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 220 SPAIN" (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE) licia. A flourishing school of Provencal trou- badours was formed at the court of the counts of Barcelona, and a courtly school of Castilian poets sprang up at the court of the chivalric king John II. The poetry of this school, which moved within the narrow circle of courtly gal- lantry, lacked vigor and variety. Their works v<.iv collected in cancioneros, the oldest of which is that of Juan Alfonso de Baena, a con- verted Jew and one of the secretaries of John II. The most complete collection of the kind, the Cancionero general of Fernando del Castillo (Valencia, 1511), contains (in its 10th ed., 1573) the names of 136 authors, from the beginning of the reign of John II. to the time of the em- peror Charles V. Among them were the mar- quis of Villena, the marquis of Santillana, and Juan de Mena, who in larger didactic poems tried to imitate classical and Italian models; Diego de San Pedro, who also wrote two love novels, Cdrcel de amor and Cuestion de amor ; and Guzman, who is also celebrated as a his- torian. In opposition to the Provencal and courtly schools, a more popular literature be- gan in the second half of the 14th century, growing directly out of the enthusiasm which had so long pervaded the whole mass of the Spanish people; and it asserted for itself a place which in some of its forms it still main- tains. This popular literature may be divided into four classes, ballads, chronicles, romances of chivalry, and the drama. Of most of the old ballads, as far as the time when they were thought worthy to be written, both authors and dates are unknown ; about 1,000 are ex- tant, unequal in length and still more in merit, which have been collected in the Romancero general (13 parts, 1605-'14). The chronicles, or the half genuine, half fabulous histories of the great events and heroes of the national annals, were originally begun by authority of the state, but they were always deeply im- bued with the popular feelings and character. Some of them have already been referred to ; other works of this class, which evince a steady progress of the historical prose, are the chronicles of Ayala and of Juan Nunez de Villaizan, the "Chronicle of the Cid," the "Chronicle of the Travels of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo," and others. The first and most celebrated of the romances of chivalry is the "Amadis de Gaul," originally the work of a Portuguese gentleman of the 14th century, Vasco de Lobeira, but translated into Span- ish by Montalvo between 1492 and 1504. The Portuguese original can no longer be found ; but the Spanish version proved one of the most successful books of this branch of literature, establishing a high reputation in every coun- try of Europe, and having, as Don Quixote said, descendants innumerable. The Spanish drama arose out of the representations so ex- tensively connected with the festivals of the church during the middle ages. Among the best productions of this early period of Span- ish literature belong the pastoral plays of Juan de la Encina and the celebrated dramatic novel of Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. The second period of the national literature of Spain extends from the accession of the Austrian dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century to Cervantes. Under Charles I. (V. of Germany) Spain rose suddenly from a sec- ond class kingdom of Europe to be the most powerful empire of the world ; and, as in the history of other countries, the political glory reflected itself in the rapid progress of litera- ture. The union of Aragon and Castile led to the general adoption of the Castilian dialect as the commercial and literary language of the people. In consequence of the conquest of Naples by Gonsalvo de Cordova (1503-'4), and the increased intercourse of Spaniards with Italy, Italian literature, at that time the most advanced of Europe, began to have a marked influence on the poetry of Spain. The great Italian models, especially Dante and Pe- trarch, were imitated, and Italian measures, as the verses of seven and eleven syllables, and Italian forms, as the sonnets, ottave rime, and canzoni, were introduced. The first poet of this class was Juan Boscan Almogaver (died 1543), who made an experiment in Cas- tilian of sonnets and the other forms of verse used by Italian authors. In most of these poems, although they are obvious imitations of Petrarch, a Spanish tone and spirit are perceptible, which rescue them from the im- putation of being copies ; yet there is an ab- sence of the delicate and exact finish of the original. To a still greater perfection the best forms of Italian verse were carried by a friend of Boscan, Garcilaso de la Vega (died 1536), whose pastoral poems, unexcelled in Spanish literature, are remarkable for gentleness, a pleasing neatness of expression, and a rare sweetness of versification. His sonnets, elegies, and epistles are of less poetical value. Among those who aided most in the introduction and establishment of Italian metres was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (died 15V5). His sonnets are rougher than those of his predecessors, but his epistles (cartas) are rich in sentences, portraitures, and characteristics of great ex- cellence. Though counted among the Italian school, he often gave himself up to the old re- dondillas and quintillas, and to the national tone of feeling and reflection appropriate to these ancient forms of Castilian verse. His satirical rogues' novel, Lazarillo de Tormes, a work of genius and a wholly original concep- tion, became in Spain the foundation of a class of fictions essentially national, under the name of the genero picaresco or rogues' style, which the "Gil Bias" of Le Sage has made famous throughout the world. Mendoza's history of the war against the Moriscoes in Granada is distinguished for manliness, vigor, truth, and picturesqueness of style. The Italian school of poets of this period includes also several Portuguese who wrote in the Castilian dia- lect, as Sa de Miranda (died 1558), the au-