Chapter 17
=46.=--Manuel José Quintana (1772-1857) was born in Madrid. He went to school in Cordova and later studied law at Salamanca. He fled from Madrid upon the coming of the French. In the reign of Ferdinand VII he was for a time confined in the Bastile of Pamplona on account of his liberal ideas. After the liberal triumph of 1834 he held various public offices, including that of Director General of Public Instruction. In 1855 he was publicly crowned in the Palace of the Senate.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxii; Ticknor, III, 332-334; Blanco García, _La literatura española en el siglo XIX_, 2d ed., Madrid, 1899, I, 1-13; Menéndez y Pelayo, _D. Manuel José Quintana_, _La poesía lírica al page 268 principiar el siglo XIX_, Madrid, 1887; E. Piñeyro, _M.-J. Quintana_, Chartres, 1892; Juan Valera, _Florilegio de poesías castellanas_, Madrid, 1903, V, 32-38. His works are in vols. 19 and 67 of _Bibl. de Aut. Esp._
The Spanish people, goaded by the subservience of Charles IV and his prime minister and favorite, Godoy, to the French, rose in March, 1808, swept away Godoy, forced the king to abdicate and placed his son Ferdinand upon the throne. It was believed that this change of rulers would check French influence in the Peninsula, but Ferdinand was forced by Napoleon into a position more servile than that occupied formerly by Charles.
2. Note the free word-order in Spanish which permits, as in this line, the subject to follow the verb, the object to precede.
14. =Oceano=: note the omission of the accent on _e_, that the word may rime with =soberano= and =vano=; but here =oceano= still has four syllables.
=47.=--28. =tirano del mundo= = Napoleon Bonaparte.
=48.=--24. By =los colosos de oprobio y de vergüenza= are probably meant Charles IV and Godoy.
=49.=--29. =hijo de Jimena=: see _Jimena_ and _Bernardo del Carpio_, in _Vocab._
=50.=--2. =En... y=, _with a... and in_.
=51.=--Dionisio Solís y Villanueva (1774-1834) was born in Cordova: he never rose higher in life than to be prompter in a theater. He fought against the French, and he was exiled for a time by Ferdinand VII. Solís wrote some plays and translated many from other languages into Spanish. The best that can be said of Solís as a poet is that his work is spontaneous and in parts pleasing. Cf. Blanco García, I, 50 and 61-63; Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 44-46.
=53.=--18-19. =Esta... enfermedad= = _esta dulce deliciosa enfermedad que yo siento_. page 269 25. si puede (here meaning _if it is possible_) is understood before =que trate=.
=54.=--Juan Nicasio Gallego (1777-1853) was born at Zamora. He was ordained a priest: later he went to court, and was appointed Director of His Majesty's Pages. He frequented the salon of his friend Quintana, and was elected deputy from Cadiz. In 1814, during the reign of Ferdinand VII, Gallego was imprisoned for his liberal ideas and later was banished from Spain. He spent some years in France and returned to Spain in 1828. Later he was appointed Perpetual Secretary of the Spanish Academy.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxii; Blanco García, I, 13 f.; Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 38-44. His poems are in vol. 67 of the _Bibl. de Aut. Esp._ There is also an edition of his poems by the Academia de la Lengua, Madrid, 1854.
=El Dos de Mayo=: on the second of May, 1808, the Spanish people, unarmed and without strong leaders, rose against Napoleon's veteran troops. Aided by the English, they drove out the French after a long and bloody war, thus proving to the world that the old Spanish spirit of independence was still alive. This war is known to the Spaniards as the _Guerra de la independencia_ and to the English as the Peninsular War. The popular uprising began with the seizure of a powder magazine in Madrid by Velarde and Daoiz (see in _Vocab._). These men and their followers were killed and the magazine was retaken by the French, but the incident roused the Spanish people to action.
9. al furor, _in the glare_.
=55.=--4. =Mantua=: a poetic appellation of Madrid. Cf. article by Prof. Milton A. Buchanan in _Romanic Review_, 1910, p. 211 f. See also p. xxxiii, _Introduction_ to this volume.
