(dimm-^ -^i^y;-^/.-> cK^atJ ^yll^^ Wv£^ ^^^ _^^^ (jj> pxM'J^ '-^'(MAAn'i (l{de4o(^ A^'Z?2fe« T ^M^Ljii'trt /■ THE LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ■y^y^°' THE MACMILLAN COMP.VNY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • OAU.AS ATLANTA • SAN PRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd. TORONTO THE LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA BY ALFRED COESTER, Ph.D. COR. MEMBER HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA Nrro ^nrk THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 192 1 All rights reserved ^1} f 7 Copyright, 1916, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1916. Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. "f ;ib17 mi TO BELLE HAVEN MY WIFE AS A TOKEN IN REMEMBRANCE OP OUR COMMON STUDY OF THE SPAN- ISH LANGUAGE. PREFACE Latin America and the United States resemble two neighbors who have long lived side by side, each too busy with private matters to take more than an indifferent if not hostile interest in the other. Recently we North Americans have been taking a broader interest in our neighbors. The building of the Panama Canal has di- rected our attention to the south. We have discovered that those vast unknown regions are inhabited by human beings worthy of being better k nown though their char- acter differ widely from our own. So great is our lack of acquaintance with our southern neighbors that few can say with ex-President Taft: — "I know the attractiveness of the Spanish American; I know his highborn courtesy; I know his love of art, his poet nature, his response to generous treatment, and I know how easily he misunderstands the thoughtless bluntness of an Anglo-Saxon diplomacy, and the too fre- quent lack of regard for the feelings of others that we have inherited." {The Independent, Dec. i8, 1913.) What ex-President Taft thus writes from personal experience, it is possible for others to learn by reading the books written by Spanish Americans. The main char- acteristics and trend of the Spanish-American jnind are Teveafed'iirhls titcrature. But shall we call SpaTush-American writings literature? \ professor in Argentina wished a few years ago to estab- VUl PREFACE lish a course for students in Spanish-American literature. The plan was opposed by Bartolome Mitre, ex-President of the republic and himself a poet and historian of the first rank, on the ground that such a thing did not exist. He held the view that mere numbers of books did not form a literature; though united by the bond of a common language, the printed productions of Spanish Americans had no logical union nor gave evidence of an evolution toward a definite goal. On the other hand, he admitted that their "literary productions might be considered, not as models but as facts, classifi ed as the expression of t heir social fife during three periods, the colonial epoch, the struggle for fr eedom, and the independent existence of the several republics." Such is the general plan adopted for this book. The conditions of life during the colonial period and the com- mon aim of the different countries during thej-evolutionary epoch gave a certain similarity to their literary produc- tions. Freedom won, however, each cou ntry pursue d its own course in literature as in politics. Tfies e two are interdependent. Literature is often meaningless without an understanding of contemporary politics. Everywhere the literary expression of politics is found in journalism. In Spanish America it is found also in verse and fiction. So the broad lines of politics have been taken in this book as a guide through the maze of print. The judgment which one renders on the value of Spanish- American literature depends entirely on the point of view with which the critic approaches its study. If he considers it a branch or sub-order of Spanish literature, he will reach PREFACE IX conclusions similar to those of the late Marcelino Menen- dezy Pclayo in his Ilistoriade la Poesia Hispano-americana. To him as a Spaniard the exuberance of American pa- triotic verse is not only detestable but bad literature. To his iiiiiul only those productions have worth which ap- proximate the standard set by Spanish classics. Another critic has observed the frank imitation of French models. It is true that Spanish-American writers in their eagerness to reject Spain have taken France as the intellectual leader of their Latin America. The term Latin-American republics which they prefer has the justification of permitting the inclusion of Portuguese- speaking Brazil and an easy absorption of the numerous Italian element of Argentina. Moreover, it makes possible a claim of kinship with admired France. But a critic who ^ attempts to set forth the literature of Latin America wholly on the basis of its relation to French literature will miss both its significance and its originalky. Both spring from the history and language of the Latin- American republics. The language of Spanish Arnerica is not only permeated with term^ and expressionsjtaken from . its daily life but also differs in pronunciation and str^icture from the Castilian even more than t he English of North America from the^ducjted speech of England. As to the origi n ali ty of Spanish-American literatur e it lies ch iefly in_ the subject-matter, in its pictures of natural scenery and socia laT life. From the moment of their discovery of America the Spaniards were amazed at the great rivers, the lofty Andes mountains, the luxuriance of tropical vegetation. And when they expressed their amazement in literary X PREFACE form, Virgil was their mod el. To the participants in the conquest of the new world their enterprise resembled the deeds of knight errantry related by Ariosto. So m imita- tion of his art they often wrote down the story of their exploits in poems in which truth sometimes paid tribute to form. In the nineteenth century, when the reconstruction of the past tecame the popular literary fashion under the influence of romanticism, the legends of the colonial period suppHed the poet with ample material. Later, when naturalistic fiction came into vogue, ambitious followers of Zola in Spanish America founcTrea^y at hand a novel type of socletylio portray. Thus the form of Latin- :An refi^airtiterauire |has _beenj^ while^ejna tter isorlginaT. ■ For ;m Engli sh-speaking Ame rican then who desires a better acquaintance with the mentality of his Spanish- American neighbors this book will offer a guide. The C literature of Brazil written in Portuguese and so rich as to require a volume^almost as large as the present for its adequate exposition, is therefo re not inc luded^ The reader, aware at the outset that he has before him an extremely provincial type of literature, will not expect great master- pieces. On the other hand, he will learn what effect has been produced on the transplanted Spaniard by living on the great plains of Argentina. He will better comprehend the difference between the sober energetic Chilean and the fun-loving Peruvian or the passionate Venezuelan. He will understand why there have been so many revolutions in Mexico. The anecdotes of poets' lives and the tragic stories of men who have lived and died for an ideal will inspire him with greater respect for a country which like pre: FACE XI Cuba struggled a whole century for its freedom. Even the names of the various writers, the constantly recurring Jose Maria, Joaquin, Manuel, will impress him with the deeply religious sentiments of these peoples. The'dTHiciiTty of preparing this book has been great. Only two really valuable collections of works by Spanish- American authors exist in this country, one in the library of the Hispanic Society of America, the other in the library of Harvard University. Both are far from being complete, but fortunately they supplement each other. Histories of the literatures of the several countries have been written by natives only of Argentina, Venezuela and Uruguay, and these are defective in many ways. The dates of the births and deaths of the writers, for example, are not always given. Spanish Americans in treating the literatures of their own countries usually include a consideration of historical writings, but the limits of this book allow only a casual mention of the most important works of purely historical or scientific content. Periodicals, on the other hand, have demanded attention because, as the means of immediate publicity for literary endeavor, they have often played a considerable role in literary history and now sup- ply the investigator with much material. On account of the character of his sources of informa- tion, not always reliable, the author of the present volume may have wrongly estimated the work of any given writer or even omitted mention of some whom a compatriot may deem important. Any grievous errors either of judgment or of omission should therefore be condoned. The author wishes here to thank for their kind assistance in various ways Sefior Paul Groussac, the learned librarian xii PREFACE of the national library at Buenos Aires, Sefior Carlos de Velasco, editor of the excellent review Cuba Contenipo- raneUy Sefior Pedro Henriquez Ureiia, critic and formerly professor at the University of Mexico, Sefior Max Hen- riquez Urefia, poet and essayist, Doctor Gonzalo Picon Febres, novelist and advocate of Americanism in litera- ture, the late Dr. W. R. Martin, librarian of the Hispanic Society of America, and Professor E. C. Hills. To J. D. M. Ford, Smith professor of literature in Harvard University, the author is indebted for the suggestion which led to the writing of this book. ALFRED COESTER. New York, 1916. / CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Colonial Period i II. The Rkvolutionarv Period 39 III. The Revolltionary Period in North America . . 79 IV. Argentina 104 v. Uruguay 169 VI. Chile 196 \'II. Peru and Bolivia 244 \'III. Ecuador 264 IX. Colombia 273 X. \'enezuela 305 XI. Mexico 334 XII. Cuba 373 XIII. Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Centr.al America 431 XIV. The Modernista Movement 450 Bibliography -< 477 Index of Names 483 THE LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA CHAPTER I THE COLONIAL PERIOD Spanish enterpri se on the America n continent had for its participants the nature of a conquest. Trained on the battle fields of Italy under leaders who had assisted Fer- dinand of Aragon to expel from Spanish soil the last of the Moorish invaders, they carried across the Atlantic the ideals of the successful soldier. A mere handful of them so well protected by steel armor against the weapons of the natives and so able to inspire terror in their opponents by means of their horses and the flash and roar of their mus- ketry was enough to win an empire. When a common Spanish soldier could rise to the possession of immense wealth and hold sway over millions of human beings, a n ew world had certainly been discovered. To Spaniards no other name was so fitting for this continent as that by which it was constantly called, "el Nuev o Mundo," The New W orid. They were not actuated, howev er, merely uy the lure of gold. A religious fanaticism carried them like crusaders into unknown dangers. Wherever they went their first care was to plant the cross. So early as Columbus' second voyage thirteen monies sailed with him for the purpose of I 2 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA converting the natives to Christianity. Thus the monastic estabhshment became an integral part of every consider- able Spanish settlement. To the honor of the monks and priests be it saidHthat, having the natives as their especial care, they made heroic efforts to protect the poor wretches from the rapacity of the seekers after gold. Columbus selected for permanent settlement on account of its gold mines the island which he named Hispaniola, now called Santo Domingo or Haiti. For many years it received a considerable immigration of men of substance coming to America with their families, though many later proceeded farther west. After the discovery of the main- land the two most important centers of Spanish civiliza- tion in America became Mexico City and Lima, La Ciudad de los Reyes, as it was named by its founder Francisco Pizarro, the conquistador of Peru. The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, developed and extended under the more pronounceable name of Mexico, was estab- lished by Heman Cortes as the capital of Nueva Espaiia. The name Mexico for the whole country was not adopted till after the separation from Spain. New Spain or Mexico on account of its geographical situation, its climate, its greater proximity to the mother country possessed during the golden period of Spanish literature a high degree of culture. From those bibliographical manuals in rhyme, Cervantes' Viaje de Parnaso and Lope de Vega's Laurel de Apolo, written respectively in 1614 and 1630, one may learn how numerous were the versifiers and the dramatists who practiced the poetic art on both sides of the Atlantic. Peru also received a full contingent of men of letters, but on account of its greater wealth in gold and silver tTiere THE COLONIAL PERIOD 3 were attracted thither more purely adventurous spirits. Amonp them were men of the highest Spanish nobility. And a transfer in a governmental position from Mexico to Peru was apparently regarded as a promotion. The government of the Spanisli dominions in America was entrusted to viceroys assisted by a court or audiencia composed of several judges. At first Nueva Espana and Peru were the only viceroyalties, for outlying regions were administered by a member of the audiencia. It is needless to say that the holders of such responsible positions were men of education and culture. For their own entertain- ment the viceroys, if not always poets themselves as was sometimes the case, encouraged at their courts the produc- tion of literature. Even the first explorers _were often men of literary attainments. The letters of Columbus and the reports of Cortes to their monarchs are well known. Similar cartas df rdacion were returned to Spain from almost every ex- pedition, so that few events in history have been more fully covered by a written record than the^Spariish con- quest of America. These accounts of exploration and adventure have value not only as historical documents of prime importance but as literary productions. With due allowance for differences in style and point of view one^ may say thaTtKeTFwrTters had as keen an appreciation of sensational effect as ariylTiodem war correspondent. Ctose at tlu heets'orthe men at arms came friars who made it their business to gather at firstlianJ materials for t heir writings . The most famous of these is Fray Bar- tolome de las Casas whose Ilistoria de las Indias was written especially for the purpose of voicing an indignant 4 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA protest against the treatment of the Indians at the hands of his fellow countrymen. Other historic al compilations, like the narratives of the conquistadores, are so numerous that a consideration of them is beyond the limits of this bo ok. THey cover p ractically e very pha se of_ Spanish settlement. Another class of writers, some of whom were members of religious orders, consisted of men bom in America who wrote with enthusiasm for love of their na tive soi l . Specia l interest attaches to those who had in their veins blood of the conquered races. Having learned from their mothers the native language and moods, they were able to pen- etrate beneath the surface of the aboriginal mind and traditions. In Peru the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega (I'^^O- 1616) owed his title to his ancestry, his mother being of the blood royal, granddaughter of Tupac Yupanqui and niece of Huayna Capac, and his celebrity to his Comeii- tarios reales, published as written in two parts in 1609 and 1616. As history the book is not absolutely reliable, but as entertaining literature it is unsurpassed by any other of the histories of Peru. Moreover, it presents within cer- tain limits the native point of view of the conquest, with many details of history and manners which only a person with such an ancestry could give. A somewhat similar position in the history of Mexico was held by Fernando de Alva Ixtliixochitl, a lineal de- scendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who was employed by the viceroy as an interpreter. The results of his re- searches in native history, made early in the seventeenth century, were contained in various volumes of which the most important was entitled Ilistoria Chichimeca. The THK COLONIAL PERIOD 5 subject of aboriginal writers in Mexico alone requires however several books for its complete exposition. Education and culture in America were fostered by two actions of the SpanTsh authorities, the establishment of universities and the introduction of the printing press, both the care of the clergy. The first book printed in j America was the Breve y Compendiosa Doctrina Christiana ^ en lengua mexicana y casicllana, 1539, by Fray Juan de Zumarraga, first bishop of Mexico. By a strange coin- / cidence the first universities in America were both au- thorized by Charles the Fifth in the same year, 155 1, to \ be established in Mexico and Lima. The printing of a book in the Spanish colonies was not a matter to be lightly undertaken, for it was a costly opera- tion^ It was therefore enjoyed only by authors with money or wealthy patrons. For that reason many a poem of the early period has remained in manuscript. Recent interest in colonial history has brought to light some of these manuscripts. Doubtless many more still lie for- gotten in the dust of some library of Europe or America. One curious result of the expense attending the manufac- ture of a book is the fact that some of the best executed works, printed on the finest paper, and handsomely bound, are the most worthless from the point of view of literature. They contain the verses of occasion produced and recited at the exercises held to commemorate the death of a mon- arch, the birth of a prince, or the induction into his office of some viceroy. Concerning the history of the printing in Spanish America certain bibliographers have performed a notable service, and recorded every printed work. The sixteenth ccntur)^ was preeminently a period when \ 6 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA the love of adventure possessed the souls of men, and the literary expression of that spirit in its most artistic form • is the Orlando furioso of Ariosta In its complete form the poem was published in 1532, one year before the au- thor's death. By the middle of the century not only I did metrical translations begin to appear in Spain but • original heroic poems in the same metrical form became the fashion. Acknowledged by every critic to be the most successful of these epical compositions was Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga's poem. La Araucana^ based on per- ^ son al ad ventures in Chile. Th is was the first work of real literary merit composed in America. In our review of literature during the colonial period of Raffish America iFTs^ecessa ry to omit consideration oTplirely hisroricat' records" Yet histories of course make up the bulk of what was wrftten atout America and in America at this time. And even when the writer thought to embellisFBis~story by putting it in metrical form, its value lies more in the historical facts than in its literary qualities. But the Araucana stands apart from the other poems of the same type both in its intrinsic worth and in Its i nfluence on Spanish-American literature even during the nineteenth century^ Regarding it the Spanish literary historian Ferrer del Rio says, "It would be difficult to find a livelier impression of the Spanish sixteenth cen- tury, the great passions of Charles V and Phillip II, war, daring navigation, distant conquests, a love for the un- known and for adventures, religious sentiment and vener- ation for the sacred objects of worship." Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga (1533-94) was born in the same year that Ariosto died. The translations o\ the THK COLONIAL PERIOD 7 Orlando furioso bcc;mic popular in Spain just before Ercilla set out for America. In fact Ercilla referred to Ariosto ns one of his modeLs; the imitation, however, was more general than particular, for Ercilla's episodes were chiefly historical facts, rather than poetical inventions. At the outset of his poem he announces that he does not intend to sing of ladies, love and chivalrous deeds which is quite contrary to Aristo who makes them the argument of his poem. Moreover, Ercilla in dedicating his work to Phillip II assured his monarch that it was a true relation; and to give weight to this assertion stated that the book was written in part during the war in Chile "often on leather for lack of paper and on bits of paper sometimes so small that they contained not more than six lines." Of highborn parentage Ercilla was attached at the age of Hfteen to tKeTuite of the prince PhUlip and accompanied him in 1548 when he went to take possession of the duchy of Brabant. He traveled vvTtli the prince over Europe for the next six years and was with him in England in 1554 when Phillip married Mary Tudor. In England Ercilla made the acquaintance of Geronimo de Alderete, just appointed adelantado of Chile, who was to sail with the new viceroy of Peru, Andres Hurtado 3e Mendoza. ErcilTa, eager for tTie adventures in prospect, ^ecaiiseThews of the rebellion of the Araucanian Indians had reached Spain, joined the expedition and arrived at Lima in 1556. As the adelantado Al der ete died on the way, the vicer oy appointed his son Don Garcia to lead the army which should restore peace In Chile. After the war had been in progress Tor some time Ercilla had an unfortunate quarrel with a companion, Juan de Pineda. The facts 8 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA are very obscure, but for some reason Don Garcia believed that the two men were conspiring against his authority. He condemned them both to be beheaded and the men were already on the scaffold before Don Garcia was persuaded to relent and commute their punishment to imprisonment. Not long thereafter Ercilla was released and allowed again to take part in the war. But he cherished such resentment against Don Garcia that he managed to leave Chile and return to Spain in 1562. There he found favor again with Phillip and high employment in business of state. In 1569 he published the first part, consisting of fifteen cantos, ot his "poerh La Araucana. The second part in fourteen cantos he completed in 1578 and the third part of eight cantos In 1590. The plan of the poem is to narrate in strictly chrono- logical order events in Chile. The first twelve cantos dea l with -thcTa"itts~ot the Indians on the Spanish settle- ments and the numerous reprisals which occurred before Ercilla's arrival. As Ercilla wished to minimize Don Garcia de Mendoza's part in the war the heroes of the poem are not the minor Spanish leaders whom he occasionally mentions but the Indian chiefs. The most attractive of these is the young Lautaro. In depicting his life Ercilla, with a poetic defense of the role of love in human life, probably by way of apology for changing his intention not to sing of ladies, introduces the reader to Guacolda, Lautaro's beautiful wife. Lautaro is surprised at night by her side and slain. After his death the most important of the various Araucanian caciques is Caupolican. Of the Spaniards a certain common soldier Andrea and Er- cilla himself play the most prominent roles. In fact THE COLONIAL PERIOD 9 Ercilla might he callici t\\v luio of tlii' poem if one takes into account tlu- aniount of space clevt)tecl to his personal adventures. On the other hand, the poem contain s certain long di- gressions from the main narrative. In part two by the machineryT oTa personal interview of the poet with the GoJ^dess Bellona contemporary events in Europe, espe- cially Phillip's victories in Flanders, are recited. Even the naval victory of the Spaniards over the Turks at Lepanto, though subsequent in time to the period of the poem, is described as it was revealed to Ercilla through the agency of a magic ball belonging to an old magician whom he met in the mountains. In the third canto there is a long digression about Dido. Ercilla is requested ^y some soldiers to relate the true story oTthe Famous queen who in his opinion has been much maligned. To the modern reader these digressions are blemishes, but at the time of the publication of the poem ftrey very likely assisted in making it popul ar. T he victories of their king and the naval fight at Lepanto were events of which the Spaniards were pleased to read stirring and poetic accounts. Against the baclcground of tTie distant war in Chile they wefe enhanced as by perspective. The book, imme^ately and Immensely popular, passed through more editions than any Spanish book of the century. The eloquent speeches which Ercilla put into the mo u t h s of both Spaniards and Indians met the taste of his day. The same may be said of the realistic details of battles and other adventures, so realistic at times as to be grue- some and repugnant, for Ercilla's descriptive power was very great. On the other hand, the poem lacks certain lo LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA elements of general human interest so that it is not very attractive to-day. It is too intensely Spanish in senti- ment. I ts local Chilean setting ^ however, has brought great popularity in Chile. To wns and localities have been named after the Indian heroes. In their war for inde- pendence Chilean orators and poets used to call them- selves "sons of Caupolican." The first war vessel of the Chilean navy was named "Lautaro." Episodes and in- cidents from the Araucana which is held to be almost a national poem, have been the inspiration of poems, novels and plays. After Ercilla's death a certain Diego de Santistevan Osorio, of whom nothing beyond what he tells of himself is known, published at Salamanca in 1597 a poem, La Araucana, Quarta y Quinta parte en que se prosigue y acaba la historia de D. Alonso de Ercilla. The adventures related appear to be wholly imaginary combats between the Indians and the Spaniards. Another poem, Arauco Domado, treating the same events in some sixteen thousand verses divided into nineteen cantos, was printed at Lima in ^96. The author was a native-born Chilean, Pedro de Oiia, the son of a Spanish captain fighting the Indians in southern Chile. He was sent to the University of San Marcos in Lima in 1590. Two years later he took part in an expedition to Quito to quell an uprising. From this campaign he re- turned with much historical material and possibly the idea of putting into verse the deeds in the same region of Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza. In his poem Pedro de Ona declared himself an imitator THE COLONIAL PERIOD n of Ercilla Init iiiailf no pretension of coniptting with hini The Arducd'Domado TsTn no sense a continuation of the |F^ Jraucana but a new vtrsidn of the historical facts c on- v 'tained in the second part of the hitter poem. The narra- tive begins with the sending to Chile of his son, Don Garcia, by the viceroy Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza. Wliile Ercilla had written mainly about the Indians with slight reference to Don Garcia, Pedro de Qua de- sired to repair this injustice by relating the personal exploits of the Spanish commander. To emphasize the part played by that nobleman, Pedro de Ona did not hesitate to violate cither unity of plan or chronological order. His main narrative concerned the preparations of the savages for an attack on a Spanish fort and its successful defense by Don Garcia. The latter's subse- quent acts as viceroy of Peru in subduing a rebellion in Quito and in repelling the raid of the English admiral, Richard Hawkins, were introduced into the poem through the agency of the witch, Quidora, and the machinery of a dream. Though the love affairs of the Indians were fictions of the poet who invented them to relieve the strain of continuous warfare, the descriptions of their customs and those of the colonists have historical value. The poetic idyll of Caupolican and Fresia and the ad- ventures of Tucapel and Gualeva are interesting. Re- garding the author the poem reveals little but his serious and religious disposition. Pedro de Ona remained to the end of his days a diligent versifie r. There exist from his pen a couple of sonnets; a cancion of some length in which the river Lima addresses the river Tiber on the virtues of Fray Francisco Solano 12 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA of Lima who after his canonization was made patron saint of Santiago de Chile in 1633; a second herioc poem, El VasaurOy found in manuscript in Madrid by Barros Arana, on the deeds of Don Andres de Cabrera; and a mysti- cal rehgious poem in six thousand verses divided in twelve books on the life of Ignatius de Loyola, El Ignacio de Loyola. Apparently the Jesuits requested O na to compose tht?~prDCTfi m honor of the founder of their society. No commission could have^b een more ag reea ble to the pi ous character of the poet as is partly showm by the care whic h he bestowed on the versification and the ornate rhetoric. Printed in Seville, 1636, the poem contributed to the author's reputation far more than the Arauco Domado. Lope de Vega in his Laurel de Apolo referring to this poem puts the serious lyre of Pedro de Oiia "alone among the swans of the Indies." Posterity may well consider Pedro de Ona as the foremost poet in Chile during colonial/ times. Another poem produced under the stimulus of the jprevailing fashion for heroic poems was found by Barros Arana in Madrid without title and name of author. The learned historian of the colonial literary history of Chile, Jose Toribio Medina, argues that the author was an unknown Juan de Mendoza mentioned by Alvarez de Toledo. The poem after giving a summary of Chilean history relates many minor events which occurred at the end of the sixteenth century. Though the reader's interest is rather harassed by the multiplicity of unconnected happenings, the central fact of the troubled state of the Spanish settlements stands out clearly. Hernando Alvarez de Toledo was another Spanish THE COLONIAL PERIOD 13 warrior and colonist who pleased hmisclf by the versifi- cation of his personal adventures^ He left Spain in 1581 in company with the famous governor Alonso de Soto- mayor, who after an unlucky voyage, landed in Brazil and reached Chile by crossing the Argentine pampa and the Andes. The fifteen thousand verses of Alvarez* Purhi Indomito composed entirely without poetical in- ventions or fictions form a rhymed chronicle of his own feats of arms or those which he had heard in detail from his companions. To him the Indians are merely wily and treacherous enemies. Yet he gives many details about their habits, dress, adornments, ceremonies, method of fighting and the relations between them and the Span- iards. At times he puts into the mouths of the natives words about truth and the nature of God which are a satire on the actions of bad Spaniards. So great is his adherence to fact that his statements arc-gtven full his=- torical value by the historian Ovalle. The latter credits a portion of his history to the Araucanat another poe m by Alvarez which has been lost. Per sonal adventu re s fonjie d the substance of anotlier long poem printed at Lima, 1630, entitled Compendio historial de Chile by Melchor Xufre del Aguila (i ^68-1 637), _ The author boasted that he had come out at his own ex- pense. In the same year, 1581, in which Don Garcia Hur- tado de Mendoza was made viceroy of Peru, Xufre went to Chile to seek adventures in the war. He got nothing but a broken leg and loss of property. So he determined to retire to a life of leisure in the country and write an account of his experiences. His book has lent to it some historical value by a long letter preceding the poem by 14 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA way of introduction from Luis Merlo de la Fuente, cap- tain general of Chile, who outlines the events of his ad- ministration from 1606 to 1628. In prose, if one omits works written with a serious purpose, few attempts at literature are to be found. Of these few one, Cautiverio feliz, by Francisco Nunez de Pineda y Bascunan (1607-82), was the most popular and widely read book of colonial times in Chile. The author, the son of a soldier much feared by the Araucanians, was placed by his father in a company of Spanish infantry which was called in 1629 to put down an outbreak of the Indians in southern Chile. The young man was one of a detachment attacked by overwhelming numbers and was taken prisoner with the few survivors. When the Indians learned his parentage, they were greatly delighted by their capture. Their leader Maulican determined to keep him alive though the other leaders wished to put him to death by torture. Bascunan remained in captivity seven months before he was ransomed. In his old age he wrote the story of it, leaving the manuscript to his chil- dren. Though the narrative was intended for history, it was written almost in the style of a novel. The reader is kept in dramatic suspense to the end wondering whether the good intentions of Maulican will prevail against the desires of those who seek the captive's death. The book, moreover, is a mine of curious facts about the Indians. The romantic interest felt by ^ome toward the natives appe ars in a strange b ook. Restaur acibn de la Im perial y con version de almas inhcles . by Fray Jua n deBarrenechea y Albi*, written in 1693. Medina classifies i_t^ as a novel. It is a fiction concerning Rocamila, the beautiful daughter IHi: CX3L0NIAL PKRIOI) 15 of the Araucanian chief Millayan. Of her many lovers the most favored was Carilab. 