113. —14. Cantos: note the double meaning of canto.
114. —José Selgas y Carrasco (1821-1882) was born inMurcia. A writer on the staff of the satirical and humorousjournal, El Padre Cobos, Selgas won the attention of the publicby his ironical and reactionary articles and was elevated toan important political office by Martínez Campos. He is theauthor of two volumes of verses, La Primavera (1850) and El estío.
See Introduction, p. xxxix; and Blanco García, II, 19-23 and244-250. For Selgas' verses, see his Poesías, Madrid, 1882-1883.
117. —Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891) was born inGuadix. He studied law, served as a volunteer in an Africanwar and became a writer on the staff of several revolutionaryjournals. His writings, which at first were sentimental orradical, became more subdued in tone and more conservativewith his advancing years. In 1877 he was elected to membershipin the Spanish Academy. Primarily a journalist andnovelist, Alarcón published a volume of humorous and descriptiveverses, some of which have merit.
Cf. Blanco García, II, 62-63 and 452-467; and articles inthe Nuevo Teatro Crítico (Sept., Oct.
and Nov., 1891). Forhis verses, see Poesías serias y humorísticas, 3d ed., Madrid,1885.
121. —Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) was born inSeville, and became an orphan in his tenth year. When eighteenyears of age he went penniless to Madrid, where he earneda precarious living by writing for journals and by doingliterary hack-work.
See Introduction, p. xxxix; Blanco García, II, 79-86 and 274-277. 276For his works, see his Obras, 5th ed., Madrid, 1898(with a Prólogo by Correa: the Rimas are in vol. III).
122. —12-13. Del salón... olvidada = en el ángulo obscurodel salón, tal vez olvidada de su dueño. Bécquer, in his strivingafter complicated metrical arrangements, often inverts theword-order in his verse. See also Introduction, Versification,p. lxxii.
19. arrancarlas: las refers to Cuánta nota, which seems tohave 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 endof the recess, in which the coffin will be placed. The graveyardsof Spain and Spanish America have lofty walls with nichesor recesses large enough to contain coffins. After receivingthe coffin, the niche is sealed with a slab that bears the epitaphof the deceased.
128. —The Valencian Vicente W. Querol (1836-1889) gavemost of his time to commerce, but he occasionally wroteverses that had the merit of correctness of language andstrong 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 theanniversaries of the wedding day and the saints' days of theparents.
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 soonturned to poetry and politics. A pronounced conservative,he won favor with the government and received appointment 277to several important offices including that of governor ofAlicante and Valencia.
Cf. Introduction, p. xli; Juan Valera, Obras poéticas deCampoamor, in Estudios críticos sobre literatura, Seville, 1884;Peseux-Richard, in the Revue hispanique, I, 236 f.; BlancoGarcía, 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 inthe 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 deArce (1834-1903). When a child, he removed with his familyto Toledo. At the age of nineteen years he entered upon ajournalistic career in Madrid. As a member of the Progresistaparty, 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; BlancoGarcía, 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 theFrench 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.
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142. —1-3. The poet seems to compare the nineteenth century,amidst the flames of furnaces and engines, to the fallenarchangel in hell.
16. mística, that is, of communion with God, heavenly.
144. —¡Sursum Corda! : the lines given are merely the introductionto the poem, and form about one fourth of theentire work. They were written soon after the Spanish-AmericanWar. See Sursum Corda! , Madrid, 1904; andalso 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 allSpanish poetry.
148. —Manuel del Palacio (1832-1895) was born in Lérida.His parents removed to Granada, and there he joined a clubof young men known as La Cuerda. Going to Madrid, hedevoted himself to journalism and politics, first as a radicaland 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 poetcalls this a mere ripio (stop-gap), and says it may mean onebird as well as another.
The Catalan Joaquín María Bartrina (born at Reus in1850) published in 1876 a volume of pessimistic and iconoclasticverses, entitled Algo. After his death (1880) hisworks 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 pessimismthat has obtained in Spain for two centuries past.
149. —14. The reference is, of course, to the paintings, ofwhich there are many, of "The Last Supper" of Jesus.
Manuel Reina (1860-) was born in Puente Genil. Like 279Bartrina, Reina is an imitator of Núñez de Arce, in that hesings of the degeneracy of mankind. He undertook, with butlittle success, to revive the eleven-syllable romance of theneo-classic Spanish tragedy of the eighteenth century.