11-12. =¿Quién habrá... que cuente=, _who may there be to tell..._
=58.=--26 to =59.=--3. Note how the poet refers to the various parts of the Spanish peninsula: =hijos de Pelayo= = the Spaniards in general, or perhaps those page 270 of northernmost Spain; =Moncayo= = Aragon, Navarre and Castile; =Turia= = Valencia; =Duero= = Old Castile, Leon and Portugal; and =Guadalquivir= = Andalusia. See =Pelayo= and =Moncayo= and these names of rivers in _Vocab._
5. =Patrón= = Santiago, or St. James, the patron saint of Spain. According to the legend James "the Greater," son of Zebedee, preached in Spain, and after his death his body was taken there and buried at Santiago de Campostela. It was believed that he often appeared in the battle-fields fighting with the Spaniards against the Moslems.
14-15. =á... brindó felicidad=, _drank in fire and blood a toast to her prosperity_.
=60.=--Francisco Martínez de la Rosa (1787-1862) was born at Granada. During the War of Independence he was sent to England to plead for the support of that country against the French. Later he was exiled by Ferdinand VII, and was for five years a prisoner of state in a Spanish prison on the African coast. After his release he became prominent in politics, and was forced to flee to France. In 1834 he was called into power by the queen regent, Maria Cristina. He represented his country at Paris, and later at Rome, and held several important posts as cabinet minister.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxvi; Menéndez y Pelayo, _Estudios de crítica literaria_, Madrid, 1884, pp. 223, f.; Blanco García, I, 115-128; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 56-63. His _Obras completas_, 2 vols., ed. Baudry, were published at Paris in 1845. Several of his articles of literary criticism are in vols. 5, 7, 20 and 61 of the _Bibl. de Aut. Esp._
3. =riyendo= = _riendo_.
=61.=--Angel de Saavedra, Duque de Rivas (1791-1865) was born at Cordova. He prepared for a military career. By reason of his liberal ideas he was compelled to leave Spain and went to England, France and the Island of Malta. He returned to Spain in 1834 and became a cabinet page 271 minister, but was again forced to flee the country. Later he was welcomed back and represented Spain at Naples. He retired from politics and was appointed Director of the Spanish Academy.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxvi; Blanco García, I, 129-153; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 184-195. His _Obras completas_, in 5 vols., were published by the Spanish Academy, Madrid, 1854-1855, with introductory essays by Pastor Díaz and Cañete. His works were also published in the _Colección de Escritores castellanos_, 1894-.
4. =De... pro= = _en pro de mi sangre y casa_.
=62.=--3. =á la que=: translate, _before which_.
10. =duque de Borbón= is the subject of =estaba=, l. 3.
18. =Empérador= = Charles V.
=64.=--8. =Condestable= = Velasco, Constable of Spain, who in 1521 defeated the _comuneros_ who had rebelled against the rule of Charles V.
=65.=--22. =Y con los que=, _with whom_.
23. =estrecho= stands in antithesis to =ancho=: _for his glory the broad world will be narrow_.
=66.=--18-19. =Y... leonesa= = _y un coleto á la leonesa de recamado ante_.
=68.=--20-21. =Que... resuelta= = _que es voluntad suya resuelta (el) que aloje á Borbón_.
=69.=--22. =de un su pariente= is archaic. The regular expression to-day would be _de un pariente suyo_.
=71.=--Juan Arolas (1805-1849) was born in Barcelona, but spent most of his life in Valencia. In 1821, when sixteen years old, Arolas, much against the wishes of his parents, joined a monastic order. Arolas wrote in all the literary genres of his time, but he distinguished himself most as a poet by his romantic "oriental" and love poems.
Cf. _El P. Arolas, su vida y sus versos_, Madrid, 1898, by José R. Lomba y Pedraja; Blanco García, I, 186-189; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 121-130. A new edition page 272 of Arolas' verses was published at Valencia in 1883.