1 heir wedding, however, is postponed and their relations greatly troubled by the war with the Spaniards and the multiplicity of adventures which happen to them. Ihe good friars and their efforts to Christianize the Indians claim a part of the nar- rative. rhe habit of versifying history into which was incor- porated_on e's personal adventiir e.Sr possibly encouraged by the populartty oF ErciJ^la's poem^ became vyidesprea d in other centers of Spanish settlement than Chile. Most of tKesecompositions have been held in light esteem, on the one hand by historians as untrustworthy and on the other by writers on literature as prosaic. Apparently the more prosaic the versification the more accurate was the narration. In this respect the extreme is represented by CJaspar de VUlagra' s CgnQuista del Nuevo Afundo, pub- lished in 1610, a rhy med chroni cle of the attempt by Juan de Oiiate to settle in the country now called New Mexico about the year 1598. Whatever the opinion else- where, natives of the respective countries in which the scenes of these historical poems were laid have regarded them highly. To the local poet they have prove d a con- stant source ot mspiration. lo the loca l historian they have supplied invaluable details of genealogy and local history. Juan de CasrrM^p^"^ for this purpose contributed the most important document of all. His Elepas de Varonei ilustres ^ e India s consisting of some 150,000 lines is the longest poem of its kind in any language. The first part only was printed during the life of its author, but, the l6 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA remainder appears to have been known though not printed complete till the nineteenth century. Part one, published in 1589, dealt with the voyages of Columbus and the early conquests and settlements of the Caribbean islands and the region near the mouth of the Orinoco, as well as the adventures of the infamous Lope de Aguirre. The author had already written part of his chronicle when a friend persuaded him to rival Ercilla by versifying it. The judgment of posterity believes he might better have stuck to prose. Nevertheless Juan de Cast ellanos possessed such an astonis hing ability i n ver sihcation_ that he^rote occasionaL_passages of real rngrit, so that from the point of view of poetry his poem may be given second place among versified chronicles. The second, third and fourth parts treat minutely the history of Nueva Granada and a par t ot Venezuela, with^Tess attempt at poetic embellish- ment as they approach the end. Inferior in j)oetic qualities but priceless for its informa- tion because no other records of the events of which it treats has come down to us is La Argentina y conquista del Rio de la Plata, con otros acaecimJentoT de l as reinos del Peru, T ucuman y estado del Bras il, published at Lisbon, 1602, by Don Martin del Barco C entenera. The author was a soldier who took part in the expedition led by Juan Ortiz de Zarate into the interior of the Argentine. The poem is also valuable for biographical matter con- cerning Juan de Garay, the founder of Buenos Aires. As its title indicates the poem lacks unity of .subject-matter and it is overloaded with fa iry tales of g olden kingdoms and marvelous voyages. Redolent of the pampa, however, are his descriptions of the li fe of the savages, their method THK CX3L0NIAL PERIOD 17 of hunting the wild ostrich with holas, and the anecdotes of their relations to each tit her ami to the Spanish settlers. Some of his love stories and episodes furnished excellent material to later poets. In Mexico the d eeds of fortes fou nd rhe|r epic poet in Antonio de SaaveJra Guz man who publishe d his Perrg rino Indiana in twenty cantos of octaves in 1599. The author says ot himself that he was corregidor of Zacatecas and that he spent seven years in collecting his material for a true history. As to his value the historian Prescott, who took a few details from his descriptions, estimated it in this wise, "Saavedra came on the stage before all that had borne arms in the conquest had left it." While Saavedra's stor>' is mainly an account of military exploits from the moment of Cortes' departure from Cuba to the capture of the city of Mexico after the building of the ships in the lake, he does not neglect the amours of the leaders with the native women. The book has the addi- tional bibliographical interest of being the hrst pnnteJ by a person pom m iviexico . baavedra's poem was neither the first nor the last on the same subject. Contemporaries praised highly the lost work of Franc isco de Terrazas^ whose sonnets show i^ real poetical feeling. The son of one of Cortes' most trusted officers, he is the fij;st native-bo m Mexican poet. A few octaves that have been preserved of his Nuevo^ Mundo y_ Conquista- show that Terrazas was especially siniful in depicting idyllic love scenes. Another rhymed chronicle, the Mexic o conquistada_ pf Juan_de Escojgujz has been dismissed by an eminent critic as "intolerable." On the other hand, the versification of Gabriel L asso_de l8 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA la Vega's Co rtes Faleroso , published in 1588 with three additional cantos in 1594, is praised. And even better from the same point of view is the Hernandia of F rancisco Ruiz de Leo n though the matter of the poem printed in 1755 is little more than the versification of Antonio de Solis' famous history of the conquest of Mexico. In Peru, contemporary with the rich hist^oricaL litera- ture dealing with the conquest, were written many short poemroiTvanous events. Pizarro's exploits were re lated in a~pioern of eight cantos which, however, was not printed before 1848. In that year a bookseller of Lyons discovered theTnarragcripnn the library of Vienna. Another longer manuscript poem in twenty cantos has for a title Armas Antdrticas, hechos de los famosos Capitanes espaiioles que se halla ron en la con quista del Peru. Judging from such extracts as he had seen the Spanish critic Menendez y Pelayo rated its poetic qualities higher than those of the more fortunate Li ma Fund ada Conquista del Peru printed in 1732 for its author Pedro de Peralta Bamuevo, the poet l aureate of the vicero ysof his day. These historical or heroic compositions on American topics, so amHtiousTy termed epic poems by their authors, Torm only a branch of the same tree which was HoiinshTng so lustily in Spain at the same perToH^ An occasional p'oefn treating an event in Spanisii history'^ even saw the light in America. Another thriving branch was the sacred epic ramifying mt6~pberTiT o'lTTlie" lives oTTaints arid noted cburehmenr" or the 'many poems in Spanish oiTthe life t#^tfe^Savtour the most excellent in all respects was La Cristiada p ublished in 161 1 by Fray Diego de (H)Ojeda who wrote its eloquent octaves in a convent of THE CX)LONIAL PERIOD 19 Lima. And in this outpouring of heroic verse what was more natural than that many a friar in America should desire thus to glorify the life of the founder of his order? Poems in many c. infos on the life of Iun.it ins dc I.ovoInT" founder of the Jesuits, arc tspccially nunuiou-s. Earlier" than that by Pedro de Ona, already mentioned, was one by a friend of his, L uis d e^B elmonfe , ^i da del Patr iama^ Ignacio de Loyola, published in Mexico in 1609 and dedi- cated to the Jesuit fathers of Nueva Espana. The Domin- icans, not to be outdone by others, wrote in heroic verses the life of their celebrity, the Angelical Doctor, Thomas Aquinas. As if symbolic of his great learning the most peculiar of these poems entitled La Thomasiada^ was composed by Fray Diego Saenz Ovecurri and published in Guatemala, 1667. The poem aimed to be not only a biography but also a treatise on the art of poetry and a sort of encyclopedia in rhyme of matter taken from the works of the learned doctor. In the part relating to the art of poetry, examples of the most extravagant experi- ments in versification abound. Of the lives of saints in heroic verse, two especially achieved a certain reputation. The Gongorist title, La eloqti encia del silencio^ Poema heroyco, vida^j^^jnartyriQ del Gran Proto-AI arty r^ del sacram ental si^ilo, fideliss imo custodio de la Fatna , y protector de la Sa grada Compania de Jesus, San Juan^NrpomuceTio> is indicative of the style of the contents of this poem by a Mexican jurist Miguel de Reyna Zev allos^ published in 1738. The other is far more interesting, nda de Santa Rosa^dj^JLinia ^ P^lTonjL de l Per u by Luis _Antonio de Qviedo y Herrera , Conde de la Granja, published in 171 1. It is interesting not only 20 LITERARY- HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA because it relates the life of the most popular saint of America, Santa Rosa de Lima (as a measure of her popu- larity may be taken a certain bibliographical list of 276 works referring to her), but also because it contains enter- taining descriptions of the country near Lima, of the raids of Drake and Hawkins on the Peruvian coast, and many other curious anecdotes of the life of the colony. In the matter of l yric ver se there were numerous prac- titioners of it at all periods in America^ Students of Spanish literature will remember that following the manner of the poet-soldiers who brought back to Spain from Italy the new forms there arose in Seville a school of versifiers. A leading member of the school, Gutierre de Cetina, found his way to Mexico where in 1554 he was severely wounded by a jealous lover who mistook him in the dark for the object of his suspicions, a wound from which the unlucky poet probably died three years later. Another Sevillan poet who spent some time in Mexico was Juan de la Cueva. Among his literary remains exists an interesting description in tercets of the city of Mexico. So numerous in fact were poets among the adventurers in Mexico that at a poetical contest in 1585 no fewer than three hundred (?) took part according to the testimony of one of t he winne rs. The latter was Bernardo de Balbuena(i 568-1627) w ho \ \ in later life l5ecame Bishop of Puerto Rico. And for the . \ feeting whtch~His works show tor the tro pical luxurian ce V v^ of^Aineric^riie'may be termed the ^st in poin t of time of •4 Americ^TTjoeJir" BaTbiiena's most important poem. La J \randeza Mexicana, originally printed in Mexico in 1604, and many times reprinted, even in the nineteenth cen- THE CX)LONIAL PERIOU 21 tury, sets forth the beauties and woiulers of Mexico, its wealth in precious metals and jewels, the strange costume of its inhabitants, its fiery horses, the rich fabrics brouKhr thither in transit from China and the Philippine Islands. I he poem is written in tercets and divided into nine parts. In 1608 he published El Sigh dr Oro en las Sfhas de Eri^e, a pastoral novel In prose and verse, the latter consisting of twelve eclogues in imitation of Theocritus, Virgil, and Sannazaro. For its value as a monument of Spanish literature the Spanish Academy made a special edition of it in 1821. No less ambitious was Balbucna in vying with Ariosto in his longest poem El Be rnardo la Ficto ria de Roncesvalles i n twenty-four cantos. In one of them the hero is conveyed to Mexico where the Tlascalan wizard reveals to him the future conquest of Mexico. Of Spanish versifiers who visited Lima about the be- ginning of the seventeentli century tlie names of those known_to Cervantes and Lope de Vega are very numerous. In real poetic worth a certain anonymous poetess who corresponded in rhymed epistles with Lope de Vega, sign- ing herself "Amarilis," excelled the rest. And no specula- tion as to the identity of the lady has proved successful. At the court of the viceroys who were themselves of the highest Spanish nobility were many individuals of noble rank. And the customs of their gay society demanded much scribbling of verses as well as dramatic representa- tions. The Prince of Esquilache, viceroy from 161 5 to 1622, himself possesses a place in Spanish literature as a poet of the second rank, author of epistles and sonnets in the manner of Argensola and of an epic poem NdpoUs recuperada. His own works contain no references to his 22 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA sojourn in the new world, but it is known that he main- tained a sort of literary academy in his residence. Of books of verse produced during colonial times a few deserve mention. The Primera parte del Parnaso Antdrtico ■ de GbrdT'dmdtorias by Diego Mexia was printed in 1608. The title refers to a very praiseworthy translation of Ovid's Heroides which the author, as he himself relates, made in a long journey from Lima to Mexico. The prologue to his book is interesting for the references to his journey. The Miscelanea austral printed in Lima in 1603, though primarily a series of forty-four colloquies by its author, Diego de Avalos y Figueroa, on all sorts of subjects of most diverse character, love, jealousy, music, horses, the origin of rings, contains many verses by others as well as a long poem in six cantos. La Defensa de Damas, in which Diego de Avalos attempts to refute by anecdotes those who write ill of ladies. A sort of anthology Ramillete de varias flores poeticas recogidas by Jacinto de Evia, a native of Guayaquil, offers an idea of the state of poesy in 1675. At that date Gon- gorism was the fashion in Spain and Evia's Sevillan master of rhetoric, Antonio Bastid^as7 whose own poems are really tine best In the ^ook7iTad~taught him the secret of pre- ciosity. The third poet who?e tines appear here was a native of Bogota, HemanSo^Dominguez CamaTgo. As a sample oThis conceltsliTiay ^ talceh some verses in which he compares the water of a certain cascade to a bull or to a stallion about to be dashed to pieces against the rocks. Dominguez Camargo was the author also of a Gongorist poem on the life of Ignatius of Loyola. The Ramillete is a curious book whose verses of occasion, sonnets and THK COLONIAL PERIOD 23 inscriptions, and extracts in artificial prose convey a lively idea of life in Ecuador. Books of verse very popular in Lima, if one can judge by the number of manuscript copies which seem to have existed, were the Dicntc- del Paniaso and Poesias varias of Juan del Valle y Caviedes. Their interest lay in the sparkling Andalusian wit of the author's lines. He was born the son of a Spanish merchant and had been sent at about the age of twenty to Spain where he remained three years. On his return to Lima about 1681 he fell sick as the result of dissipation. He whiled awayliis convalescence by writing satiric verses on his doctors whom he lampooned by name. His verses circulated in manuscript and were undoubtedly increased in number by other wits who put their smart and possibly obscene productions under his name. It is noteworthy that at such an early period the characteristic of later Peruvian literature, its gayety and \ humor, thus made its appearance. At the close of the seventeenth and the opening of the next century there were bom in P eru several men of re- markable mental equ ipment : who deserved to have fallen on an epoch more propitious in inspiration. By that date the ravages of Gongorism were at their height m Spanish literature and precisely b y a d efense of Gongora, Apol- ogetico en favor de D. Luis de Gongora, published in 1694 has the learned doctor Juan de Espinosa Medrano distin- _ guisned himself. The book is a creditable piece of literary criticism and gives evidence of the ability of a man who at fourteen years of age composed autos and comedies and at sixteen filled a professorial chair in the university of Cuzco where he taught all his life, beside being connected with 24 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA the cathedral in various capacities. He left behind also volumes of sermons and theological works. A poem of his El Aprendiz de Rico which draws a moral from the con- demnation and death of a silver miner for counterfeiting coin throws an interesting light on a phase of existence in that ancient capital of the Incas. The doctor of Cuzco was not, however, such a marvel of encyclopedic knowledge and literary accomplishment as Pedro de Peralta Bamuevo Rocha y Benavides. Of his heroic poem Lima Fundada mention has already been made. He was^y profession professor of mathematics in the university of Lima and made some astronomical observations on eclipses the results of which he published. In fact his works, including his scientific essays on military and civil engineering, on metallurgy, on navigation, on history, number no less than forty-eight between 1700 and 1740. Beside being several times rector of the university he was the poet laureate of the viceroy. For that reason his name appears on the many volumes of verses which record the feasts and funerals of the period. He wrote likewise several pieces for the stage beside a meritorious adaptation of Corneille's Rodogune. His contemporary the Spaniard P. Feijoo reckoned him the equal ot the most erudite men ot turope! The custom of celebrating public events by issuing volumes of bombastic and laudatory verses was not con- fined to Peru but was practiced in Mexico too. And in general the bulk oFMexican verse is hot onFy greater b ut on account of a few artificers it ranks better in quality. A stimulus to such abundant prod uction was the cu stom of^ "poetic contests. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 25 One of the best poems i)f tlu- scvtiiticnth century was so much admired that numberless imitations and glosses of it were written and it is to-day pleasant reading, Cancion a la Vista de un Dcsengaho, by a Jesuit Father Matias de Bocanegra. It is divided into six parts on the following theme: A young monk is listening to the song of a linnet. The bird would not sing in a cage he is sure. Just so the loss of his liberty irks him and he complains. He decides to break his vows and enter the world. Before he can carry out his determination he is confounded to see a falcon seize and rend the linnet. The thought comes to him that if the weaker bird had been protected by a cage it would not have suffered death. It died because it was free. The moral of this lesson prevents the young monk from breaking his vows. One wishes that more of the verse by friars had been written with such poetic simplicity of expressron~r3ther tlian in the tedious conceits of such £oems on set religious topics as appear in the book entitled Triumpho parthenico quf en glorias de Maria Santissima inmaculadamente concebida celebro la Pontifica, Imperial, y Regia Academia Mexicana etc. . . . Describelo D. Carlos de Siguenza y GongorOy Mexicano, y en ella cathedrdtico propietario de Mathemdticas. En Mexico i68j. The professor in his poetic style, even in his earlier poem published in 1668, Primavera Indiana, Poema sacro-historico, idea de Maria Santissima de Guadalupe, lived up to the tradition of his maternal name of Gongora. This poem narrated in seventy-nine royal octaves the story of the appearance to the baptized Indian Juan Diego of our Lady of Guada- lupe. Since the building of the church on the spot desig- 26 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA nated by her radiant apparition, the native religion ma- terially declined. The present rich edifice dedicated to the patron saint of Mexico was built during the lifetime of Sigiienza y Gongora (1645-1700). As a cyclopedic scholar he was only equalled in America by the Peruvian doctor Peralta de Bamuevo. Sigiienza made many scientific and archaeological studies. Useful is his study of the Aztec calendar which he investigated for the pur- pose of establishing the chronology of that people. From his pen came numerous works on mathematics and as- tronomy which must be respected for their learning though they bear such titles as a certain Belerofonte jnatemdtico contra la Quimera astrologica. Toward the end of the seventeenth century a real poetic genius saw the light in Mexico. Being a woman and a poetess she was styled in accord with the bombast of the time "la Musa Decima mexicana," that is to say "the Tenth Muse a Mexican woman." She was bom Juana Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez de Cantillana (1651-95). At seventeen years of age she became a nun, assuming the name Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz by which title she has since been known. She was possessed of the most intense intellectual curiosity. At one time she had gath- ered in her cell a library of no less than four thousand volumes. Her fame in worldly learning and in profane literature causmg the Bishop of Puebla some worry, he wrote her a letter over the signature of "Sor Philotea de la Cruz" beseeching her as an admiring sister to have a care for her soul. She replied in a letter which the bishop had printed with the title of Carta athenogorica. Its theme was a defense of the education of women, I THE COLONIAL PERIOD ^^ but its interest to the world now consists in the bio- grapTiical details concerning the writer. Very little else is known. T!Tic TearneJ to rcalPat tTie age of three. At eight she composed a loa in honor of the holy sacrament. At about the same time she begged her parents to send her up to the University of Mexico dressed as a man. However she had to content herself with twenty lessons in Latin in which language she acquired proficiency by her own unaided efforts. Becoming a maid of honor to the vicereine of Mexico, she was "tormented for her wit and pursued fur her beauty," until she took the veil in the convent of San Geronimo. From that moment her cell was her study. A certain superior at one time forbade her to use her books. She obeyed for three months but though she neglected her books she "studied all the things which God created." Though in her reply to the admonition of Sor Philotea, she defended her course of life, yet she was moved to sell her books and devote her mind to acts of piety. Shortly thereafter she died a victim of an epidemic. Her collected literary works fill three volumes. The first^v Cai J [Jiiui e d in 169 8 with th «-florid title Imindacion Castdlida de la unica poetisa, musa decima, sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. The third volume published after her death was entitled Fama y Obras postumas del Fenix de Mexico, decima musa, poetisa americana, sor Juana Ines dela Cruz. Some of her productions were printed separately, as the verses indited in celebration of the arrival of the Conde de Paredes as viceroy, and called Neptune alegurico, ociano de colores, simulacra politico. Sor Juana wrote not only verses but plays. For the Condesa deares Ped'sTTe 28 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA composed an Auto sacramental del Divino Narciso, por alegorias. Like their titles these compositions are Gon- goristic. In fact her contemporaries praised her most highly for her most obscure compositions. On the ottier Tiand, she wrote many poems instinct with sincere feeling and unclouded by the pedantic taste of the epoch. Her- lyrics suggest that her passionate temper was not always stirred solely by mystical love nor by feigned jealousy. Those verses of hers which have been best remembered were satirically directed against the detracto rs of women , foolish men who are to blame for the very faults in women that they^ensure. As for her rank in the world of letters, after the Cuban Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, the sje cond place am ong women of American birth who have written in Spanish m ay be rightfully accorded to S or Tuana Ines^e la Cruz. Her death was followed by the literary sterility of the eighteenth century . The only Mexican writer ofXlas^ tilian worthy of mention in this period was Francisco Ruiz de Leon whose Hernandia was a last effort to write epic poetry on the subject of the conquest of Mexico. He was the author of a devout poem in three hundred and thirty-three decimas with the alluring title Mirra dulce ■ para aliento de pecadores. The mainstay of literature, the friars began to neglect the vernacular for Latin. Of these Latinists there is a formidable list. A certain ^Jesuit father Rafael Landivar is the only one sufficiently original to have left behind any literary influence. A long poem in fifteen books, Rusticatio mexicana, in the style of the Georgics of Virgil, set forth the natural beau- ties and wonders of America. Descriptive poetry of this I THE COLONIAL PERIOD 29 sort, beginning with Balbuena's Grandfza mtrxicana, has a long history in America. Parts of Landivar's poem were not only translated by some into Spanish but were imitated by others. Ruiz de Leon's Mirra duke by some peculiar chance happened to be one o\ the hrst books of verse printed in Bogota. Colombia was not an especially fertile field for the cultivation orietters. Contemporary with Sor Juana and inditing verses to her was a certain Francisco Alvarez de Velasco y Zorrilla. And in prose there exist two books which the Colombians are proud to exhibit as productions of their early literary- histor}', Sentimientos EspirituaUs by a nun Francisca Josefa de la Concepcion, known also as the Madre Castillo and an autobiography, Vida de la venerable Madre Castillo. In the neighboring territory of Ecuador poetic and literary activity seems to have been a little greater. A Jesuit father, Juan de Velasco, himselFtlie autTior of an interesting Historia del reino de Quito, preserved the verses of his contemporaries which he prepared for the press in a miscellany in six volumes, entitled El Ocioso de Faenza. The best of these poems show a real feeling for nature. One activity of the friars should by no means be over- Jooked. They interested themselves keenly in the nati ve languages for the purpose of teaching the abori gines t he gospel of Christ. Grammars and dictionaries, catechism^ and books of devotion in the native tongues abound. And stranger still there exist plays, many of religious character whose intent is obvious. The friars, finding in the native dances something of a dramatic character, 30 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA from the first made use of this rudimentary drama to farther their efforts in convertmg the Indians. It was an easy matter to turn into the native tongu es the religious plays or autos of which the Spaniards were so fond for their owrTedHication. But secular plays were also adapted. 1 hree plays of Lope de Vega are said to have existed in a Mexican dialect, Nahuatl. To literary historians a cer- tain drama in the Peruvian or Quechua language, Ollantdy has long presented a problem of interest. The argument of the play is briefly as follows: Ollanta (or Ollantay) is a chief of lowly birth who meets parental opposition in his love for Cusi-Coyllur (Joy-star), daughter of the Inca. Her father dismisses the young man's suit with anger. The Andean mountaineers among whom Ollanta has taken refuge make him their king, with Ollantay-Tambo as his stronghold. After a few years the old Inca dies and his son Ima-Sumac reigns in his stead. The ten-year-old daughter of Ollanta and Cusi- Coyllur appears on the scene as an inmate of the convent where the elect virgins of the sun reside in Cuzco. She discovers that her mother is kept there a prisoner. By treachery Ollanta is bound in chains and brought before the Inca. The latter however pardons him. At that moment Ima-Sumac rushes into the Inca's court and tearfully relates the cruelties inflicted on her mother in prison. The Inca and Ollanta go to the convent of the elect virgins. Both recognize Cusi-Coyllur who is released by the command of the Inca and given in mar- riage to Ollanta. It was formerly believed that this play was a relic of a Quechuan literature. The early Spanish historians, THi: CX)LONIAL PERIOD 3I notably tin- Inoa Garcilasso de la Vega testified that a riulc toriu i)f drama txisttd ainon^ the Peruvians. Rut investigation has revealed not only that the rhetorical structure of Ollanta is that of a Spanish drama but also it is written in meters peculiar to Spanish, such as re- dondillas, quintillas and decimasy/ Much printer's ink has been shed over this play and its authorship. The last and most thorough study of it, that of Prof. E. C. Hills, seems to show that a certain Antonio Valdes, parish priest of Tinta, who produced it with great pomp be- tween 1770 and 1780, was its author. Other clergymen familiar with the native tongue used the drama to assist their religious teachin g. The learned" doctor Juan de Espinosa Medrano, was the author of an Juto sacramental del Ilijo Prodigo in which the scriptural stoiy of the prodigal son is edify ingly set forth with realistic details. Another considerable play in the Quechua lan- guage has for title Use a Paucar, by an unknown author. The dramatic quality of this play is meager, but its theme shows that it was intended to urge upon the natives the veneration of the Virgin at the chapel of our Lady of Copacabana. This church stood on the south shore of Lake Titicaca where the aborigines had a sanctuary before the coming of the Spaniards. To adorn their mission the Augustinians by whose care it was maintained, brought from Spain an old painting of the Virgin. This way of converting the natives was similar to that pursued in Mexico at the establishment of the church of our Lady of Guadalupe. And while the relative greater importance of the latter has evoked more devotional verse, our Lady of Copaca- 32 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA bana had the signal honor of being staged in a play by Calderon, La Aurora en Copacabana, who drew his argu- ment either from a poem El Santuario de Nuestra Seiiora de Copacabana, by Fray Fernando de Valverde, or a prose narrative of the mission of the Augustinian fathers. The history of the drama in Spanish America, apart from the loas and allegorical pieces produced to celebrate s ome viceroy's arrival, is Obscure. The thorough est ab- lishment of the theater in Mexico is plain, however, from Balbuena's testimony, who refers to the production of "new comedies every day.'* Among the Spanish poets who sought fortune in Amenca were several dramatists, as Juan de la Cueva and Luis de Belmonte Bermudez. One of the most famous of the Spanish dramatists of the golden period was on the other hand bom in Mexico, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (died 1639). Though contemporary with Lope de Vega, his plays were distinguished from the latter's by a greater care for form and a more careful psychological analysis of the characters. Alarcon's sober- ness and the epigrammatic quality^ of his style were, in the opinion of a recent critic, Pedro Henriquez Urena, the contributions of his Mexican birth. The high altitude of central Mexico seems to tone down thejiative exuber- ance of the Andalusian. It is possible too that Alarcon learned the dramatic art in Mexico where two of his pub- lished comedies, El semejante a si mismo and Mudarst por mejorarse, may have been written, since they abound in expressions peculiar to Mexico. A dramatist whose whole career was spent in Mexico, though he was probably born_ij} S^iairii was j^man jGlon- zalez de Eslava. His works have been preserved in a THE COLONIAL PERIOD 33 book printed in 1610, years after his death, with the title, Coloquios tspiritualfs y Poesias sagradas. Though the form of his plays is mainly the allegorical, he introduces in the dialogue an endless series of everyday characters whose language, full of idioms and even vulgarisms, re- veals as no other book the speech current in Mexico at that p(?riod. The colonial history of Spanish America is faithfully m i rrored m its literary producti ons. The prose narrativ "^s and the heroic poems picture the period of discovery and conquest durmg the sixteenth century. As the viceroys' courts become more important in the seventeenth century poe ms of occasion represent t he secular side of life, while the friars' interests are revealed in devodonal writing in verse and prose, in dramas intended for mstr uction, and in miscellaneous works in both the vernacular and Latin concerning the activities of their orders" At the be- ginning of the eighteenth century a profound lethargy descends on colonial life which remains almost unbroken till the~great upheaval of the revolutionary period in the early years of the nineteenth centur>> There were, however, a few stirrings which broke the calm in the different countries. In Mexico the p rerevolu- tionary awakening centers in Fray Manuel de Navarrete / (1768-1809). This Franciscan friar endeavored to restore poetry by founding a literary society, the "Arcadia "X mexicana" and by writing anacreontics of shepherds and , shepherdesses in the style of the Spanish poet Melendez, / but without a hint of sensuality. His eclogues were writ- ten on the other hand after the manner of Garcilaso de la Vega. Navarrete displayed more originality, or at least 34 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA a personal note, in his religious verse. As his style was fluent and musical he attracted admirers who followed him in his classicism. But they lived to witness the revolution and wrote under its inspiration their more important pieces. The poetic style of the Mexican revolu- tionary poets is rather better than those of other regions, a fact to which Navarrete's influence may have contrib- uted. ~~ Over South America a wave of scientific investigation in all departments of natural history and physical geog- "Taphy^pread during~tTie last HaTToT t"he~eTgHte enth cen- "'tury. IrrBogota, the capital of the new viceroyalty of '"Nueva~Ofanada established in 1740, a botanist and scien- tist of the first rank, Jose Celestino Mutis, a Spaniard, began his teaching in 1762 ^ A whole generation of en- thusiastic students were trained in his clas ses. T he most ^^bTintanFoTthem was Francisco Jose Caldas who became the master's successor. Caldas, as one branch of his studies, formed a herbarium of five to six thousand plants of this region of America, accompanied by an exhaustive account of the different altitudes and localities where each plant throve. As director of the astronomical ob- servatory he made many useful studies of various charac- ter some of which he made public in a special periodical El Semanario de la Nueva Granada. To this journal many contributed both scientific articles and even verses. And it was this little group of lovers of science who first conspired against the hegemony of Spain. Some of them were sent as prisoners to Spain while others, among them Caldas, met their death from the rifles of a firing party in 1816. THE COLONIAL PERIOD 35 In Ecuador the scientific spirit as cmboclitd in a skillful physician. Dr. Francisco Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espcjo, paid attention to the subject of education. In 1779 he put into clrculatTon liTs Nuevo Luciano despertador de ini^enxos. It was a critical satire in dialogue form which exposed the evils of the prevailing system of education. Later Dr. Espejo satirized personally the Spanish colonial "minister, an exploit which cost him a year in prison and banishment to Bogota. There his writings assisted in preparing the revolution. In Peru science was fostered by the viceroy Francisco Gil de Taboada, who had been an admiral in the Spanish navj-. He permitted the establishment of a society "Los Amantes del Pais^'^and the publication, 1791, of a journal El Mercurio peruana which was mainly devoted t^ scien- tific topics. The editor and most learned contributor was Dr. Hipolito Unanue, professor of medicine in the univer- sity. But the most celebrated literary production of this epoch in Lima was at the opposite pole of seriousness and respectability. The name of the book which has been many times reprinted was Lima por dentro y fuera by "Simon Ayanque," a pseudonym of Esteban de Terralla yXanHa^ ihe author was an Andalusian who eked out a living by writing verses of occasion. In 1792 he published his satire of the types of individuals in Lima. The title- page of the book gives a hint of the levity and even the obscenity of some of its seventeen romances. The eccle- siastical authorities considered suppressing it but such action was not necessary to complete its popularity. Its literary value, even as a