History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol. 1&2). Friedrich Bouterwek

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СКАЧАТЬ a brilliant victory over the Turks, the magnificence of the rhythm would be sufficiently attractive, though the ideas conveyed in the torrent of sonorous syllables possessed less poetic beauty than really belong to them.216 Occasionally, however, Herrera’s ideas degenerate into fantastical hyperboles; for instance, when boasting of his hero, he says, that Don John of Austria, that glorious conqueror of the infidels and the elements, combines within himself “whatever of heavenly power animates terrestrial bodies;” and that therefore “the fixed earth, the extended waters, the circumambent air, and the ever glowing flames depend on him, so that through the secret control which he exercises over earth, water, air, and fire, all these elements are his works.”217 But passages of real beauty occur in Herrera’s odes, which afford a sufficient compensation for this sort of bombast.218 Among the odes for which Herrera has chosen a softer theme, the prize of superiority has been justly awarded to the Ode to Sleep. It is one of those compositions which may be said to be single in their kind. The graceful choice of language, the picturesque effect, the delicate keeping in the composition, and the finish given to all the details in strict conformity with the true spirit of the theme, impart to this ode or cancion a lyric beauty which must render it in all ages an object of admiration, not only to the lover, but to the critic of poetry.219

      The other poems of Herrera, though extremely numerous, require only a slight notice.220 His best sonnets, which are among the happiest imitations of Petrarch in the Spanish language, are characterized by the recurrence of some of the author’s favourite images, as for example, the comparison of his mistress to light, or the evening star,221 &c. He is frequently very successful in the management of these similes; but at other times he falls into strange absurdities, such as making the “curling waves of gold of his sweet light float in the wind.”222 But extravagant tropes of this kind could not be very offensive to Spanish taste, which had been accustomed to indulge the orientalisms of the old national style, and they were indeed not only tolerated but esteemed. It might have been expected that a writer possessing so much critical judgment as Herrera, would, as an imitator of Petrarch, have endeavoured to naturalize in his native tongue, the simplicity of the Italian poet; but he was too much a Spaniard to be pleased with such simplicity. His elegies, and other lyric compositions in the Italian syllabic measure, have all the same character.

      Herrera endeavoured, by other means than poetical composition, to give to the national taste of the Spaniards a direction conformable to his own principles. He wrote a “Critical Commentary on the Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega.”223 This commentary has served as a model for many similar works, which have been the means of circulating various kinds of useful knowledge without having contributed in any remarkable degree to the advancement of taste. Herrera, as a theorist, failed to establish any fixed point or station from which he might have taken a clear and consistent view of the whole region of poetry. His criticism everlastingly turns on detached ideas and words; and whenever opportunities for displaying his learning occur, he digresses into all the regions of philosophy and literature. Of the indistinctness of his notions, relative to the different species of poetry, some idea may be formed from his definition of the elegy. He says—“an elegy should be simple, soft, tender, amiable, terse, clear, and if it may be so called, noble; affecting to the feelings, and moving them in every way; neither very inflated nor very humble, nor obscured by affected phrases or far-fetched fables.”224

LUIS DE LEON.

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      Luis Ponce de Leon, the next lyric poet to be noticed, pursued a course very different from that of Herrera, whose contemporary he was. He is usually called, by abbreviation, merely Luis de Leon, and did not obtain the surname of divine, to which, however, he might have laid claim with infinitely more justice than Herrera, if his pious humility would have permitted him to entertain the idea of maintaining any competition for earthly honours.225

      This poet, who for classical purity of style and moral dignity of ideas, had never been surpassed in Spanish literature, was, like Herrera and Mendoza, a native of the south of Spain. He was born at Granada, in the year 1527, where the family of the Ponces de Leon, which was connected with the most distinguished of the Spanish nobility, flourished. At an early period of life, Luis de Leon felt a poetic inspiration, and cherished a love of retirement, which rendered him indifferent to outward show, and all the pleasures of the great world. He found only in poetry and in the contemplation of a superior existence that food for which his soul longed. His tranquil and gentle mind exhibited none of the gloomy features of monkish fanaticism, but was devoted to moral and religious meditation. As soon as he had finished his scholastic studies, he entered, of his own free choice, into the ecclesiastical state. He was sixteen years of age when he made his profession in the order of St. Augustine at Salamanca. Theology now became his proper occupation. In Spain, especially at that period, a man of the character of Luis de Leon, even if he possessed a mind capable of divesting itself of prejudice, could scarcely be expected to doubt the dogmas of the catholic faith; but his poetic imagination, which was not to be satisfied with their dry and scholastic interpretation, irresistibly impelled him to adorn them. Luis transferred the mild enthusiasm of his pious feelings into the theological studies, to which his vocation devoted him. On religious subjects he was a learned and diligent author; but his heart found, at least during the first years of his monastic life, only in poetry, the faithful interpreter of his love for that pure truth, to the attainment of which all his arduous efforts were directed. Though invested in his thirty-third year with the dignity of doctor of theology, he maintained, even within the cloister, his intimacy with the classic writers of antiquity. The Hebrew poetry also worked powerfully on his imagination; and on one occasion he nearly fell a martyr to an attempt to translate and comment on the Song of Solomon. He was very far from wishing to give a too liberal interpretation of the amatory language of the original. He explained the sacred poem in perfect accordance with the sense attributed to it by the church. But the inquisition had, at that time, strictly prohibited the translation of any part of the bible into the vulgar tongue. Luis de Leon, therefore, ventured to communicate his version in confidence to one friend only; but that friend was not faithful to his trust, and the translation found its way into the hands of several individuals. It was soon denounced to the inquisition, and the author was immediately thrown into prison by that terrible tribunal. He himself mentions, in one of his letters, that for the space of five years he was deprived of all communication with mankind, and was not even permitted to see the light of day.226 Conscious of his innocence, he enjoyed during his captivity, according to his own testimony, a tranquillity and satisfaction of mind which he never afterwards so fully experienced, when restored to freedom, and the society of his friends.227 At length justice was done to him, he returned in triumph to his monastery, and was reinstated in his ecclesiastical dignities. From that period, he appears to have been wholly devoted to the duties of his order and the study of theology. He died in 1591, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, being at that time general and provincial vicar of Salamanca.

      The poems of this amiable enthusiast are, according to his own testimony,228 for the most part the productions of his youth; but no other Spanish poet has succeeded in expressing the intense feelings of the heart under the control of so sound a judgment. It is only by reference to the pious tranquillity of a cultivated mind wrapt up in self communion, that the extraordinary correctness of this author’s style can be explained, for Luis de Leon is, without exception, the most correct of all the Spanish poets, though he constantly regarded the metrical clothing of his ideas as a very secondary object. To use his own language, he wrote poetry rather in fulfilment of his destiny, than purposely and by dint of study. At an early age he became intimately acquainted with the odes of Horace, and the elegance and purity of style which distinguish those compositions made a deep impression on his imagination. Classical simplicity and dignity were the models constantly present to his creative fancy. He, however, appropriated to himself the character of Horace’s poetry, too naturally ever to incur the danger of servile imitation. He discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace, in romantic syllabic measures and rhymes. More just feeling for the imitation of the ancients was never evinced by any modern poet. His odes have, СКАЧАТЬ