Legends, Tales and Poems. Bécquer Gustavo Adolfo

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СКАЧАТЬ 1868: "It costs me labor to determine what things I have dreamed and what things have happened to me. My affections are divided between the phantasms of my imagination and real personalities. My memory confuses the names and dates, of women and days that have died or passed away with the days and women that have never existed save in my mind."[2]

      [Footnote 1: Florilegio de Poesías Castellanas del Siglo XIX, con introducción y notas, por Juan Valera. Madrid, 1902, vol. I, pp. 186–188.]

      [Footnote 2: Obras, vol. I, p. L.]

      Whatever may be one's opinion of the personality of the muse or muses of his verse, the love that Becquer celebrates is not the love of oriental song, "nor yet the brutal deification of woman represented in the songs of the Provençal Troubadours, nor even the love that inspired Herrera and Garcilaso. It is the fantastic love of the northern ballads, timid and reposeful, full of melancholy tenderness, that occupies itself in weeping and in seeking out itself rather than in pouring itself forth on external objects."[1] In this matter of lyrical subjectivism Becquer is unique, for it cannot be found in any other of the Spanish poets except such mystic writers as San Juan de la Cruz or Fray Luis de León.

      [Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, op. cit., p. 83.]

      In one of Becquer's most beautiful writings in prose, in a Prológo to a collection of Cantares by Augusto Ferran y Forniés, our author describes two kinds of poetry that present themselves to one's choice: "There is a poetry which is magnificent and sonorous, the offspring of meditation and art, which adorns itself with all the pomp of language, moves along with a cadenced majesty, speaks to the imagination, perfects its images, and leads it at will through unknown paths, beguiling with its harmony and beauty." "There is another poetry, natural, rapid, terse, which springs from the soul as an electric spark, which strikes our feelings with a word, and flees away. Bare of artificiality, free within a free form, it awakens by the aid of one kindred idea the thousand others that sleep in the bottomless ocean of fancy. The first has an acknowledged value; it is the poetry of everybody. The second lacks any absolute standard of measurement; it takes the proportions of the imagination that it impresses; it may be called the poetry of poets."[1]

      [Footnote 1: Obras, vol. III, pp. 112–113.]

      In this description of the short, terse, and striking compositions of his friend Ferran, Becquer has written likewise the apology for his own verse. His was a poetry of "rapid, elemental impressions." He strikes but one chord at a time on his lyre, but he leaves you thrilled. This extreme simplicity and naturalness of expression may be well illustrated by the refrain of the seventy-third poem:

        ¡Dios mío, qué solos

        Se quedan los muertos!

      His poetry has often been compared to that of Heine, whom he is said to have imitated. Becquer did not in fact read German; but in El Museo Universal, for which he was a collaborator, and in which he published his Rimas, there appeared one of the first versions of the Intermezzo,[1] and it is not unlikely that in imitation of the Intermezzo he was led to string his Rimas like beads upon the connecting thread of a common autobiographical theme. In the seventy-six short poems that compose his Rimas, Becquer tells "a swiftly-moving, passionate story of youth, love, treachery, despair, and final submission." "The introductory poems are meant to represent a stage of absorption in the beauty and complexity of the natural world, during which the poet, conscious of his own high, incommunicable gift, by which he sees into the life of things, is conscious of an aimless fever and restlessness which is forever turning delight into weariness."[2]

      [Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, op. cit., p. 86.]

      [Footnote 2: Mrs. Ward, loc. cit., p. 316.]

      Some of these poems are extremely beautiful, particularly the tenth. They form a sort of prelude to the love-story itself, which begins in our selections with the thirteenth. Not finding the realization of his ideal in art, the poet turns to love. This passion reaches its culminating point in the twenty-ninth selection, and with the thirtieth misunderstanding, dissatisfaction, and sadness begin. Despair assails him, interrupted with occasional notes of melancholy resignation, such as are so exquisitely expressed in the fifty-third poem, the best-known of all the poet's verse. With this poem the love-story proper comes to a close, and "the melancholy, no doubt more than half imaginary and poetical, of his love poems seems to broaden out into a deeper sadness embracing life as a whole, and in which disappointed passion is but one of the many elements."[1] "And, lastly, regret and passion are alike hushed in the presence of that voiceless love which shines on the face of the dead and before the eternal and tranquil slumber of the grave."[2]

      [Footnote 1: Mrs. Ward, loc. cit., p.319.]

      [Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 316.]

      Whatever Becquer may have owed to Heine, in form or substance, he was no servile imitator. In fact, with the exception of the thirtieth, no one of his Rimas seems to be inspired directly by Heine's Intermezzo. The distinguishing note in Heine's verse is sarcasm, while that of Becquer's is pathos. Heine is the greater poet, Becquer, the profounder artist. As Blanco Garcia well points out,[1] the moral inclinations of the two poets were distinct and different also. Becquer's instinct for the supernatural freed him from Heine's skepticism and irreligion; and, though he had suffered much, he never doubted Providence.

      [Footnote 1: op. cit., p.86.]

      The influence of Alfred de Musset may be felt also in Becquer's Rimas, particularly in the forty-second and forty-third; but in general, the Spanish poet is "less worldly and less ardent"[1] than the French.

      [Footnote 1: Corm, op. cit., p. xl.]

      The Rimas are written for the most part in assonanced verse. A harmonious rhythm seems to be substituted for the music of the rhyme. The meter, too, is very freely handled. Notwithstanding all this, the melody of Becquer's verse is very sweet, and soon catches and charms even the foreign ear. His Rimas created a school like that inspired by the Doloras of Campoamor. But the extreme simplicity and naturalness of Becquer's expression was difficult to reproduce without falling into the commonplace, and his imitators have for the most part failed.

      AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF THE POET BECQUER, ONE OF THE FEW THAT HAVE SURVIVED HIM, ADDRESSED TO SOR. C. FRANCO DE LA IGLESIAS, MINISTERIO DE ULTRAMAR, MADRID. DATED IN TOLEDO, JULY 18TH, 1869.[1]

      [Footnote 1: The accentuation and punctuation of the original are preserved. This letter is of particular interest, showing, as it does, the tender solicitude of Becquer for his children, his dire financial straits when a loan of three or four dollars is a godsend, and his hesitation to call upon friends for aid even when in such difficulties. The letter was presented to the writer of this sketch by Don Francisco de Laiglesia, a distinguished Spanish writer and man of public life and an intimate friend of Becquer. Señor de Laiglesia is the owner of the magnificent portrait of Gustavo by Valeriano Becquer, of the beauty of which but a faint idea can be had from the copy of the etching by Maura, which serves as a frontispiece to the present volume. ]

      Mi muy querido amigo:

      Me volvi de esa con el cuidado de los chicos y en efecto parecia anunciarmelo apenas llegue cayó en cama el mas pequeño. Esto se prolonga mas de lo que pensamos y he escrito á Gaspar y á Valera que solo pagó la mitad del importe del cuadro Gaspar he sabido que salio ayer para Aguas Buenas y tardará en recibir mi carta Valera espero enviará ese pico pero suele gastar una calma desesperante en este apuro recurro una vez mas á vd. y aunque me duele abusar tanto de su amistad le ruego que si es posible me envie tres ó cuatro duros para esperar el envio del dinero que aguardamos el cual es seguro pero no sabemos que dia vendrá y aqui tenemos al medico СКАЧАТЬ