Legends & Romances of Spain. Lewis Spence

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      Still another extravagant and more unpleasant manifestation of the popular craze for romance arose in such religious tales as The Celestial Chivalry, The Knight of the Bright Star, and others of little worth, in which Biblical characters are endowed with the attributes of chivalry and go on adventure bound. The time occupied by the appearance of these varying types, and indeed in the whole latter-day evolution of Spanish romance, was strikingly brief. But half a century elapsed between the publication of Amadis and the most extreme of its worthless imitations. But it is not difficult to account for the rapid manufacture and dissemination of such a mass of literature, good and bad, when we recall that Spain had been for ages the land of active knighthood, that her imagination had been wrought to a high pitch of fervour in her long struggle with her pagan enemies, and that in the tales of chivalry she now gazed upon with such admiration she saw the reflection of her own courtly and heroic spirit—the most sensitive and most fantastically chivalrous in Europe.

Possible Moorish Influence on Spanish Romance

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      There is indeed evidence—pressed down and flowing over—that the age-long death-grapple with the Saracen powerfully affected Spanish romantic fiction. But was this influence a direct one, arising out of the contiguity and constant perusal of the body of Moorish fiction, or did it proceed from the atmosphere of wonder which the Saracen left behind him in Spain, the illusions of which were mightily assisted by the marvels of his architecture and his art? One can scarcely find a Spanish romance that is not rich in reference to the Moor, who is usually alluded to as a caballero and a worthy foe. But is it the real Moor whom we encounter in these tall folios, which beside our modern volumes seem as stately galleons might in the company of ocean-going tramps, or is it the Saracen of romance, an Oriental of fiction, like the Turk of Byronic literature? The question of the influence of Moorish literature upon Spanish romance has been shrouded by the most unfortunate popular misconceptions. Let us briefly examine the spirit of Arabic literary invention, and see in how far it was capable of influencing Castilian art and imagination.

      The history of the development of the Arabic language from the dialect of a wandering desert people to a tongue the poetic possibilities and colloquial uses of which are perhaps unrivalled is in itself sufficient to furnish a whole volume of romantic episode. The form in which it was introduced into Spain in the early eighth century can scarcely fail to arouse the admiration of the lover of literary perfection. As a literary medium its development was rapid and effective. It is, indeed, as if the tones of a harsh trumpet had by degrees become merged into those of a silver clarion whose notes ring out ever more clearly, until at length they arrive at a keenness so intense as to become almost intolerably piercing. This eloquent language, the true speech of the literary aristocrat, has through the difficulty of its acquirement and the bewildering nature of its written characters remained almost unknown to the great mass of Europeans—unknown, too, because the process of translation is inadequate to the proper conveyance of its finer shades and subtler intimations. Even to the greater number of the Arabs of Spain the highly polished verse in which their literature was so rich was unknown. How much more, then, was it a force removed from the Castilian or the Catalan?

Arabic Poetry

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      The desert life of the Arabs while they were yet an uncultured people, although it did not permit of the development of a high standard of literary achievement, fostered the growth of a spirit of observation so keen as to result in the creation of a wealth of synonyms, by means of which the language became greatly enriched. Synonymous meaning and the discovery of beautiful and striking comparisons are the very pillars of poetry, and within a century of the era of Moslem ascendancy in the East we find the brilliant dynasty of the Abbassides (c. A.D. 750) the generous patrons of a poetic literature which the language was so well prepared to express. Story-telling had been a favourite amusement among the Arabs of the desert, and they now found the time-honoured, spontaneous exercise of the imaginative faculty stand them in good stead. The rapidity of the progress of Arabic literature at this period is, indeed, difficult of realization. Poetry, which we are now assured has ‘no market value,’ was to the truly enlightened upper classes of this people an art of the first importance, more precious than those bales of the silks of Damascus, those gems of Samarkand, or those perfumes of Syria the frequent allusion to which in their legends encrusts them, like the walls of the cavern of Ala-ed-din, with fairy jewels. But words were jewels to the Arab. When Al-Mamoun, the son of Haroun-al-Raschid, dictated terms of peace to the Greek emperor Michael the Stammerer, the tribute which he demanded from his conquered enemy was a collection of manuscripts of the most famous Greek authors. A fitting indemnity to be demanded by the prince of a nation of poets!

      But conquered Spain was more especially the seat and centre of Arabian literature and learning. Cordova, Granada, Seville—indeed, all the cities of the Peninsula occupied by the Saracens—rivalled one another in the celebrity of their schools and colleges, their libraries, and other places of resort for the scholar and man of letters. The seventy libraries of Moorish Spain which flourished in the twelfth century put to shame the dark ignorance of Europe, which in time rather from the Arab than from fallen Rome won back its enlightenment. Arabic became not only the literary but the colloquial tongue of thousands of Spaniards who dwelt in the south under Moorish rule. Even the canons of the Church were translated into Arabic, about the middle of the eighth century, for the use of those numerous Christians who knew no other language. The colleges and universities founded by Abderahman and his successors were frequented by crowds of European scholars. Thus the learning and the philosophy if not the poetry of the Saracens were enabled to lay their imprint deeply upon plastic Europe. If, however, we inquire more closely into the local origins of this surprising enlightenment, we shall find it owing even more to the native Jews of Spain than to the Moors themselves.

      The phase of Arabian culture with which we are most nearly concerned is its poetic achievement, and the ultimate influence which it brought to bear upon Spanish literary composition. The poetry of this richly endowed and imaginative people had at the period of their entrance into Spain arrived, perhaps, at the apogee of splendour. Its warm and luxuriant genius was wholly antagonistic to the more restrained and disciplined verse of Greece and Rome, which it regarded as cold, formal, and quite unworthy of translation. It surpassed in bold and extravagant hyperbole, fantastic imagery, and emotional appeal. The Arab poet heaped metaphor upon metaphor. He was incapable of seeing that that which was intrinsically beautiful in itself might appear superfluous and lacking in taste when combined with equally graceful but discordant elements. Many critics hasten to reassure us regarding his judgment and discrimination. But even a slight acquaintance with Arabic literature will show that they have been carried away by their prejudice in favour of the subject on which they wrote. In the garden of the Arabian poet every flower is a jewel, every plot is a silken carpet, tapestried with the intricate patterns of the weavers of Persia, and every maiden is a houri, each of whose physical attributes becomes in turn the subject of a glowing quatrain. The constant employment of synonym and superlative, the extravagance of amorous emotion, and the frequent absence of all message, of that large utterance in which the poets of the West have indicated to the generation they served how it might best grapple with problems of mind and soul—these were the weaknesses of the Arab singers. They made apophthegm take the place of message. They were unaware that the fabric of poetry is not only a palace of pleasure, but a great academy of the soul.

      The true love of nature, too, seems to have been as much lacking in the Arab as in the Greek and the Roman. He enamelled his theme with the meticulous care of a jeweller. Not content with painting the lily, he burnished it until it seemed a product of the goldsmith’s art. To him nature was a thing not only to be improved upon, but to be surpassed, СКАЧАТЬ