Cf. Blanco García, II, 354-355. For his verses, see Andantesy allegros and Cromos y acuarelas, cantos de nuestra época, conun prólogo de D. José Fernández Bremón.
The Valencian Teodoro Llorente (b. 1836) is best known forhis translations of the works of modern poets. He is also theauthor of verses ( Amorosas, Versos de la juventud, et al. ).
151.—Argentina. The development of letters was slowerin Argentina than in Mexico, Peru and Colombia, since Argentinawas colonized and settled later than the others. Duringthe colonial period there was little literary production in theterritory now known as Argentina. Only one work of thisperiod deserves mention. This is Argentina y conquista delrío de la Plata, etc.
(Lisbon, 1602), by Martín del Barco Centenera,a long work in poor verses and of little historicalvalue. During the first decade of the nineteenth centurythere was an outpouring of lyric verses in celebration of thedefeat of the English by the Spaniards at Buenos Aires, butto all of these Gallego's ode Á la defensa de Buenos Aires isinfinitely 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 Argentinenational hymn; Esteban Luca (1786-1824); Juan C. Lafinur(1797-1824); Juan Antonio Miralla (d. 1825); and, lastly, themost 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 thegreatest that his country has produced, was the romanticist(who introduced romanticism into Argentina directly from 280France), Esteban Echeverría (1805-1851), author of Los Consuelos(1834), Rimas (1837) and La cautiva.
The latter poemis distinctively "American," as it is full of local color. JuanValera, in his letter to Rafael Obligado ( Cartas americanas, primeraserie), says truly that Echeverría "marks the point of departureof the Argentine national literature." ( Obras completas,5 vols., Buenos Aires, 1870-74).
Other poets of the early period of independence are: theliterary critic, Juan María Gutiérrez (1809-1878), one-timerector of the University of Buenos Aires and editor of ananthology, América poética (Valparaíso, 1846); Dr. ClaudioMamerto Cuenca (1812-1866; cf. Obras poéticas escogidas,Paris, 1889); and José Mármol (1818-1871), author of Elperegrino and of the best of Argentine novels, Amalia ( Obraspoéticas y dramáticas, coleccionadas por José Domingo Cortés,3d ed., Paris, 1905).
In parenthesis be it said that Argentina also claims as herown the poet Ventura de la Vega (1807-1865), who was bornin Buenos Aires, as Mexico claims Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, andas Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is claimed by Cuba.
As in Spain Ferdinand VII had driven into exile most ofthe prominent writers of his period, so the despotic president,Juan Manuel Rosas (1793-1877: fell from power in 1852),drove from Argentina many men of letters, including Varela,Echeverría and Mármol.
Down to the middle of the nineteenth century it may besaid that the Spanish-American writers followed closely theliterary movements of the mother country. Everywhereacross the sea there were imitators of Meléndez Valdés andCienfuegos, of Quintana, of Espronceda and Zorrilla.
Duringthe early years of romanticism some Spanish-American poets,—notablythe Argentine Echeverría,—turned for inspirationdirectly to the French writers of the period; but, in themain, the Spanish influence was predominant. The Spanish-American 281281verses, for the most part, showed insufficient preparationand were marred by many inaccuracies of diction;but here and there a group of writers appeared,—as in Colombia,—whorivaled in artistic excellence the poets of Spain.In the second half of the nineteenth century the Spanish-Americanwriters became more independent in thought andspeech. It is true that many imitated the mysticism ofBécquer or the pessimism of Núñez de Arce, but many moreturned for inspiration to native subjects or to the literary worksof other lands than Spain, and particularly of France andItaly.
The extreme in local color was reached in the " literaturagauchesca," which consists of collections of popular or semi-popularballads in the dialect of the gauchos, or cowboysand
"ranchers," of the Pampas. The best of these collections,— MartínFierro (1872), by José Fernández,—is more artisticthan popular. This long poem, which in its language remindsthe English reader of Lowell's Biglow Papers, is the best-knownand the most widely read work by an Argentineauthor.
The greatest Argentine poets of the second half of the centuryhave been Andrade and Obligado.