provocative to laughter, has been 36 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA unanimously denied by critics, but its ready sale both to " contemporaries and to later generations, especial ly in a cer tain edition embellished by colored d rawings, testifies to an element of truth in its portraiture . Satire of the authorities was about the only method f' by which discontent at this time could express itselF. In Chile a mock epic La Tucapelina, which for the personal safety of its author circulated in manuscript, burlesqued the captain general and his deputies for their part in the restoration of a church at Tucapel in 1783. This poem and certain others descriptive of disasters in Chile seem now at least to echo rumblings of the approaching storm of revolution. Across the Andes from Chile on the shores of the Atlantic the eighteenth century witnessed the rapid growth of the commerce of Buenos Aires. In 1776 thejvast re£ ion now Tcnown as Argentina including most of modem Bolivia was established as a vTceroyaTty. Tdjuan^ose Vertiz, I viceroy from 1778 to 1784, the city of Buenos Aires owed its first steps in transition from a wretched town to a modem capital. He founded all manner of public works, a system of street lighting, a college, a hospital, an orphan asylum, and even a theater. For the benefit of the orphan asylum he established a printing press so that the first book printed in Buenos Aires dates from his administra- tion. As the first rector of his new Cole gio de San Carl^S; Vertiz a ppointed Juan Baltasar Maziel (1727-88) , an ecclesiastic of liberal tendencies and wide reading ow ning the best library of the city. Maziel was an interesting personality who wl^ote much in prose and verse. Two THE COLONIAL PERIOD 37 satirical sonnets of his brought him into conflict with a subsequent viceroy, the Marques de Loreto, who sum- marily seized his person and transported him to Mon- tevideo. Maziel died before the news of his own vin- dication by the Spanish king's order reached America. About Maziel there sprang up a Hterary circle. His friend and defender in fhe COnrroversy over the sonnets Manuel Jose de Labardcn (1754-1809) was a man of unusual literary ability. His claims on fame are two, an ode .41 Parana, and a play Siripo, both the more remarkable as anticipating subsequent Argentine litera- ture. The verses descriptive of the great river penetrating far to the interior were the first about the landscape from which so many later poets drew their inspiration. Siripo __ is a play treating the relations of the white men and the aborigines. It breathes of the pampa. The life of the pampa in the form of gaucho poetry makes the originality of Argentine verses and plays. The stor>'^ of Siripo, drawnfrom an early chronicle. was frequently rehandled by others. A young white woman, Lucia Miranda, in a raid on the settlements, was taken captive by the cacique Siripo. Her husband joined her in captivity. Siripo condemned him to death but offered him his life on condition that he marry into the tribe while Lucia became Siripo's bride. The pair refuse. Their faithfulness to each other so exasperated the savage that he had them put cruelly to death. This drama was first repre sented in the carnival of 1789 and immediately brought its author renown. The ^ay had been long written however for Xabarden read some of the scenes at Maziel's house. Moreover, in his 38 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA youth Labarden had been a student at Chuquisaca in upper Peru where he was on intimate terms with Valdes, the discoverer or author of the Quechua drama Ollantd. In Valdes' small collection of dramatic books Labarden had his only opportunity to learn the dramatic art. And it is possible that Valdes' reading of Ollantd gave Labar- den the idea of writing Siripo. Labarden's ode Al Parana embellished the first number of the first periodical printed in Buenos Aires, April i, 1801, El Telegrafo mercantil rural politico, economico, e historibgrafo del Rio de la Plata. An outlet for the thoughts of the restless spirits whose education had been acquired in Vertiz' Colegio de San Carlos was thus supplied. After a year's successful publication its suppression was caused by the satires of a festive versifier. But the ground was prepared. Other papers followed. The means of pub- licity and the ability to write were at hand when in the firsird^cade~bf the mnete'ehth cenTury the idea of revolu- troif spread abroad in this part of America which first — sttccessfntty^sserted its independence from Spain. CHAPTKR II THE REVOLUTIONARY PKRIOD The literature of the revolutionary period sprang di- rectlv from the hearts oTlnen, a^terature oToccasioirTn- spired by the hopes and aspirations of the colomaTs or the events of their warfare against the mother country. To comprehend its meaning then one must foITow Its produc- i tion step by step under the stress'of the mighty struggle. Its forms were often rude and uncouth b ecause literar y models within reach of the writers were few. In Chile for example Camilo Henriquez patterned his verses on a single volume of the poems of Tomas Iriarte, the only book of poetr>' which he could find in Santiago. The scarcity of books in Spanish America was due in part to the ob- scurantist-pohcy oF tlie Spanish government. In the reign of Carlos IV, when a question arose concerning the chair of mathematics in the University of Caracas the king abruptly dismissed the matter by the dictum, "It is not expedient to educate the Americans." Education had fallen to a low plane in Spain itself so that the state of culture in the motRer country was naturally reflected in the colonies. The lack of books was aggravated by the scarcity of printmg presses. Though printing presses were set up in Lima and Mexico in t he sixteenth century, there were , none in Havana before 1787 nor in Chile before 181 1. To 39 40 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Venezuela the first press was brought by General Miranda in 1806 as a weapon to spread the propaganda of revolt. Moreover, the importation of books was opposed by the authorities who believed them to be agents of sedittonr^ In 1797 the royal audiencia of Venezuela, reporting on tEe revolutionary fiasco of that year, noted as one of the causes, "the introduction of papers from the foreign islands and the old world in spite of the vigilance of the author- ities." But an interesting light is thrown on the quality of their vigilance or their intelligence by an anecdote con- cerning an importation of books into Chile, A set of such < pernicious writings as the works of the French Ency- clopedists was successfully passed through the customs by the simple expedient of affixing to the volumes theological titles. The friction between Spain and her colonies had its roots in the disposition of the government to exploit the new world for the benefit both economically and a dmin-, ■ istratively of t he old. The Spaniards assumed and main- tained a monopoly of the trade with the colonies. The latter were compelled to buy only Spanish goods or goods brought in Spanish ships. In the matter of administration immigrants direct from Spain were favore d over the chil- dren of the second generation who were known as creoles^- (criollos). In fact tfie latter were g enerally excluded fro m office holding. Spaniijh officiaTs^ere forbidde n to marry daughters of the cfeokr^ — If'sornetimes royal favor lifted^ the ban, the lucky couple were transferred to another dis- trict than that of the bride's residence. Political disabil- ities had quite as much influence in preparing the colonia l mind for revolt as the economic restrictions. IHF RKVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 41 The form t)f tjovcriimtnt wliicli the rcbcMious colonies set up was that of a democracy. Biit fundamentally their governments were oligarchic. A league o\ taniilies m each countr)' maintained in varying degrees the colonial system in which the great body of the people had little part. The years of turmoil, not yet ended in some countries, which followed the separation from Spain denote the struggle of the crow^ t^ wTn its sharelrTthe government. The distress and confusion in Spain caused by the ''Napoleonic invasion brought the colonials their opportu- nity. Th e condition of affairs was first made clear to America by the English attempt in 1806 to seize and hold ' thejcity of Buenos Aires. On account of the relations be- tween France and Spain at that time, the captain general of the provinces of the river Plate was a Frenchman by the name of Jacques de Liniers. Though the English landed a body of troops under General William Beresford, and occupied the city, Liniers organized a large volunteer force which, ably seconding his few regular soldiers, suc- ceeded in compelling the surrender of the invaders. The next year another English expeditionary army under General Whitelock met a similar fate after severe figjhting in the streets of the city. ,,r^ '^^ This successful defense of Buenos Aire? had a remark- able effect on the minds of the citizens. In the first place it made tTiem conscious of their collective strength. In the second place the innumerable ballad5-an4-V£j:5es;which appeared Tn 'print extolling their deeds of valor filled their spirits with truculence and their imaginations with visions of glory. When the occasion offered in iSio they were ready'to see tnem realized in a hght against Spairu 42 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA The title "poet of the English invasions" has been con- ferred on Pantaleon kivarola (Yf^^-'iiiii). But~ the ppetic worth ot his compositions like those of Jose Prego de Uliver, l^ray Cayetano Rodriguez, and many othe r balladists, is slight. Rivarola's longest effort, Romance heroico de la Reconquista, was written for recitation to the accompaniment of the guitar, but it was a very prosaic detailed account of the fighting. Greater artistic merit may be claimed for the Triunfo Argentina of Vicente L5pez y Planes (i 784-1 856) who served as captain in a famous company called "Los Patricios." This ballad~has vigor of movement and at times almost epic interest. Lopez' , celebrity rests however on his national hymn adopted as such by the national assembly in 1813. Ihe part played by the volunteers from Montevideo in retaking Buenos Aires from the English was set forth in an allegorical drama, La Lealtad 7nas acendrada y Buenos Aires vengada, by Juan Francisco Martinez, a native of Uruguay. The two cities are represented as nymphs dwelling in a forest. Montevideo, inspired and protected by Mars, undertakes the rescue of Buenos Aires from Neptune, the protector of the English. For his part in the defense of Buenos Aires, Liniers was appointed viceroy. When Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Joseph became king ot bpain, 1808, a revolt against the French broke out with violenceTn alt Spam. Fhe na- tionalist party wished to restore Ferdinand VII to power. In America riots occurred in the principal capitals and a "junta" or committee of citizens attempt ed to take over the powers of government "in the name of Ferdinand VIL" These juntas were patterned after the central I -. \- i TIIK REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 43 junta of Scvilla which was managing the rcbclhun in Spain. Consequently when^t fell to pieces in 1810 the American junt.is w .n It Tr as it were hanging Tn the air. In Buenos Aires the situation was met hy the~gTn an armed assembly. Liniers had been superseded as vice- roy ^y^BaTtasar^FX'isneros and a party in the assembly wished to make him president. This movement was de- feated, and Cisneros withdrew to Montevideo. Henceforth the assembly ruled. The date of its first meeting, May 25th, has since been regarded as the Argentine national holiday. One of the assembly's first acts, June 7th, iSio, was the establisnment of a semiweekly official journal, La Gaceta de Buenos Aires. The director of this organ was also the secretary of the junta, Mariano Moreno (1778-1811). To the projects of this ardent democrat and the articles by which he urged them, the cause of the revolution in Argentina was greatly indebted. He brought about the establishment of the national library for which J. B. Maziel's books formed a nucleus. In the name also of liberty of thought he effected the establishment of a school of mathematics partly for training officers for the army. Finally as the Argentine people were preparing for na- tiohal defense, he was sent on a diplomatic mission to England with full powers to conclude any international arrangement. But his feeb le health broke down en route and he died at sea. Preparation for the armed defense of Buenos Aires was largely entrusted to Manuel Belgrano (1770-1820). Rally- ing the young men under the colors sky-blue and white, now those of the Argentine flag, he made ready to meet the Spanish army advancing from Upper Peru. At the 44 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA same time there was danger from the forces in Montevideo though the gaucho leader Artigas was besieging the city on the landward side assisted at sea by a daredevil Irish- man, William Brown, in command of a few poor ships. Belgrano advanced to Tucuman, about eight hundred miles northwest of Buenos Aires. He had collected a goodly body of gauchos who on the day of the fight broke the strength of the Spanish army. Occurring in Septem- ber, 1812, this battle resulted in such a victory that Buenos Aires was never again seriously threatened by a Spanish army. Belgrano proceeded toward Upper Peru but a year later was caught at a disadvantage and completely defeated in October of 1813. On his return to the city he was sent to Spain to try to arrange a settlement on the basis of autonomy for Argentina, but the Spanish govern- ment rejected his suggestions. On July 9th, 1816, a congress of the Argentine provinces in session at i'ucuman formally declared themseK'es in dependent of Spain. B el- grano's services have nev er been forgotten by the Arg en-_ tines. And a young poet, Juan C. Lafinur, who left the university to enlist in Belgrano's army, won fame for _ himself by certain elegies which he wr ote at the time of ^ the leader's death . The student of the revolution m ust not forget thag^ everywhere existe d^ active pa rtisans o f Spanish interes ts. These loyalists had to be persuaded either by force or by rhetoric to join the revolution^ To som e the appeal w as made through the press; to others by speeches in public meetings, by verses and patriotic songs. In Buenos Aires the poets vied with each other m writing a national anthem. Esteban de Luca, t ray Cayetano Rodriguez i TUF. REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 45 and \ iccnto Lopez y IMaius, each produced one which for a season enjoyed popularity. But in 18 13 the national congress of which Lopez y Planes was a member, decreed that his "Martha patriot ica should be sunp at all official festivals and that at dawn of the anniversaries of the 25th of May, the school children should meet in the public town square to salute the rising sun with the national anthem. " Beginning with the clarion call, Old, mortales, el grito sagrado, Libertad, libertad, libertad! the song sought to arouse hatre d of the oppressor and especially of certain leaders of the Spanish army, who, havmg been ^rn in America, were called "vile." "^rh^ several strophes were packed with allusions to recent events^ In this close touch with reality the Argentine national anthem differed from those of other countries largely compostd of abstract c ommonplace s! Certain phrases, such as "a new and glorious nation," "a lion bowed at her feet," and thq term "argentine" recurring several times, caught the popular fancy. People had printed on their visiting cards designs to represent these notions. Its expressions of hatred for Spaniards were so ferocious that late in the nineteenth century, after futile ertorts to substitute a milder hymn, the president o\ the republic decreed that only the hrst and last quatrains and the chorus which were free of offense should be sung at public celebrations. Its author, Lopez y Planes, at- t alncd political prominence and la te \n life provisional president of Argentina. 46 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA The fierce hatred of the rebelling colonials has always been resented by Spaniards as unjiist. 1 hey have speciaTTy ridiculed the colonial tendency to identity their own cause with that of the aborigines. Plow c^iT" the descendants " ~bf SpantslTcon'quistadores refer to themselves, even in outbursts of patriotic song, as sons of the Inca ? Though there is much sense in the Spanish point of view, yet the power of the appe al is evid ent. So thorough a student of Spanish-American history as Clements R. Markham, referring to the uprising of the Indians of Peru in 1780, says, — "From the cruel death of the last of the Incas may be dated the rise of that feeling which ended in the expulsion of the Spaniard[s^ from Sout h America." This historical event is known as the rebellion of Tupac Amaru. It will be remembered that after the Spaniards "" had thoroughly established their power in Peru, they made some slight provision Ior~the welfare of the natives. A school, tlieCoTegio de San Borja, for the Chrtstian education of their young princes was opened in Cuzco. But the claimants to the throne of the Incas were cruelly treated. 1171571 the viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, second son of the Marques de Oropesa, with the idea of stifling any future attempt on the part of the natives to rally s around the person of an Inca, put to death on slight pre- text the eighteen-year-old boy, Tupac Amaru, then t ti&. acknowledged head of the royal house. -But one of the viceroy's own relatives married an Inca princessT A3e- scendant of theirs in 1770, who had been educated in the- ^ Colegio de^an Borja, successfully prosecuted his claim, - to'The nva«jttts»tc-of Oropesa~befbre the royaf audiencia , of lU m a, which atThe^same time recognized him as the nil RKVOLUTIONARY PKRIOU 47 httli in lineal descent from tlie I nea 1 upac Ama ru. Join- ing the prestige of this name which he assumed to that of his Spanish title, the new Inca set to work to bring about better conditions for the Indian population in Peru, Having exhausted duruig ten years of effort all legal means to attain his object, heTtirred up t he Indians to armed resistance. Their temporarily successful revolt soon met with defeat at the hands of the Spanish army. Not only was the Inca captured and cruelly executed but Indians everywhere were relentlessly hunted down. Including their reprisals on isolated white settlers and their own slaughter, no less than 8o,ocx) people are said to have perishe^^ The otor>' of this dreadful affair was undoubtedly used for political effect during the colonial struggle against Spain. An Argentine historian, Gregorio Funes (1749- 1829) was the first to write a detailed account including it in his Ensayo de la Historia civil de Buenos Aires, Tucu- mdn y Paraguay. The three volumes of this history published in 18 16 and 1817 must be recognized as a schol- ar's effort to assist the revolutionary propaganda. Like Tacitus whom he took for a model Funes emphasized the errors of the government and the crimes of its agents. His story of the period p recedin g the re Yolution^is brought ,/to a climax with the rebellion of Tupac Amaru. FrTthe dedication, "A la Patria," Funes says: "The day was to arrive at last when the love of country would not be a crime. Under the old regime thought was a slave and the soul of the citizen did not belong to him. The scene was changed. We are now free men. The country demands its rights now from the beings it protects. . . . 48 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA As for me I dedicate to it the insipid fruit of this histor- ical essay. At least it has the advantage of calling its ravagers to judgment. . . . Moreover the tyranny and the actions of those who have governed us will serve as documents to enable us to discriminate between the good and the bad and to choose the best." Funes wa s born in the town of Cordoba, where is located the third oldest university in America. Besides attending its courses he was educated in Spain. Before his return to America, Carlos III appointed him a canon in the cathedral of Cordoba, of which he later became dean. Residing in his native town in 1810, he was one of the first to adopt the principles of the revolution. His fellow townsmen sent him to represent them in the first national assembly held in Buenos Aires. For a short time after the retirement of Mariano Moreno, Funes was editor of" the Gaceta. I It was then that the idea occurred to him of writing his history. Despite its political purpose the work merits serious consideration as a history of the colonial period of the Argentine provinces. Its vigorous well-writteii ' prose makes it a worthy first of the long series of histories which form a leading characteristic of Argentine literature in the nineteenth century. The Gaceta continued to be the chief means of voicing revolutionary aspirations, referred to collectively as the "dogma de Mayo." After Funes' brief editorship, its columns fulminated with the writings of Bernardo""^^ Monteagudo (?— 1825), one of t fiie extraordinary per son- alities of the revolution in Spanish America. Of brilliant mind though of humble birth he was so vehement a revolu-v^ rni: rkvolutionarv period 49 tionist that he had hitn condeiiined to death and t'scapcd the penalty five tinus hefore I Si 2. His articles in the Gaceta preached alisolute social etiualiry and the rights of man. To further his ideas he founded the "Sociedad I'atriotica." But his doctrines were not pleasing to the so-called t riumvirate which ruled the city, so t hey put a stop to the publication of the Gaceta. Monteagudo per- sisted In Ills utterances by starting a periodical of his ownr^^ Martir o librc, in which his expressions were even more violently extreme in favor of the "dogma de Mayo." Finally he was driven from Buenos Aires. During the years of the armed struggle he took part in the military operations m Lhile. By 1821 he was in Peru in charge of the department of war. Again his writings preached liberty. Again he founded a Sociedad Patriotica to move a people sluggish to adopt revolutionary principles. After the final success of the revolution, Monteagudo died in Lirria by an unknown assassin's hand. His writings con- sisting of articles and fiery speeches have been collected. His Memorias give interesting details of his unusual career, and a vivid picture of the times. Contemporaneous with affairs in Argentina similar events were talcing place in Chile. T he interests of these neighboring countries have always Been closely connected. ^Each has served a t some time as a refuge for the political exiles of the other. And as the exiles have either been journalists or have taken up jou rnalis m as a means of support, their literatures have exerted a reciprocal in- fluence. The example of Buenos Aires in assuming the preroga- tives of government m May, i8lO,~wa s foITowed in Chile 50 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA by the establishment of a similar junta to govern in the name of Fernando VII.. The date ot its proclam ation, September i8th, has since been considered the national holiday of Chile. The military situation was ^ected~by threFlsfofliers Ey the name of Carrera, who corrupted the troops in garrison at Concepcion. The first congress assembled in iSii. In April of that year occurred a royalist insurrection in Santi ago. During the st reet fighting there appeared, encoura ging the colonial soldiers, a friarTCamilo Henriquez (1769-1825), who was destined to be the most prominent person to support the war on the mtellectual side. In the fight he was doubly conspicuous ■ b5r~feason of his garb unknown in Chile, a black gown decorated with a red cross on the left side of the breast. Though born a Chilean he had been sent to Peru to b e educated by the friars of La Buena Muerte, an ^rder which he entere d. His militant action of April, Hen riq uez justified in a sermon on the a nniversary of North Am erican independence, July 4th, 181 1. I This sermon was such an able argument in favor of the revolution that even in Duenus Aire s - ii was u ideie d printed for distribution. The mental attitude of such a large portion of the better^'eTernentii of the people, espe= — ciaily of the clergy, was so opposed to the revolution that Henriquez' determined stand in favor of it possessed great importance. AsThe intellectual champion of his party he was made the"editor ot the periodical, the Aurora de (j/iile^'' established as its organ! 1 he first number appea re^~oh February 13th, 1812. On July 4th, Henriquez uttered from its columns the first cry for independence in these words: 1HI RE VOLUTION AkV PKRIOD 51 "Let us bigin in C'luli- l\v ilftlaiing our independence. That alone can blot out the name of iiluis which tyranny gives us. That alone can raise us to the dignity which belongs to us, give us alliances among the powers and impose respect on our enemies: and if we treat with them, it will be with the majesty proper to a nation. Let us take in short this indispensable step. Uncertainty causes our weakness and exposes us to disorders and dangers." On the same date at a dinner given by the consul of the United States, Henriquez read one of the first of his com- positions in verse, a Ilimno patridtico. From that time he endeavored to persuade by similar means, celebrating each victory over the Spanish arms by appropriate verses. In this he w as joined by a man of som e what greater literary ability, Bernardo de \'era y Pintado (1780-1827). To- gether on the occasion of the public rejoicin g at the victory of Jose Miguel Carrera over the first army sent to Chile ■by the viceroy of Peru, Henriquez and De Vera, wearing I i be rt y caps, sang in duet one of thei r original composi- tions. De Vera, an Argentine by birth, had come to Chile_iQ. attend the Uni versity of Chile and had remained th e re as a practicing lawyer. At the very beginning of politica l unrest he had sprung into public notice because, previous to the establishment of the jurita, he had been seizedT)y the authorities and ordered for trial to Lima on a vessel waiting for him In the harbor of Valparaiso. Before his deportation, however, the revolutionary junta was estab- lished in Santiago. The mob assailed the prison where De Vera lay and releasing him escorted him in triumph through the streets. De Vera was then appointed secre * 52. LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA tary of the junta. He was ass ocia ted also with Henriquez in the editing of the Aurora de Chile . Throughout his life he continued to be politically prominent. His most important literary work was the n ational hymn of Chi le which he wrote in 1819. The first quatrain, expressing the idea that Chile would be either the tomb of the free or a refuge against oppression, was used as a refrain after each stanza. In 1847 it was felt that the sentiments of this hymn were too extreme and another national hymn was adopted in its place, though De Vera's hymn may still be heard at patriotic celebrations. Toward the end of 18 13 the military situation began to look black for the revolutionaries. Belgrano's Argentine army had been annihilated in upper Peru. A second Spanish army sent from Lima completely worsted the Chileans under Bernardo O'Higgins and Carrera at Rancagua on October 12th, 1814. A harsh period for patriots followed this reconquest of Chile. Those who escaped with their lives took refuge in Argentina. Henri- quez went to Buenos Aires where he took a prominent part in a literary movement along dramatic lines which was going on there. O'Higgins and others joined a new patriot army then drilling beyond the Andes. This army was the creatio n of Jose de San M artin ( 1 778-1 850). To his genius and hard work South America "owes its mdependence. The son of a captain in the Spanish army stationed in Argentina, Jose had been taken to Spain at the age of eight for a military education. In the Spanish war for liberation from the domination of the French, he distinguished himself at the battle of Bailen and won the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 181 2 he was k THE REVOLUTIONAKV I'l.KlUU 53 induced by Carlos dc Alvcar, likewise of Argentine birth but belonging to a wealthy family of Buenos Aires, to accompany him to the land of his birth. On their arrival both assumed positions of prominence. San Martin was given command of a regiment of cavalry which speedily showed its mettle by beating a Spanish detachment. After Belgrano's defeat San Martin was put in geneial command of the Argentine army. He established a camp at Mendoza" on the Argentine side of the Andes in September, 18 14. Wjthout confiding to anybody his ultimate purpose Tie" succeeded m two years ir T col l ecting an army of four thousand men thoroughly equipped with arms, provisions ' and means of transport. Larly m 1817, this army began its passage of the Andes, a military feat which surpasses any similar thing m history. Napoleon's crossing of the Great St. Bernard is renowned; but this pass has an altitude of 7963 feet whereas that of the Andes lies at I2,7CX) feet above the sea with a steep descent of 10,000 feet to the plains of Chile. At such a height both man and beast suffer from the terrible moun- tain sickness to which many succumb. The Spanish forces in Chile were awaiting San Martin's army but by means of false reports he succeeded so well in keeping them in ignorance of his intended way of approach that his men were clear of the loftier mountains before the first clash of arms. The main battle occurred on February 12th, 181 7, at the passTirClTacaFuco] O'Higgins in command of tlie Chilean contingent carried out a flanking movement so that the result of the battle was the complete destruction of the Spanish army. Within forty-eight hours San Martin RaJ entered Santiago. The dictatorship of the country, 54 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA which was offered him, was finally conferred on O'Higgins. And the absolute inHe pendence ot L'hile trom Spain was proclaimed The next year the Spaniards made a supreme effort to regain Chile! An army of veterans was sent from Lima." At the first contact with the patriots at Cancha Rayada they were victorious. But San Martin rallied the fugitives on his reserves. Op April i;th, 1818, was f ought the battle of Maipu which terminated Spanish power in Chile. ySan Martin saw, however, the danger threatening Amer- ^ ican independence so long as the viceroy at Lima remained in authority. Moreover tlie ting of Spain was collectmg a vast army at Cadiz for an attack on tJuenos Aires. After "^ 1 the Argentine declaration of independence at Tucuman in •* 1816, the administrative control of the countr}^ had been ^ y .largely in the hands of Juan Martin de Pueyrredon, but / civil war had~broken ou t and was paralyzing the count ry. Nevertheless San Martin set to work to provide a navy and | , "transport ships for the purpose of assailing the viceroy in '| Periir In this~eHort he found invaluable assistance in Lord Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, an officer with a brilliant record in the English navy but temporarily in disgrace with the admiralty. Lord Cochrane's fleet set sail with the combined Chilean and Argentine army on August 2ist, 1820. His first exploit was a surprise attack with small boats on the largest Spanish vessel, the forty- four gun frigate, "Esmeralda." His boarding party cut her out at night from beneath the very guns of the forts at Callao and added her to his own fleet. The army was landed from the transports and, with but little fighting because the Spaniards withdrew into the mountains. I THK RKVOLUTIONARY PKRIOD 55 entered I.inia. S.in M.utin organizcil a civil government and thTTnHependence brPeru was procTatnTgd-efr^^ivL ^th." 1 821. The Spanish army under the viceroy Jose de la Serna, some twenty thousa nd men, had not however been dTs-~~~ posed of but was still capable of vigorous resistance. The honor of accomplishing its destruction was reserved for one whose name Ts even more famous in South American annaTs, the LiberatorTISImoiv Bolivar'. B ut before dis- cussing his military career it will be advisable to consider the echoes in literature of these stirring events. The only Peruvian poet whose name was connected with the revolution was Mariano Melgar (i79i-i§T5^T~ and^lie was not of Lima but of the provincial capital ArequTpa. He was a teacber oF mathematics In the local university and joined the corps of artillery among other Spaniards who associated themselves with an uprising of the Indian population under the cacique Pumacagua in 1813. General Ramirez operating under the orders of General Joaquin de la Pezuela, at that time facing^ Bel- grano's army, overcame the ill-organized patriot army at the field of Humachiri. Pumacagua was hanged and the white officers including Melgar were shot. After the poet's death his papers were entrusted by his sister to a priest who piously destroyed the poems which he thought of seditious character! One of Melgar's political poems somehow preserved shows the vigor of the young man's mind. The lines depict the colossus ot despotism falling beneath the blows of liberty to the amazement of man- kind! His non-political poems reveal the delicacy of feel- ing of a real poet. They are mainly imitations of popular 56 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA poetry described by the native word "yaravi, " a sort of plaintive love song not dissimilar in form from the Spanish ietnila. Many later poets have tried their hanH^atrrmting "yaravies." In honor of their patriot poet the citizens of Arequipa celebrated the centenary of his birth by erect- ing a statue of him in the public square. In Lima the revolution found but few sympathizers. Consequently the literature shows rather the loyalist" I phase of the situation. The University of San MarcoF FoF example published the poems and speeches delivered upon the occasion of General Pezuela's accession to the viceroyalty in 1816. The victories of the Spanish troops at Rancagua and in Argentina over Belgrano had their panegyrists. But life in Lima flowed on with all its colo- nial nonchalance so that the most characteristic literary I productions were the festive verses of an easy-gomg pnest, Jose Joaquin de Larriva (1780-1832), and his burlesque epic, La Angulada. WTtF equal facility he could preach a sermon in praise of Pezuela in 1816 and eulogize Bolivar in 1826. Other versifiers too there were who maintained the traditional Peruvian love of jeSt. The serious business of the revolution on the other hand continued to occupy all minds in Buenos Aires. A pro- lific versiher ot political events was Fray Cayetano Rod- "nguez'Xi 7^-1 823). His lines, though badly written, at