Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/475

* SPANISH LITERATURE. 411 SPANISH LITERATURE. Metodez Valdes (1754-1817). Hi.s little volume of I.yrics shows more true poetic sculiment than anything that had preceded them since the daya of the masters of the si.xteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of considerable merit were Iglesias (1748-91), best known for his letrillas; Cien- fuegos (1764-1809), whose lyrics come nearest to those of Meleudez in the expression of genuine feeling; and Diego Gonzfllez (1733-94). It was in the drama that the imported French classi- cism was to have its real triumph. To be sure, one writer of more than average ability, Ramon de la Cruz (1731-C.95), still kept alive the tra- ditions of the Spanish stage of the Golden Age in his humorous little plays called sainete.K, but, on his side, Ram6n de la Cruz stood alone. It was only natural that men of taste, like Nicolfls Fer- nflndez Moratin (Moratin the Elder, 1737-80) and the dramatist statesman Jovellanos (1744- 1811), should, in their love for moderation and order, seek to elevate the fallen stage by adopt- ing for their own compositions the rigid prin- ciples of the French theatre. But neither of these became a favorite with the masses, and it remained for Leandro Fernflndez de Moratin (1760-1828), the son of Nicolas, to compose dramas governed by the French rules, that could captivate Spanish audiences. Moratin the Younger brings us over the threshold of the nine- teenth century; still he belongs properly to the eighteenth century. An enthusiastic admirer of Moliere, he both imitated and translated plays of that great dramatist. But Moratin was more than a mere imitator or translator; for his mas- tery of dialogue, his pure style and his faithful description of the manners of his time .show in him a talent of the highest order. Although he carefully applied the French system of unities, he did not disdain certain elements of the home stage. Thus, he divided his plays into three acts instead of five, as the French and classic Latin rules would have exacted, he employed the popu- lar romance verse in a number of pieces, and, above all, he made a skillful use of the element of intrigue that had been so prominent in the dramas of the Golden Age and has ever remained dear to the Spanish heart. It was this happy blending of the spirit of romantic intrigue with the cold precision of French rules that made his master- piece, the >S« de las ninas (1806), obtain at once the popularity that it has never since lost, and constitute it the only masterpiece produced for the Spanish stage since the days of Lope and Calderon. Spanish literature of the nineteenth century begins with the patriotic poets, Manuel JosS Quintana (1772-1857) and Juan Nicasio Gallego (1777-1853), whose lyrics voice the sentiments of a party sprung up to combat the French invader. Quintana was the Tyrtseus of the struggle against the Napoleonic arms, and he attained his greatest success in the heroic ode (.1^ armamento de las provi7icias contra los Franceses and A Espana despufs de la revoluci6n de Marzo, ISOS). His friend Gallego is also seen at his best in the burning patriotic lyric, and although the bulk of his verse is slight, he was a good literary artist. The classic influence still dominated Quin- tana and Gallego, and is no less clearly marked in the members of a poetical coterie which from its centre may conveniently be termed the School of Seville. The members of this school, of whom Vol. XVllI.— 27. the chief were Manuel Maria de Arjona ( 1771- 1820), Jose Maria Blanco (1775-1841, known in the history of English literature as Blanco White), Alberto Lista (1775-1848), and Felix Jos6 Reinoso (1772-1841), sought to reform the prevailing bad taste by setting up the authority of a respectable classic tradition. They contributed efficaciously to the restoration of a proper a;sthetic sense in Spanish literary aims, and they also helped to improve the purely formal side of Spanish verse by developing rhyme and metre. In the thirties of the nineteenth century the ro- mantic movement began to appear in the Spanish Peninsula, somewhat belated, indeed, but none the less sweeping in its effects. Two elements con- tributed to the establishment of romanticism in Spain: (1) the influence of foreign literatures; and (2) the influence of the older national .litera- ture, and in particular of the drama of Lope and Calderon and of the romances. Even this latter influence did not make itself felt until foreigners had aroused Spain to a realization of the worth of her dramatists of the Golden Age and of her ballads. Many of the young w'riters of the early part of the nineteenth century had opposed the despotic administration of Ferdinand VII., had been obliged to flee the land, and, going to France and England, they had had some contact with the romantic movements of those countries. The romantic writers whom political considerations did not force to abandon their native region founded, about 1830, a club called the Parnasillo, which, as the C^nacle had done in France, was to herald the new ideas. In the lyrics of Manuel de Cabanyes (1808-33; Preludios de mi lira, 1833) there is no tinge of romanticism ; but a transition stage is visible in the writings of Martinez de la Rosa (178!)- 1862), in the main a man of classic tastes, yet who in two plays, the Ahen-Bumeya and the Vonjuracidn de Venecia (1834), entered into the domain of romanticism. Jose de Lazza (1809-37) in his novel El doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente, and in his play Macias, showed similar romantic tendencies. The triumph of romanticism was insured by the performance in 1835 of the drama Don Alvaro of Angel de Saavedra (1791-1865), one of the writers whom Ferdinand's tyranny had compelled to seek a refuge in England and France. The romantic principles to which he gave effect in this work governed also the composition of his lyric El faro de Malta. and of his epic poem Ei Moro exp6sito, in the latter of which he revived the Old Spanish legend of the Infantes of Lara. In the person of Josg de Espronceda (1810-42), the author of the mag- nificent though fragmentary poem El diahlo mtindo, and of the Estiidinnte de Salamanca, there are represented both the romantic element of revolt against social and literary conventions, which in England is strongly marked in the per- son of Byron, and that element of Bohemianism which characterizes so many of the French ro- manticists. Lyric supremacy is disputed with Espronceda by .Tos(Zorrilla (1817-93), who is, however, more justly celebrated for his treat- ment of legendary material from the Spanish Middle Ages than for his purely lyric endeavors. In the Don Juan Tenorio he gives a modern version of the story at bottom of the Burlador de Semlla,