Chapter I: Preface

The general rules by which this series is governed have been fully stated by the Editor in the first published volume, _The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory_. It will therefore not be necessary for me to do more than endeavour to justify the particular application of them in this book. Mr Saintsbury has fully recognised the magnitude of the task which has to be overcome by the writer who should undertake to display “intimate and equal knowledge of all the branches of European Literature at any given time.” Nobody could be more conscious of his insufficiency to attain to any such standard of knowledge than I have had occasion to become in the course of executing the part of the plan intrusted to me. Though I hope my work has not been shirked, I still cannot venture to boast of “intimate and equal knowledge” of all the great bulk of literature produced during the later sixteenth century. Happily so much as this is not required. Some ignorance of--or at least some want of familiarity with--the less important, is permitted where the writer is “thoroughly acquainted with the literature which happened to be of greatest prominence in the special period.” I must leave others to decide how far my handling of the Spanish, English, and French portions of the subject can be held to excuse my less intimate familiarity with the Italian and Portuguese. The all but unbroken silence of Germany during this period made it unnecessary to take account of it. Modern Dutch and modern Scandinavian literature had hardly begun; such Scottish poets as Scott and Montgomerie are older than their age. These and other things, on the principles of the series, fall into the previous or the next volume.

Although the reasons for the course taken with the literature of Spain are given in the text, they may be repeated here by way of preliminary excuse. It has been decided to treat the Spaniards as an example of the overlapping necessary to the satisfactory carrying out of a series in periods. I have begun with them earlier than with others, have ended with them later, and have as far as space permitted treated them as a whole. For this there is what appears to me to be a sound critical reason. Although Spain undoubtedly belongs to Europe, yet there is in her something which is not quite European. The Spaniards, though they have always been, and are, vigorous and interesting, have a certain similarity to some oriental races. This is not the place for an essay on the Spanish national character. The comparison is only mentioned as a justification for pointing out that, like some oriental races, the Spaniards have had one great period of energy. At no time have they been weak, and to-day they can still show a power of resistance and a tenacity of will which promise that if ever the intellect of the nation revives, they will again play a great part in the world. But it is none the less a matter of fact that, except during their one flowering time, they have not been what can be called great. From the fifteenth century till well into the seventeenth, those defects in the national character, which have kept the Spaniards stationary and rather anarchical, were in abeyance. The qualities of the race were seen at work on a vast stage, doing wonderful things in war, colonisation, art, and letters. Yet the very reason that the Spaniard was then exercising his faculties to the full extent to which they would go, gives a complete unity to his Golden Age. It cannot be divided in any other than a purely arbitrary way. England and France were destined to grow and develop after the Later Renaissance. Tasso and Bruno were the last voices of a great Italian time. But Spain suspended the anarchy of her middle ages at the end of the fifteenth century, gathered force, burst upon the world with the violence of a Turkish invasion, flourished for a space, and then sank exhausted at the end of a hundred and fifty years.

It may be thought that too little attention has been paid to the Portuguese. I will not venture to assert that the criticism is ill founded. Still I shall plead by way of excuse that what the lesser Peninsular nation did in literature was hardly sufficiently original to deserve fuller notice in a general survey of a very fertile period. Sà de Miranda and his contemporaries, even Camoens and his follower Corte-Real, were after all little more than adapters of Italian forms. They were doing in kindred language what was also being done by the Spanish “learned poets.” In Camoens there was no doubt a decided superiority of accomplishment, but the others seem to me to have been inferior to Garcilaso, Luis de Leon, or Hernan de Herrera. And this “learned poetry” is in itself the least valuable part of the literature of the Peninsula. In what is original and important, the share of the Portuguese is dubious or null. They have a doubtful right to the _Libros de Caballerías_. They have a very insignificant share in the stage, and no part in the _Novelas de Pícaros_. Barros and the other historians were men of the same class as the Spaniards Oviedo or Gómara. For these reasons, I have thought it consistent with the scheme of the book to treat them as very subordinate.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN.

The unity of Spanish literature--Limits of treatment--A
prevailing characteristic--The division into native
and imitative--The inheritance from the fifteenth
century--Spanish verse--The _Cancioneros_--The romances--The
_Romanceros_--The quality of this poetry--Spain and
Italy--The _Diálogo de la Lengua_--Prose of the early
sixteenth century--The influence of the Inquisition 1

CHAPTER II. THE SPANISH LEARNED POETS.

The starting-point of the classic school--The natural
influence of Italy--Prevalence of the classic school--Its
aristocratic spirit--What was imitated from the
Italians--Its technique and matter--Artificiality of the
work of the school--Boscan--Garcilaso--Their immediate
followers--The schools of Salamanca and Seville--Góngora and
Góngorism--The epics--The _Araucana_--The _Lusiads_ 30

CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH AND DECADENCE OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.

