Revival: A History of Spanish Literature (1930)

Ernest Merimee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351349314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

The present English version, authorized by the publishers and heirs of M. Merimee, is based on the third French Edition. New material of two sorts has been added, however. First, the translator has been allowed to utlize an annotated, interleaved copy of the Precis, 1922, in which the author, and after his death his son Henri, himself a distinguished Hispanist, had set down material for the next revision. This accounts for many inserted names and phrases, and some paragraphs. Second, the translator has rewritten and added with some freedom.

THIRD PERIOD

THE GOLDEN AGE (EL SIGLO DE ORO)

1. Summary of History and Art

IMPORTANT DATES. Hapsburg Dynasty. Carlos Quinto (V), Emperor (Carlos I of Spain) (1516–1555).—Felipe II (1555–1598).— Felipe III (1598–1621).— Felipe IV (1621–1665).—Carlos II (1665–1700).

With the Hapsburgs the most brilliant period of literature began. This period was long and fertile, lasting more than a century, up to the first years of the reign of Carlos II. Its riches are so abundant that it will here be divided into three parts: I, the reign of Carlos Quinto; II, from the accession of Felipe II to the death of Lope de Vega (1635); III, from that year till the death of Calderon (1681). Such divisions are, of course, in no way rigid, but they correspond roughly to the beginning, the prime and the decline of what Spaniards call their Golden Age. This expression is vague, but it belongs most properly to the second of our divisions, the age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega.

That Spain, during nearly two centuries, exercised tremendous political power in Europe, is so well known that it is unnecessary to enter into details. Fully mistress of herself, enriched by the treasures of the New World, which she could well believe to be inexhaustible, she struggled no longer to reconquer her natural soil, or to consolidate her unity, but to attain universal domination both physical and intellectual. She sought by force to impose her religious and monarchic ideal upon the Old and New Worlds:

Un monarca, un imperio y una espada.¹

In order to assert her hegemony, Spain was compelled first of all to fight France. Italy and Flanders were the customary fields in which these duellists swayed back and forth. Religious wars raged in the Low Countries and Germany; while on the Mediterranean shores, from Tunis to Lepanto, Spain hunted down her ancient enemy the infidel, and in the Atlantic English and Dutch disputed her supremacy. She attacked Protestantism in France, Germany and England. In this crusade against heresy, she found a potent ally in the Inquisition, which mercilessly trampled down every shoot of heterodoxy. To this double political and religious ideal the nation sacrificed its purest blood and all the democratic liberty it still retained (the Comunidades of Castile, the Germanías of the east coast); the effort to attain it acted as a powerful stimulant, but in the end exhausted the reservoir of energy stored during the preceding centuries. The genius of the Emperor began the tremendous task, and the patient skill of Philip II pursued it, but during the reign of Philip III failure became plain. Under the two following kings defeat approached with swift acceleration, and was soon complete.

Portugal, united to Spain in 1580, escaped in 1640. In their turn the Low Countries broke away, by the treaties of Westphalia (1648). Spain still retained her possessions in Italy and America.

Fine Arts

For the arts also this period is, taken all together, the most brilliant in the history of Spain. The entire land became covered with buildings, statues, pictures and works of art which made of it one vast museum. Not only the kings, but most of the great nobles vied with one another in adorning their splendid palaces with precious art collections. Each church and monastery became a gallery. The Italian Renaissance, combined at first with the mudéjar and late-Gothic art, was the preponderant element, until Spanish artists, though for the most part trained in the Italian school, acquired originality and themselves became the masters.

Architecture¹ was still in high honor, though assuredly less to be admired for any originality or unity of style than for the inexhaustible richness of its decoration. For this reason the term plateresque (p. 98) is given to this architectural style. Remarkable examples may be seen in the cathedrals of Salamanca (begun in 1509), Segovia (1525–1577), Plasencia, Granada, Jaén, and Malaga; in the Convent of San Marcos at León, the Hospital de Santa Cruz at Toledo, etc. The chief architects were Diego de Siloe, Enrique and Antonio Egas, Juan de Vallejo, Juan Gil and Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón, Alonso de Covarrubias, Machuca, Riaño, etc. This decorative art strove to rival nature in exuberance, and when, later, in the capricious invention of fantastic monsters it became decadent, it was known as monstruoso or grotesco (from the Italian grotta, grotto, pebble-and-shell work). Toward the end of the century Juan de Herrera initiated a pseudo-Roman style, conforming to the ancient canons. The Escorial (1559–1584) and the cathedral at Valladolid are his great works; the bareness and coldness of these enormous masses of stone inspire the layman with more amazement than admiration.

Sculpture¹ developed splendidly. The Burgundian Felipe Vigarni (Biguerny), Gil and Diego de Siloe, Ordóñez de Burgos, Francisco de Villalpando, the Italian Pompeio Leoni, Xamete, Juan de Badajoz, the two Aragonese Damián Forment (d. 1541) and Diego Morlanes, Juan de Talavera, Rodrigo and Martín de Haya are the most important representatives. Wood-carving is a characteristic Spanish variety.of sculpture. By this we do not mean merely the retables, carved doors and choir-stalls, though they are as rich in Spain as anywhere in the world (Burgos, Toledo, Zamora, León, Seville, Astorga, San Benito at Valladolid, Barcelona, Palma, etc.), for their equivalents are found elsewhere. We allude to the wooden statues, painted and often embossed with gold (estofado). This was a particularly Spanish art. The finest examples are at Seville (the Pasos, or portable Passion-scenes) and in the Museum at Valladolid. The most celebrated sculptors in wood were Alonso Berruguete (1480?–1561),² Gaspar Becerra (1520–1570), the Frenchman Juan de Juni (de Joigny?) (d. 1586?), Miguel de Ancheta; and later, Gregorio Hernández (1566?-1636), Jerónimo Hernández (1586–1646), Martínez Montañés (d. 1649), probably the most famous, and finally Alonso Cano (1601–1667). Many of these sculptors were also painters.