times incafnate^lie spirit of thlH-evol ution of May . Two sonnets of his, Al 25 d7 Mayo, and a national hymn re- tained for a long time their popularity because they ex- pressed a warm enthusiasm for liberty and a love of coun- try. He was one of the first to improvise on the victory of Chacabuco when the news of it reached the city. TFIE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 57 But the poet of greatest merit t o follow in his verses the course ot war w as Esteban de Luca (17H6-1824). His odes A Chacabuco, ~At Tnunfo del Fice Almirante Lord Cochrane, Canto Lirico a la Libertad de LimOy all brought him praise. The last was especially rewarded by a gift of books presented by the government. Some- what different was his Al Pueblo de Buenos Aires, in which he exhorted the citizens to leave the town and devote their time to agriculture and the raising of cattle and horses. Beside being a poet Luca was an e xpert mathematician and metallurgist. As such he served his country in direct- ing the cannon foundry which provided Argentina with artiller>'. He lost his life in a shipwreck i n the Rio de la Plata. TTiTs circumstance is commemorated by the greatest of Argentine poets, Andrade, in his Arpa per- dida, of which tKe last stanza feigns that travelers may hear on quiet nights the sound of the forgotten poet's lyre. The practice of writing patri otic poems was fost ered by the custom pre vailing in Buenos Aires of reciting them at evening parties. Two collections were printed, La Lira argentina, 1821, and Poesias patribticas, 1822, the second by order of the government. The first includes compositions written during the English invasion, un- fortunately without names of the authors. More useful to the student of literature is a collection printed in the Revista de Derecho, Ilistoria y Letras, in 1898 and the following years with the title Cancionero popular. A characteristic of style, common to all the poems, a sup- posed embellishment but to modem taste a grave dis- figurement, is the introduction of classical allusions or a 58 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA mythological machinery, Greek gods in South America, a last sigh of Gongorism. I The mythological machinery was even more in evidence in plays ot the period. The desire tor dramatic enter^ tainment excited by the recitation of patriotic verses was satisfi ed by the organization o f a" society , "LaH Sociedad del Buen Gusto," for the purpose of fostering the drama. The first meeting was held in July, 1817. Among the twenty-eight members were Lopez y Planes, De Luca, and the Chilean refugee Camilo Henriquez. Colonel Juan Ramon Rojas was the managing director. The plays produced were either originals by the members of the society or translations from French or English because the director pushed his patriotism to the extreme of re- fusing to admit to the stage plays written by Spaniards. Rojas himself wrote the first drama given, Cornelia Beror- quia, a tragedy of a young innocent girl condemned by the full tribunal of the inquisition. The scandal in Buenos Aires was tremendous. One lady who attended when asked about the play, said, — "To-night we cannot doubt that San Martin has passed the Andes and triumphed over the Spaniards in Chile." Camilo Henriquez contributed his Camila la patriota de Suid America. As this play was printed in a little vDi*--^ ume, now a bibliographical rarity, it i s possible to le arn muchTatout the sentiments and ideas of the period. THe"^ action of the drama takes place on the banks of the river Maranon a few months after the slaughter of the patriots of Quito. A family has fallen into the hands of an Indian chief who declares that the daughter Camila must become the bride of his prime minister. Camila objects because THK RKVOLLTIONARY PF.RIOD 51) she holds dear the memory of her husl>.ind Diego, one of the patriots fallen as she supposes by the hand of Span- ish murderers. The cacique insists on the marriage. When the so-called prime minister is presented, the whole aftair proves to be a huge joke for the prime minister is no other than Diego. The chief purpose of the drama is to serve as a vehicle for Henriquez* ideas on education | and tolerance in religion. He praises the Lancaster method of instruction as obviously advantageous. He lauds the industry and righteousness of the Quakers though "the burners hate them and would like to bum them all; per- verse men have made the king of Spain believe that the burners are the pillars of his throne." A paper which the cacique hands his prime minister contains Henriquez' own program for the w^elfare of South America. "First: to remedy the depopulation of America and its backward condition in arts and agriculture, it is necessary to attract immigration by impartial, tolerant and paternal laws. Second: if America does not forget its Spanish prejudices and adopt more liberal principles, it will never escape from the rule of a Spain beyond the seas, wretched and obscure as European Spain." Henriquez' tolerant religious principles were to bring him tTie wrath of the clerical party after his return to ChUe^ When his friends Bernardo O'Higgins and De Vera became influential, the one dictator, the other his secretary, tliey started a movement to invite Henriquez to Chile raising funds fo r his repatriation by popular Subscription^ There came with him Juan Crisostomo Lafinur (i 797- 1 S24) who had been an intimate friend and acquaintance of his in Buenos Aires. Together they 6o LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA immediately began in the press the propaganda of their liberal ideas. -iJut their attempts at retorm came to naught tor fhey met violent opp osition from the clergy. The latter were fortuitously assisted by a disastrous earthquake, called by them an act of God, a demon- stration of His anger at the impiety of the men encouraged by the dictator O'Higgins. Lafinur died during the struggle as the result of a fall from his horse. He has a place in the history of Argentine literature by reason of his elegies on General Belgrano at the time of the latter's death in 1820. Though other specimens of his verse exist the three elegies so exalt the love of country that they keep alive the author's name. Conditions in Buenos Aires about 1820 have been disclosed from a unique point of view in the dialogues of Tnfreras written by BartolomeTIidalgo (1787-?). I Jacinto Chano, the overseer of a cattle ranch, converses with his friend the gaucho Ramon Contreras. The latter reviews somewhat pessimistically the advantages gained by the revolution. The poor still remain poor, though a few men in power are able to "spend money like rice." Chano says he has learned that before the law, he is the equal of any man. "Yes," replies Contreras, "but there are difficulties in the practice," and relates the contrast in the punishment of a rich man guilty of a notorious crime and that of a poor gaucho who for some trivial offense received the limit of the law. The ironical vein maintained in the description of certain civic events"i>* delightful. Hidalgo's poems were a written imitation of the type of improvisation popular throughout Argentin a. The cust om THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 6i brought from Andalusia of ballad recitation hy an adept,. or "payador," who, lightly strumming his guitar, begins "to improvise in eight s\ H.ihKcl lines a narrative of some recent occurrence with original comments developed more widely on the pampas tha n elsewhere. T he first to imitate in writing this popular poetry was J. B. Maziel in a ballad praising the viceroy's military exploits. Be- fore Hidalgo it was used by Juan Gualberto Godoy (1 793-1 824) for political purposes. He kept a store far out on the plains where he is said to have sold verses to local payadores and published a paper El Eco de los Andes with satirical poems in gaucho style. But Godoy's work remained unknown till latar writers made the gaucho tj'pe of verse one of the most original and entertammg features of Argentme literature. Despite the importance of the victories won in the south by San Martin, the ultimate indeperidence or~t5otittT- America was due to the~assistance which came to hirrT from the north. In large measure was it due also to San Martin's noble-min de d and unselfish patriotisnTTTa re in Spanish- American annals, which prompted him to self- ettacement when that seemed the best course. Wh en only his own withdrawal from the scene of active operations would assure the participation of Bolivar and his troops in destroying the Spanish army under the viceroy La bema, the generous San Martin stood aside and even exiled himself from America. Simon Bolivar (17S3-1830) was the greatest military arid pohti cal genius which the revolution "Tn Spanish America produced. Though a wealthy landowner, he made common cause with the uprising in Caracas, V'cnc- I 62 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA zuela, in April, 18 10. Bolivar, Luis Lopez Mendez, and Andres Bello were despatched as commissioners to se- cure the sympathy and material aid of Great Britain. Bolivar's stay was short for he returned to Venezuela to serve in the army of General Miranda which was de- fending the country from the Spanish forces. The latter were successful in putting down the rebellion. Bolivar fled while Miranda was taken prisoner and sent to Spain. Bolivar then organized another army in Nueva Granada and fought his way to Caracas which he entered on Au- gust 4th, 1 813. The Spaniards, however, again won the upper hand. In the bloody guerilla warfare which fol- lowed, the patriots accomplished little for several years. In 1 8 19, however, a foreign legion of 2000 trained soldiers, mostly Irishmen, joined Bolivar. He learned that the Spanish soldiers in Bogota were to march to join those in Venezuela. By a brilliant manoeuvre, Bolivar led his men over the windswept lofty paramo and effected a union with the patriot army of Nueva Granada. He gave battle to th e Spa niards at Boyac a on August 7t h , 18 19, and destroyed their army. After his return to Venezuela Bolivar brought about the passage of a law by the revolu- tionary legislature erecting Venezuela andT^ueva Granada into the Republic of Colombia of which he was to be presi- dent i^ "Turning then his atten tion to the ^amshlorces re- maining in Venezuela, he broke them at the battle of Carabobo, June 24th, 1821. There now remained in South America only that^panish army which had retreated from Lima at the approach of San Martin's forces. liolivar marched south by way of Popayan. Successful in taking Quito in June, 1822, he added that province to THK RIAOLL llONAkV I'KRIOD 63 his new Republic of Colombia. The next month there tiH)k pKiee in Cujayaciiiil a famous confirence Listing three clays between Bolivar and San Martin. I he details of this meeting have remained forever secret. But a letter written a month later by San Martin to Bolivar allows one to infer the reasons for San Martin's subse- quent conduct. In it he says, — "My determination is irrevocably fi.xed. I have called the first Congress of Peru for the 20th of next m onth, and on the day after Its opening I shall sail for Chile, convinced t hat my pres- ence is the only obstacle which prevent s your coming t o rPeru with the army under your command." San Martin evidently foresaw a civil war unless h e gave way befo Fe Bolivar's immense personal ambition. For two years the Spanish army avoided contact. On August 26th, 1824, Bolivar won the great victory of Junin. But the final surrender of the Spaniards was not made till December 7th, after the battle of Ayacucho, where the patnot army was commanded b y An tonio Jose de Sucre (i 793- 1 830). The next summ er a gene ral a ssembly of Upper Peru met and declared itself the Re- public of Bolivia. General Sucre was elected the first president. Bolivar's personal fortunes took him back to Caracas from which as his capital h e attempted to administer the Republic of Colombia. Its extent, however, was so vast and Its parts so diverse that after Bolivar^ s death, Sep-" tember 17th, 1830, it split up into the three republicsT" Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nueva Granada. The latter reassumed the same name Colombia in 1861 . ^ Just as Bolivar's greatest campaign against the Span- 64 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ia rds took place in Peru, so it wa s reserved for a nativa of a Peruvian province, now a part of Ec uad or, to com- _ pose the most remarkable poem written about his niiU^ tary success. So excellent is the classical finish of its style that the Spanish critic Menendez y Pelayo refers to Jose Joaquin Olmedo (1780^1847) as, *'one of the three or four great Spanish-American poets, if not the first." Bolivar requested Olmedio to write some verses in cele- bration ot the battles ot Junin and Ayacucho. I n the general's correspondence is found a long letter from Olmedo dated January 31st, 1825, in which the poet says: — "I regret that you recommend me to sing our last triumphs. For a long time I have been revolving that thought in my mind. Junin came and I began my song; I should say I began to form plans. . . . Ayacucho came and I awoke uttering a thunder, (Olmedo here al- ludes to the opening lines of his ode) but I have made little progress. Everything I produce seems poor and inferior to the subject, I erase, tear up, correct; and always it is bad. I have persuaded myself that my muse cannot measure her strength with this giant. I was proud because I expected to make a composition which would bear me with you to immortality but I confess myself downcast." Olmedo did win by his ode the immortality which he craved. Its opening peal of thunder, El trueno horrendo, que en fragor revienta Y sordo retumbando se dilata Por la inflamada esfera, Al Dlos anuncia que en el cielo impera, is an evident paraphrase of Horace's, THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 65 Caclo tonantcm crcdidiinus lovcin rcf;narc: III, 5. Tlie poet then sees and describes the leaders as the battle begins. Suddenly the sword of liolivar appears and eclipses all the warriors as the sun lelipses all the stars. Darkness comes on before the victory is complete; while the soldiers are singing hymns of triumph, a voice calls from on high in the heavens, the voice of the Inca, Huaina-Capac. They behold his illuminated figure as he reveals his personality. After recapitulating the horrors that had occurred on American soil since the conquest, he discloses the progress of the next fight at Ayacucho, de- scribes the place of the battle and names the patriots who will distinguish themselves, especially the leader Sucre. In regard to him Olmedo wrote, "Sucre is a hero, is my friend and deserves an ode for himself; at present enough immortality will fall to his share by being named in an ode dedicated to Bolivar." The Inca continues by praising the new era of peace and prosperity that stands before, but urges on the Amer- icans the ni^ces slty of union "in order to be free and neve r conquered." He is interrupted by the virgins of the sun who intone a hymn beseeching the continued protection of the sun as the ancient god of Peru. On the city of Lima the virgins make demand that she open her gates and receive Bolivar in triumph. At the close of the song the Inca and the virgins disappear behind a golden cloud. As Bolivar was not himself present at the final victory the poet was obliged to connect the two battles in a manner that would not lessen the importance of Bolivar. Yet the means chosen, the apparition of the Inca, has raised a veritable critics' battle. Bolivar himself called 66 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Huaina-Capac "the hero of the poem." Bello praises the poetical device, while Miguel A. Caro ridicules the words of the Inca who exclaims to the assembled patriots, "You are all my children," and his offer to Bolivar as a reward a place in heaven at his own right hand. But Manuel Caiiete sums up the criticisms justly. "We see. Olmedo rise to the clouds borne by inspiration and find accents, if not superior to all, not inferior to any of our best lyric poets, whenever he exclaims what has stirred his heart. But he falls when he leaves the luminous sphere of truth and sinks into the labyrinth of the arti- ficial. The reader, however, forgets the defects of the poem, thanks to the animation, the movement, the sublime inspiration with which the author has succeeded in ex- pressing and developing the idea." The Liberator was evidently satisfied with Olmedo's poem for he named him plenipotentiary of Peru in Londoh, for which city he left Guayaquil on August 5, 1825?" Cafiete thinks it is unjust to Olmedo to attribute his ap-^ pointment entirely to the poem, because Bolivar was a good judge of men and he needed a superior person for Iche mission7~ "" The next year Olmedo published the poem in London and Paris, with the title La Victoria de Juniuy Canto a Bolivar. In regard to it, Olmedo wrote to Bolivar: "The canto is being printed with great elegance. It bears the portrait of the hero; and a medallion reptesenting the apparition and oracle of the Inca in the clouds. The canto needs all these externals in order to appear decently among foreign peoples." It is interesting to note that the plates of the Paris edition are in color and that the por- THF RF.VOIA'TIONARY PKRIOD 67 >on- ktCBCO trait of Bolivar wIiKh Oliiuilo ttrmLcl "iiKilianuini'ntc parecido" is the one which has Ueen most widely /cpro- duced. Olmcdo's sojourn in Europe was divhfefl.Het\ don antfTarTs. Tie tlius came into close Andres Hello and Fernandez Madrid and "" ence with them has been preserved. TK6 forrr?er pub- Iished in the second volume of the Reperlorio AmericanOy Olmedo's poem, ./ un amigo en el naciimeyito de su primo- gentto, as well as a critical notice by jlimself on the ric- torxa de Junin. Olmedo did not, however, long remain in Europe. An intense love for his native province of Guayaquil charac- terized the man and greatly influenced the course of his life. As a student he lived in Lima where he obtained the degree of doctor of law. In iSio, he went to Spain to represent Guayaquil in the Cortes of Cadiz and was one of the members who refused to recognize Fernando VII until he swore to the constitution. Returning to his own country in 1814 he took an active part in political affairs and was elected to the Peruvian constitutional congress of 1S22 in which he advocateda separate establishment for the provinces now known as Ecuador. Therein he was an opponent of Bolivar, but the Liberator's great vic- tories turned him into an ardent admirer. Sent to Europe in 1^25, he returned in 1828. Ecuador became a separate republic in 1830 an d Olmedty^was elected its fir st vice- president, an office which he soon resigned in order to become prefect of Guayaquil as he desir ed to live in that c ity. He continued active in politics until his death in 1847. 68 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA His poems are few in number for the reason that he wrote only when he felt inspired and took great care in iriishT Amuhategui enumerates four translations and ten original compositions. Of the former the most important is a rendering of the first three epistles of Pope's Essay on Man. His first original poem is a Silva a la muerte de Maria Antonia de Borbon, princes a de Asturias, published in Lima, 1807. The poet repre- sents the innocent princess as an expiatory victim chosen by God who is angry at the sins of the Spaniards. As God accepts the sacrifice, the poet urges his avenging angel to announce that God's wrath has been appeased and that the English who were preparing to attack Buenos Aires would be overthrown. As a note to this composi- tion, Olmedo wrote: "Two months after this composi- tion was written, ten thousand English attack the city of Buenos Aires and are beaten and obliged to surrender by its inhabitants." His poem Mi retrato, 181 7, gives us the portrait of a tall thin man with brown hair and eyes, a broad forehead, a large nose of which he is proud because therein he re- sembles the poets Virgil, Homer and Ovid, fine even teeth, a thin beard and a face much pitted from small-pox like the sky with the stars. His acquaintances describe him as agreeable in character with a large fund of knowledge which Olmedo himself ascribed to his own eflForts rather than to his schooling. The grandiloquent rhetoric of the Victoria de Junin was repeated in a poem which Olmedo composed in 1835 to General Flores, Vencedor en Minarica. As sheer rhetoric there are passages which are very fine, for example, the J TUL KLVULLTIONAkV I'1-.KIOD 69 spirited description of the General's horse. As the sub- ject of th»- poem is the victory of a partisan chief, the lines often strike the reader as bombast, especially when the poet urges the lofty peak of Chimborazo, king of the Andes, to bow his head because the victor passes. Juan Jose Flores (1801-64) was not to be outdone in compliments. He also dabbled in verse-making and be- gins his Ocios poi'ticos with the line, i Que vida tan feliz, Omero mio! He stars Omero and explains in a footnote: "Allusion to Olmedo, wherefore the H is suppressed." Another poet to hail Bolivar's victories as worthy of great renown was the Col ombian Jose Fernandez Madrid (1784-1830), already referred to as one of Olmedo's friends in Europe. Some suspect that Fernandez Madrid also owed his appointment as Colombia's minister plen- ipotentiary in London to his laudatory verses in which within the space of ten lines he compared Bolivar to all the great men of antiquity. In another passage the Peruvian Incas, raising their heads from the tomb, joy- fully salute three times the great champion, while the volcanoes Pichincha and Chimborazo roar with indigna- tion at the oppressors of America. Such hyperbolical exaggeration reveals the spirit of the times. Fernandez Madrid played an important role in the revolution m Colombia. A member oT the first revolu- tionary junta organized in Cartagena de las Indias, 1810, he became the leader ot the defense when t he city was_ besieged by the Spaniards. He was also a member of the united provinces of Venezuela and Nueva Granada and 70 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA was named as their president in 1816 during t he low est eBB of their mihtary, fortunes. FalHng into the hands of the Spanish forces, he saved his Hfe by writing to the Spanish general Morillo that he had accepted the pres- idency only in the king's interest. He was ordered de- ported to Spain but, on account of illness, he never went beyond Havana, where he was soon set at liberty. After Bolivar's successful campaigns, Fernandez Madrid again became prominent in politics. As confidential agent of the rep ublic of Colombia he was in fans at the time of his appointment to be her minister in London. In this city he published a volume of his verses, 1828, and two dramas, Atala, based on Chateaubriand's romance of that name, and Guatimoc. These plays are specimens of the enthusiastic attempt at play writing which flourished in Bogota during the revolution. Fernandez Madrid, as a versifier on occasional topics, is fluent and amusing. "Hail, doubly hail, him who invented the hammock," he cries in the refrain to some stanzas in which he sings the advantages of that blessing to humanity. To his friend Andres Bello, he sends some playful lines to accompany a bottle of wine, "a dose of joy," at the baptism of the lat- ter's infant daughter. As a patriotic poet Fernandez Madrid obtains a certain forcefulness by the use of ep- igrammatic balance. He sees Colombia rise from her wounds, "majestic, full of wounds, but victorious; poor but avenged, and independent." Though he execrates the Spaniards for their crimes, yet tie recognizes th ern~ as * brothers in blood and urges a spiritual union between "the Hispanic lion and the American condor." "^^-^ ^Two other Colombians who produced patriotic verses TUF REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 71 worthy of iiKiuion were Jose Maria dc Salazar (1785- 1828)" and Luis Vargas Tcjada ^1802-29). Salazar first exercised his poctic^talcnts in El Placer publico de Santa Fe de Bogota, a complimentary poem to celebrate the arrival of the viceroy in 1S04. In his student days he was one of the first to write original pieces actually pro- duced on the stage in Bogota. His Soliloquio de Eneas and El Sacrificio de Idomeneo materially assisted in the movement to restore the theater in that capital. Joining the revolutionary movement he became conspicuous as the author of the first national hymn of Colombia. Boli- var's victory at Boyaca called forth some stirring lines from his pen, for which Bolivar later rewarded him by ap- pointment as the Colombian minister in Paris. Luis Vargas Tejada was called by his fellow country- men their Andre Chenier on account of the violence of his sentiments on liberty. These were expressed in tragedies written for the stage in Bogota and especially in the tragic monologues Caton en Utica and La Muerte de Pausanias. The youthful poet thought to turn his fanatic politics into action by joining a conspiracy to assassinate Bolivar. He escaped the fate of his fellow conspirators by hiding in a cave for fourteen months. As he died insane from this experience a tragic interest was added to his poetical work. Though Bolivar's exploits inspired so many patriotic lines, yet m his own country, Venezuela, there was little literary response to them. In fact conditions there were distinctly unfavorable to literary enterprise. Not only was the capital Caracas frequently the headqua rters of the Spanish army, but the war w as wag ed with absorbing and merciless bitterness throu ghout the countr y. Ven- 72 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ezuela was, however, the birthplace of the greatest_of all Spanish-American Hterary men, Andres Bello (1781-1865). but the scene of his activity during the revolution ary epoch was London, far from the strife of arms . Bello, from that viewpoint, was more largely interested in Spanish America as a whole. After the American re^ publics had been firmly established he was invited to Chile, where his influence on matters of education and literature became tremendous. It seems almost as if he led the lives of two different men. In London to the age of forty-eight he eked out a narrow existence, always studying as though at school. In Chile for thirty-five years more he poured forth his accumulated wisdom for the benefit of the sons of his adopted country. The first period of Bello's life em- braced the epoch of the separation of the Spanish colonies from Spain; the second their first efforts at the upbuilding of new nationalities. Largely self-taught, the course of Bello's life is fore- sKadowed by his youth. He was both a precocious child ^ N. and a constant reader. At the age o f eleven he sav ed his^ pennies to buy a cheap edition issued in parts of Calderon's plays. At school he distinguished himself in Lat in. jSe maHe there the acquaintance of friends who were to assist Kim in getting a start in life, especiallyt he younger sons of theTJstariz family, perso ns of wealth and culture. In their *Rome^wKere they had the habit of reading poems aloud after dinner, Bello found inspiration for his earliest verses, certain translations or paraphrases of Latin. Urged by his friends he undertook the study of both French and Eng- lish. For the latter language he used as a text-book, Locke's Essay on the Understanding. nil kKVOI.imONARY IM-RIOD -ji When he Lit school Luis Ustaii/ ohtaiiitil for him a poiTtTon in the government office as undersecretary. In 1808 he was appointed irntiry. As it was his task to translate the PVench and Enj;lish letters, it fell to his h)t~ that same year to be the medium through which the news of the fall of Carlos IV became known in Venezuela. He also played a part in the^vents wTiich led to the uprising in Caracas onTSpril igtli, 18 10. As, in the otheF Spanish ^colonies, there was "established a junta or committee to "gSvem ostensTBTy in the name of Fernando VII. Th e jun ta sent Bello as one of three commissioners, the other two were Luis Lopez Mendez and Simon Bolivar, to London for the purpose of obtaining assistance for the revolution, but they re ceived little encou ragement from the British cabinet. Jn Venezuela the revolution maintained itself until ^^ere occurred on Marc TTzGth, 181 2, a severe earthq^uake on account of which many thousand persons in Caracas lost their lives. 1 he r oyalist party, assisted by the priests "^who sprea d the idea that this event w^as God's punishment for rebellion, successfully prosecuted a counter revolution ~and restored Spanish rule. Bello was thus left stranded in London without money. Once even he came near being put m j:riti"or his personal debts. Bolivar, a man of means, left London to work o n his plans for the military accom- p^ishment oT independence for Venezuela. But Bello remained in London for nineteen years. ^-Ht*^teft4^ atdcdliTni in finding mean^ of support. The Spanish laii^uaye being then fashionable in London, he obtained many private pupils. By 1814 he considered himself able to marry. His most influential friend at this 74 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA period was Jose Blanco White, a former Spanish priest of Irish parentage, who had left his native Seville to settle in London. He introduced Bello to Mr. Hamilton, Secretary of State for India, to whose children he became tutor in 1816. Among his English friends were the philosophers James Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and he is said to have been employed at one time to decipher the latter's man- uscript. From his intercourse with them, he may have ' derived some of the ideas that guided his scientific studies. During his sojourn in London, Bello was consta ntly studying. First he learned to read Greek from the boolcs' in the library of an English friend. His leisure time he spent in the library of the British Museum. As results of his study he published a modem Spanish rendering of the Poema del Cid with accompanying notes and a study ^ of the Cronique de Turpin. Both of these show original and sound critical thought. Next he made his version of Bemi's Orlando Innamorato; which Menendez y Pelayo terms the best translation in Spanish of any long Italian poem. Moreover, he was deeply interested in educational questions about which he published various discussions in the Repertorio Americano. This was Bello's contribution edited in company with the Colombian Garcia del Rio, to the various periodicals in Spanish which appeared in London during the revolutionary period. A periodical in Spanish, El Espahol, had been founded in Lohcfon by Blanco White and conducted by him from 1810 to 1814. In 18 20 the Guatemalan, A. J. de Irisarri published a few numbers of El Censor Amer icano to which Bello cont ributed. On his own account Bello began, 1823, the Biblioteca Americana, which soon sus- THE RF.VOLUTIONARY PERIOD 7^ pcndcd. Money to pay for such a publication even tliough well received in South America was slow and diffi cult to ^tain. Undaunted, however, he launched, 1826, a qu arterly, El Rfpfriorio Americano and continued it for four numbers. The editor's puq)ose is set forth in the first volume. ^T^ years, lovers of American civilization have desired the publication of a periodical which would defend with the interest of their own cause the independence and liberty of the new states established in that new world upon the ruins of Spanish dominion." The contents^ the~period1^ cal were, however, but slightly political. They comprised encyclopedic information on such topics as literary criti- cism, the orthography of the Spanish language, agriculture, science and education. Original poems formed one of its a ttractive features and here were first published 1m edo's poem. E n d nacimiento de su primogenito and his transla- tion of Horace's Ode XIV. Lib I; Garcia Goyena's Canto a la Indfpendencia de Guatemala; and a few poems of the Mexican Navarrete. The opening pages of the first number contained Bello's own masterpiece, a Silva a la Agricultura de la Zona torrida. Bellci'had conceived the idea of a vast poem to be en- tme^ America. Of this he wrote its introduction, Alocu- cion a la Poesia, and the Silva just mentioned. The Tatter puts LTmTn the front rank of American poets and ■ admits hirn even" iii the judgment "oTMenehdez y Pelayo^ to the category of those who have most artistically manip- ulated the Spanish language. In the former p oem, which first appeared in the Biblioteca Americana, Bello invites the muses to leave Europe where an artificial culture, 76 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA based on the power of gold, reigns preeminent and where nature is supreme and bestows on each its own pecuHar beauty which the poet describes. In the silva t^ the Agricultura de la Zona torrida, Bello presents the varied beauty of the tropics, its color, its rich perfume, the rare products of its cultivated fields, bounded by distant snow- capped mountains, and finally urges the possessors of this paradise to enjoy it in peace and union. There is a certain resemblance between the two poems; the lists of plants and their epithets are almost identical, and an occasional line of the earlier is repeated in the later poem. Besides there are reminiscences of Virgil's Georgics. While Bello's poetry therein resembles other Spanish classicists, Menendez y Pelayo finds him the pus'S'essOFbf an originaT note "not to^^e^onfused with ^ny of his "Contemporaries. ... He is a consummate master of poetic dicfion, learnedly~picturesque, laboriously p&I- ished." His picturesqiie^driginality consists in app eals^to the senses when he speaks of the "snowy fleece of the cotton," "the white jasmins ot the coffee," "the living carmine of the flowers," epithets which seem to the critic^ to give a "strange flavor both Latin and American." If Bello's diplomat ic activity continued during his entire sojourn in London. As a means of livelihood, however, its pecuniary return was uncertain even after the revolu- tion was successful. In 1822 he accepted app ointmen t as s ecretary for the legation of Chile, a place which he re- signed in Novem ber, 1824, to become secretary tor the" legation of Colombia. Just before accepting this position he rriarried his "second wife, Isabella Dunn Though his old friend Bolivar was now president of TMK KKVOLl nONAin' I'KRIOD 77 Colombia, Bcllo still rcct-ivcil only n meager salary in irJ-eguTaTr payments. H e did not join the chorus of tho^e w ho wrote fulsome vers es to the yberat(3itIa"i^rcT^vrbtch the latter probably resented, for there exists a letter written by Bolivar frcntj Quito in which he says of Bello: "His coldness has kept us separated to a certain degree." ^I'he truth may be that BelK)'s long residence in England, or his intellectual pursu its had subdued his native Vene- zuelan fire. The political odes