Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/471

* SPANISH LITERATURE. 407 SPANISH LITERATURE. of stories ; and all are told in an original and unpretentious style. With the middle of the fourteenth century, an artificial form of the lyric continuing the tradition of the Troubadour poetry of Galicia. and called Court poetry — because it was mainly cultivated by versifiers attached to the royal Court — began to take the place of importance formerly occupied by epic, religious, and didactic verse. There was a transition period of some duration, however, so that the greatest development of the Provencal- ized lyric did not come until the reign of John II. (1407-54), and then there flourished by its side a humanistic literature bear- ing the impress of the Renaissance move- ment and an allegorical poetry that derived from the works of Dante and other Italian poets. As time went on, the Provencal Galician Court poetry passed out of vogue and the lyric measures of Italy became predominant everywhere through- out Spain. Spanish prose, already given consider- able flexibility by Alfonso the Wise and Juan Ma- nuel, becomes in the second half of the fourteenth century the medium of translation from the class- ics of antiquity, and, even more than the verse of this time, tegms with Latinisms. Much more attractive than the verse alread.y mentioned is the epic ballad, which was much cultivated dur- ing the period preceding the Golden Age (1550- 1700) of Spanish literature; here and there may be found examples of a charming popular lyric. Pedro Lopez de Ayala (1332-1407), who held important ollices at the courts of King Pedro the Cruel and of Henry of Trastamare, was one of the last writers of his time to make any large use of the cuaderna via. This form prevails in his satirical and didactic Rhnado de palacio. in which he assails the social, political, and other abuses of his time. In the second part of the poem, he inserts, here and there, plaints, laments, and songs to the Virgin, which are lyric in their nature and are composed in various measures. These mark Ayala as one of the earliest of the Court poets who imported into Castiliffii that form of the lyric which, following Provencal rules, had long been cultivated in Galician. Dur- ing the reign of Pedro the Cruel the Rabbi Santo of Carrion (Sem Tob) prepared his Proverhios morales. This collection constitutes one of the most important Hebrew contributions to Spanish literature, and it introduces a j/cHre which is later to be attempted by such writers as Santillana and Pfirez de GuzmSn. Seriousness of purpose, lacking in the Court poetry, is present in the Dantesque allegory and vision introduced into Spain, soon after 1400, by Imperial, a native of Seville, but of Genoese origin. The .serious moralizing tendency is also visible in the Doctrina of Pedro de Veragua and especially in the noted Danza de la muerte (Dance of Death), which seems to be the work of the middle of the fifteenth ccnturv'. The highest point reached by culture in the reign of John II. is seen in the literary works of San- tillana, of FernAn Perez de Guzman, of Mena, and of Rodrfguez del Padron. To Fcrnan Perez we owe the Claros varones de E,^pa)'ia (a pane- gyric in verse), versified Proverhios, and allegor- ical and lyrical poems, besides historical works in prose: Rodrfguez has left us ballads and a little verse in the conventional Covirt manner, besides a prose tale. Inigo L6pez de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana (1398-1458), is probably the most im- pressive literary figure of the fifteenth century. He was one of the first to imitate Horace in Spain, he im]K)rted the soiuiet from Italy, and he furthered the inthience of Dante by cop,ying the hitter's al- legorical methods in his Comcdieta de Poitza, his Coroiuieiun de Mosscu Jordi, and his In^icrno de enamorados. In certain other ])oems he displays a didactic and a satirical bent, as in his Prover- hios, his Didlogo de Bias contra Fortunn, ami his Doctrinal de privados. The most interesting and certainly the most entertaining element of his poetical work is that represented by his love songs, such as the scrranillas. In prose he him- self prepared a Carta al Condestahle de Portugal, in which he appears as the first true historian of Spanish literature. The influence of Dante, as well as that of Lucan. is obvious in the allegor- ical Laherinto (also called the Trecientas, from the original number of its stanzas) of Juan di' Mena (1411-56), and to him are due likewise a poetical eulogy of Santillana, entitled La eorona- ci6n, and the moralizing Coplas de los siete peca- dos mortales. Of other noteworthy poets of this time there can be mentioned here only Gomez Man- rique (died 1401) and Jorge Manrique (died 1479) ; the latter is remembered for his noble Coplas on the death of his father. During the reign of Henry IV. (1454-74) there appeared no slight amount of political satire, tlic cliief instance being among the Coplas de Mitigo Revulgo. Of ballads (romances) Spain has been exceedingly productive; in broadsheets or in col- lections (romanccros), there were published dur- ing the final years of the fifteenth centurj', and during the sixteenth century, a very large number dealing with subjects drawn from the real or legendary history of Spain and of France, etc., as well as with subjects chivalrous and erotic. In Spanish prose of the fifteenth century, the humanistic work already begun in Italy was zeal- ously carried on. There was much translation of the classics of antiquity and of the modern Latin writings of Boccaccio and others. Ecclesiastical Latin authors also received some share of atten- tion, and works were introduced from the French, Catalan, and Italian, those of Boccaccio being particularly popular for translation ]iurposes. The influence of all these translations — and especially those from Phitarch, Livy, and Valerius Maxi- mus — manifested itself in the development given to the writing of history. Lopez de Ayala con- tinued the official chronicle of the realm (Croni- cas de los rcyes de Castilla) • Garefa de Santa Maria, FernSn Pgrez de Guzmftn, and Diego de Valera (1412-86) worked upon the Cronica del rey Juan II. : the last named writer and En- rlquez del Castillo dealt with the reign of Henr.y IV. in the Memorial de diversas hazanas; and Fernando del Pulgar and Andres Bernaldez prepared the accoimt of the reign of Isabel I. There also appeared a multitude of chronicles dealing with the lives of individual personages. No little interest attaches to the Cronica 8ar- racena of Pedro de Corral, which gives the whole legendary history of Roderick the Goth. In French stories of a pseudo-historical nature the Spaniards had very early begun to take a seri- ous interest; and these stories, particularly those treating the matifre de Bretagne, were to play an important part in connection with the devel- opment of prose fiction in Spain. The Court poetry of the reign of .Tnhn IT. (first half of the