The Arfe family (Enrique, Antonio, Juan de Arphe),³ and the Becerrils (Alonso, Francisco, Cristóbal) distinguished themselves as goldsmiths for the church. The most noteworthy masterpieces in this branch of art belong to this period: the custodias or monstrances of Cordova (1518), Toledo (1524), Sahagún, Santiago (1544), Ávila (1571), Seville (1587), Valladolid (1590); and the crosses of San Isidoro at León, and of Cordova. The master ironworkers of this time also produced admirable results, balconies of great houses, window-lattices, especially the chapel grills (rejas) of the churches.¹ There are notable pieces at Burgos by Cristóbal-de Andino, at Granada by Bartolomé de Jaén, at Seville by Francisco de Salamanca, etc. Most of the important painters belong to the end of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th. A mere list of names must suffice here: Morales el Divino (d. 1586), Antonio Moro (Sir Anthony More), Sánchez Coello, Pantoja de la Cruz (1551–1610) (these three portrait-painters); Doménico Theotocópuli, el Greco (1548–1614), the most original of his time and much admired today, Juan de las Roelas (1560–1625), Francisco Herrera el Viejo (1576?–1656), the Valencians Ribalta (d. 1628) and Ribera (1591?–1656), the Extremaduran Zurbarán (1598–1661), the Andalusians Céspedes (1538–1608), author of a Poema sobre la pintura, Alonso Cano, and finally the two greatest glories of Spanish painting, Diego Velázquez y Silva (1599–1660), and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), both Sevillans.

In Spanish sixteenth century music three schools are usually distinguished: the Andalusian, the Castilian and the Catalan-Valencian. Their characteristics are not easily caught by the layman. The best known names are, for the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, Anchieta, Peñalosa, Contreras, Castilla and Encina; for the ensuing period, Cristóbal Morales (d. 1553), Antonio Cabezón (1510–1568), Comes (1518–1611), Guerrero (1528–1599), Salinas el Divino (1513–1590), Soto (1534?–1619), Victoria (1540?-1613?),² etc. Composers of profane music and of accompaniments wrote either for the ancient and aristocratic lute (vihuela), or, later, for the more popular guitar. Among the vigüelistas may be mentioned Luis Milán,³ Valderrábano, Diego Pisador, Fuenllana, all of whom have left us treatises on their art; among the guitarristas, Juan Blas de Castro, Díaz Bessón, Juan de Torres and the two Palomares. Felipe Pedrell, Saldoni, Soriano Fuertes, Asenjo Barbieri, and Rafael Mitjana are the chief modern historians of Spanish music.

The scientific movement in the 16th century in Spain was remarkable, although its absolute value is likely to be exaggerated by Spaniards. In this direction also, the 16th century was the era of greatness. Scholars were at work in every branch of knowledge. A list of them together with their eulogy is to be found in Acisclo Fernández Vallin’s Cultura científica de España en el siglo XVI (1893), and in La ciencia española, by Menéndez y Pelayo (3rd ed., 3 vols., 1887–1888; Col. de escritores castellanos).

Notes

¹ Acuña’s sonnet to the Emperor; Oxford Book of Spanish Verse, no. 76.

¹ Arthur Byne and Mildred Stapley, Spanish Architecture of the Sixteenth Century; a General View of the Plateresque and Herrera Styles, N. Y., 1917.

¹ Paul Lafond, La sculpture espagnole, Paris [1908]. M. Dieulafoy, La statuaire polychrome en Espagne, Paris, 1908.

² R. de Orueta, B. y su obra, 1917.

³ F. Sánchez Canton, Los Arfes, 1920.

¹ Arthur Byne and Mildred Stapley, Rejería of the Spanish Renaissance, N. Y., 1914. Id. Spanish Ironwork, N. Y., 1915.

² F. Pedrell, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Valencia, 1918.

³ J. B. Trend, Luis Milan and the Vihuelistas, Oxford, 1925.

FIRST PART

BEGINNING OF THE GOLDEN AGE

REIGN OF CARLOS V (1516–1555)

2. General Character of Language and Literature in the Sixteenth Century

In the course of this century, the language steadily approached a definitive form. Castilian became the official language of the nation, at the expense of the dialects. “The concentration of political power, strongly favored by the centralizing interests of the monarchs, brought into Castile many elements of prosperity and culture. For the first time the civilization of the central plateau was superior to that of the coast lands. These accumulated factors came into full operation in the 16th and 17th centuries.”¹ The political, religious and literary ideals of Castile were then imposed upon the rest of the nation.

Following the lead of Nebrija, numbers of grammarians endeavored, with more ardor than method, to formulate the rules of the language, which “hasta nuestra edad anduvo suelta e fuera de regla,” in the words of Nebrija himself. The treatises of Valdes, Ambrosio de Morales, Argote de Molina, Mateo Aleman and Bernardo Aldrete furnish material w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction.—The Origins
• FIRST PERIOD: THE MIDDLE AGES
• SECOND PERIOD: THE RENAISSANCE
• THIRD PERIOD: THE GOLDEN AGE
• FOURTH PERIOD: NEO-CLASSICISM
• FIFTH PERIOD: ROMANTICISM
• SIXTH PERIOD: CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
• General Bibliography
• Index