The Century of Columbus Part 34

"It is a characteristic of the very greatest writers that they sum up, with more or less completeness, the thought, the aspirations, and the temper of their age, and this not only for their own country, but for the whole civilized world. Of this select band is Rabelais. He is the embodiment not only of the early French Renaissance, but of the whole Renaissance in its earlier and fresher manifestations, in its devotion to humanism, in its restless and many-sided curiosity, in its robust enthusiasm, in its belief in the future of the human race."

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CHAPTER IV

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LITERATURE

The Spanish literature of the period contains some all-important material of great significance not only for Spanish literature itself, but also for the literature of the world. In the chapter on Women of the Renaissance, I have called attention to the interest of Queen Isabella in things literary, and while she did not produce any formal literary work, her letters have been p.r.o.nounced by the Spanish Academy cla.s.sic doc.u.ments in the Spanish language. The most important contribution to Spanish literature during the century came also from a woman, though she doubtless had as little thought of making literature when she wrote as did the Queen. This was St. Teresa, to whose works serious writers on spiritual subjects in all countries and at all times, often in spite of differences of belief, have turned as cla.s.sics of spirituality. Her literary work consists of the treatises which she wrote by order of her confessors on mystical subjects and then her many letters. It is these last, particularly, that have been widely read in the modern time and that are world cla.s.sics in their order. Probably no one has been more misunderstood than St. Teresa.

She has come to be considered by many, who, as a rule, know nothing at all of her at first hand, as one of the almost impossible saintly personages whose hours of concentration in prayer and fasting and other mortifications have driven them into states of mind bordering on the irrational, if not frankly hysterical. Indeed she is often considered to be the most striking type of these.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIA, VIRGIN WEEPING OVER BODY OF CHRIST (LONDON)]

David Hannay, in his "The Later Renaissance" in Professor Saintsbury's series, Periods of European Literature (New York: Scribner's, 1898), who has read her works with care, says: "Her letters, which are not only the most attractive part of her writing, but even the most valuable, show her {477} not only as a great saint, but as a great lady with a very acute mind, a fine wit and an abounding good sense.

Her own great character is stamped on every line. n.o.body ever showed less of the merely emotional saintly character 'meandering about, capricious, melodious, weak, at the will of devout whim mainly.'"

To get the real charm of St. Teresa's writings, one must read her letters, and from those it is almost impossible to take such selections as might be included in the brief s.p.a.ce allowed here.

Fortunately they have come to us as she wrote them. Fray Luis de Leon was himself literary enough to save them from a worthy father-confessor, who would have "improved upon and polished her periods." The world came near losing the marvellous language of which Crashaw said, "Oh it is not Spanish, but it is Heaven she spoke."

Some idea of her simplicity and power of expression can be appreciated from the "Hymn to Christ Crucified," familiar to English readers in Dryden's version, which has been attributed also to St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, but which seems more appropriately ascribed to the Seraphic Mother of Crashaw's burning words, "sweet incendiary," "undaunted daughter of desires" and "fair sister of the seraphin." The poem is, no matter who may have been its author, at least a striking example of the style of the time.

"O G.o.d, Thou art the object of my love, Not for the hopes of endless joys above.

Nor for the fear of endless pain below Which those who love Thee not must undergo: For me, and such as me, Thou once didst bear The ignominious cross, the nails, the spear, A th.o.r.n.y crown transpierced Thy sacred brow.

What b.l.o.o.d.y sweats from every member flow!

For me, in torture Thou resign'st Thy breath, Nailed to the cross, and sav'st me by Thy death: Say, can these sufferings fail my heart to move?

What but Thyself can now deserve my love?

Such as then was and is Thy love to me.

Such is, and shall be still, my love to Thee. {478} Thy love, O Jesus, may I ever sing, O G.o.d of love, kind Parent, dearest King."

The most original contribution of Spain to pure literature were the Tales of Chivalry, which became so popular at the end of the fifteenth century. _"Amadis de Gaul"_ is claimed by the French, but the French original has been lost and the Spanish one is not only well known, but characteristically Spanish, partaking of the very temper of the people. The first known edition is early in the sixteenth century, and within fifty years Spain produced twelve editions of it. A whole series of books of similar kind followed it. Many of these were totally lacking in literary quality, but they achieved popularity. Our own first novelists were literary folk. They have been succeeded by hack writers, who watch the fashion of the moment and make ever so much more money and sell ever so many more copies than did the great novelists. Something like this happened in Spain. These tales of chivalry have sometimes been made a matter of reproach to the intelligence of the Spaniards of the time, but then what shall we say of our own much more widespread occupation with stories if possible more trivial and absurd?

We are not without tributes from distinguished men to the interest they found in some of these stories. The _"Palmerin de Inglaterra"_ which Cervantes' priest "would have kept in such a casket as that which Alexander found among Darius' spoils intended to guard the works of Homer," attracted so much attention from Edmund Burke that he avowed in the House of Commons that he had spent much time over it.