=73.=--José de Espronceda (1808-1842), Spain's greatest romantic poet, was born in Almendralejo (Badajoz). At the Colegio de San Mateo Espronceda was considered a precocious but wayward pupil. His poetic gifts won for him the lasting friendship of his teacher, Alberto Lista. At an early age he became a member of a radical secret society, Los Numantinos. Sent into exile to a monastery in Guadalajara, he there composed the fragmentary heroic poem _Pelayo_. After his release he went to Lisbon and then to London. Enamored of Teresa, though another's wife, he fled with her to Paris, where he took an active part in the revolution of 1830. Espronceda returned to Spain in 1833, and engaged in journalism and politics. Worn out by his tempestuous life, he died at the early age of thirty-four years.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxvii; E. Rodríguez Solís, _Espronceda, su tiempo, su vida y sus obras_, Madrid, 1883; Blanco García, I, 154-171; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 197-207; Antonio Cortón, _Espronceda_, Madrid, 1906; Philip H. Churchman, _Espronceda's Blanca de Borbón, Revue hisp._, 1907; and _Byron and Espronceda, ibid._, 1909. For his poems, see _Obras poéticas_, in the _Biblioteca amena é instructiva_, Barcelona, 1882; _Obras poéticas y escritos en prosa, colección ordenada por D. Patricio de la Escosura_, Madrid, 1884.
=79.=--José de Zorrilla (1817-1893) was born in Valladolid. After receiving his secondary education in the Jesuit Semanario de Nobles he began the study of law; but he soon turned to the more congenial pursuit of belles-lettres. In 1855 he went to Mexico where he resided eleven years. Though a most productive writer, Zorrilla spent most of his life in penury until, in his old age, he received from the government an annual pension of 30,000 reales. He became a member of the Spanish Academy in 1885, and four years later he was "crowned" in Granada. page 273 Zorrilla died in Madrid in his seventy-sixth year.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxvii; an autobiography, _Recuerdos del tiempo viejo_, 3 vols.; Fernández Flórez, _D. José Zorrilla_, in _Autores dramáticos contemporáneos_, 1881, vol. I; Blanco García, I, 197-216; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 258-270. For his works, see _Poesías_, 8 vols., Madrid, 1838-1840; _Obras_, edition Baudry, 3 vols., Paris, 1852; _Poesías escogidas_, published by the Academia de la lengua, Madrid, 1894; _Obras dramáticas y líricas_, Madrid, 1895.
=85.=--10. =Fantasmas= = _como fantasmas_.
=86.=--=Á Buen Juez Mejor Testigo=, _A Good Judge, But a Better Witness_. In Berceo's _Milagros de Nuestra Señora_ there is a similar legend of a crucifix summoned as witness.
=91.=--4-5. =Como... bañe=: this passage is obscure, but the meaning seems to be, _as a pledge that the river should so zealously bathe it_.
18. =la hermosa=, according to tradition, was Florinda, daughter of Count Julian. Roderick (Roderico or Rodrigo), the last king of the Goths in Spain, saw Florinda bathing in the Tagus, conceived a passion for her and dishonored her. In revenge Julian is said to have brought the Saracens into Spain.
27. =puerta=: this may refer to the Puerta Visagra Antigua, an ancient Arabic gate of the ninth century, now closed.
=92.=--12. =Las... horadarle= = _al horadarle las palmas (al rey)_. According to tradition Alfonso, who became afterward King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile, when a refugee at the court of Alimenón, the Moorish king of Toledo, overheard the Moorish sovereign and his advisers talking about the defences of the city. The Moors said that the Christians, by a siege, could probably starve Toledo into submission. Upon perceiving Alfonso near at hand apparently asleep, the Moors, to prove whether he was really asleep or not, poured molten lead into page 274 his hand, and he had sufficient will power to remain motionless while the lead burned a hole through it.
Mariana (_Historia de España, Libro IX, Cap. VIII_) relates this story, but rejects it and says that the real cause of Alfonso's nickname ("_el rey de la mano horadada_") was his extreme generosity.
13. =circo romano=: to the east of the _Hospital de San Juan Bautista_ of Toledo lies the suburb of Covachuelas, the houses of which conceal the ruins of a Roman amphitheater.