Olegario Víctor Andrade(1838-1882), the author of Prometeo and Atlántida, isgenerally recognized as one of the foremost modern poets ofSpanish America, and probably the greatest poet that Argentinahas as yet given to the world. In art, Andrade was adisciple of Victor Hugo; in philosophy, he was a believer inmodern progress and freedom of thought; but above all elsewas his loyal patriotism to Argentina. Andrade's verses haveinspiration and enthusiasm, but they are too didactic and theyare marred by occasional incorrectness of speech. Atlantida,a hymn to the future of the Latin race in America, is the poet'slast and noblest work ( Obras, Buenos Aires, 1887).
It is said of Rafael Obligado (1852-) that he is more 282elegant and correct than Andrade, but his muse has less inspiration.He has, moreover, the distinction of showing almostno French influence, which is rare to-day among Spanish-Americanwriters. Juan Valera regrets Obligado's excessive"Americanism," and laments the fact that the poet uses manywords of local origin that he, Valera, does not understand.The poet's better works are, for the most part, descriptions ofthe beauties of nature or the legendary tales of his nativeland ( Poesías, Buenos Aires, 1885).
Among recent poets, two have especially distinguishedthemselves. Leopoldo Díaz (1868-) began as a discipleof Heredia, and has become a pronounced Hellenist, now arare phenomenon in Spanish America. Besides many sonnetsimbued with classicism, he has written odes to the conquistadores and to Atlántida conquistada. Like Darío, Blanco-Fombonaand many other Spanish-American poets of to-day,Diaz resides in Europe; but, unlike the others, he lives inMorges instead of Paris ( Sonetos, Buenos Aires, 1888; Bajo-relieves,Buenos Aires, 1895; et al. ). A complete " modernista"(he would probably scorn the title of "decadent") is LeopoldoLugones (1875?-), whose earlier verses are steeped inan erotic sensualism rare in the works of Spanish-Americanpoets. He seeks to be original and writes verses on every conceivabletheme and in all kinds of metrical arrangements.Thus, in Lunario sentimental there are verses, essays anddramatic sketches, all addressed to the moon. For an exampleof his versos libres, see Introduction to this volume, p. xlvi( Las montañas de oro, Los crepúsculos del jardín; Lunariosentimental, Buenos Aires, 1909; Odas seculares, Buenos Aires,1910).
For studies of Argentine literature, see Blanco García, Hist. Lit. Esp. , III, pp. 380 f.; Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant.Poetas Hisp.-Am. , IV, pp. lxxxix f.; Juan Valera, Poesíaargentina, in Cartas americanas, primera serie, Madrid, 1889, pp. 51-119; 283 Literatura argentina, Buenos Aires, 1903; Poetas argentinos,Buenos Aires, 1904; Antología argentina, B.T. Martínez,Buenos Aires, 1890-91; Compendio de literaturaargentina, E. Alonso Criado, Buenos Aires, 1908; Miscelánea,by Santiago Estrada; La lira argentina, Buenos Aires, 1824.Other important works, treating of Spanish-American literature,are: Biblioteca hispano-americana (1493-1810), JoséToribio Medina, 6 vols., Santiago de Chile, 1898-1902; Bibliography of Spanish-American Literature, Alfred Coester, Romanic Review, III, 1; Escritores hispano-americanos, ManuelCañete, Madrid, 1884; Escritores y poetas sud-americanos,Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1890; Juicio crítico de poetas hispano-americanos,M.L. Amunátegui, Santiago de Chile, 1861; Lajoven literatura hispano-americana, Manuel Ugarte, Paris,1906.
Echeverría: see preceding note.
Canción de Elvira. This Gutiérrez calls the "song of theAmerican Ophelia."
152. —Andrade: see note to p. 151.
18. Á celebrar las bodas, to be the bride.
153. —3. The Argentines, especially, seem to take delightin calling themselves a Latin, rather than a Spanish, race.This may be due to the fact that fully one third of the populationof Argentine is Italian. Both Juan Valera andMenéndez y Pelayo have chided the Argentines for speakingof themselves as a raza latino-americana, instead of hispano-americana.
15. arcano, secret, seems to have the force here of a secretark, or secret sanctuary, which is broken open that its secretsmay be disclosed.
154. —6-10. These lines refer, of course, to the Christianreligion, spoken of symbolically as an altar, which has replacedthe heterogeneous pagan cults of ancient Rome, and whichthe Spaniards first brought to America.