which he wrote, Ilimno de Colombia and Cancibn a la Disolucion de Colombia, lacked so much of the e.xaggerated rhetorical style then in vogue, that by the advice of his friend, Fernandez Madrid, they were not published. The same chilliness of inspiration marks the ode, Al iS de Septiembre, b}- which he signalized his arrival in Chile. He was invited to Chile by President Prieto in 1829, who offered him the post of chief se cretary for foreign affairs at a good salary, a nd an allowance of three hundred pounds {ox traveling expenses. From the day of reaching Chile Bello became closely identified with the intellectual movement of his adopted coun try, so that his career belongs with it rather than with his native Venezuela. As the representative Venezuelan writer of prose during the revolutionary period, it is necessary'to look to Simon Dolivar, howeve r strange it may seem to think of th e successful general, the Liberator, as a literary man. Yet in his speeches and his voluminous correspondence, re- cently edited by R. ^larTco Fombona, he reveals an ener- getic style typical of the man. ^ His speeches to his soldiers were apparently modeled after those ot Napoleon with wnbm his contemporaries so fondly compared him. S 78 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA fair example of them is the proclamation issued when he returned to Bogota, on November 23rd, 1826: — "Colom- bians! Five years ago I left this capital to march at the head of the liberating army from the banks of the Cauca to the silver-bearing heights of Potosi. A million Colom- bians, two sister republics, have obtained independence in the shadow of our banners. And the world of Columbus has ceased to be Spanish. Such has been our absence." CHAPTER III THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA In North America the course of the revolution was different from l:hat on tTie soutliem continent. Of the two principal center^, Mexico and Cuba, the former emerged from the period as an Independent r epublic, wh ile _the_ Jatter became a refuge for royalists. Moreover the Mex- ican revolution, unlike those occurring in South America, '^rd^liot begin in the capitar^uTiri the provinces, and in- stead of o riginating with an intellectual class who fed its fires with argument and impassioned verse, the first out- break In Mexico was the affair of provincials, many of them of pure Indian blood, led by a rural priest, Miguel Hidalgo. The literary expression of events was subsequent to them by many years. On the other hand, the greatest revolutionary' poet, Jose Maria Heredia, whose unsur- passed verses were filled with burning inspiration and revol t, was a Cuban. In his country there took place nothing more than a mild conspiracy, easily suppressed, in which the poet was himself implicate^i But Heredfa during the impressionable years dt xcuth lived and w rote in Mexico. During the first decade of the nineteenth century there acted as viceroys of Mexico a succession of incompetent men whose chief aim in governing appeared to be the rapid 79 8o LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA accumulation of personal wealth. Resentment at their measures of taxation caused the formation of conspiracies in various parts of the country, especially after the home difficulties of Spain became kno\Mi. One of these con- spiracies was led by Ignacio Allende who organized military forces in various towns assisted by the counsel and in- fluence of Miguel Hidalgo, parish priest of the village Dolores in the mining region of Guanajuato. Before their preparations were completed, Allende learning that their plans had been betrayed to the authorities, so informed Hidalgo late one night. Undismayed, the latter replied, "We must act at once, there is no time to lose." The next morning, September i6th, 1810, a Sunday, Hidalgo, instead of conductmg the usual service, harangued the~ X c men ot the village from the ch urch steps and bade them ^ follow him to liberty. This was the famous "Grito de Dolores,'^ tlie cry to arms, from which dates the revolution in Mexico. The i6th of September is celebrated as the Mexican national holiday. — Hidalgo's little band steadily increased in numbers as they marched from village to village. A picture of Nuestra Senora de Guadelupe served as a banner under which to rally. In a week a horde of fifty thousand men, mainly Indians, armed with improvised weapons and a few mus- kets, had assembled. Their first objective was the city of Guanajuato, a mining center, where in a strong warehouse of stone, known as the "alhondiga de granaditas," was stored bullion to the value of ^5,000,000. The place was defended by five hundred Spanish troops. Though their musketry caused great slaughter in the assaulting mob crowded in the narrow streets, they were forced to yield NIK REVOLUTIONARY PFRIOD IN NOR I II AMKRICA 8i by the disparity in nunilnrs. That iii.nht the town itself suffered pilhige and burning such as has always marked revolutions in Mexico. Then Hidalgo tt)ok up his march on the capital. The viceroy Venegas hastily collected such troops as he could. In the first encounters the royalist soldiers were defeated, but Hidalgo, being no soldier and his army a mob, was unable to take advantage of HTs successes. Instead oF advancing steadily on Mexico city, he discouragedhis forces by turnmg back. He occupied his time by trying to establish an organized government. He issued proc- lamations emancipating the slaves, restoring the land to ^ the Indians, and calling a congress^ ~ 1 he royalist troops meanwhile were put under the command of Felix Callcja del Rey, an efficient soldier, who for his successes was later appointed viceroy. Cal- leja's army came into contact with Hidalgo's mob on January 17th, 181 1, at the bridge of Calderon, where, favored by an extraordinary piece of luck, for the dry grass taking fire the flames and smoke were driven into the faces of the insurgents, Calleja completely routed the hosts of his opponents . A month later Allende and Hi dalgo we re taken prisoners, and after a formal trial were executed. 1 he direction of the rebellion fell to a friend and pupil ofiiidalgu, "jIsu a prigst and a younger man with a greater c apacity for leadership, Jose Maria Mo relos. He kept the field against the royalists un til 1815 when h e too was cap- tured and exe c uted. Among the exploits of these four years, one of the most famous was the defense of the city of Cuautla, from which after several months of siege, he 82 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA and his forces succeeded in escaping. Morelos also carried out important plans for the organization of an insurgent government. A national congress was assembled which drew up a written constitution for Mexico. After Morelos' death the insurgents became mere marauding bands which were gradually hunted down. In 1820 occurred in Spain the revol utionary movement making the liberal Cortes temporarily supreme. In Mexico the privileged classes of the city felt that the time had come for seeking independence. As military leader was selected Agustin de Iturbide, who had been one of the most active generals in the campaign against Morelos. Under pretense of putting down a rebel band then vigorous under Vicente Guerrero, he left the city with a few thou- sand soldiers which were later increased in number by the unsuspecting viceroy. At the proper moment Itur- bide divulged to his troops his real intentions in which they acquiesced. On February 24th, 1821, he promul- gated a manifesto, since known as the "Plan de Iguala." ' It declaTed tor the absolute independence of Mexico, ~-~ the R omaB-tJ atholicTa tth^ rhe^tat e religion, an absolute monarchy as the form of government with a member of the Spanish royal family tor ruler, the maintenance of all existing institutions ot property and privileges, the estab- TiiTTment of a junta to rule unTil the selection of a monarch and tTie support of the three guarant ees of Indepen dence, RelTgion, and Unity, symbolized resp ectively in the n a- ""tional^cblors, green, wtiite, a iid^red. This revolution w as entirely aristocratic and reactionary against the liberal tendencies at work in Sp ain. The privrlegcd"^rhlsses~irr Mexico were afraid of interference THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA R3 with tluit rij;lns l\v the democratic Spanish Cortes which hail won the upper hanil in the contest with the King Fernando \ II. Some Mexicans even proposed inviting the King to become Emperor of Mexico. In consequence of the origin and character of the revo- lution, Iturbide met with little resistance. The garrisons of the provincial towns joined his forces. The main body of insurgents led by Guerrero agreed to the plan and the whole army entered Mexico city. A little later when a new viceroy Juan O'Donaju, sent by the Cortes, arrived, he found no soldiers to assist him. So he signed a treaty, for which the Cortes had given Rim authority, acknowledg- ing the independence of Mexiaa- It is interesting to note t hat in this treaty of C5rdova, "signed m August, 1821, occurs the first instance of the use of the name Mexico to designate officially the whole country which the Spaniards r- f rom the time of its discovery had called Nueva Esp ana. For a few months Mexior was governed by the junta presided over b y Iturbide. Then in February of 1822, ^. the latter by a coup d'etat caused him self to be pr oclaimed Emperor of Mexico. The costly magnificence with which he set up his co urt and TTiis~various pretensions^ m adg.him- ridiculous and distrusted. It was not long before he was deposed and banished. The Mexican Congre ss estab- lished a federal republic of which Guadelupe Victoria, one of tlie leaders in Morelos ' arm y, was ele cted the first president. A sentence of death was passed on Iturbide in case he should return to Mexico. The latter, apparently unaware of this decree, did land there in July, 1S24, and in three days was shot without a trial. About Iturbide and his fortunes clusters most of the 84 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ' revolutionary literature . Typical is the vigorous ode Al i6 de Septiembre de 1821, by Andres Quintana Roo (1787-185 1). First it presents a picture of the Iberian '^triumph over the Mexicans led by Hidalgo. His example fires the noble soul of Morelos, but in spite of his efforts to achieve liberty for the Mexicans, fortune reserves the supreme glory for Iturbide, "whose name surpasses that of the others as much as the brilliance of the moon out- shines the numberless stars in the firmament." Quintana Roo was a native of Yucatan and the Mexicans by naming a territory in that peninsula after him. In the same way states have been named for Hidalgo, More- los, and Guerrero. After Iturbide's fall, Quintana Roo edited various political journals in which he expressed' m vigorous prose a high-minded position on public affairsr— * Verses by the Cuban poet JJeredia exist praising Quintana Roo for daring to oppose certain arbitrary and^ tyrannical - acts of the government. Qui ntana Roo 's verses are well written for he was a student "of prosod y and publisK e^ critical articles concerni ng it. Another native of Y ucatan, Wenceslao Aifiuc ke (1804-41), struck in his odes a strongly patriotic no^e with almost epic intonation. His most famous one, A Hidalgo^ reviews the bloody course of Mexican history; then after an apostrophe to liberty, Alpuche declares that Hidalgo, like Leonidas and Washington, was inspired by her. Realistically portraying Hidalgo's hour of death, he urges Mexicans to look on the hero's remains as he prophesies that from the ground fertilized by Hidalgo's blood will spring avengers. In a similar strain Alpuche I THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 8$ sang the death of Morclos, in his ode .// Suplicio dr Mo- rdos. Morelos' most famous exploit, the escape from the siege ot Lua utla, w as Immortaliz ed l)y~Trancisc() Manuel \ ^ Sanchez de Tagle (1782^47), who described it in his poem Romance Hfroico de la Salida de Morelos de Cuautla. Being a city man Sanchez de Tagle was more especially enthusiastic over Iturbide in whose honor he indited several poems. In a political capacity he was associated with that leader, for he was one of those who composed the Declaration of Independence of the year 1821. As a poet Sanchez de Tagle was pru lific and is considered the \ principal representative of classicism in Mexico. A fter his death there ^as pu blished b y hi s son a volume of his , yerse, mainly lo ve l yrics a nd re ligiou s pieces in classical style. One of his e arliest poems in poin t of time consists of verses of occasion to celebrate the erection in Mexico of a statue of Carlos IV. The poet owed much to the ^fact that he attracted the attention of the viceroy who appomted him a professor in the university. T he promi- nence of such a man in the revolution of 1820 shows how different was its character from that of previous revolu- tionary efforts. The a dmiration of Iturbide in its extreme form is re- vealed in the poems of Anastasio de Ochoa y Acuna \ ('7^3~^^33)- His earliest writings were satiric and festive \ lines and translations, especially of dramas. In 1813 was produced his original drama Don Jlfonso. The best of his patriotic odes is El Crito de Independencia. In this he compares Spanish tyranny to a cloud such as a shepherd sees approaching with the destructive force of a whirl- 86 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA wind about to overwhelm his humble home. Like the tempest are the misfortunes of Mexico where only a hand- ful of patriots are fighting for liberty. But while Iturbide lives there is hope, and in anticipation of his ultimate success, the poet congratulates "the American Mars" on his good fortune and triumph. But Iturbi de's assumption o f the crown as Emperor of Mexico aroused indignation and denunciation such as was expressed in the ode A Iturbide en su Coronacion by ^ Franciico Ortega (1 793-184 9). This ode deserves a v place as a cla ssic inv ective aga inst ambition. The poet urges Iturbide to listen to the voice of patriotism and turn aside from false ambition. His true glory lies in having achieved the independence of a people and not in occupying a throne. Ortega enjoyed the distinction of having written an allegorical melodrama, Mexico yT Libre, which was produced as a part of the official celebra- tion of the oaths of independence on October 27th, 1821. In allegorical style Ortega wrote much other patriotic ^ verse, in which Liberty assisted by Mars and Pallas favors America while Despotism and Discord are put to rout. In the allegorical vein Ortega's longest poem is La Ven ida del Espiritu Santo, to a large extent a p araphrase o f tlTe^ first book of Milton 's Paradis e Lo st, and yet wor thyTo' rank among the world's religious epics. The poem deals "* with the opposition of Satan and his legions to the apostles. The chief characters are Satan and St. Paul. The first canto consists of a review of the forces of darkness in which Moloch is represented by Huitzilopochtli, the war god of the ancient Mexicans to whom their bloody human sacrifices were made. Important episodes of the poem THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA © are the triumph of St. Stephen, the conversion of St. Paul and the de.scent of the Holy Cihost upon the apostles, an event which Satan contemplates with scornful sneers. One writer of prose who lived during the revolutionary period in Mexico deserves mention, Jose Joaquin Fernan- ~3e z de CizarJT (1774-1827). F'rom 18 1 2 to _i_S26j_ uodciL the na me of "El Pensador Mexicano," he was the cham- pion pamphleteer of the revolution. In this capacity he defended the ecclesiastics who, stimulated by the example I of Hidalgo, had supported the revolution by bearing arms. For his bold utterances he was thrown into prison by the viceroy Venegas in spite of that provision of the constitu- tion of 181 2 guaranteeing the liberty of the press. How- I \ ever, he was soon released. Then he gave forth his ideas upon the condition of Mexico and its needs by publishing in 1816 a picaresque novel, El Periquillo Saniiento. \ This book, though written with a distinctly didactical purpose, is still read for the amusing character of the in- cidents. Like Gil Bias, the hero penetrates all classes of ' Mexican society, examining its virtues and vices, especially those which its author wishes to praise or flagellate. The title is a nickname, by explaining which the writer desires to discourage the habit of calling names. The hero's name Pedro had been turned by his schoolmates into Periquillo because he was sent to school dressed in a green jacket and yellow pantaloons, the colors of the plumage of the common Mexican parrot; and in order to tiis- tinguish this Pedro from another, the additional title Sarniento, derived from a malady which he suffered, was bestowed upon him. The practical result of his schooling at the hands of various ignorant teachers was to make 88 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA him able to contend in sophistical argument. Beginning then his life career, he is, by turns, novice in a monastery, highwayman, jail-bird, barber and doctor. In the course of his wanderings, he comes upon the corpse of a school friend hanging by the roadside, a warning to malefactors. The life of this friend, one of whose early adventures had been an attempt to seduce Pedro's sister, conveys the ordinary lesson of the bad end of the bad boy. Altogether the Mexican critic Altamirano considers this realistic novel to be "the most genuin e re p resen t ation o f the )d." T he "Pensador's " political writing becomes most in- teresting in Las Conversaciones del Payo y del Sacristan^ in which are discussed wit h infinite irony a nd delighd^ul jest "the advant ages which have com e to Mexico by the death of Iturbide ." These imaginary conversations is- sued between August and December, 1824, introducing various types of Mexican character and treating the serious problems which confronted society, are essential to any study of social conditions at that time. Fernandez de Lizardi published two other novels, La Quijotita y su PrTmOyiSig, and Don Catrin de la Facherma^ 1825, but in these the didactical motive has gaine3~com- plete ascendancy for they are practically devoid of in- cident. In the former a colonel instructs his daughter in the moral conduct of her life; the fact that such a preach- ment was widely read in several editions is perhaps il- luminating in regard to the literary taste of the period. The title of the latter has contributed an epithet used in Mexico, to characterize the type of person represented by Don Catrin. A shorter book than either of these is IHE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 89 NochfS tristtrs, in wliich the writLT gives personal details of his imprisonment . Altogether "El Pensador Mexi- cano" is a name fondly remembered by his countrym en because it represents a typical pers ona lity of the period. While revolution was setting Spanish America aflame, the island of Cuba became the place of ref uge for loyalists. The immigration from Santo Domingo was the first to come. In 1795, the whole island had been ceded to the French, and immediately thereafter the negro insurrec- tion raging in Haiti spread to Santo Domingo. In 1801, the negro leader Toussaint L'Ouverture captured the capital from which many of the leading families had already gone to Cuba. Among them were the parents of J. M. Heredia destined to be Cuba's greatest poet. The loyalist immigrants contribu ted largely to the efements of culture in Cuba. An interest in literature among the men of Habana had led as early as 1790 to the establishment of allterary journal, El Papel Periodico. Ls the contributions to this paper were published anony- mously It has been somewhat ditticult to know much of their authors, but two names of poets surpassing the others have come down to posterity, Manuel de Zequeira y Arango (i 760-1 545; and Manuel ^711 s t o de Kubalcava (1768-1805). "' Ue Zequeira rose to relatively high rank in the Spanish army and commanded the garrison of the fortress of Santa Marta in Nueva Granada when it was besieged by the colonial army. In private life he was a studious man whose influence and example was highly beneficial to Cuban letters. Of his poems, written in imitation of the classical style of the Spanish poets of the golden age, the 90 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA best is La Batalla naval de Cortes en la Laguna de Mexico. This contains the striking description of the death of a Spanish soldier, Pedro de la Barba, killed by the arrow of a native. De Zequeira was also a graceful sonneteer, but herein his work is not always distinguishable from that of his friend De Rubalcava. So closely do their peculiarities coincide that critics have been unable to make certain which is the author of an admirable sonnet, La Huston, in which all earthly glory is compared to the fugacious glory of the dreamer. Though the sonnet has been commonly assigned to Rubalcava, it first appeared in the Papel Peribdico over the pen name used by De Zequeira. The latter wrote much religious verse also in which is apparent the influence of the Mexican poet Navarrete. Such was the spirit of poetical production in Cuba during the first twenty yea rs of the nineteenth ce ntury^ until there suddenly appeared a book of verse which there- ' after became the inspiration of Cuban separat ists. Its author, Jose Maria Heredia (1803-39), has been called by a Spaniard, "the compendium and epitome of all enmity toward iSpain." But Heredja regarded hirns ell^ ^ as a Span iard and refer s in his ve rses to Spain as " tender., , mother." As a partisan, however, of the liberals, who supported in 1820 the revolution led by Rafael del Riego, he wrote burning verses against "the oppressor of Iberia," and called Spain stupid because she consented to oppres- sion and to the death of Riego. Heredia's language, however, was later applicable to the political situation in Cuba. Heredia, moreover, was involved in the first attempt at THK REVOLUTIONARY I'KRIOD IN NORIH AMKRICA 91 insurrection in Cuba, which occurred in iS^j. lie was a member of the society known as the "Soles de Bolivar," who plotted to obtain independence for Cuba through the assistance of Mexico and Colombia. Such a conspiracy of young hotheads in a society composed of loyalist ref- ugees was predestined to failure. Besides, the relaxation of the Spanish commercial laws, incident to the political conditions of America, had brought great material pros- perity to Cuba, and thereby an atmosphere not at all favorable to revolution. But Heredia, though bom in Cuba, had come to man- hood In a more bracmg moral environment. His father w^ a government official, who KaJ acteiT as chief judge of the court in Caracas in the days when Venezuela was trembling under the tyranny of Monteverde. The elder HefeiTT~felt 5>Llch sympathy^for the victims ^ of offici al tyranny and in his capacity as ma gistrate show ed^ such con^deration for them that suspicion of complicity in the~revolution tell on his own head. He was punished by~~bt!mg Transferred to a lesser position in Mexico in which country he died in 1820. Of his father the poet wrote in a poem dedicated to his memory, "In your charge you took my education and never to others' hands en- trusted my tender childhood. Love for all men, fear of God you inspired in me and hatred of atrocious tyranny." After his father's death th e young^jnaiL weotL-to Cuba - to finish his studies in law and finally settle d in the citv pr^Tatanz as as a practicing att orney. He took with him many of the poems which w ere to make him famous after their publication. Some of them probably circu- lated m manuscript and added fuel to the fires of revolt" 92 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA which broke out in 1823. For his part Heredia was con- demned by the audiencia of Cuba to perpetual banish- ment. He went to the United States, traveled about there for a short time, then departed for Mexico where he married, became a government official and lived there to the end of his days. In 1836 he was permitted by the Spanish authorities to return to Cuba for a brief visit of two months, constantly harassed by annoying restrictions. On account of the murmurs then circulating in the island against the actions of the governor, the restrictions may have been justifiable from the official point of view, but in so far as they brought Heredia and his poetic utter- S^nces to the notice of Cubans they were unwise. Heredia himself was far from thinking of inciting insurrection. ^ SufFcri ng-fronmriiealth ajid a sort of moral dejection on account of turbulent political conditions in Mexico, he even gave expression to some thoughts which have been widely published by Spaniards a s a recan tation of the , politicaf beliefs whi ch inspired his poem s. The first edition of his poems, printed in New York in 1825, contains practically all he ever wrote that people care for. A comparison of it with the edition of Toluca, 1832, advertised to contain additional poems, shows that the additions consist of a few occasional pieces, a phil- osophical dissertation in verse on immortality, and a number of translations. In Mexico he first drew attention to himself by writing foTthe papers and by the productlofl — ^75f"~Certaih tragedies largely adaptations from French, the Ahufar of Ducis, Sila, TJb erio, and Los ultim o s R o- ~~ mdnos. TTie tirades against tyranny which abound in the^e dramas were quite toTHFtaste of the Mexican public ,, THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 93 ^ and assisted materially in making the political fortune of their auth or. The New York edition has a preface in English which cannot help exciting pathetic interest in the reader fa- miliar with the circumstances. It is a sort of adver- tisement designed perhaps to help along its sale, thus: "The author has paid particular attention to the accents to make these poems useful to Americans learning the Spanish language. Nothing is better calculated to give them a practical knowledge of the true pronunciation of words than the habit of reading poetr>'. May they re- ceive this little service of an exiled youth as an expres- sion of gratitude for the asylum he has found in this happy country-." Those poems of Heredia which are not political in char- acter must be classed with that type of poetry more noteworthy for its ideas than for its form. For that reason they are susceptible of good translation into other languages. At the same time his poems possess a sub- jective element revealing a passionate personality that causes some critics to compare him with Byr on an d oth er, romantic poe ts^ But there is nothing of the romantic j)ose in Heretfia's li nes for his banishment had imbued them wit h the note of sincerity. Heredia stands in per- sonal touch with the elemental forces of nature in their sublimest form. "Hurricane, hurricane, I feel thee com- ing," he cried; or to the sun, "I love thee, Sun: thou knowest how joyfully I greet thee, when thou appearest at the gates of the east." To the mighty falls of Niagara he speaks in a familiar tone, "mighty torrent, hush thy terrifying thunder; diminish a little the darkness that 94 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA surrounds thee; let me contemplate thy serene counte- nance and fill my soul with ardent enthusiasm." Heredia's poems do not contain elaborate descriptions oF natu re^ On the' co ntrary he paiiits with a bold stroke^^ intent on producing a suitable background for the ideks ^Tiich fill his so ul. Take fo r examp le the poem Kn~^h- Teocalli de Cholula. T he po^ se^t fetj, in the ancient jtem ple of the Aztecs watches ^he sun sinK~b€hiad^a"^olcano. Its snow-clad top seems to dissolve into a sea of gold. Darkness falls. The moon and the stars become visible. As the moon sinks behind the volcano, the shadow of the mountain, like a colossal ghost, strides across the plain till it envelops the poet and the whole world, though the vast form of the volcano is still outlined against the sky. The flight of time thus leaves no traces on this giant. Nevertheless the poet knows that according to the law of nature it mu^ some day fall. Th j flight of tim e seemed to be always present to H ere- dia's mind . The Aztec temple is now nothing but a deso- late monument to the cruel pride of an extinct race. The majestic waters of Niagara run "like the dark torrent of centuries into eternity." It is such criti c ism of j ife, though common place at times, that gives H eredia's poetry a tinge of melancholy. Therein he resembles our" II own poet, William Cullen Bryant. And to Bryant we fortunately owe metrical translations of two of Heredia's greatest poems, the ode to the Hurricane and the ode on Niagara to which Heredia owes the appellation bestowed on him of "Singer of Niagara." The latter runs thus: My lyre! Give me my lyre! My bosom feels The glow of inspiration. O, how long THK RE\^OLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 95 Have I bvvn lift in darkness, since this light Last visited niy brow! Niagara! Thou with thy rushing waters dost restore The heavenly gift that sorrow took away. Tremendous torrent! for an instant hush The terrors of thy voice, and cast aside Those wide-involving shadows, that my eyes May see the fearful beauty of thy face! I am not all unworthy of thy sight. For from my very boyhood have I loved. Shunning the meaner track of common minds, To look on Nature in her loftier moods. At the fierce rushing of the hurricane. At the near bursting of the thunderbolt, I have been touched with joy; and when the sea Lashed by the wind hath rocked my bark, and showed Its yawning caves beneath me, I have loved Its dangers and the wrath of elements. But never yet the madness of the sea Hath moved me as thy grandeur moves me now. Thou flowest on in quiet, till thy waves Grow broken 'midst the rocks; thy current then Shoots onward like the irresistible course Of Destiny. Ah, terribly they rage, — The hoarse and rapid whirlpools there! My brain Grows wild, my senses wander, as I gaze Upon the hurrying waters, and my sight, Vamly would follow, as toward the verge Sweeps the wide torrent. Waves innumerable Meet there and madden, — waves innumerable Urge on and overtake the waves before. And disappear in thunder and in foam. They reach, they leap the barrier, — the abyss Swallows insatiable the sinking waves. 96 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA A thousand rainbows arch them, and woods Are deafened with the roar. The violent shock Shatters to vapor the descending sheets. A cloudy whirlwind fills the gulf, and heaves The mighty pyramid of circling mist To heaven. The solitary hunter near Pauses with terror in the forest shades. What seeks my restless eye ? Why are not here, About the jaws of this abyss, the palms — Ah, the delicious palms, — that on the plains Of my own native Cuba spring and spread Their thickly foliaged summits to the sun. And, in the breathings of the ocean air, Wave soft beneath the heaven's unspotted blue? But no, Niagara, — thy forest pines Are fitter coronal for thee. The palm, The eflfeminate myrtle, and frail rose may grow In gardens, and give out their fragrance there. Unmanning him who breathes it. Thine it is To do a nobler office. Generous minds Behold thee, and are moved, and learn to rise Above earth's frivolous pleasures; they partake Thy grandeur, at the utterance of thy name. God of all truth! in other lands I've seen Lying philosophers, blaspheming men. Questioners of thy mysteries, that draw Their fellows deep into impiety; And therefore doth my spirit seek thy face In earth's majestic solitudes. Even here My heart doth open all itself to thee. In this immensity of loneliness, I feel thy hand upon me. To my ear The eternal thunder of the cataract brings Thy voice, and I am humbled as I hear. *i THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 97 Dread torrent, that with wonder and with fear Dost over\vhcLni the soul of him that looks I'pon thee, and dost bear it from itself, — Whence hast thou thy beginning? Who supplies, Age after age, thy unexhausted springs? What power hath ordered, that when all thy weight Descends into the deep, the swollen waves Rise not and roll to ovcnvhelm the earth? The Lord has opened his omnipotent hand. Covered thy face with clouds, and given voice To thy down-rushing waters; he hath girt Thy terrible forehead with his radiant bow. I see thy never-resting waters run. And I betliink me how the tide of time Sweeps to eternity. So pass of man — Pass, like a noonday dream — the blossoming days And he awakes to sorrow. I, alas! Feel that my youth is withered, and my brow Ploughed early with the lines of grief and care. Never have I so deeply felt as now The hopeless solitude, the abandonment, The anguish of a loveless life. Alas! How can the impassioned, the unfrozen heart Be happy without love? I would that one Beautiful, worthy to be loved and joined In love with me, now shared my lonely walk On this tremendous brink. 'Twere sweet to see Her sweet face touched with paleness, and become More beautiful from fear, and overspread With a faint smile while clinging to my side. Dreams, — dreams! I am an exile, and for me There is no country and there is no love. Hear, dread Niagara, my latest voice! Yet a few years, and the cold earth shall close 98 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Over the bones of him who sings thee now Thus feelingly. Would that this, my humble verse. Might be, like thee, immortal! I, meanwhile, Cheerfully passing to the appointed rest, Might raise my radiant forehead in the clouds To listen to the echoes of my fame. Even in the presence of the rushing waters Heredia yearns tor love, an ever present desire witETiim^ In the lines on his father^s death he expresses the hope of finding consolation for his loss in "the arms of his be loved." In the matter of his beloved it is interesting to note the dedications of the two editions of his poems prepared by Heredia himself. In the edition of New York the honor of the first place is given to certain lines, "To a young lady who used to read my verses with pleasure." In the edition of Toluca these lines are replaced by a sonnet, "To my Wife," thus translated by James Kennedy. When yet was burning in my fervid veins The fieriness of youth, with many a tear Of grief, 'twas mine of all my feelings drear. To pour in song the passion and the pains; And now to thee I dedicate the strains, My wife, when love, from youth's illusions freer. In our pure hearts is glowing deep and clear, And calm serene for me the daylight gains. Thus lost on raging seas, for aid implores Of Heaven the unhappy mariner, the mark Of tempests bearing on him wild and dark; And on the altars when are gained the shores, Faithful to the deity he adores. He consecrates the relics of his bark. The full intensity of Heredia's temperament is revealed TMK RF.VOLITIOXARV PKRIOD IN NORTH AMKRICA 99 in the lines to the Hurricane. For some reason Bryant did not translate the last stanza of the poem, perhaps because it was too intense for the Puritan in him. It has been necessary then to add it in a prose form, because to Heredia this stanza was the climax to the rest. Though Bryant's translation is at times almost literal he para- phrased the opening cry, "Hurricane, hurricane, I feel thee coming." Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh, I know thy breath in the burning sky! And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, For the coming of the hurricane! And lo! on the wing of theJjgavxxalfiS. Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails; Silent and slow, and terribly strong, The might^^hadow' is borne along. Like the dark eternity to come; While the world below, dismayed and dumb. Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere. Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear. They darken fast; and' the golden blaze Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze. And he sends through the shade a funeral ray— A glare that is neither night nor day, A beam that touches, with hues of death. The clouds above and the earth beneath. To its covert glides the silent bird. While the hurricane's distant voice is heard Uplifted among the mountains round. And the forests hear and answer the sound. He IS come! he is come! do ye not behold His ample robes on the wind unrolled? 100 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Giant of air! we bid thee hail! — How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; How his huge and writhing arms are bent To clasp the zone of the firmament, And fold at length, in their dark embrace. From mountain to mountain the visible space. Darker — still darker! the whirlwinds bear The dust of the plains to the middle air: And hark to the crashing, long and loud. Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud! You may trace its path by the flashes that start From the rapid wheels where'er they dart. As the fire-bolts leap to the world below, And flood the skies with a lurid glow. What roar is that? — 'tis the rain that breaks In torrents away from the airy lakes. Heavily poured on the shuddering ground. And shedding a nameless horror round. Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies, With the very clouds! — ye are lost to my eyes. I seek ye vainly, and see in your place The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, A whirling ocean that fills the wall Of the crystal heaven, and buries all, And I, cut oflF from the world, remain Alone with the terrible hurricane. Sublime tempest! As if filled with thy solemn inspiration, I forget the vile and wretched world and raise my head full of delight. Where is the coward soul that fears thy roar? In thee I rise to the throne of the Lord; I hear in the clouds the echo of his voice; I feel the earth listen to him and tremble. Hot tears descend my pale cheeks and trembling, I adore his lofty majesty. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NOR-'I H AMERICA loi 1 he sainc ticry ardor is displaced in Ilcrcdia's political poems. TKcTi chiel sentiments are hatred of oppression' and love of liberty. A series of sonnets on Riego, Rome, Cato, Napoleon, all express admiration for champions of human rights. Napoleon saved Prance from anarchy and made kings tremble; though he died abandoned on a lonely rock, his life exemplifies the fact that no oppression however strong is irresistible. Love of liberty is ever the poet's cry. In his earliest political composition, La Es- trella de Cuba, written at the age of nineteen and probably circulated in manuscript among the conspirators of 1823, Heredia calls for sacrifice of this sort, "If the scaffold awaits me, upon its height my bleeding head will appear a monument of Spanish brutality." When banished he indited an Epistola a Emilia, a gem of personal lyric verse. Homesick and longing for the "terrible sun" of Cuba, he wrote from the North: "I am free, but what cruel change! The winter's wind is roaring; upon its wings flies the piercing cold. The inert world suffers the tyranny of cruel winter. My ear hears not the voices of my friends but only the barbarous sounds of a foreign idiom. But it is not wearied by the insolent tyrant, nor the groan of the slave nor the crack of the whip which poisons the air of Cuba. At night when the light of the silent moon and the delicious perfume of the lemon in- vite to repose, a thousand thoughts of rage becloud my mind." The political verse attains a climax in the closing lines of the Himno del Desterrado: "Cuba, Cuba, what life you gave me, sweet land of light and beauty! And am I to see thee again .^ How sternly the severity of my fate weighs i02 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA on me to-day! Oppression threatens me with death in the fields where I was born. Cuba, at last thou shalt be free and pure as the air thou breathest, as the sparkling waves which thou dost see kissing the sand of thy shores. Though vile traitors serve him, the tyrant's wrath is vain, because not for naught between Cuba and Spain does the sea roll its billows." Heredia's prophecy of September, 1825, was not fulfilled for nearly three^u art^ of a centur y , but during^ that period his poe ms were a constan t insp iration to Cuban patriotism. To this fact even the Spanish critic Menendez y Felayo testifies with bitterness in these words,^"If his political activity does not equal that of other conspirators 4 • against Spain, because he took no part in an armed strug- gle, his literary influence was continuous and more effectual tha n a"ny^ t h e r Because ^e^urpassed all in talen t . ' ' As there is in Heredia something typical of Spanish Americans, his vague sensuality, his melancholia, his out- blIrsts~of hatred, his love of liberty^ his poetry is doubly._ ^ interestmg. The ease with which he was able to express these different emotions ma^e him Tn difFerent at time^ to"^ clasjsical finish in the formof his verse. In t his he belongeJ^ to the romantic school. For an exact and comprehensive criticism oT Heredia n obodyTias ever excel led^ t^at oFtl ie Spanish critic, Alberto Lista, who said after reading the first edition of his poems, "He is a great poet; the fire of his soul has passed into his verses and is transmitted toTiis readers." Heredia must be cla ssed with the rev olutionary epoch though he stands alone among Cubans of that day. The Cuban struggle for independence was to fill the whole of — — . ^ - ■*7k THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA 103 the nineteenth century unJ therefore tlie whulc ot Cuban literature may be called revolutionary. On the other hand, in other Spanish-American countries the winning of independence was followed by a period of adjustment t o new political cond itions. As this adj ustment v aried ■ with local conditions there sprang up local literatures which must be studied separately. CHAPTER IV ARGENTINA After separation from Spain the vast territory of the Argentine Republic, divided politically into provinces, was organized into a natronality^y Bernardo Rivadavia. Under his dictatorship JbJuenos Aires became the capital of a centralized or unitarian republic. Against the suprem- acy of the city the provinces demanded a federal republic ^ and rose in rebellion, fighting even among themselves. ^ Moreover, it became necessary to assert Argentine sov- \ ereignty over the frontier province, now the indepen dent republic of Uruguay, against the ag gressions of t he Por- tuguese from Brazil. The Uruguay ans oppose d an armed resist ance to the claims of the Bra zil ians and were assisted by forces sent out from Buenos Aires. In the final batt lfe^^ at Ituzaingo, on February 20, 1827, the Braz ilia ns wer e so decisively beaten that the question of sovereignty was settled, while a treaty between Argentina and Uruguay the next year conceded absolute independerice to the latteK An ode in celebration of this battle, Al Triunfo de Itu- zaingOf is one of the best lyrical pieces of the Argentine** poet Juan Cruz Va rela (1794-1839). , It is a long poem^ relating rather minutely the course of the fight. In this respect it resembles the ballad chronicles which were in- spired by the political events in Buenos Aires from the time of the bombardment of the city by the English. But 104 ARGENTINA 105 thiTf is a swing to these verses of V^arcla's which puts him poetically above his fellow balladists. V'arela was not only a journalistic champion of Rivadavia's administra- tion but the poetic chronicler of all the occurrences of it, writing odes on the foundation of the university, on the hydraulic \vorks~ord er ed by tlie government, orTtHe^ estaB^ lishment o f the p hilharmonic society. In spite of the apparent dullness of such topics Varela in fused th em with life. Especially praised is an ode on the liberty of the press, for V'arela was a fierce patriot. His fierceness reaches a climax in an ode, Al Incendio de Cangallo. This was a Peruvian village burned and razed by the Spaniards in 1S22, an act which roused great indignation and is still commemorated by the name of a street in Buenos Aires. \'arela called for "vengeance, pitiless vengeance, on the Iberian tigers, the proud Spaniards, hateful race of the execrated Attila." Such invective was as much to the lik- ing of the author's contemporaries as it is unpleasant to \frr-bjp ania r ds c o - d ay: ■ —"Trill M \ \L sainc hypc fb olical a nd decl amat ory rhetoric m ade popular two dramas by Varela, Dido, znd^Azguir-^mFittcn — Un production before the Sociedad del Buen Gusto in Hui'iKJtJ'A rr'es. [ hese were In some respects the m ost original dramas produce d through th e influence of that society for the promotion of the drama. In 1823 the tirades in Dido created enthusiasm for their apt references to the political situation. The same was true of Argia a year later. This play was based on Alfieri's Antigonr, while Dido sometimes followed Virgil word for word. In his later years Varela made a metrical version of the Aeneid though only the first two books of the epic were lo6 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ever printed. Juan Cruz Varela deserves credit for his effor ts in classic culture during the troublous times in which — he lived. ^~~~^ The unitarian party to which Varela belonged was forced out of power and beaten in battle by the federalists under the leadership of Juan Manuel Rosas. This man, sup- ported by the gauchos of the interior, finally succeeded in assuming absolute power. To his political opponents he was merciless. Calling them savages and confiscating their property for the benefit of his adherents, he organized a special body of police called the "Mazhorca" to hunt down and exterminate all unitarians. JVIany of those who ^ escaped from his clutches into exile, since they were ei^ ucated men, tooTT up the fight against Rosas with pen as well as sword." For that reaso n Argentine literature u ntTT' the latter's fall in 1852 is to a large extent a militant prot-est against that tyrant. Juan Cruz Varela's last poem, for example, rhetor ically on e of his best, Jl 25 de ^ Mayo de i8j8, was directed against Rosas. Before the worst days of Rosas' controTthere occurred an event of the fir st magnitude in t he history of Spa nish- American letters, the introduction of ro manticism through the publication of Esteban Echeverria's poem Elvira in 1832. This date is noteworthy because it is the same year in which appeared the Duque de Rivas' Moro espos ttol the first important production of Spanish romanticism. Argentina~tlius received directly the French type of roman- ticism whereas otTier countries absorbed the romantic spIiTt .at second hand through the medium of Spanish works. Nature in Argentina was to offer a fertile field for ex- ploitation by romantic poets. Contemporary withEche- ARGENTINA I07 verrla but " for our moral pleasure and the encourage- _ mcnt o f our literature." Thus Echeverria first expressed adoctrine which Spanish .Americans have generally felt. no LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA to be true and according to which, consciousl y or other - wise, they have produced in literature, whatever is reall y valuable. The first scene of La Cautiva is laid in the camp of a band of Indians after their raid on a village of whites. Exhausted by their exertions and the drunken orgies of celebration, the savages fall asleep. The silence of the. Argentine pampa creeps upon them and their captives. Most important of these is Brian, formerly a scourge of the Indians, now bound between two lances awaiting death by torture. His wife Maria, however, is not bound; for upon her the Indian cacique, Loucoi, had cast lustful glances. When sleep furnishes the opportunity, Maria plunges a dagger into Loucoi's heart. In the same way marking a bloody path through the band of sleeping savages, she reaches the spot where her husband is bound, cuts him loose and together they escape. But they are hardly gone before a band of horsemen surprise the camp, slay the Indians and free the captives; though to their sorrow, the rescuers are unable to find Brian and his wife. In the meantime the latter are straining limbs and nerves to put a great distance between them and their former captors. Brian, however, travels with difficulty on account of his wounds. As they are resting, they see a cloud of smoke swiftly approaching. The pampa is afire. Brian, scarcely able to stir, begs his wife to save herself; but she sturdily places her husband on her back, makes her way to the neighboring river, and swims to safety on the opposite bank. Such heroism, nevertheless, is vain for on the following day Brian is attacked by fever and dies. Maria sets out alone to cross the pampa. ARCJKNTINA III and soon meets a detachment of soldiers, who were search- ing lor her and Ikian. Of them she incjiiires deliriously for her son and though she herself had related his murder to her husband, she expires when the soldiers tell her that her son had been killed. The literary significance oi La Cauti va lies in its revolu- tionar)' dep arture in for m from the classic Spanish ideal and the author's success in carrying out his p urpose. The Argentine critic , J. M. Guti errez, writes tha t "La Cautiva is a masterpiece, whose perspectives give the most complete idea of the sunburnt immensity of the Echeverrla, taking^dvantage^of the pres tige which his verses had brought him, plunged b oldly into p olitics by launchi ng a sort of secret societ y, "La Asociacio n de Mayo," in June, \^'\7, w hich h ad . f o r it^ o b je c t to bring about the fall of Rosa s. The main principles of the society w ere expou nded by Echeverria in a pamphl et entitle d" El Dogma socialista. Despite the name th e tone of the ideas was not so much socialistic as democratic after the manner of contemporary Fpench writings. When news of this secret society reached Rosas* ears, the dictator lost little time in sending his agents to sup- press it. Echeverria took refuge in the country at some distance from the city. Then occurred a rising against Rosas among the landed proprietors in the south of the province of Buenos Aires. Being few in number they could not long withstand his soldiers though those who escaped after the battle which they fought took ship for Montevideo where they joined the forces of General Lavalle. The heroism of the upequaL conflict— inspired 112 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Echeverria to compose a poem La Instirreccion del sud^ de la Provincia de Buenos Aires en iSjg. The poem is merely a rhymed c hronicle of e vents. Whatever embeP" lishments the author may have intended to make had to be omitted because he left the manuscript behind when the approach of Rosas' men caused his hasty flight. It was ten years before the manuscript was recovered and the poem published. Echeverria's second place of refuge was Montevideo. In that city he was merely one of many refugees. As he suffered severely from an affection of the heart he was unable to take physical part in the armies that set out against Rosas. Moreover, he appeared to his fellows as a visionary. His pen, however, was not idle. Among his first poems were two of patriotic character published under the title of Cantos a Mayo. Then borrowing from Byron's Parisina the principal episode, that of the wronged hus- band who learns from his wife's lips as she talks in her sleep the story of her adultery and nevertheless flees from the room without carrying into effect his impulse to kill, Echeverria adapted it to an Argentine environment. First called La Guitarra, the poem was afterwards named from the guilty lady Celia. A very long continuation or sequel of this poem in eleven cantos and eleven thousand lines was published after the poet's death with the title El Angel caido. Its literary value is correctly characterized by Menendez y Ve Jay o thus: — "ITIs^not the fall o^ aiT angel but the fall of a poet. " The theme is a present a tion of Don juan in Argentine society, but he is not a person for he has become an abstraction expressing the author's moral and political jdeas. ARGENTINA 1 13 Better and more interesting at least in its descriptive part is another long poem, Avellaneda, intended to cele- brate the heroism of a man by that name who died in the struggle against Rosas. 1 he scene is laid in the province of ruciima n. In de picting i ts na tural beauties F^ch everria again demonstrat ed his prmciples concerning th e Ame ri- canization of li terat ure. The political element of the poem is of course less attract ive. These two peculiarities dominate all Argentine litera- ture, and as Echeyerria put them forth as a sort of theory of aesthetics, it may be said that his influence has pre- vailed during most of the century. The Americanization of literature which he advocated in a note to the Cautiva had a long and varied development in Argentina and » found in other countries at the advent of naturalism a responsive echo. And h is conception of poetry as a moral or civilizing agent became the literary creed of later romanticists . The Argentines w^ho fled from the tyranny of Rosas may be roughly divided into two groups, those who found refuge in Chile and those who preferred Montevideo. The stor>' of the literary activities of the former in Chile on account of their undeniable influence in that country belongs with the history of Chilean literature. The exiles had to earn a precarious living by their pens, but they were personally more secure than their compatriots in Uruguay. The latter remained in the thick of the fight where a sudden shift of fortune would have thrown them into Rosas' hands. For nine years his army and fleet maintained a siege of Montevideo from 1841 to 1850. In the latter year General Urquiza deserting the tyrant 114 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA brought his forces to join the league against him. In 1852 occurred the battle of Monte Caseros which termi- nated Rosas' power. During the period of the great sie ge Montevideo was the center of Argentine lett ers, and th e ir main theme anathema of Rosas. The foremost wielder of political jflvective was Jose Marmol (1818-81 ). At the age of twenty he found himself in prison as a conspirator. On the walls of his cell he scribbled in a quatrain his first denunciation of the tyrant in which he declared that the "barbarian" could never put shackles on his mind. The quatrain became Marmol's favorite vehicle of expression for his passionate hate. Tbe sin cerity, the variety, and the intensity of his quatrains rendered them famouS^^ Making Rosas second only to Satan in his capacity for evil, they depict hTm m ore EToodstained than AttH a or" Nero, bloodguilt ier than the Atridae, b loodthirstier than " a ravening tiger. For the clas s of readers that prefer facts to objurgation Marmol prepared Amalia, i n form supposedly a historica T^ novel after the man ner of Walter Scott , b ut more exact ly- a /detailed account o f Rosas* c rimes so presented as t a_\ show the moral degradation of Buenos Aires. Many episodes are introduced solely for this purpose. For example, Rosas demonstrates to the crowd his democratic ideals by compelling his daughter to receive the kisses of a rum-crazed negro. The description of the state ball gives an opportunity to reveal the character of the persons who form Rosas' immediate entourage, their base flattery, the vulgar conversation of the ladies. The narrative part of the story concerns principally the acts of a Daniel ARdKMINA II5 Bclld, himst'If opposed to R(is;is but protected in his operations because he is the son of one of Rosas' adherents. Thouph carrying on various intrigues and acting as a spy for those who arc plotting in Montevideo for an uprising, Daniel remains unsuspected. When his friend Eduardo Belgrano ventures into Buenos Aires on a mission, Daniel is able to save his life even after Eduardo has been severely wounded and left for dead by the police by concealing him in Amalia's house. She is Daniel's cousin. She takes so much interest in the patient that she falls in love with him. The book ends with a description of their wedding night. Its festivities are interrupted by the police who break in for the purpose of arresting Eduardo and who kill him. The novel Amalia met with a large sale in Europe. Menendez y Pelayo explains this fact in his criticism. After pointing out that the story is so strange as to be unreal, that one involuntarily asks how such a social condition could endure so long, he says, "The interest of the narration is very great and one drops~the buuk ic- luctantly." '< Marmol further utilized his experiences and sensations as an exile in c omjK)sing^ a long poem, El Peregrino. It is not complete, but many of the fragments possess great lyrical beauty. 1 he main idea of the poem is that of a Childe Harold in South America. With descriptive pas- sages concerning the clouds, the tropical sunset, the beauties of America, Marmol mingles the expression of his feelings, his love for his wife, his religious faith, his grief at the condition of his native land, the joy of loving even in the midst of grief. Ii6 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA The drama also tempted Marmol. Litt le praise is accorded, however, to the two dramas which he wrote, El Cruzado and El Poeta. The latter deals with the love affairs of Carlos and Maria. Carlos, being a poet, is poor and therefore turned away from Maria by her father. Nevertheless the lovers continue to communicate even after Carlos is thrown into prison for writing political articles against the government. When Maria learns that Carlos is to be exiled, she prevails on her father to use his influence to secure the poet's release. In return she promises to marry Don Enrique. The fifth act of the play opens with the wedding ceremony. After the vows have been pronounced, Carlos appears at the house and gains entrance to Maria's room, where he succeeds in calling her for an interview. Reproached by her lover for inconstancy, she tells him that she has taken poison. Then Carlos obtains some of the same poison and swallows it. She dies in his embrace, but Carlos lives long enough to hurl curses at the unhappy- father. AnQther Argentine exile and knight of the pen in th e struggle against Rosa s was Jose Rivera Indarte (1814-45). At the early age of twenty-one, he suffered incarceration for the expression of his opinions. \Vhile in prison t he reading of the B ible and Da nte dete rminpfl thf> gtyl^^r^ his poems wh ich he bega n to wri te then. A fter his release he took ship for North America. During the voyage he fell sick with an attack of smallpox. Being isolated and neglected, it was a marvel that he lived to reach Salem, Massachusetts. When news came to him of the emigra- tion of his friends to Montevideo he set sail for that port where he began to write for El Nacional. His attack on i( ARGENTINA II7 Rosas developed the thesis that it would be a saintly action to kill the tyrant. His articles being largely de- ^ script ive of cruel deeds were pu blish ed in book form under the ti tle Rosa s v sus Opositorc -s and had great influenc-c ^ in shaping foreign public opinion. .His poems, published after his untimely death, from consumption contracted during the s hatte red state of his health, contain some political sa tires in the st yle of Marmol but without th e latter's force. His patriotic hymns of the Argentine emi- grants and to Lavall e are more convincing. In his ode on the battle of Caaguazu he introduced an apparition of General Belgra no similar to the apparition of the Inca [fi Qlmedo's fam ous ode . But many of his poems are Biblical paraphrases or imitations collected under the title of Melodias hebraicas , which, however, are rather prosaic without poetic fire. Far better as poetry were the verses of C laudio Mam erto . Cuenca (1812-^2), killed at the battle of Monte-Caseros where Rosas was overthrown. He was a surgeon whom circumstances had compelled to remain in Buenos Aires as well as later to serve with the tyrant's army. His reputation among the patriots, however, was saved by the verses penned before the battle and found on his body. After bitter denunciation they declared that the hour of Rosas' purging had arrived. Cuenca's literary remains were published in three volumes under the title ^ _of Delirios del Corazon. Besid e many lyrical pieces of ^considerab le inspiration he was the author of Don Tadeo, a comedy of manners in five acts and a drama, Muza. In the army that defeated Rosas there commanded the artillery a y oung man of thi rty, Bartolor he Mitr e (18 21- ^ LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Qo6), who af terw^ards proved himself to p ossess one of the strongest and sanest intellects in Argentina. A cap- tain at the age of seventeen in the first siege of Monte- video, he rose rapidly in rank. The year 1848, however, found him in Chile where he showed that he could wield il a pen as well as a sword b y editing the Mercurio de F al- ■ paraiso. Among his companions in Montevideo he w as known also as a poet . What Echeverria said of Mitre's verses in 1846 is interesting: "His muse is distinguished among his con- temporaries by the manly frankness of his sentiments and a certain martial quality." Now listen to Mitre's own comment when editing his poems in later days: "I love my verses because they reflect some of those intense sorrows and some of those solemn moments of the revolu- tion against the tyrant Rosas. I have another reason for hating Rosas and the publication of these rhymes is my revenge. On account of him I have had to bear arms, travel the country, become a politician, and plunge into the stormy course of revolutions without being able to follow my literary vocation." Mitre's poems were nearly all written before 1846. They poss ess high literary and lyricaTqualities. In the elegies on the deaths oi certain mdividuals, iS "General Lavalle, who had fallen in the civil war, there is a display of real feeling which surpasses that of his contemporaries. Qne of his anti-Rosas pieces became a popular song. The title Invdlido refers to the old^ veteran who recites the story of his services to the country before begging "una limosna por Dios," The last stanza is the poet's own plaint in this wise: . N. ARGENTINA II9 La Repi'il)lica Argt-nrma Bajo el yugo de un tirano Pide al mundo anifricano Una liniosna por Dios! One section of Mitre's Rimas is devoted to Arnionias d<^ la Pampa. Therein he shows himsel f a disciple of Kchcverria by seeking inspiration in nature, or national customs. El Ombii en tne'dio dd la Pampa reveals a rare love for trees. El Pato describes a gaucho game by that name. In fact he is one of the first to attempt a poetical t reatment of th e Argentine gauc ho by telling the le gend of the famou s Santo s \'ega . Again he sings El Caballo del Gaucho with all the enthusiasm and love for horses which he himself undoubtedly felt. His reason for ceasing to wTite poems is interesting. He says: "At twenty years of age, I dreamed of immortal renown; the laurels of Homer robbed me of sleep. Soon I understood that I could not even aspire to live in the memor>' of more than one generation as a poet nor was our society sufficiently mature to produce a poet laureate." Politics occupied Mitre a/ter the return to Buenos Aires. In the fight of the city against the confederation in 1S61, he led the city's military forces. Being successful he was proclaimed dictator of the new federation of which Buenos Aires became the undisputed seat of the govern- ment. To his wisdom and modera tion was due t he fact t hat the o ld bitter differences between the city a r m^ttT g- "* p rovinces lapsed to the po int of disappearance. In 1865 he led the Argentine forc es in the war a gains t Solano Lopez, dictator of Paraguay. In 1868 his term as presi- dent came to an end, and D. F. Sarm iento was quie tly I20 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA elecft ed and inaugurated. Though Mitre was twice again a candidate for the presid ency and leader oF insurg ent " forges, his main b usinesf in life w as Hterary . ja 1869 Mitre founded La Nacion, to-da y on e of die ,^^ding newspapers in/the countr y. His Hist oria de Bel- ^ gjfano, originally put^ished in 185 8, he improved an3^ Brought out in neW editions. His monumental wor k, "" however, was La HiMor ia de San Martin, p rinted in 188 8. - It was such a history as one great soldier could write pf ', anothe r. / During Mitre's adm i nistration as p resident ^h ere w as / nrmfh literary activity in Bu enos Aires^ T l^ree literary _ jourtfals, La Revista argentina, El Correo del Do minzo^ and La Revista de Buenos Aires, flourished. The last ""HTrected by Vicente G. Quesada and Miguel Navarro Viola was the official organ of an influential literary so- ciety, the Circulo literario, among whose members were numbered nearly everybody of prominence in the city. The study of Argentine history absorbed much of their att ention, and occupied more than half the p a ges of the^ ]]^ review. A contributor was Luis L. Dominguez (1819-98), whose historical studies were later pr inted as Histor ia argentina, covering the pe riod from the discovery ^ "* America to the beginning o f the revolution a gainst Spa m. Among his fellow exiles in Montevideo he made himself remarked for his verses, especially those which he pre- sented at the famous literary contest of 184 1. In verses of a romantic type he quite caught the spirit of the master Echeverria. And . a descriptive poem of his, El Ombu , has remained a classic o f Argentine po etry. Ab out that ARGENTTINA HI shade tree Dominguez made the whole of ArgentirtP hfe revolve. The opening stanza of the poem, perhaps little more than a jingle, is known by heart by every scbool child. Cada comarca en la tierra Tiene un rasgo prominente: El Brasil su sol ardiente, Minas de plata el Peru, Montevideo su cerro, Buenos Aires, patria hermosa, Tiene su pampa grandiosa; La pampa tiene el Ombii. Dominguez, during Mitre's administration, held im- portant governmental positions and later rose to promi- nence in t he diplomatic ser vice of his country. Another historical writer of the same group was Vicente j Fidel Lopez (i 8 1 g-190.3), son of the author of t he Ar- gentine na tional hv mn. His Manual d e Historia^arjentina became the s tandard text-b ook for schools. His place of refuge from the tyr anny of Rosas was Chile where he was one of the Arg entine journalists so influential in the l iterar>^ histor>' o f that country. There he collected the material for some historical novels which were numbered among the first of the kind t o be written by Arg entines. At one time a fellow exile wi th Lopez in Chile w as Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-84), ^ rnost voluminous: and influential Argentine writer. When a youth of fifteen he was given one of the public scholarships at the Colegio de Ciencias morales founded by Rivadavia whose fore- sight recognized the value of education in a democracy. Being a member of the Asociacion de Mayo in 1837 he 1 122 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA was obliged to seek Safety from Rosas by flight. In Monte- video he completed his studies for the doctorate of law. At the same tim^ he was active in journalistic work by jvriti ng humo rous d escriptiv e ar ticles of manners and by contributing to the comic sheet, illustrated by carica tures, Muera Rosas, one of t he many forms of attack on tHg^tyrant. In 1843 Alberdi went to Europe on a ship ^amed the "Eden" and in fantastic prose wrote out im - '*' pressions of the voyage which he proudly published as a poem with the same name. But his enduring r eputation is due to a critical exam inati on of Argentine history a nd the suggestions for a suita b le form of government fo r the country contained in his B ases para la Organizaci6n ~3?\^ la Repuhlica Argentina. This book was wntterTin Chile after his return from Europe while the final campaign against Rosas was being - waged by ^eneral Urgui^a. When a congress rnet~aFter"~^ Rosas' overthrow for the purpose of preparing a consti- tution for the republic, the Bases directed the otherwise conflicting and vague ideas of its members along logical lines so that Alberdi's sug gesti ons became to all in tents the consti tution of t he A rge ntine republic. A curious~^~^ synchronism of events has been noted herewith. In May, 1 85 1, General Urquiza declared his revolution against Rosas and began to prepare his campaign. In May, 1852, Alberdi's book came from the press. In May, 1853, the constitutional convention voted the constitution. The foreign reader should remember that May is the glorious month of Argentine history, for the twenty-fifth is the national holiday. A rgentina's indebt edness ^jto—Ajberdi was recognized ARCKNTINA I23 two years later by a decree o f the government to dep osit in the national archives certai n of his writings signed with his autograph and to print at public expense an edit ion of his work s. Alberdi was entrusted with impor- tant diplomatic missions in Kuropc, but he did not aKvays meet the views oFliis compatriots respecting their TorcTgrTpoTTcyl His later years were spent f or the most ^part in Europe in the diligent production of political a nd economic writin gs. .Among the expatriate d Argentines the one who becam e t he most thorough ma n of let ters w^as Ju an Maria Gutier- rez (1809-7S). W ith Echevcrria and Alberdi he was ac- tive in the Asociacion de Mayo and suffered three months* imprisonment in Rosas' jails before going into exile. Gu- tierrez was initiated by Echeverria into his literary as well as his p olitical ide als, for within a ye ar after the pub- lication of La Cautiva, Gutierrez wrote Los Amores del Payador, a lo ng poem closely following the master's doctrine of the Americanization of literature of which he remained an ardent advocate. In Montevideo in 1841, Gutierrez distinguished himself by winning the first prize in a literary contest by an ode, La Revolucion de Mayo. It is praised by Mencndez y Pclayo because it "departs greatly from the current vulgarity of the patriotic odes," though at the same time the Spanish critic is very im- patient with the poet for his anti-Spanish expressions. ^Refinement and good taste, however, ar e the marks of Gutierrez* poems. In 1S46 Gutierrez published a collection of the poems written by S p anish Americans w-i t j^t he J\x\}ij^ Am'erica_ Poetica. Its purpose of attra cting the attention of Euro- 124 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ' peans undoubtedly suc ceeded. In the matter of taste in selection subsequent collections have not excelled it. Gutierrez passed a part of his period of exile in Chile and Peru where he materially broadened his knowledge of literature. In Chile, he was one of the group ©f Argen- tine exiles who were promment in writing tor the rieWS- V7 papers. — --« After the fall of Rosas, Gutierrez participated in poli- tics! He was a prominent member of the constitutionaT" convention of 1853. And as minister of foreign affairs he negotiated an important treaty with Spain. Recogni- ^ tion of Gutierrez' scholarship led to his appointment as rector of the University of Buenos Aires, a post which he held for many years. Gutierrez' interest in literary studies and his contri- ^ b utions to the Revista de Buenos Aires made it one^ £the most important r e views in America . Afterwards printed in book form his Bibliografia de la primera Imprenta de Buenos Aires and the Estudios hiogrdficos y criticos sobre algunos Poetas anteriores al Siglo XIX made his name widely known among scholars. The presentation of a copy of the latter to George Ticknor was the origin of some interesting correspondence between the two men. ^To the end of his life G utierrez pnrniimgprl thp prndnrti^^^^ of literature, as is evident by the many int roductions us u- .