Dr. Johnson confessed to having spent the leisure hours of a summer upon _"Felixmarte de Hircania." "Amadis de Gaul"_ cla.s.sed by Cervantes' barber as "the best in that kind," is perhaps the only one of the tales of chivalry that a man need read. The usual a.s.sumption that it is a story of France, because of the word Gaul, is quite mistaken. Amadis is a British Knight, Gaul stands for Wales, Vindilisora is Windsor, while Bristol becomes Bristoya. The action occurs "not many years after the Pa.s.sion of our Redeemer." There are marvellous adventures, something happens on every page, {479} combats with giants, magical spells of all kinds, miracles, hair-breadth escapes, last-moment rescues, till fidelity is rewarded and Amadis marries Oriana, daughter of the King of Britain, and they all live happy ever after.

After the Tales of Chivalry came the Novelas de Picaros, picaresque novels we have called these Tales of Roguery in English. The two modes of fiction represent the opposite extremes. The tales of chivalry were almost entirely imaginary. The picaresque novels were rather naturalistic studies from low life. The first of these was the _"Celestina"_ but the one that was most influential is the _"Lazarillo de Tormes,"_ which curiously enough has been attributed, though on dubious evidence, to the famous Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and also to Fray Juan de Ortega of the Order of St. Jerome. The stories represent the ever-recurring tendency of mankind to be interested in a rogue, to be ready to laugh at his rascalities and especially his capacity for cheating his betters that has been used so effectively by Plautus and was the germ of the idea in the plot of Gil Bias and Scarron and probably suggested Shakespeare's "Jack Falstaff." There are phases of our modern fiction that display the same tendency.

Fitzmaurice Kelly in his "Spanish Literature" (Appleton's Literatures of the World Series, New York, 1898) said of the _"Lazarillo de Tormes"_:

"After three hundred years, it survives all its rivals, and may be read with as much edification and amus.e.m.e.nt as on the day of its first appearance. It set a fashion, a fashion that spread to all countries, and finds a nineteenth century manifestation in the pages of 'Pickwick'; but few of its successors match it in satirical humor, and none approach it in pregnant concision, where no word is superfluous, and where every word tells with consummate effect.

Whoever wrote the book, he fixed forever the type of the comic prose epic as rendered by the needy, and he did it in such wise as to defy all compet.i.tion."

By a very curious contrast, the literature of Spanish origin from this century which has most influenced the world, being translated into all the languages and read and studied deeply, is exactly the opposite pole of these prose epics. For the {480} world's best-known writers on spirituality and mysticism have been Spaniards, the greatest of them lived at this time and they are still being read everywhere, edition after edition appearing in many languages. The great names among the mystics whose writings were either completed during our century, or at least the foundation for whose work was laid because their authors came to their maturity during this time, were John of Avila, Luis de Granada and Luis de Leon. John of Avila is the best known of these and occupied something of the position of master to the others. His most famous book, "The Spiritual Treatise," is still widely read in religious inst.i.tutions and is familiar to all those who have made any serious study of the religious life. As there are and have been ever since his time hundreds of thousands of religious in the world, many of them representing the highest culture and good taste, "the apostle of Andalusia," as he was called, has had a large circle of chosen readers for all these centuries. His book is written with an ardent eloquence in the deeply spiritual pa.s.sages, and as Hannay has said, "has always a large share of the religious quality of unction." There are many profoundly intelligent and seriously thoughtful men of our time who consider it one of the most wonderful books ever written.

Luis de Granada's book, "The Guide for Sinners," was translated into all the languages of Europe and read not only by the clergy, but by the people. His book of "Prayer and Meditation on the Princ.i.p.al Mysteries of Faith" was much more in the hands of the clergy and religious, but was scarcely less famous. Luis de Leon's "Perfecta Casada" gained a wide reputation, and his other books on "The Names of Christ" and "The Book of Job" had a place in every important religious community in Europe.

Two names in the Spanish poetry of this period are immortal in Spain, and their writings are familiar to the students of literature the world over. They are Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega. The younger man, Garcilaso, sent Castiglione's _"Il Cortigiano"_ to Boscan and suggested its translation into Spanish. Fitzmaurice Kelly, in his "Spanish Literature," has said, "Though Boscan himself held translation to be a thing {481} meet for 'men of small parts,' his rendering is an almost perfect performance." This led Boscan to put into Spanish form many other Italian pieces, not so much by translation as by imitation more suited to the genius of the Spanish language. Not a great genius, not a lordly versifier, endowed with not one supreme gift, Boscan ranks as an unique instance in the annals of literature by virtue of his enduring and irrevocable victory.

Garcilaso, his young friend, is far ahead of him in poetic genius. He was a soldier-poet, "taking now the sword and now the pen," as he said himself, and he died at the early age of thirty-three. His death occurred as the leader of a storming party in romantic circ.u.mstances, under the eye of the Emperor and the army. The first to climb the breach, he fell mortally wounded into the arms of the future translator of Ariosto and of his more intimate friend, the Marques de Lombay, whom the world knows best as St. Francis Borgia. "His ill.u.s.trious descent, his ostentatious valor, his splendid presence, his seductive charm, his untimely death: all these, joined to his gift of song, combined to make him the hero of legend and the idol of a nation. Like Sir Philip Sidney, Garcilaso personified all accomplishments and all graces." Curiously enough it is not the martial but the pastoral that Garcilaso sings and "the light that never was on land or sea," of peace with poetic melancholy, that may so easily be the subject of criticism, yet has always been the favorite retreat of a great many poets at many recurring times.

