Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected.
Blank pages present in the printed original have been deleted in the e-text version.
A HISTORY OF
SPANISH LITERATURE
BY
JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY
C. DE LA REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1921
PREFACE
Spanish literature, in its broadest sense, might includewritings in every tongue existing within the Spanishdominions; it might, at all events, include the four chieflanguages of Spain. Asturian and Galician both possessliteratures which in their recent developments areartificial. Basque, the spoiled child of philologers, hasnot added greatly to the sum of the world's delight; andeven if it had, I should be incapable of undertaking atask which would belong of right to experts like Mr.Wentworth Webster, M. Jules Vinson, and ProfessorSchuchardt. Catalan is so singularly rich and variedthat it might well deserve separate treatment: its inclusionhere would be as unjustifiable as the inclusionof Provençal in a work dealing with French literature.For the purposes of this book, minor varieties areneglected, and Spanish literature is taken as referringsolely to Castilian—the speech of Juan Ruiz, Cervantes,Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Quevedo, and Calderón.
At the close of the last century, Nicolas Masson deMorvilliers raised a hubbub by asking two questions inthe Encyclopédie Méthodique:—"Mais que doit-on àl'Espagne? Et depuis deux siècles, depuis quatre, depuissix, qu'a-t elle fait pour l'Europe?" I have attempted an[vi]answer in this volume. The introductory chapter has beenwritten to remind readers that the great figures of theSilver Age—Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian—wereSpaniards as well as Romans. It further aims at tracingthe stream of literature from its Roman fount to thechannels of the Gothic period; at defining the limits ofArabic and Hebrew influence on Spanish letters; atrefuting the theory which assumes the existence ofimmemorial romances, and at explaining the interactionbetween Spanish on the one side and Provençal andFrench on the other. It has been thought that thistreatment saves much digression.
Spanish literature, like our own, takes its root inFrench and in Italian soil; in the anonymous epics,in the fableaux, as in Dante, Petrarch, and the CinqueCento poets. Excessive patriotism leads men of all landsto magnify their literary history; yet it may be claimedfor Spain, as for England, that she has used her modelswithout compromising her originali