the old style may be fundamentally preserved, and yet be so modified as to conform, without affectation, to the new ideas and forms of language which modern science has introduced.

All these facts considered in their connexion as a whole, leave no room to doubt that the polite literature of the Spaniards may again rise to its former glory, if favoured by the ancient national spirit, to the genial influence of which it owes its existence. The two academies of polite literature, (_de buenas letras_), at Barcelona and Seville, may likewise contribute to the fulfilment of this object, if they seriously devote their attention to it. The talent of the Spanish improvisatori, who are said to be in no way inferior to those of Italy, may also be directed to the revival of the ancient popular poetry. Since the works of the poets and elegant prose writers of the golden age of Spanish literature have lately been republished in elegant editions, and universally circulated, and since the new demands of reason and science have promoted the developement of the mental faculty in Spain, the best results may be expected from the union of elegant and scientific learning.