The national character of the Spanish drama--The first
beginnings of the religious plays--The starting-point of
the secular play--Bartolomé de Torres Naharro--Lope de
Rueda--Lope de Vega’s life--His influence on the drama--The
conditions of the work--Contemporaries and followers of
Lope--Calderon--Calderon’s school 60

CHAPTER IV. FORMS OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.

The prevailing quality of the Spanish drama--Typical
examples--_La Dama Melindrosa_--_El Tejedor de
Segovia_--_El Condenado por Desconfiado_--The plays on
“honour”--_A Secreto Agravio Secreta Venganza_--The _Auto
Sacramental_--the _loa_--The _Verdadero Dios Pan_--_Los Dos
Habladores_ 91

CHAPTER V. SPANISH PROSE ROMANCE.

Pastorals and short stories--The original work of the
Spaniard--The _Libros de Caballerías_--The _Amadis
of Gaul_--Followers of _Amadis of Gaul_--Influence
and character of these tales--The real cause of
their decline--The character of the _Novelas
de Pícaros_--The _Celestina_--_Lazarillo de
Tormés_--_Guzman de Alfarache_--The followers of Mateo
Aleman--Quevedo--Cervantes--His life--His work--The minor
things--_Don Quixote_ 124

CHAPTER VI. SPAIN--HISTORIANS, MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS, AND THE
MYSTICS.

Spanish historians--Histories of particular events--Early
historians of the Indies--General historians of the
Indies--Gómara, Oviedo, Las Casas, Herrera, the
Inca Garcilaso--Mendoza, Moncada, and Melo--General
histories--Ocampo, Zurita, Morales--Mariana--The
decadence--Solis--Miscellaneous writers--Gracian and
the prevalence of Góngorism--The mystics--Spanish
mysticism--The influence of the Inquisition on Spanish
religious literature--Malon de Chaide--Juan de Ávila--Luis
de Granada--Luis de Leon--Santa Teresa--Juan de la
Cruz--Decadence of the mystic writers 157

CHAPTER VII. ELIZABETHAN POETRY.

The starting-point--Italian influence--The opposition to
rhyme--Excuses for this--Its little effect--Poetry of
first half of Elizabeth’s reign--Spenser--Order of his
work--His metre--Character of his poetry--Sir P. Sidney--The
_Apologie for Poetrie_--His sonnets and lyrics--Watson--The
Sonneteers--Other lyric poetry--The collections and
song-books--The historical poems--Fitz-Geoffrey
and Markham--Warner--Daniel--Drayton--The satiric
poets--Lodge--Hall--Marston--Donne 185

CHAPTER VIII. THE EARLIER DRAMATISTS.

The first plays--Resistance to classic influence--Advantages
of this--And the limitations--The dramatic
quality--Classic, Spanish, and French drama--Unity in
the English Plays--_Ralph Roister Doister_--_Gammer
Gurton’s Needle_--_Gorboduc_--Formation of the
theatre--Lyly--Greene--Peele--Kyd--Marlowe--Character of
these writers--Shakespeare--Guesses about his life--Order
of his work--Estimates of Shakespeare--Divisions of his
work--The Poems--The Dramas--The reality of Shakespeare’s
characters 223

CHAPTER IX. THE ELIZABETHAN PROSE-WRITERS.

Elizabethan prose--Two schools of writers--Roger
Ascham--His books and style--Webbe and Puttenham--The
sentence--Euphuism--The _Arcadia_--Sidney’s style--Short
stories--Nash’s _Unfortunate Traveller_--Nash and the
pamphleteers--Martin Marprelate--Origin of the Marprelate
Tracts--The _Diotrephes_--Course of the controversy--Its
place in literary history--Hooker--_The Ecclesiastical
Polity_ 259

CHAPTER X. FRANCE. POETRY OF THE LATER RENAISSANCE.

The Pléiade--Ronsard--The lesser stars--The _Défense
et Illustration de la Langue Française_--The
work of Ronsard--His place in poetry--Joachim du
Bellay--Remi Belleau--Baïf--Du Bartas--D’Aubigné--The
dramatic work of the Pléiade--Jodelle--Grevin and La
Taille--Montchrestien--The comedy--_La Reconnue_--Causes of
failure of early dramatic literature 290

CHAPTER XI. FRENCH PROSE-WRITERS OF THE LATER SIXTEENTH
CENTURY.

Abundance of later sixteenth-century
prose--A distinction--Sully--Bodin--The
great memoir-writers--Carloix--La
Noue--D’Aubigné--Monluc--Brantôme--The _Satyre
Ménippée_--Its origin--Its authors--Its form and
spirit--Montaigne--His _Essays_--The scepticism of
Montaigne--His style--Charron and Du Vair 326

CHAPTER XII. THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

The later Renaissance in Italy--Torquato Tasso--His work--The
_Gerusalemme Liberata_--Giordano Bruno--Literary character
of his work--Giambattista Guarini 352

CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION 367

INDEX 379

* * * * *

THE LATER RENAISSANCE.