At the Western end of the Spanish Peninsula the Portuguese, distinct in language, had a literature of their own which reached its perfection just after Columbus' Century, but the promise of which can be seen during our period. The greatest of their poets is Camoens, whom the German critic Schlegel did not hesitate to place above not only his two great contemporaries of the sixteenth century, Ariosto and Ta.s.so, but above all the modern epic poets and even above Virgil.

His poem has been read in translation in all the languages of Europe.

While it was not written in what we have called Columbus' Century, the poet had given evidence of the greatness of his genius before 1550, and some of the sonnets of his {482} early years have deservedly been looked upon as worthy perhaps of a place among the greatest examples in that form. Mrs. Browning's reason for calling her "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by that name was that probably the most beautiful love sonnets in the world had been written in that language. The Portuguese language was given the form in which it was to survive at this time, and it is always when a language is being formed that somehow geniuses come to round out its powers of expression and at the same time give it the form which it is to maintain partly as a consequence of their genius having expressed itself in it in certain enduring modes.

Some of the shorter poems written by Camoens when he was a young man between twenty and twenty-five, that is, before the close of Columbus'

Century, are so characteristic of the _vers de societe_ at all times, and yet are such delightful bits of versification with here and there a touch of charming poetic quality, that they have more than pa.s.sing interest for the modern time. I venture to quote several of them to ill.u.s.trate their variety, but at the same time because, though all are attributed to Camoens, it is doubtful whether some of them were not written by others and afterwards transferred to him because of his greater fame. They ill.u.s.trate very well the poetic vein of the Portuguese of the time, though ordinarily it is not a.s.sumed that Portugal was touched by the spirit of the Renaissance to any great degree or that her literature is of any significance. Most of them are with regard to love, though not all of them are as serious as the rondeau so often quoted:

"Just like Love is yonder rose, Heavenly fragrance round it throws.

Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose, And in the midst of briars it blows, Just like Love.

Cull'd to bloom upon the breast.

Since rough thorns the stem invest.

They must be gather'd with the rest.

And with it, to the heart be press'd.

Just like Love.

{483} And when rude hands the twin-buds sever They die--and they shall blossom never, --Yet the thorns be sharp as ever, Just like Love."

In lighter vein is the canzonet to the lady who swore by her eyes, a custom which was rather common according to the tales of chivalry so popular shortly before this time. The first and last stanza will give a good idea of it:

"When the girl of my heart is on perjury bent, The sweetest of oaths hides the falsest intent.

And Suspicion, abash'd, from her company flies, When she smiles like an angel--and swears by her eyes.

Then, dear one, I'd rather, thrice rather believe Whate'er you a.s.sert, even though to deceive.

Than that you 'by your eyes' should so wickedly swear, And sin against heaven--for heaven is there!"

At times the Portuguese poet could be rather serious. The two stanzas from the beginning of a canzonet, which contrasts the making of money with the doing of good as the proper aim of life, has often been quoted:

"Since in this dreary vale of tears No certainty but death appears.

Why should we waste our vernal years In h.o.a.rding useless treasure?

No--let the young and ardent mind Become the friend of humankind, And in the generous service find A source of purer pleasure!"

The poet is said to have fallen in love with a maid of honor at the court far above him in rank. For this impudence, he was banished from court, and unable to live so near, yet so far, resolved to go as a soldier to Africa. Somehow or other a {484} last meeting with her (she died at the early age of twenty) was managed before his departure, and he discovered in her eyes, as she bade him good-bye, the secret that she was as deeply in love as he. He went where duty called, fought bravely, losing the sight of an eye in one of the battles, and, loaded with martial honor, was permitted to return to court. When he returned, his inamorata was no more. The sonnet written when he learned the sad news is more artificial perhaps than he would have written in his maturity, but it and others gave Portuguese literature the fame for love sonnets which suggested to Mrs. Browning the t.i.tle "Sonnets from the Portuguese" for her love poems:

"Those charming eyes, within whose starry sphere Love whilom sat, and smil'd the hours away.

Those braids of light that sham'd the beams of day.

That hand benignant, and that heart sincere; Those virgin cheeks, which did so late appear Like snow-banks scatter'd with the blooms of May, Turn'd to a little cold and worthless clay.

Are gone--forever gone--and perish here, --But not unbath'd by Memory's warmest tear!

--Death! thou hast torn, in one unpitying hour.

That fragrant plant, to which, while scarce a flow'r.

The mellower fruitage of its prime was given; Love saw the deed--and as he lingered near, Sigh'd o'er the ruin, and return'd to Heav'n!"

The literature of the Spanish peninsula was to have its flourishing period in the century following that we have called after Columbus, but there is enough of enduring literary products to show that men's minds were deeply affected by the great spirit of the time and to lay broad and deep foundations for the Golden Age of Spanish literature that was to follow so soon.