15. =Basílica=: in the lower _Vega_, to the northwest of Toledo, is the hermitage of _El Cristo de la Vega_, formerly known as the _Basílica de Santa Leocadia_, which dated from the fourth century. This edifice was the meeting-place of several Church councils. The ancient building was destroyed by the Moors and has been repeatedly rebuilt.
=95.=--21. =el templo=: the _Ermita del Cristo de la Vega_. See preceding note.
27. =Víase= = _veíase_: _vía_, for _veía_, is not uncommon in poetry.
=105.=--3-5. =Gritan... valor= = _los que en el mercado venden, gritan en discorde son_ =lo vendido y el valor= (= _what they have for sale and its price_).
=107.=--13-14. =y... honor= = _y dispensad que (yo) dudara de vuestro honor acusado_.
=108.=--10. See note, p. 92, l. 15.
=112.=--16. =cada un año= = _cada año_.
Antonio de Trueba (1821-1889) was born at Montellano (Viscaya). At the age of fifteen or sixteen years he removed to Madrid and engaged in commerce. In 1862 he was appointed Archivist and Chronicler of the Señorío de Vizcaya, which post he held for ten years. Trueba, best known as a writer of short stories, published two volumes of mediocre verses which achieved considerable popularity during the author's lifetime, but are now nearly forgotten.
Cf. _Notas autobiográficas_ in _La Ilustración Española y page 275 Americana_, Enero 30, 1889; Blanco García, II, 26-28 and 301-308; Juan Valera, _Florilegio_, V, 307-311. For his verses, see _El libro de los cantares_ (1851) and _El libro de las montañas_ (1867).
=113.=--14. =Cantos=: note the double meaning of _canto_.
=114.=--José Selgas y Carrasco (1821-1882) was born in Murcia. A writer on the staff of the satirical and humorous journal, _El Padre Cobos_, Selgas won the attention of the public by his ironical and reactionary articles and was elevated to an important political office by Martínez Campos. He is the author of two volumes of verses, _La Primavera_ (1850) and _El estío_.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxix; and Blanco García, II, 19-23 and 244-250. For Selgas' verses, see his _Poesías_, Madrid, 1882-1883.
=117.=--Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891) was born in Guadix. He studied law, served as a volunteer in an African war and became a writer on the staff of several revolutionary journals. His writings, which at first were sentimental or radical, became more subdued in tone and more conservative with his advancing years. In 1877 he was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy. Primarily a journalist and novelist, Alarcón published a volume of humorous and descriptive verses, some of which have merit.
Cf. Blanco García, II, 62-63 and 452-467; and articles in the _Nuevo Teatro Crítico_ (Sept., Oct. and Nov., 1891). For his verses, see _Poesías serias y humorísticas_, 3d ed., Madrid, 1885.
=121.=--Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) was born in Seville, and became an orphan in his tenth year. When eighteen years of age he went penniless to Madrid, where he earned a precarious living by writing for journals and by doing literary hack-work.
See _Introduction_, p. xxxix; Blanco García, II, 79-86 and 274-277. For his works, see his _Obras_, 5th ed., page 276 Madrid, 1898 (with a _Prólogo_ by Correa: the _Rimas_ are in vol. III).
=122.=--12-13. =Del salón... olvidada= = _en el ángulo obscuro del salón, tal vez olvidada de su dueño_. Bécquer, in his striving after complicated metrical arrangements, often inverts the word-order in his verse. See also _Introduction, Versification_, p. lxxii.
19. =arrancarlas=: =las= refers to =Cuánta nota=, which seems to have here the force of a plural.
24. See _Introduction, Versification_, p. lxv.
=124.=--14. =intérvalo=: the standard form is _intervalo_.
=126.=--12. =El nicho á un extremo=: the meaning is, _one end of the recess_, in which the coffin will be placed. The graveyards of Spain and Spanish America have lofty walls with niches or recesses large enough to contain coffins. After receiving the coffin, the niche is sealed with a slab that bears the epitaph of the deceased.