284
11. ciclopeas: note the omission of the accent on o thatthe word may rime with ideas.
155. —5. Tequendama: see in the Vocab. Several Colombianpoets, including Don José Joaquín Ortiz and Doña AgripinaMontes del Valle, have written odes to this famouswaterfall. See Menéndez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am. ,II; and Parnaso colombiano, II, Bogotá, 1887.
17-18. A revolutionary hero, Antonio Ricaurte (b. 1786),blew up the Spanish powder magazine on the summit of ahill near San Mateo, and lost his life in the explosion. SeeMateo in Vocab.
156. —5. The colors of the Peruvian flag are red and white,mainly red. The red,—symbolical of bloodshed,—shallbe largely replaced by the golden color of ripening grain,—symbolicalof industry.
8. Caracas, where Bolivar was born, lies at the foot ofMount Ávila.
11. This line, and line 16, would indicate that Atlántida waswritten soon after the war, begun in 1876, between Chile andthe allied forces of Bolivia and Peru, in which Chile wasvictorious.
12-15. When this was written there was little immediateprospect of other railways than the narrow-gage road fromOruro to the Chilean frontier, about five hundred miles inlength; but now Bolivia has the promise of becoming therailway center of lines connecting both Argentina and Chilewith Peru. These lines are now completed or building.
27. Andrade died in 1882, and seven years after his death,in 1889, the emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed, and a republicanform of government was adopted by Brazil.
157. —3. Andrade now sings of his own country, hence¡De pie para cantarla!
8. There is a larger immigration of Europeans into Argentinathan into any other South-American country. The 285immigrants come mostly from northern Italy and fromSpain.
12-16. As the Atlántida was the last poetic work of Andrade,these lines may refer to the treaty of 1881 between Argentinaand Chile, by which Argentina acquired all the territory eastof the Andes, including Patagonia and the eastern part ofTierra del Fuego.
By the conquest and settlement of the broad plains ( pampas)and the frozen region of the south, a new world wascreated, much as in the United States of America a new worldwas created by the acquirement and settlement of the westernplains, mountain lands and Pacific coast.
21. Vast areas in Argentina are given over to the cultivationof wheat, barley and oats.
159. —These are the last stanzas of Prometeo, a poem inwhich the author addresses the human mind and urges it tobreak its bonds and free itself from tyranny and prejudice:see also in Vocab.
160. —Obligado: see note to p. 151.
162. —Colombia. Colombia was formerly known as NuevaGranada, and its inhabitants are still sometimes called Granadinos.An older and larger Colombia was organized in 1819,toward the close of the revolutionary war; but this state waslater divided into three independent countries, viz., Venezuela,Nueva Granada and Ecuador. In 1861 Nueva Granada assumedthe name of Estados Unidos de Colombia, and onlyrecently the Colombian part of the Isthmus of Panamaestablished itself as an independent republic. The presentColombia has, therefore, only about one third the area of theolder state of the same name. In treating of literature, theterms Colombia and Colombian are restricted to the present-dayColombia and the older Nueva Granada. The capitalof the Republic is Santa Fe de Bogotá, to-day generallyknown simply as Bogotá. It is at an elevation of 8700 feet 286above the level of the sea, and has a cool and equableclimate.
It is generally conceded that the literary production ofColombia has excelled that of any other Spanish-Americancountry. Menéndez y Pelayo ( Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am. , III, Introd. ) speaks of Bogotá as the "Athens of South America,"and says further: "the Colombian Parnassus to-day excels inquality, if not in quantity, that of any other region of the NewWorld." And Juan Valera in his Cartas americanas (primera serie,p. 121 f.) says: "Of all the people of South America the Bogotanosare the most devoted to letters, sciences and arts"; andagain: "In spite of the extraordinary ease with which versesare made in Colombia, and although Colombia is a democraticrepublic, her poetry is aristocratic, cultivated and ornate."Blanco García characterizes Colombia as one of the mostSpanish of American countries.
During the colonial period, however, Nueva Granada producedfew literary works. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the conquistador of New Granada, wrote memoirs, entitled Ratosde Suesca (1573?), of little historical value. The most importantwork of the period is the chronicles in verse of Juan deCastellanos (b. 1522? in the Spanish province of Seville). Thiswork is largely epic in character; and, with its 150,000 line