Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/238

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SPAIN


in Spanish and Catalan such works as "Poesias llri- cas" "Horacianes" and "Visions de Palestina". The inspired compositions of Teodoro Llorrente (1836- 1911) are written both in Spanish and in his native Valencian dialect.

Language. — Baist, /'/ ,- . '■ S jirache 'm Ghober. Gnind- Tiss der romanischen 7'/ i ' i 1 rd., Strasburg) , 878 sqq.;

Men^ndez Pidal, Mi ' I'd de Granidtica histdrica

espafiola (2nd ed., Maiini, r-H", Idem, Gramdtica del Cid; Zauner, Altspanisches Elfrnentarbuch (Heidelberg, 1908) ; Idem, Roman. Sprachwissenschaft (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1905); Hanssen, Spanische Gram. (Halle, 1910); Ford, Old Spanish Readings (Boston. 1911); DlEZ, Gram, der raman. Sprachen (3rd ed., 1S70- 72: of. the French tr.) ; Meyeh-Lubke, Gram, der roman, Sprachen (Leipzig, 1890— , cf. the French tr.); Bello-Cuervo, Gramdtica de la lenfjua castellana; various articles in the Romania, the Zeits. fur romanischen Sprachen, etc., the Bull, hispanique, the Revue hispanique, the Cuttura moderna. Modern Philology, the Modern Language Notes, etc., the Grammars for English-speaking students by Ramsey; Hills and Ford, Garner, etc., some of which give extensive bibhographies.

Literature. — B.aist, Die spanische Litt. in GrOber, Grundriss der roman. Phitot.. II (Strasburg, 1897), i, 383 sqq.; Ticknor, Hist, of Span. Literature (6th ed., Boston, 1888: cf. the German and Spanish tr. for corrections and additions) ; Beer, ,Span. Literaturgesch. (Leipzig, 1903: in the Goschen Series); Fitz- Maurice-Kelly, Hist, of Span. Literature (London, 1898: better are the Spanish and especially the French tr.: the latter has a copious bibliography); XlfiRiM^E, Precis d'hist. de la litt. espagn. (Paris, 1908) ; and the periodicals cited above.

J. D. M. Ford.

Spanish-Americ.4.n Literature, the literature pro- duced by the Spanish-speaking peoples of Mexico, Central America, Cuba and adjacent islands, and of South America with the notable exceptions of Brazil (whose speech is Portuguese) and the Guianas. In the main the methods and the ideals of the Spanish- American WTiters, whether those of the colonial period or those of the period which has elapsed since the various American states achieved their indepen- dence, have not differed radically from those of Spain, the motherland. In spite of the acerbity due to political differences, the Spanish-American colonies and republics have never forgotten that they are of the same race, the same religion, and the same speech as the Spaniards. Quite unlike the settlers of North America, the colonists who came from the Latin countries of Southern Europe made no organized attempt to extirpate the aborigines, and the latter still remain to the extent of millions in number. Some of the aboriginal races still maintain their lan- guages, more or less interlarded with Spanish words, but the intellectual development given to them has been limited. The literature of the indigenous Indian population, mixed or pure, is Spanish no less than that of the descendants of the Spanish colonists. Naturally, in the colonial period, when the work of discovery, exploration, and settlement was being carried on, the literary output was not very great; yet it compares favourably, to say the least, with the output in French and British North America.

In the early times of the colonies no few Spaniards, whom chance or an adventurous spirit brought to the new world, wrote their most notable works there. Among the number is one of considerable worth, Alonso de Ercilla (1533-94), the author of an epic poem, " La Araucana". This deals with the conflicts between the Araucanian Indians and the invading Spaniards, and has the honour of being the first dis- tinguished piece of belles-lettres produced in the New World, antedating by far any comparable works written in North America. Just as men of Spanish birth composed their prose or verse documents in America, so, also, certain American-born colonials pas.sed over to the motherland and, writing and pub- lishing there, added lustre to the history of the liter- ature of the Iberian Peninsula. A good example is Juan Ruiz de Alarc6n, one of the most admired of Spanish dramatists of the .tiglo de oro, whose play, "La verdad .sosppchosa", furnished Corneille with the inspiration and the material for his "Mente\ir", which in its turn is the cornerstone of the classic


comedy of France. The printing press was set up in the new regions in 1539, eighty years before the Pil- grims reached Massachusetts, and about 1550 Charles V signed the decree establishing the University of Mexico. To some among the explorers we are in- debted for accounts of their journeys of discovery and conquest. These writings of scientific and his- torical interest were followed in later generations by others treating mainly of botanical and astronomical subjects, to the study of which the impetus was given by the labours, on the soil, of noted foreigners such as the Spanish botanist Jose Celestino Mutis (1732- 180S), the Frenchmen La Condamine, de Jussieu etc., and, of course, the great German Alexander Humboldt.

As might be expected, GongorLsm, the plague of the literature of the motherland, infected the compositions of the seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries in America. That neo-Classicism, which Luzan and his followers established in Spain, was echoed by this or that poet of the Western world. In the revolu- tionary period patriotic verse flourished, being gov- erned chiefly by the models provided by the Spaniards Quintana and Gallego, who, with their heroic odes, had voiced the peninsula protests against the Napo- leonic invasion. In terms hardly less passionate than theirs the insurgent Spanish colonists celebrated their struggle against the domination from over the sea. The romantic movement, following in the wake of neo-Classicism, had owed its great success in Euro- pean lands to its evocation of traditions of the medie- val past. Naturally, none such existed for the colonists of the newly-found lands, and it is rather with respect to matters of external form than those of substance that romanticism found a reflex in the Spani-sh-American literature. In general, it may be said that, of the various genres, it is the lyric that had received the greatest development in the Spanish- American regions. The novel has been written with more or less success by an occasional gifted spirit; the drama has not fared equally well. For a more detailed consideration of the subject with which we are concerned it seems best to deal with it according to the geographical divisions marked by the existing states.

Mexico. — This was formerly the Viceroyalty of New Spain. It was the colony most favoured by the Spanish administration and in it culture struck its deepest roots. Here was set up the first printing press, and here was foimded, as has been said, the first university, which, authorized by the Emperor Charles V, began its useful career in 1553. The first book was sent from the press in 1540; during the six- teenth century over a hundred works were published in Mexico. A number of Andalusian poets visited Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- ries and influenced its literary productions. Among them were Diego Mejia (sixteenth century), who, shipwrecked on the coast of San Salvador, made there his Castilian version of the elegies of Ovid; Gutierre de Cetina (1520-60); Mateo Aleman, the well-known author of the picaroon novel, "Guzmdn de Alfa- rache", who published in Mexico, in 1609, his "Orto- grafia castellana"; and possibly Juan de la Cueva, the first thorough-going dramatist, actor, and stage manager of the Spanish-speaking world. At Mexico City there was promoted in 1583 a iioetical tourna- ment (certamcn poHico) of the kind so much favoured in Latin Europe; about three hundred persons pre- sented their verse compositions in this competition. Cervantes, in the Canto de Caliope" printed with his "Galatea" in 1,584, celebrates the Peruvian poet Diego Martinez de Ribera in equal ternis with those in which he praises the Mexican Francisco de Terra- zas, a contemporary of whom he says "tiene el nom- brc acdy all;l tan conocido". Various occasional IjTics and an unfinished epic, "Nuevo Mundo y Conquis- ta", constitute the known work of Terrazas. The