606 



SPAIN 



origin, loosely connected together and with rhyme.1 

 murals attached. The most original writer of the 

 llili century is Juan Ruiz, archpriextof HitA, a dis- 

 reputable cleric, who relates his love adventure, 

 in poetical form, interlarding them quaintly with 

 moral fables and religious nymns. In spite of 

 great blemishes and frequently recurring otacene 

 and blasphemous passages, the work is valuable 

 from its vivacity and the excellent picture it gives 

 of one side of life at the time. The vefve is still 

 that of the earlier poets, fourteen syllable lines, 

 stanzas of four lines with one rhyme repeated. In 

 prose these early centuries produced little that is 

 worthy of note, as Latin was still much used. By 

 the direction and, probably, under the supervision 

 of Alfonso the Wise, was compiled the Grande y 

 General Hutoria, extending from the creation 

 nearly to his own times. This work was continued 

 by official chroniclers, generally as a bare record 

 of events, down to the time of Ferdinand and 

 Isabella. Pedro Lopez de Avala wrote the history 

 of the kings under whom fie lived in somewhat 

 more picturesque and lively style than his prede- 

 cessors; his It in i a i/ 1 > de I'n I urii, ia a caricature of 

 the different classes of society of his time, for 

 studying which his high position and many adven- 

 tures gave him admirable opportunities. 



In the 15th century two new and important 

 branches of Spanish literature appear the 

 Romances of Chivalry (Libras de Caballerias) and 

 Ballads (Romances). The Amadis de Gatila (see 

 AMADIS), first and best of books of chivalry, has 

 ciime down to us in a translation from a Portu- 

 guese version, of which the original is lost. It is, 

 however, certain that thia is not the earliest form 

 of the story in Spanish. The Amadis is not free 

 from the exaggerations and stilted style that 

 deface later books of its class, but, unlike them, 

 it contains passages of great beauty, and, in spite 

 of its being a translation, its language is generally 

 dignified and pure. The popularity of the class 

 was great; but successive authors rivalled one 

 another iti wild exaggeration and the frigid im- 

 possibility of the adventures of their heroes, who 

 live under social conditions that have never existed, 

 and in a world without geography. The Romance 

 of Chivalry was dying a natural death when 

 Cervantes gave it the coup de grace. The origin 

 of the Spanish ballads is very uncertain : they are 

 probably of indigenous growth, as no stnking 

 parallels can be cited to support the theory that 

 they are imitated from the poetry of the Moorish 

 conquerors of Spain. The great mass of them was 

 collected in the 16th and 17th centuries from the 

 months of the people, but many of them are of 

 much earlier date. Handed down orally from 

 generation to generation, they underwent consider- 

 able modification, ami their language alone cannot 

 be taken as a sufficient clue to their date. Their 

 structure is characteristically Spanish; the lines 

 may l>e considered either as octosyllabic or as of 

 sixteen syllables with cirsura; the same asonante 

 or vowel-rhyme is continued throughout whole 

 compositions. In subject these ballads range from 

 sacred history to the Arthurian and Carolingian 

 cycles, but the most valuable and interesting are 

 those which celebrate the national heroes and the 

 M'PMI i-li champions against whom they fought. 



Thus far the works mentioned have been of purely 

 national character or derived from sources common 

 to the writers of the middle ages; but at the court 

 of John II. the influence of Provencal literature 

 began to make itelf strongly felt, and a generation 

 of xtili<-il mid affected poetasters arose encouraged 

 by the king, who formed one of their mntilxT. 

 Th" works of many authors of this school are 

 collected in the celebrated Canrinnero de Barnn ; 

 with the exception of a few religions pieces they 



are of slight merit, but they succeeded in enriching 

 Spanish with new lyric metres. At the end of the 

 l.'it It century appeared the 'J'raaicuthfdia de Valuta 

 y MelUxa, DMMf known as the Celtstina. It is 

 said to lie the work of two authors, but the won- 

 derful evenness of its style makes this hard to 

 believe. The Celestina partakes of the nature of 

 novel and drama. Written entirely in dialogue, 

 but at the same time immoderately long and un- 

 suited for dramatic representation, it is unique 

 amongst works of its time and country, lieing per- 

 fectly unaffected in style. Taking its subject from 

 a side of life that must have been familiar to its 

 authors, it neither shirks nor courts obscene details, 

 but aims at and thoroughly succeeds in giving a, 

 true and animated picture, and at the same time' 

 enforcing a moral lesson. It soon became one of 

 the most popular books in Spain, and was trans- 

 lated into most European languages. 



It is probable that from Roman time- the 

 Drama (q.v. ) never became extinct in Spain. It is 

 mentioned in the Siete Partidas, and one of the 

 earliest extant pieces of Spanish is a miracle-play, 

 El Misterio de lot Reyes Magos. The modern 

 Spanish drama, however, must reckon its origin 

 from the end of the 15th century, when Juan del 

 Encina wrote eglogas or representations of pastoral 

 character, some of which were undoubtedly acted. 

 Gil Vicente and Torres Naharro imitated and im- 

 proved upon the methods of Encina, but Lope de 

 Rueda, playwright and actor ill. 1550), must !> 

 considered as the father of the Spanish dramatists, 

 and as such he is mentioned by Cervantes. Con- 

 tinuing the pastoral drama of his predecessors, 

 Rueda also wrote regular plays, diviilcil into acts. 

 In these the influence of the Latin stage is per- 

 ceptible. The best part of Rueda's work consists of 

 his spirited interludes (entremeses, loas) of a popular 

 and burlesque character. Cervantes (q.v.) com- 

 menced his career as a dramatic author, but his 

 two earlier pieces, La Numancia and El Trato de 

 Argel, though finely conceived, were unsuccessful. 



With the decay of the popularity of the romances 

 of chivalry is coincident the rise of the novel in its 

 different forms. In the Diana Enamorada, Monte- 

 mayor and Gil Polo directly imitated the Italian. 

 Cervantes and Lope de Vega each produced a novel 

 of the kind, but the false and exaggerated senti- 

 ment and inferior verse to which the impossible 

 shepherds generally treat one another in these 

 roiii|K>.itioiis make it hard to understand the 

 popularity which they undoubtedly enjoyed. Side 

 by side with the pastoral novel, b'ut with stronger 

 growth, throve the realistic novela picaresca, or 

 rogue's story (see NOVELS), subsequently brought 

 to perfection bv Le Sage, who in his Gil Bias drew 

 largely upon liis Spanish models. The earliest 

 book of the kind is Lazarillo de Tormrs, ascribed, 

 apparently without reason, to Diep> Hurtado de 

 Mendoza (see MENDOZA), a poet and historian of 

 the time of Charles V. , at whose court he played a 

 considerable part. Lazarillo, the hero, like his 

 brethren of the other books of the class, is a poor 

 boy of shady antecedents, who, by his own ingenuity 

 and unxcrupulousness, with varying fortune pushes 

 his way, generally as a servant, amongst all classes 

 of society. So admirable a vehicle for amusement 

 and satire was not neglected, and Guzman <lt 

 Alfaraehe, Marcos de Obregdn, La P(cara Justina, 

 and many others go to prove the popularity of this 

 kind of story. A solitary and not very brilliant 

 example of tne historical novel at an early date is 

 the Guerras de Granada by Hita. 



Some of the older poets, amongst them the 

 Marques deKnntillana, had imitated Italian models, 

 but tne influence of Petrarch and his school is most 

 directly felt in Juan Boscan and Garcilaso de la 

 Vega, 'who flourished in the first half of the 16th 