^ ally enthusiastic in tone which he wrote to accompa ny the volumes of young e r men. From 1871 to 1877 he con- ducted with V. F. Lopez the Revista del Rio de la Plata whose pages were the medium of publication for their literary and historical studies. y Among the enemies of Ros as the man who most nearly I ARGENTINA 125 approache d p ositiv e geniu s wa s Domingo Faustino Sar- mient o (1811-8S). T his fact is partly recognized in the epithet, "loco Sarmiento," by which Rosas' official journal in Buenos Aires was accustomed to refer to him. ^is individuality was as u ncommon as his intelligence. From almost a bsolute indigence he rose by personal en- deavor to be president of the Argentine Republic. His schooling was limited to a few years in a primary school, but he utilized every means falling to his command to extend his education. One of the books which came into his possession about the age of sixteen was the auto- biography of Benjamin Franklin who thereafter became his model. The vicissitudes of his career began at about the same age. Having been summoned to attend military drill by the governor of his province, he refused and soon there- after joined an uprising against the party in power. As the result of this act, after barely escaping with his life, he found himself an exile in Chile. ^^ The peculiarity of Sarmiento's politi cs resided in the ■^ a W fact that he was a provincial partisa n of the citizens of Buenos Aires who were demanding a strongly centralized government wit h the city at the head. In fact after the return from his first exile, he b ecame a member of a branch % ^ of Echeverria's Asociacion de Mayo. On the other hand Rosas represented the federalistic theory which accorded practical autonomy to the provinces, each ruled by a governor. Though nominally appointed by the govern- ment at Buenos Aires, these governors were local political bosses or caudillos, who like bandit chieftains were able by personal strength to maintain their positions. Con- 126 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA sequently risings in the provinces though theoretically in support of the centralizing tendencies of the unitarian party were really directed against the local caudillo. The results of such fights were usually decisive, because the defeated were slaughtered or driven into exile. Sarmiento belonged in the province of San Juan, situated just below the Andes mountains through whose passes he more than once journeyed into safety in Chile. The full story of Sarmiento's participation in the fighting in his own country and his efforts to earn a living in Chile is needless here. In regard to the latter it is sufficient to say that teaching school a nd writing for the papers wer e the most important at the time and in their results on his subsequent life. His readiness to enter into a controversy and the biting character of his cleve r sati re m ade him^^ \" many enemie s. But a Chilean politician, Manuel Montt, afterwards president of Chile, not only made use of his brilliant journalistic ability but also stuck by Sarmiento through thick and thin. Sarmiento's role, in the outburst of literary activity, which followed his criticism of Andres Bello's poem on El Incendio de la Compania is elsewhere discussed.^ This preceded the establishment of the University pf Chile of which Bello was appointed the first rector, while Sarmiento was given a place in the faculty orplTilosophy and humanities. At the first session of the faculty, he read a paper proposing certain changes in spelling Spanish which were later adopted. Partly to Sarmiento's initiative as well as to Bello's s cholars hip is due the fact that, of all "^ c ountries where Spanish is spoken, Chile has the credit of ' See page 198. AR(]ENTINA 127 introducing reforms in orthoRrnphy. S;irmiento also interested himself in the introduction in the primary schools of improved methods of teaching children how to read^ And at the instance of Montt he was made the principal of the newly established normal school. By the year 1845, however, the political situation claimed all his time for the editing of El Progreso in support of his patron Montt. Then appeared as daily articles the subst ance of the b ook to which Sarmien to chiefly owes his literary fame, Facundo la Cimlizacion y la Barbaric. Xhis book, no m i nally t he biography of Facundo Quiroga , ^t he caudillo lie uten ant of Rosas , perf orms for the latter's re gime the same damnatory service as Marmol's verses. Perhaps it was even more widely known. As the articles were promptly reprinted in Montevideo, it is not impossi- ble that they suggested to Marmol his treatment of Rosas in the celebrated novel Avialia published five or six years later. Facundo Quiroga had been active in Sarmiento's native province and it was to escape death at his hands that Sarmiento had first taken the road to Chile at the age of twenty.. The tale of Qui roga' s atrocities occupies " o nly the central par t of the book by way o f illustrati on to t he economic and political principles developed in fhp remainder. The opening chapters are devoted to a de- ^cription of the Argentine country, both brilliant and j nasterful, and to the student of Argentine history indis- pensablc. The concluding chapters give a n exposition of Sarmi ento's political ideas which undoubtedly assisted in l iaising him to the presidency of the republi c. The physical conditions of the Argentine, the isolation^ and primitive ignorance of the gaucho, his belief in force 128 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA as the only means of overcoming the difficulties of l ife, his consequent contempt for a civilization based on in --^ ^elligence, are the causes, accordi ng to Sarmiento, of soc ial anarchy in that country. The gaucho thus typifies bar- b arism in strife with civilization exemplified by the city oT Buenos Ai res. Without the support of the local caudillos, such as Facundo Quiroga, a tyranny like that of Rosas would be impossible. But even Rosas face to face with the difficulties of government was obliged to practice unitarian principles, "though the label on the bottle said differently." The Argentine Republic without rivers and mountains to mark natural boundaries can "be only one and indivisible." §o thoug ht Sarmiento in^iS ^i;, but afte r w ider exper i ence from hi s travels in the Uni te d Rtates jie became a champion of the federal principle which finally ^ prevailed in Argentina . Sarmiento, believing that his book Facundo would ope n a way for him in E urope, desir ed to visit it. In thi s pur- pose he was assisted by his staunch friend Manuel Montt, who procured for him a commissionership ostensibly for the purpose of studying European schools with a view of finding possible reforms for Chilean schools. Throughout his European tour Sarmiento industriously made inspec- tion of educational systems of which he published an interesting report, De la Educacion popular. But fronT the point of view of literature "h js book published at the ^ same time, Viajes -por Eu ropa, Afri ca y America is m ore i mportant an d interesting. The latter was widely re- "" produced in various journals. It consists of a series of brilliant pictures arranged to suit the political ideas of the writer but drawn with such clearness of detail that the ARGENTINA 1 29 unbiased reader may examine them with pleasure. He portrays Kranee regenerated by its great revokitiDn and placed at the head of humanity; on the other hand, Spain hes prostrate amid the artistic ruins of her former splen- dor; the future, however, belongs to the rising culture of North America. The anti-Spanish character of this book called forth a reply from a satirical writer, then popular in Spain, Juan Martinez Villergas who at- tempted to counteract its effect by a pamphlet, Sarmen- ticido a mal Sarmiento. r?iir puf fing a<;iHp tbp pr^. litical reflections, S armie nto's Fiajes is of its kind good literature. After an ab sence of three years, Sarmie nto re turned to C hile by way of North America and Cuba. Political il affairs in Argentina were beginning to look toward the 1: fall of Rosas. Sarmiento attacked him so vigorously in II the press, that Rosas called on the Chilean government to forbid Sarmiento the right to continue his activity, a request which was promptly refused^ Sarmiento replied by a pamphlet, discussing the form of government suitable for the country after Rosas' fall. Sarmiento was plain ly endeavoring to make himsel f a central figure in any re- construction of the go v ernment. T o further this pur- pose he published, Recuerdos de Provincia, a series of sketches and anecdotes about himself, his parents, rela- tives and friends. The student of literature must recognize th e life like qua lit y of his ch^T i\cten7.:^t\an equal in many respec ts to Addison's famous De Cov- ■ l - erlev papers. Jo Sarmiento's nu merous enemies, the book seemed only a nother in stance of the man's over-_ whelming vanity, — so great, according to the Chilean I30 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna, that the whole pampa woul d hot hold it.^ 1 Accordingly when General Jose Urquiza, the caudillo of the province of Entre Rios, hitherto the strongest sup- porter of Rosas, raised the banner of revolt, Sarmiento joined his army. General Urquiza, however, after the victory at Monte Caseros, disappointed his followers by continuing on his own account the personal government of his predecessor. Sarmiento returned to Chile once more to engage in journalism. But his stay was short, for when Buenos Aires rebelled successfully against Urquiza, Sarmiento came again to the city. .E jQm 1855, he played a^ prominent part in politics. After the battle of Pavon whfere Mitre's defeat of Urquiza decided for all time the question of constitutional government for the Argentine, Sarmiento was sent to the outlying provinces as auditor general of the armies , a position which gave him g reat^ influence . It helped him to become governor of his nat ive province of San Juan to which office he was elected in February, 1862. He became so arbitrary and independent that he worried the central go vernm ent at Buenos Aire s. President Mitre solved the diffic ulty b y appointing hjm ambassador to Ch ile and later min ister to the United States. While in th e latter country in 1 8 67 he was electe d to the presidency of Argen tina. Sarmiento's administration was marked in the matter of progress by the completion of the railroad from Rosario to Cordoba, an event which was celebrated by an exposi- tion in Cordoba. The President's journey thither was a continuous ovation because among the provincials, if ^ "su vanidad no cabe en toda la Pampa." ar(;fntina 131 not in Buenos Aires, he was popular. At his suggestion also a naval academy was ft)un(led and three vessels of war purchased. He caused to be put in effect the clause of the constitution calling for the establishment of a national Argentine Bank. On the other hand, his administration was harassed by the outbreak in Entre Rios of two uprisings by the cau^ dillo Lopez Jordan who had assassinated the old leader General Urquiza. The second time Sarmiento proposed to deal with the outlaw in the manner followed in the United States at the time ofp^inc oln's as sassination,.utz<^i»< namely, by putting a heavy price on the bandit's head.O^^'^A' j The proposition was rejected by the Congress and byi uu^uZ public opinion on the ground that it was an inalienable right of a man of Spanish race to start a rebellion and therefore it would be wrong to treat him like a criminal. Lopez Jordan replied to Sarmiento by hiring some Italian sailors to murder him, an attempt which happily failed. Sarmiento, on account of the rigidity of his character, was not popular, but his a dministra ti on was cer tai nly an era of progress./ Though Sarmiento retired from the presidency in 1874 he did not withdraw from public life. It is needless to follow his various activities here. It is sufficient to call attention to the fact that his interest in the cause of popu- lar education was still predominant, and among other offices held by him he was the first national superin- tendent of Argentine schools, and effected many reforms. In recognition of the courtesies shown Sarmiento in the United States, especially in Boston, where he imbibed many of his ideas about schools from acquaintance with 132 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Horace Mann, the Argentine government in 1913 pre- sented that city with a statue of their great educator and former president. The statue is also a symbol of the growth after his death of the appreciation by his countrymen of Sarmien- to's services to his country. In his lifetime his advocacy of various North American ideas was resented and most of those whose adoption he forced were discarded. In the judgment of Paul Groussac, the able librarian of the National Library at Buenos Aires, Sarmiento is, in the Emersonian sense, "the repres entati ve man of t he Sout American mtellect''; and "tne most genuine an? joyable writer_pf South America, the rude and_5ilice re colorist of his native plni ns?^ Though the officially printed collection of Sarmiento's writings fill fifty volumes, his literary fame is based on those already mentioned. The characteristics of his style, its swift movement, his ability to select the striking detail or apt anecdote, may be partly illustrated by the follow- ing extract from the description of Argentina in the first part of Facundo.^ Moreover, no better introduction could be given to a study of the development of the most original of all Spanish-American poetry, that pertaining to the gaucho. There is another poetry which echoes over the solitary plains, the popular, natural, and irregular poetry of the gaucho. In 1840, Echeverria, then a young man, lived some months in the 1 Facundo was translated by Mrs. Horace Mann and published under the title of Life in the Argentine Republic in the Time of Tyrants, Boston, 1868. The volume also contains other extracts from Sarmiento's writ- ings, especially from the Recuerdos de Provincia dealing with his family. ARCJENTINA 133 country. wIutc the fame of his verses iipun the pampa had al- ready preceded him; tlie gauchos surrounded him with respect and affection, and when a new-comer showed symptoms of the scorn he felt for the little minstrel, some one whispered, "He is a poet," and that word dispelled every prejudice. It is well known that the guitar is the popular instrument of the Spanish race; it is also common in South America. The majo or troubadour is discoverable in the gaucho of the country, and in the townsman of the same class. The cielito, the dance of the pampas, is animated by the same spirit as the Spanish jaleo, the dance of Andalusia; the dancer makes castanets of his fingers; all his movements disclose the majo; the action of his shoulders, his gestures, all his ways, from that in which he puts on his hat, to his style of spitting through his teeth, all are of the pure .^ndalusian type. The name of gaucho outlaw is not applied wholly as an un- complimentary epithet. The law has been for many years in pursuit of him. His name is dreaded, spoken under the breath, but not in hate, and almost respectfully. He is a mysterious personage; his abode is the pampa; his lodgings are the thistle fields; he lives on partridges and hedgehogs, and whenever he is disposed to regale himself upon a tongue, he lassos a cow, throws her without assistance, kills her, takes his favorite morsel, and leaves the rest for the carrion birds. The gaucho outlaw will make his appearance in a place just left by soldiers, will talk in a friendly way with the admiring group of good gauchos around him; provide himself with tobacco, yerba mate, which makes a refreshing beverage, and if he discovers the soldiers, he mounts his horse quietly and directs his steps leisurely to the wilderness, not even deigning to look back. He is seldom pursued; that would be killing horses to no purpose, for the beast of the gaucho outlaw is a bay courser, as noted in his own way as his master. If he ever happens to fall unawares into the hands of the soldiers, he sets upon the densest masses of his assailants, and breaks through them, with the help of a few slashes left by his knife upon the faces or bodies of his opponents; and lying along the ridge of his horse's back to avoid the bullets sent after him, he 134 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA hastens toward the wilderness, until having left his pursuers at a convenient distance, he pulls up and travels at his ease. The poets of the vicinity add this new exploit to the biography of the desert hero, and his renown flies through all the vast region around. Sometimes he appears before the scene of a rustic festival with a young woman whom he has carried off, and takes a place in the dance with his partner, goes through the figures of the cielito, and disappears, unnoticed. Another day he brings the girl he has seduced, to the house of her offended family, sets her down from his horse's croup, and reckless of the parents* curses by which he is followed, quietly betakes himself to his boundless abode. And now we have the idealization of this life of resistance, civilization, barbarism, and danger. The gaucho Cantor corre- sponds to the singer, bard, or troubadour of the Middle Ages. The Cantor has no fixed abode; he lodges where night surprises him; his fortune consists in his verses and in his voice. Wherever the wild mazes of the cielito are threaded, wherever there is a glass of wine to drink, the Cantor has his place and his particular part in the festival. The Argentine gaucho only drinks when excited by music and verse, and every grocery has its guitar ready for the hands of the Cantor who perceives from afar where the help of his "gay science" is needed, by the group of horses about the door. The Cantor intersperses his heroic songs with the tale of his own exploits. Unluckily his profession of Argentine bard does not shield him from the law. He can tell of a couple of stabs he has dealt, of one or two "misfortunes" (homicides) of his, and of some horse or girl he carried off. To conclude, the original poetry of the minstrel is clumsy, monotonous, and irregular, when he resigns himself to the in- spiration of the moment. It is occupied rather with narration than with the expression of feeling, and is replete with imagery relating to the open country, to the horse, and to the scenes of the wilderness, which makes it metaphorical and grandiose. When he is describing his own exploits or those of some renowned evil-doer, he resembles the Neapolitan improvisatore, his style ARCJF.NTINA I3S hfinp unfrrtcrcd, commonly prosaic, but occasionally rising to the pot-ric level for some moments, to sink again into dull and scarcely metrical recitation. The Cantor possesses, moreover, a rcperton," of popular poems in octosyllabic lines variously combined into stanzas of five lines, of ten, or of eight. Among them are many compositions of merit which show some inspira- tion and feeling. The character whom Sarmiento terms a 'cantor' was more popularly known in Buenos Aires as a * payador/ a name derived from the verb ' payar ' meaning to improvise in verse to the accompaniment of the guitar. As Sarmiento intimates, the popular poetry of Argentina is a derivative of the Andalusian of the Middle Ages and has a long popu- lar development. The episodes related by the payador reveal a certain epic quahty: tinged with Moorish, saxlness, but t empered by the Andalusian keenness for the satirical and the comic, frequent also is thpinrpnT tn tp.-jrh a- moral lesson; barba rous at times, for the purpose often is to inculcate a spirit of rebellion. B. Hidalgo and J. G. Godoy us ed the p opul ar poetr y in dialogue form during the revolutionar y epo ch for the propaganda of their patrioti c id ea s, but they did not m a ke. __ a literary character of the ga uch o. Among the firs t to put the ga u cho into cultivated literature was J. M. Gutie r- rez whose Amores del Payado r was writ ten in Fe bruary. 1838. It is worth while to note that this date is only a year later than the publication of Echeverria's La Cautiva and his suggestion regarding the utilization of Argentine sources for the creation of a native literature. Los Amores d^l Payador should be ranked high, ^t is t he typical gaucho legend. It is full of tr ue poetical feeling. It i s well written in good "Castilian. It is highly dramatic. The 136 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA reader is introduced to Juana who is waiting at the door of her father's house for her lover, the payador. At last he rides up mounted on his swift courser. As he is reciting his amorous ditty, a rich suitor for Juana's hand appears. The men's words bring on a fight. When Juana tries to separate them she is mortally stabbed by the rich man who is promptly killed by the payador. Over the corpse of his beloved he sings the characteristic mournful gaucho lament. Then covering her body with his poncho he departs to take up again his wild life in the wilderness. About 1844 were written Bartolome Mitre's gaucho poems. Among them is the first treatment of the legeTiTi-' of Santos Vega, a gaucho who has b een called the spirit gf "popular poetry incarnate in a Don Juan of the co un- tryside.** S antos Vega was a payador who died of grief because he had been beaten in a contest with a young amateur in the art of improvisation. Popular report asserted that the stranger before whose skill the inspira- tion of Santos Vega had failed was no other than the Devil. Ten years later after a more realistic represe nta- t ion of the gaucho was coming into vogue. Mitre publishe4^ f he second edition o f his poems accompanied by an intro- ductio n and notes. In them he wrote, "Primitive cus- toms have had ma ny singers but almost all have limited themselv es t o copyin g them instead of giving the m a poetic character. So it is that , in order to make gauc hos talk, the poets have used all the gaucho idioms, thus r aising a jargon to the rank of poetry. P oetry is not the servile copy but the poetic interpretation of nature.** ^1 hese words are an excellent expression of the two ITii&s f^alQng which this class of literature developed. ARdKNTINA I37 During the revolutionary period the gaucho served as a mouthpiece (o r the opinit)ns of Hartolonu- Hidalgo to whose celebrated dialogues of Chano and Contreras reTer- ence has already been fnade. Their realistic form and popular idiom served as a mockl for Ililario Ascasubi -(1807-75) w hom, some, if not Mitre, have praised for his "faithful reproduction of nature." One of Ascasubi's earliest pieces was a dialogue between Chano y Contreras who are represented as serving together in the trenches before Montevideo and conversing on the past glories of the country. Ascasubi was himself a soldier who had suffered im- prisonment at the command of Rosas. After two years in a dungeon he learned that the order for his execution had been issued, but the connivance of his jailers afforded him an opportunity to escape from the prison by dropping over the wall into the moat. In Montevideo he was en- couraged to write his patriotic verses by^Florencio Varela~ then the leading j ournalis t of the city. A t the latter's expense thousands of copies of one poem were printed and distributed to the soldiers in General Lavalle's army as they set out on their campaign against Rosas. This poem bore the title of Media Catla del Campo, the name of a favorite dance, and was written in a meter which allqwed it to be sung to the tempo of the dance. Its spirited words were in tended to hearten the soldiers by dwell|n^ on the defeat of Rosas at the battle of Cagancha. Florencio Vare la (1807-48), younger brother of Juan Cruz Varela, w^on the admiration of his contemporar ies by his energy and abilities. They sent him to Europe to enlist the assistance of England and France at the 138 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA opening of the great siege of Montevideo. There also he made a favorable impression of his personality. After _. his r et urn his journalistic attacks on Rosas and his lieu- tenant Oribe were so fierce that they dispatched an assassin who succeeded in his purpose one night at Vare la's verjT'^ doorstep. Beside his political writing, Varela was the author of some ode s in the classical style on^ the hospital—^ of the Brothers of Charity, on anarchy and on peace, all much praised by his friends. The lofty sent iments of the poems reveal the noble charac t er of the^m an. With his encouragement Ascasubi continued to produce his gaucho dialogues and letters. A favorite device of the poet was the letter written by the gaucho Donato Jurao to his wife narrating recent events or by Paulino Lucero discussing the cruel deeds of Rosas such as the execution of Camila O'Gorman and the priest Gutierrez. (This act was staged by the Uruguayan Fajardo.) These occa- sional pieces were afterwards collected in a volume and printed with the title Paulino Lucero or "the gauchos of the no de la Plata singing and fighting against the tyrants of the Argentine and the Oriental Republics, 1839-51: relating all the episodes of the nine years' siege which Montevideo sustained heroically and unequally as well as the combats which the gaucho patriots fought until the tyrant J. M. Rosas and his satellites were laid low." As the long sub-title promises, the book is a perfect mine of facts, especially for the student of local manners and cus- toms. His success in political verse led Ascasubi to attempt an ambitious reconstruct ion of the life of th e gaucho aFthc^ end of t he eighteenth century. The title which he finally ARdKNTINA 13(^ gave to the collection of his sketches originally published in 1S51, was Santos f'fga los Mfllizos de la Flor. In this picaresque novel in verse the payador Santos Vega, "aquel de la iarga fama," relates the life and criminal deeds of a famous gaucho outlaw who flourished between 1778 and 1808. In this manner the author finds opportunity to describe life on the estancias, its danger from the Indians, the rural customs and ideas, the good features of gaucho character as well as the evil and to celebrate the some- what mythological Santos Vega himself. After th e fajl of Rosas and the establishment of the rule o i General Urquiza, Ascasubi began the publication of a, p eriodical entitled Ayiiceto el Gallo fro m who se pages a g aucho by that na me preached unit arian doctrines to the fed eralistic adherents of Urquiza. Ma ny of his old poems against Rosas were reprinted. Though public interest kept the periodical alive for a year during 1853 and 54, not many political conversions have been attributed to the influence of Aniceto el Gallo. Ascasubi's verses are so closely conne cted with con- temporary events and can scarcely be read without con--- St ant reference to a glossary t hat they lack inte rgst_n oWy but to his friends he ivaS-Ji" second Beranger." In a degree the footnotes with which he provided the final edition of his poems are more interesting than the text. WTien Mitre co ndemned th^ gaucho jargon in the t heory^ of poetics prefaced to the second edirion _n£ his Rimaj, he was preparing th e way for a poet of the yo unger gen eration. Ricardo Gutierrez (i8^6 -q6) published in i860 a volume of poems which must have obtained Mitre's approval. The long poems contained therein, Ldzaro and 140 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA La Fibra Salvaje, Jiave been termed by enthusiastic ad- mirers the most c riollo of all Argentine poems. At the" same time their expression of t he pass i on of love is m ost intense. Ldzaro is the tale of a gaucho disappointed in love. La Fibra Salvaje possesses the intensity of a gaucho tale at least as the title suggests. It depicts the despair of a lover, Ezequiel, who separated from Lucia, the object of his passion, becomes a monk when she marries another man. After several years the husband, Don Julio, comes in remorse to the monk's cell and, without knowing the latter's personal interest in the matter, confesses that he had sold his wife for gold to satisfy his passion for gambling. The monk is so inflamed with anger that he challenges Julio to fight. Julio is killed. Then Ezequiel lays aside his monk's garb to enter the army of San Martin in one of whose victorious battles he meets his own death. { Ri cardo Gutierrez becam e a physician. The experiences of his calling are revealed in many of his poems, for~Ke V constantly cries t o God in prayer for consolation for tKe ~"^ miseries which h e witnesses . In 1880 he published a novel Cristian. The protagonist of that name is a student who, during his vacation on his brother's ranch, falls in love with his brother's wife to whom he discourses much of the soul. And finally like Werther commits suicide. The sign ificance of Ricardo Gutierrez lies in the fact that he penetrates the depth of the gaucho soul and reveals as~n a ^ other of his countrymen its i nner workings prompting to the deeds of violence^so frequently describe d. Po ems in the gaucho jargon after the cessation of the publication of Aniceto el Gallo were next written by _- ARGENTINA 14I Estanislao del Campo (bom 1835). His first verses signt'tl "Anastasin cl PoIl(/' wen- ascnlnil to Ascasuhi till the latter denitd tluir authorsliiji in a letter from Aniceto el Gallo congratulating Anastasio el Polio ujion his first efforts as a cantor. The best of Del Campo's early poems is the account of the battle of Pavdn fought in 1861 which it will be remembered established the supremacy of the province of Buenos Aires in revolt under the generalship of Mitre against Urquiza. This poem gives a mock ac- count of the battle as a report from the defeated general. Del Campo also wrote verse in a more elevated style; for example, his ode to America on a text taken from Mar- mol's lines that America pr ophesies li berty to the w orld is readable. Were it not however for one gaucho poem of his he would be speedily forgotten. At the suggestion of Ricardo Gutierrez, to whom he dedicated his produc- tion, he composed and published in 1866 a long poem en- titled Fausto. Impresiones del gaucho Anastasio el Polio ' others the poem symboliz ed the w^hole race of the gau cho who has now disappeared before the advance o T the railway and Euro pean immigratio n. The truth of Hernandez* representation was instantly recognized. Her- nandez was brought up in the country and thoroughly understood the physical conditions and the characters whose daily life, passions, pleasures, aspirations, and dreams he portrayed so minutely. As literature Martin Fierro is ranked high by the Span- ish critic, Miguel de Unamuno, who finds in it a commin- gling of the epic and the lyric. Further he says: "When the payador of the pampa beneath the shade of the ombu in the calm of the desert, or on a pleasant night by the light of the stars intones, to the accompaniment of his Spanish guitar, the monotone decimas of Martin Fierro and the gauchos listen with emotion to the poetry of the pampa, they hear, without being aware of the fact, the inextinguishable echoes of their mother Spain, echoes which with their blood and soul were bequeathed to them by their parents. Martin Fierro is the song of the Spanish warrior who, after having planted the cross in Granada, went to America to serve in the vanguard of civilization. Therefore iiis song is filled with the Spanish spirit; his ARGENTINA I45 langungc Is Spanish, his idioms, his m axi ms, his worldly wisdom, hib soul arc Spanish. " With the popularity of Martin Firrro, the gaucho he- came the fashion. As a part of an evening entertainment or as a side show to a circus the payador flourished. A few professionals attained celebrity for their ready wit in improvisation for it was customary to pit against each other representatives of different provinces. With less realism and more of the ar tistry demanded by Nlit r'e, the gaucho next appeare d in verse in the Tradi- ciones Argc-ntinas of Rafael Obligado. These three brief poems are poetical interpretations of the Santos Vega legend. In the first a payador relates how the ghost of Santos Vega had played at night on a guitar accidentally left by a well. The second brings the famous gaucho to a ghostly love tryst. The third narrates the death of Santos Vega in contest vvith an unknown payador, to whom Obligado gives the symbolic name Juan Sin Ropa. According to the legend Santos Vega, the unexcelled, had succumbed only in a contest with the Devil; but this vic- tor's name typifies the new imr'nigration which has brought about the passing of the old conditions in the country. In he words of the poem, Juan Sin Ropa's song "was the mighty cry of progress on the wind. " W ritten with a like symbolism as if to mark the dis- appearance of the gaucho, at the c lose of the ninete enth century was published in 1899 the last recorded gaucho poem, Nastasio, by Francisco Sot o y Calvo . It is the story of the death of old Anastasicj, the gaucho, after a terrific hurricane