=128.=--The Valencian Vicente W. Querol (1836-1889) gave most of his time to commerce, but he occasionally wrote verses that had the merit of correctness of language and strong feeling.
Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 376-378. For his verses, see _Rimas_ (_Prólogo_ by Pedro A. de Alarcón), 1877; _La fiesta de Venus_, in the _Almanaque de la Ilustración_, 1878.
7. =Ó en el que= = _ó en el día en que_: the reference is to the anniversaries of the wedding day and the saints' days of the parents.
=129.=--19. =las que... son=, _what is..._
=131.=--15-16. =la que... agonía= = _la lenta agonía que sufristeis..._
=133.=--Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio (1817-1901) was born in Navia (Asturias). He studied medicine but soon turned to poetry and politics. A pronounced conservative, he won favor with the government and received appointment page 277 to several important offices including that of governor of Alicante and Valencia.
Cf. _Introduction_, p. xli; Juan Valera, _Obras poéticas de Campoamor_, in _Estudios críticos sobre literatura_, Seville, 1884; Peseux-Richard, in the _Revue hispanique_, I, 236 f.; Blanco García, II, Cap. V. For his works, see _Doloras y cantares_, 16th ed., Madrid, 1882; _Los pequeños poemas_, Madrid, 1882-1883; _Poética_, 1883; _El drama universal_, 3d ed., Madrid, 1873; _El licenciado Torralba_, Madrid, 1888; _Obras escogidas_, Leipzig, 1885-1886; _Obras completas_, 8 vols., Madrid, 1901-03.
=135.=--3. =se va y se viene y se está=: note the use of =se= in the sense of _people_, or an indefinite _we_.
5. =Y... procura= = _y si tu afecto no procura volver_.
=136.=--18. See note, p. 3, l. 7.
=137.=--Valladolid was the birthplace of Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1834-1903). When a child, he removed with his family to Toledo. At the age of nineteen years he entered upon a journalistic career in Madrid. As a member of the Progresista party, Núñez de Arce was appointed Civil Governor of Barcelona, and afterward he became a cabinet minister.
Cf. _Introduction_, p. xlii; Menéndez y Pelayo's essay in _Estudios de crítica literaria_, 1884; Juan Valera's essay on the _Gritos del combate, Revista europea_, 1875, no. 60; Blanco García, Cap. XVIII; José del Castillo, _Núñez de Arce, Apuntes para su biografía_, Madrid, 1904. For his works, see _Gritos del combate_, 8th ed., 1891; _Obras dramáticas_, Madrid, 1879. Most of his longer poems are in separate pamphlets, published by M. Murillo and Fernando Fe, Madrid, 1895-1904.
=137.=--=Tristezas= shows unmistakably the influence of the French poet Alfred de Musset, and especially perhaps of his _Rolla_ and _Confession d'un enfant du siècle_.
=138.=--16 f. Compare with the author's _La duda_ and _Miserere_, and Bécquer's _La ajorca de oro_. page 278 =142.=--1-3. The poet seems to compare the nineteenth century, amidst the flames of furnaces and engines, to the fallen archangel in hell.
16. =mística=, that is, of communion with God, heavenly.
=144.=--=¡Sursum Corda!=: the lines given are merely the introduction to the poem, and form about one fourth of the entire work. They were written soon after the Spanish-American War. See _Sursum Corda!_, Madrid, 1904; and also Juan Valera's _Florilegio_, IV, 413 f.
8. The plains of Old Castile may well be called "austere."
=145.=--10-16. Cf. _Á España_ (1860) and _Á Castelar_ (1873).
=147.=--11-19. There are few stronger lines than these in all Spanish poetry.
=148.=--Manuel del Palacio (1832-1895) was born in Lérida. His parents removed to Granada, and there he joined a club of young men known as La Cuerda. Going to Madrid, he devoted himself to journalism and politics, first as a radical and later as a conservative.
Cf. Blanco Garcia, II, 40. For his works, see his _Obras_, Madrid, 1884; _Veladas de otoño_, 1884; _Huelgas diplomáticas_, 1887.
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 page 279 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 page 280 (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).