had robbed him of his wife and children. Into this poem filled with the spirit of the pampa, the 146 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA author has attempted to concentrate the essence of all the rich gaucho hterature. Two years later Soto y Calvo brought out a counter- part to this poem in Nostalgia in which he portrays~the~ new life that has come into th e country with the inBux"~^ .of foreign immigration . An Italian immigrant, Vittor, falls in love with a maid servant of native birth whose employers take him as a farmhand. After their marriage riches come to them as the reward of sturdy effort and allow Vittor to put into execution his long cherished am- bition of returning to Italy. But the couple are not happy; they are homesick for the pampa (hence the title.) One's country is where one is well off. The story would have been better if its twelve thousand lines had been prose. The p rose treatment of the gaucho began a bou t 1880 , when realistic fiction in the style of Zola was coming into vogue. Eduardo Gutierrez, making use of police reports, filled the literary sections oT the newspapers with ~tHe exploits oFno torious criminals so that Juan MoreiraT tHe^ assassin, and El Jorobado, thief, became household names . But as M. Garcia Merou points out, the rom antic~ payaaor Santos Vega has becpme a dege nerate .wiio spends the intervals between h is robber ies in getting drunk. But Eduardo Gutierrez by adapting one of the episodes of.nTs novel Juan Moreira to p antomimic representatio n in a circus opened anot her path in li terature to the gaucho . At first to fill the part in the pantomime real gauchos rode their horses into the circus and strummed the guitar. Soon spoken dialogue was added to their roles. In this play the brothers Podesta achieved a reputation and continued it independent of the circus. Their success encouraged ARGENTINA 147 tluin to stage Martin FUrro. Then original plays about~ K.un.hiis Were written both in Argent]na and Uruguay. St) ri> the present day the gaucho has kept the stage. And from this popular origin has developed a class of plays ll whic h re pre sent th e rnanners and speech o f the lower cl asses. Public enthusiasm over the productions of the popular poetr>^ never hindered cu ltivation of verse along more classic lines. The poet called on to voice the sentiments of Buenos Aire s at a public gathering in celebration of the establishment of the third French Repub lic ijn 1 870 ,was Martin Corona do. He had attra cted attention only the year before by th e essentially virile tone and sparkling eloquence of his verses, a quality which m ade them very suitable for declamation. As a- poet of occasion he prac- ticed also the epigram and the jocose. But his most interesting poems are narrative pictures of dra matic events in contemporary life. In Los Hijos de la Pampa his heart beats in sympathy with the soldier who, wounded by the same bullet that had killed his horse, lovingly caresses the animal before dying. Angela is the story of a young woman whose conduct fits her name. At her wedding ceremony a woman appears to claim the prospec- tive bridegroom as the father of a child in her arms. Angela recognizes a bow of ribbon in the woman's posses- sion as one which she had herself given the man as a token of love. Removing her wedding veil and putting it on the woman, Angela compels the man to marry the mother of his child. Later Angela dies of a broken heart. In these narrative poems Coronado reveals himself as a disciple o f Ricardo Gutierrez. The two poets resemble i:^ 148 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA each other also in theii-intpnsu:y_o £ expressio n when treat- ing the passion of love. "Coronado on the other hand essayed the drama in pr o- ,ductions the most important since those of M armol. La Rosa Blanca, 1877, dramatizes the efforts of a physician to cure a girl who had become insane through disappointed love. Luz de Luna y Luz de Lncendio, played a year later, stages with great realism the days of Rosas. Cuitino, a despicable villain and officer of the tyrant, appears at an evening party where he succeeds in getting his victim, young Emilio, to betray his unitarian sentiments, whereat he is arrested and taken to the barracks of the federal soldiers. The scene at the barracks gives opportunity for declamatory eloquence from Emilio. The drunken Cuitiiio and his soldiers display the utmost brutality and thereby prepare the spectator for the killings in the last act. These plays were partly the outcome of the efforts of a (^ literary society, the "Academia Argentina, " to promote' the theater. The members proclaim ed the mselves j is^ ciples of Echeverria with the purpose of nationalizing^ literature on the model of La CaiUiva. As a step in this ^- direction they occup ied themselves als o in prep aring~~a- ^ dictionary of expressions peculiar to Argentina. .The memb er of t his society who won th e greatest namelo T r himself as a poet wa s Rafael Obligado. One of his best poems, Echeverria, which may be taken as the manifesto of the society, turns on the idea: — Lancemonos nosotros sus hermanos Por la senda inmortal de Echeverria. ' ..pbligado is a genuine poet with the tr uest feeling for. arc;i:ntina 149 the intimate moods of nature. As his family was wealthy, he was able to spend his time obs erving her and putting into verse such impressions as he willed. His earliest long poem, La Pampa, written in 1S72 under the direct imitation of his chosen master, is an ambitious attempt at word painting. But he was more successful in such gems as La Flor del Seibo and El Nido de Boyeros. The former is a letrilla composed to vie with the Cuban poet, Placido's La Flor de la Caha to which Obligado refers in the opening lines when he declares his belief that the inspiring Cuban beauty had no blacker or prettier eyes than a certain little Argentine maid. Perhaps the same little maid was the passionate, tender-hearted lass of the adventure with the birds' nest related in El Nido de Boyeros. The poet says he is acquainted with a girl of thirteen who likes to row about the river amusing herself by picking flowers. WTien- ever she sees him she haughtily threatens him with her fist. One day he saw her approach a nest of boyeros hanging over the water. When she tried to get it with a long stick she just missed it. Thereby losing her balance she was throvm to her seat ih the boat. In anger she started to strike the nest, but the cries of the young birds deterred her. Instead she gently rocked the nest. While engaged in this motherly occupation she caught sight of the poet watching her. And thereafter when she passes him in her boat instead of threatening him, she rows quickly past with averted head. Beside t he breath of the pampa a nd the woodland fragance rare in Argentin e poetry, Oblig ado's lines reveal tender human sen ti ments. The sense of pfT<;nn.-i] Inss th rough the dea th of l oved on es has seldom been more I50 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA * exqu isitely expressed than in El Hozar Vac'io. And from El Hogar Paterno the reader discovers that the poet's love for his country is rooted in his love for his home. The total number of Qbligado's poems is small, a fac t whiclP' testifies jto the ca re with which he wrote. At the s ame time he claimed a romanticist's freedom of treatment. Partly from this and partly from his choice of subjects came about the most interesting episode of his litera ry" career. One day he sent a challenge written in tercets to his friend Calixto Oyuela to debate in a Justa Literaria the old question of classicism and romanticism. Nothing averse, the latter, who had just been winning some prizes in Buenos Aires for his classic verses, replied in tercets accepting the challenge. In the same meter and form they reproached each other for what each one believed to be the other's shortcomings. Obligado thought that Oyuela was neglectful of the light of the present ideal and unmind- ful of the Andes. Oyuela replied that Obligado was irrever- ent of the past. Finally the poets agreed to submit their contest to an older poet, Carlos Guido y Spano, a man who inspired great respect and even affection in his contempo- raries. In a genial letter, interesting to the student of lit- erature in many ways, Guido y Spano replied in this strain. The guitar is worth as much as the lyre. For a new world, new songs. But form must be considered, Ob- ligado's exquisite Flor del Seiko would perish were it not preserved in a vase of fine cry'stal. Therefore the judge advises Oyuela to stop reading Homer and spend a few hours with Aniceto el Gallo and Martin Fierro. On the other hand, Obligado should go to Athens and Greece. Then the two poets will understand each other without I ARCJKNTINA 151 need of his decision. Let them make truce and continue sinping each in his own fashion. OMigado referring to the ancient habit of presenting the victor of a poetic contest with a rose, sent to Oyuela his Flor del Seibo. The latter in acceptance complimented his adversary on possessing more true American savor than any other and advised that they make war on their common enemy, that Hterary pest, Gallic imitation. To un derstand the sjj^mficanc e of the J usta LiUraricL, it IS necessary to consider certain minor movements in Argentine poesy. Even Echeverria believed that poetry was a sort of handmaid to morality and humanitarianism. A spiritualistic tendency of this kind easily joined jtself fefcurrent of classicism. And when about the year 18S0 literar>' societies established contests in Buenos .Aires to which they gave the old name o f "juegos florales," the poems submitted to the jud ges were compositions on \ the classical or philosophical order. Cali.xto Oyuela was a prize winner in these contests, in 1 88 1 with his Canto al Arte and the ne.xt year with Eros. The latter is a very bdautiful poem, distinguished on the one hand for its correctness of diction and classic spirit and on the other for the development of the senti- ment which it expresses. The poet declares that love is the inspiration of all his verses. Every flower, the breeze, each wave of the sea, the last breath of evening, the shin- ing stars, all nature speaks to him of love. This poem is perhaps the fairest product of the purely classic school. In the same year in which it was written, _died th e man of whom the classicis ts believed themselves disciples, namely, Carlos Encina (18^0-82). When nine- . 152 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA teen years of age, he won first prize in a school contest by a Canto lirico al Colon. Later he wrote two poetical dissertations, Canto al Arte and La Lucha por la Idea. They comprise practically all his compositions in verse, for he became a teacher of mathematics and of philosophy along evolutionary lines. His poems are judged some- what harshly by Menendez y Pelayo on the ground that they are not poetic but are merely the versification of Hegelian and Spencerian ideas. How the Argentines re- garded the poems has been told by Ricardo Gutierrez. To them they opened a new course of aesthetics which was the religion of the new school. Carlos Guido y Spano (bom 1829) was, however, the grand old man of the classicists. He was the one who gave them translations from the Greek and showed the m by example what correct ness of form meant . His sober and severe style was a development of his later days as one may discover by reading the verses published in the collection of 1871, Hojas al Viento. Here are revealed the same tenderness of feeling and the same breadth of sym- pathy which made him personally so beloved. Sympathy with the bereaved or the sufferer from injustice is the" dominant n ote of his best poems. Perhaps he inherited this trait from his father Tomas Guido, one of San Martin's generals at the battles of Chacabuco and Maipu, and an orator of renown. At any rate the poet relates in the autobiographical sketch prefixed to Rdfagas, a volume of collected newspaper ar- ticles, two notable instances of his own nobility of char- acter. In 1 85 1, his brother being sick in Paris, Carlos was sent by his parents to look after him. When he ar- ARGENTINA 153 rived he found his bmthcr dead. Paris was in an uproar of revolution. Filltd with democratic enthusiasm for justice the young Argentine fought behind the barricades. Luckily he came away alive, for in 1S71 an opportunity offered for him to show the same spirit of disregard of self, to the benefit of his native city. Buenos Aires was being ravaged by an epidemic of yellow fever and it was necessary for a popular commission to fight the peril. As a member of it Carlos Guido y Spano distinguished himself by his activity. Sympathy with a sister nation inspired him to his most_ ambitious p oem, Mexico: c anto epico. When the French invaded Mexico in 1862, their army at first met with defeat. Guido's sentiments on this occasion are so ve- hemently expressed that the Mexican critic, Sosa, declares that one might easily suppose the author of the poem to be a Mexican. But Guido y Spano was equally moved by the injustice of an act when his own country was a participant. The result of Argentina's coalition with Brazil to oppress Par aguay is most patheti cally sign ified in Nc-n ia. This brief poem is one of the most precious gems of Argentine lyrism. It is the lament of a young Paraguayan girl who has lost her parents, brothers and lover by the ravages of the war. The lament begins and ends with an apostrophe to the urutau, a native bird of sweetest song, perched on the yatay, a kind of palm tree. Llora, llora, urutau, en las ramas del yatay; ya no existe el Paraguay, donde naci como tu. Llora, llura, urutau. 154 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA No less affecting is the poet in rendering his personal / fe^Hngs, whe ther jt be to his mother, A mi Madre, or t o a friend just ber eaved by the deat h of her father, J I Pasar. Few poems dep icting the awakenin g of a first love exc el , En los Guindos; the bpy has climbed a cherry tree ^nd as he tosses the fruit intd\tb«''''oiTtspr^a^ skirt of~nis girt^ companion, his heart fills with emotion as he glimpses her charms. It is easy to understand why Guido y Spano should ^have been selecte d" by Oyuela and T) bl ig ado to d e cide ~ their literary joust. With Oyuela he had in common a • revere nce for form, and with Obligado a love for the tender and sen timental. B ut their verses began to seem trivial to the public be side the grandiloquent outbursts of a poet who is gene rally^regarded as Argentina's greatest poet, Olegario Victor Andra de (1838-83). Before the juegos florales of 1880 he was scarcely heard of because he was on the wrong side in politics. He was one of the boys whom General Urquiza had ordered to be sent to school and to the university. He repaid his patron by dedicating to him a poem, Ali Patria, which won a prize in the school contest in 1856. But he lost favor the same year by marrying at the age of eighteen. He supported himself by writing for provincial papers. In i860 he became private secretary to President Derqui, but as his government was soon overthrown, Andrade had no resource but to continue to write in the provinces. Though he once succeeded in securing a place in Buenos Aires, he lost it by espousing the cause of Urquiza against Sarmiento. In the following administration of Avel- laneda he held a position in the custom house at Con- f ARGENTINA 155 cordia, hut was accused of negligence in administration, a charge from which he was later acquitted. With the advent of General Roca to the presidency in iSSo, the provinces acquired a larger share in the government. Roca placed Andrade in charge of La Tribuna as chief editor of this government organ. And after his death, in 1883, President Roca assisted Andrade's widow by buying from her for the National Library the manuscripts ol all his poems for sixteen thousand pesos, and by print- ing at national e.xpense a fine edition of his poems. More- over, President Roca paid Andrade the personal compli- ment of delivering an oration at his funeral. .Andrade's poems are characterized by a declamatory eloquence on patriotic topics and an exagge rated Amer- icanism. They are didactic on the theo ry that the ppoL has a m ission to preach to the multitud e. Having been -jvritten within the space of five ye ars when the man was about forty years old, they display a certain u nity of conception which, despite their diversity of title, gives them additional force. The first of this series of mature poems is El Nido de CbndoTes, dated 1S77. A condor's nest situated on a gloomy and precipitous clifF above a defile in the Andes, surrounded by a white band of snow, amid perpetual silence, has attracted the poet's attention. Musing he recollects the stirring events of which the nest of the condor witnessed in part at least, San Martin's passage of the mountains, the battles of Maipii, of Chacabuco, the disaster of Cancha Rayada. The next poems are more personal, to General Lavalle, to San Martin, El Arpa P^rdida, an elegy on the poet IS6 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA Luca, singer of Argentine triumphs in revolutionary days, who was drowned in a shipwreck in 1824. Heroism, American heroism is ever his theme as in the ode, Pay- sandii, to the memory of the victorious Uruguayans. In Atldntida, which won him a prize in the juegos florales of 1881, Andrade advanced to a more abstract and prophetic tone. This poem, dedicated to the future of the Latin race in America, begins with a summary of the history of that race. Rome, Spain, France, have each in its turn risen to leadership and fallen to decay. But in America are republics, the poet characterizes each in memorable lines, republics where life beats high and liberty will come to full fruition. The poet's mission as a teacher and prophet is exalted in a Canto a Victor Hugo. To Andrade, the French poet seems greater than any of his predecessors, who have tried to uplift humanity, excelling Isaiah, Juvenal or Dante. He possesses the peculiar qualities which marked each of them. And he lives in France, "height where nests human genius." But in America, "new theater which God destines for the drama of the future, free races admire thee, Orpheus, who went down in search of thy beloved, sacred democracy. And across the seas, setting star, the sons of the dawn salute thee." Hugo replied to this effusion by nothing more than a few courteous words of thanks; whereby it was "ill paid," in the opinion of Menendez y Pelayo. But Valera is uncertain whether Hugo was vexed at being called old and a setting star or whether the French poet was ignorant of Castilian and failed to understand the poem. In Prometeo, the most transcendental of his poems. ARGENTINA I57 Andrade wrote the spiritual history of the man of genius, of the thinker who strives for the good of the human race. We have perhaps an echo of Andrade's personal misfor- tunes. The setting of the poem is the same as in the trag- edy by .^schylus. The Titan lies chained to the rocks, hurling his defiance at Jupiter and is pitied by the Ocean- ids. Aside from the words which the poet puts in the Titan's mouth, Andrade's innovation in the legend con- sists in the term which he puts to the suffering. WTien the Titan views the cross of Christ on Golgotha, he feels that he may die because another martyr is about to win the fight for the liberty of human thought and human conscience. The Spanish critics are somewhat captious of Andrade's merits because his Americanism is distateful to them . To Valera the poet's expression "Latin race" is especially distressing. He thinks, however, that Andrade, given a better and wider education, might have excelled both Bello and Olmedo as h e is sup erior in inspiration. What the Argentines think of Andrade has been well said thus: "He is the true national po et of the Arg entines, because he reflects in his beautiful songs the aspirations of that young and lively democracy which frets itself in supreme loDgings for liberty, progress, and civilization, while it is the melting pot for the diverse elements of the La tin racc^_£i:o m whic h will spring a new American type, des- tined to preside over an important evolution of .t hp human species in the new world." ^ Soon after Andrade was laid irSTs^^omb, it witnessed a strange ceremony. A paralytic whose lower limbs had ' M. Garcia Mcrou, Recuerdos LiUrarios. 158 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA been useless for ten years, was brought there for the pur- pose of paying honor to a fellow poet by laying on the tomb a wreath which he, Gervasio Mendez (1849-98), ha d won in a poetic contest. For many years Mendez was a .pathetic fi gu re in Arg entine letters . ^The poems senj forth from his cou ch of suffering rang with no feigned note of melancholy. When he besought, in Los Ndufragos del Mundo the pity of the world upon the failures, or urged in Amor Celeste the joy of religious consolation, there sprang to mind the poet's own story. Friends by printing editions of his poems and assisting their sale helped to keep him in the public mind. Leopoldo Diaz in a sonnet compared him to the bound and helpless Mazeppa. In a measure Mendez was a precursor of t he youthful poets whose pseudo-melancholy began in the late seventies to be the fashion. His first volume of verses, printed in 1876, was greeted by the veteran critic J. M. Gutierrez with the enthusiastic cry that a real poet had appeared in Argentina. The early ei ghties witnessed in Buenos Aires a peculiar^ recrudesc ence of French romanticism of the type of Alfred de Musset . The youths who^jpri ded themsel v es on writing ^ verses l ike the m a ster sought al so to imitate him in manner of life . They organized a society, the "Circulo Cientifico Literario," to foster the production of poetry by listening to each other's lines. Translations of their favorites, such as Gautier's Alhertus, De Musset's Rolla were interspersed with recitations in the original of the most risque passages of the same poets. Makipg Miirge r t heir model the young Bohemians indulged in mu cn horseplay not always devoid of Bacchanalian excesses. ARGENTINA i :;9 .^^ The verses of some of these younR men are inrensting T" to read. Julio K. Mitre, president of the cirele, imitating * the elegies of Gautier sang that^ve was the sweetest of -.- ^o oJs and the crue lest of ill s. Adolfo Mi tre (i8 qo-S^4). took immense pains with the form of his verses melancholy in tone on gloomy topics. Alberto Navarro Viola (1856- 85), possesse d a wider literary and moral horizon in his poem s on Giordano Bruno, Voltaire, and Moreau, though a series of twenty-five poems on the death of his mother, the memory of her kisses and his doubts after her death, gav e forth the truest note. He also published \ an annual biblic^graphy of literary works printed in ;^ Buenos Aires, which i s now of real value to the student. '^X To Luis S. Ocampo was due the intro duction of orgiasticV-1 — ,^^Ss lines in the mrinner of Fsnronred.T. Dominfrn Mnrtinrn X\ lines in the mann er of Espronceda. Domingo Martinto strove for Par nassian ele gance and s ucceeded so well that some of his poems might easily be taken for translations from the French. Equally as c areful in expression was Martin G arcia Merou (b. 1862) . His literary activirj^f; werp rp j^y and various, in cluding attempts at the Zolai stic novel in Lf\ Social. For a time he mystified his companions by publishing sane criticisms on their mad verses. To him we are indebted for an amusing and instructive account of the movement in his Recuerdos Literarios. Long con- nected with the diplomatic service of Argentina bis graphic pen described the life of those countries in which \:r he resided. More than fifteen volumes of verses, tales. ai )d criticism bea r his nam e. An other poet who began to write with these young men (his ode El Dcscubrimitnto (U America won a prize in 1882), but who lived longer l6o LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA than they and continued to write for twenty-five years $ was Enrique E. Rivarola. Among his later productions were realistic prose tales of life in Argentina. All this poetic activity of the early eighties in Buenos .Aires created an atmosphere favorable to the new ideas in literature, which were to spread from that center thro ugh the Spanish-American world till they affected even Span^~:;*~ ish poets. The "modemista" movement, though origin- .ating in part with others, dates fro m 1 888 with the pu b- ~^ lication of Jzul by Ruben Dario. It is significant of^^ the cosmopolitan character of the movement that its leader was a native of Nicaragua, who had come to Buenos Aires by way of the west coast of South America. On account of the world-wide influence of Ruben Dario and the modemista school they must be studied apart from the local poetry of Argentina.^ Cesser or younger followers of the movement than the galaxy of the great, those whose reputations haveBeeiT mainly local, are Emilio Berisso, Eu genio Diaz Romero, Al- berto Ghiraldo and Ricardo Rojas. Enrique Banchs, s ince 1907, has been perhaps the most prolific. . In the monthly review Nosotros, now representing the best literary pro- duction of Argentin a, find thei r opportunity for liter ary endeavor such writers as Juan Mas y Pi, Manuel Galvez, and Alvaro Melian Lafinur. "■^- Though fiction as a kind of literature in Argentina beg an with Marmol's Amalia, other novels made their appear- ance after the fall of Rosas. In the periodical El Plata cientifico y liter ario, founded in 1854 by Miguel Navarro Viola, a leading attraction was the historical novel La * See Chapter XIV'. ARGENTINA i6r Novia dfl llereje o la Inquisicion df Lima, by Vicente Fidel Lopez. The author attempted to depict society in Lima about the year 157S, when Peru was startled by the appearance off its coasts of the Enghsh admiral Francis Drake on his famous cruise in the Pacific ocean. V. F. Lopez, during his studies for his Ilistoria Argentina, found material for another story entitled La Loca de la Guardia. Such was the name given to a crack-brained woman hving near the passes of the Andes, who used to give information to the patriots of the movements of the Spanish armies. As her mental condition was said to be due to abuse from Spanish soldiers, Lopez made a story out of the mystery of her life. The periodical La Revista de Buenos Aires established in iSl>5 to which Lopez contributed historical articles and J. M. Gutierrez literary criticisms tried to encourage the production of fiction. The editors promoted an edition, 5old by sub scription, of the stories of Juana Manuel^ Gorriti de Belzi} ^ 'Though she had removed from Ar- gentina in her childhood and spent her life in Bolivia and Lima, where she was a prominent figure in literary circles, the people of Buenos Aires were proud to claim her as a countrpvoman. Th>e sale in 1865 of the collection of her stories, Suenos y Realidades, was very successful. Ten years later visiting heX native country she was received with a royal welcome, arid another collection of her tales, Panoramas de la Fida, was brought out. /Vnother female writer bf fiction to whom Gutierre z ca lled the attention of the public was Eduarda Mansilla de Garcia who printed her workynder the name of " DanieL" ' See paga 257. 1 62 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA She published in i860 El Medico de San Luis, a valuab le picture of contemporary s ocial condit ions. The protag- onist was an English doctor who had married in Ar- gentina. The childish character of his wife is contrasted with that of his sister Jane, a practical woman to whose sternly Protestant mind the weaknesses of her foreign and Catholic sister-in-law, as well as the kind of educa- tion being given to her twin nieces is abhorrent. By this means the author made public her ideas on the education and social position of girls. Eduarda Mansilla wro te other novels, one of which, Lucia M iranda, dealt with t\\e. fortune s of that c olonial h eroine so attractive to Argentine novelists and dramatists since Labarden's play Siripo. Romantic fictio n gave way to realism about 1880. Eduardo Gutierrez' tales of criminal gauchos mark~~a~" transition to the novels which were inspired by the appear- ance of Zola's works. For their novels his imitato rs fouli3 ample material in the cosmopolitan city Buenos Aires. On the one hand the influence on character and family life of the sudden acquisition of wealth afforded opportunity for naturalistic studies, and on the other the clash between the foreign immigrants and the native population pre- sented dramatic contrasts. Eugenio Cambaceres was one of the first to write in the naturalistic manner. His Silbidos de un Vago, 1882, was little more than sketches of life in the city and on th e estancias. That and his next book Mus ica Sentimental were greeted by adverse criticism because the freedo m with which the relations between the sexes was treated shocked the public. When, however, in 1885 he p ublished Sin Rumbo it had been educated sufficiently to appreciate ARGENTINA 163 the good points of the novel. This is the story of a man of the world who seeks in the country the restoration of his health undermined hy dissipation. On the estancia h( amuses himself by making love to a humble country girl. After a time he returns to the city. Once more tiring of fast living he goes back to the estancia where he finds that a son has been born to him. Paternal love awakens and makes a better man of him. Unluckily his little Andres falls sick and dies whereat the father is so grieved that he commits suicide. The attraction of this novel la y in its detailed pictures of native life; a long journey on horse- t)ack across the sunlit pampa, night on the farm, the raging storm th at turned dry broo ks into torrents, the pathetic dea th of little Andres. Moreover, the language , of the characters, the jargon of the peasants a nd the sl ang of the city, wi th thei r familiar and pictur esque expressi ons, added to the enthusiasm of the critics who hailed Cam- baceres as the founder of the nat ion aLnoveL^ His next. En la Sangre, 1887, developed the suggestion of the title by a study of the influence on national life of the admixture of Italian immigration. An Italian born in Buenos Aires and educated in its streets succeeds in marrjing a wealthy girl by first seducing her. The fortune thus gained is lost in speculation and there is nothing left for Maxima but ill treatment from her ugly-tempered husband. The novel had a tremendous success as a serial in the columns of a daily paper. Cambaceres, however, was not the fir st to stu dy th^ foreign element inthe_metropqli^. And in fact three novels which appeared in 1884 must have helped to pre- pare the public for his somewhat Tiarsher naturalism. 164 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA ' | I/nocentes culpables by Antonio Argerich rel ated the for- tunes of an Italian immigrant who rises from his beginning as a bootblack through various trades and marries above his station. The eldest son is a dissipated fellow who finally commits suicide, while the father is no better in his later years and ends in the asylum for the insane. Jm Gran Aldea by Lucio V. Lopez (1848-94), son of V. F. Lopez, depicted the whole life of the city, its politics^ j ts morals, its social diversions. T he youthful Blanca, married on account of her horror of poverty, to an old man, and Julio, for whom she has a guilty passion, are the prin- cipal characters. Sketched from life, the originals were known to the readers who took great delight in the per- sonal allusions, the racy dialogue and the epigrammatic style. The third novel of that year, Fruto Vedado, also a study of political and social life in Buenos Aires, was by a FrenctT^""^ man whose abHTties have won for him a prominent plac ^" in the life of the city. Paul Groussac first drew public attention by this novel written more m the manner of Daudet than in thatZoT" Zola, though it is also the tale of a guilty love . But the hero Marcel is a hard worker whose passion for Andrea resembles more a blow of ill fortune than a bit of degen- eracy, and when Andrea's blind husband discovers their fault. Marcel departs to start life anew in Africa. Grous- sac after the publication of this novel devoted his time to the cultivation of more serious literature, essays, bibliog- raphy and history. In 1893 he visited Chicago to deliver before the World's Folklore Conference an address on the Argentine gaucho. This and other essays were published ARGENTINA 165 in a volume entitled El I'iaje InteUctual. The description of his long journey by way of the west coast of South America and throughout the United States, Del Plata al Niagara, printed in 1897, is the most interesting book of travel from the South American point of view that I know. Scnor Groussac well deserved his appointment in 1885 as librarian of the National Argentine Library in Buenos Aires, a position which helpfully to students he still holds. The monthly La Biblioteca, which he edited for two years from 1S96, contributed much to the diffusion of knowledge concerning early Argentine literature. The greatest Argenti ne novelist is Carlos Maria Ocantos, who may be correctly termed the Balzac of his native city, tollowmg the latter's example he formed a bond of union between his m any novels by m aking the principal characters members of the same family. By this device he could lay the scenes not only in the present day but in the past. For example, Don Perfecto, published in 1902, written in the form of an autobiography of an old man, gives many pictures of life in Buenos Aires as far back as 1855. Ocantos' first novels Leon Saldivar, printed in Madrid in 1888 when the author was secretary there of the Argentine legation, was greeted with applause. The critic Ernesto Quesada, an Argentine essayist of power, said that the novel realized in prose Echeverria's famous dictum regarding the field of Argentine poetry. d^^on Saldivar is a/Tich yountt.-ifrarKv^ho leads^e^ordi- nan,' l^L- o f t4ega p^ society JH Bu enos Arrcsr^ He co^jrts Lucia Guerra, whose father is a wealthy cattle raiser, living six months of the year on his estancia and spending the rest of the time in the fashionable life of the city. l66 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA The family's manners thus stand in ridiculous contrast with the refinement of their associates. The mother allows her ambitions to sacrifice her daughter to the wiles of a fortune-hunting Frenchman, who celebrates his marriage with Lucia by getting drunk at their wedding. A few months later the police appear at their house, guided by the man's wife from France. It seems he is an escaped convict whose deserted wife revenges herself by getting him sent back to prison. Lucia's wedding had so affected Leon that he fell sick with brain fever. When he recovers he determines to seek restoration of his health by a trip to Europe. Meeting Lucia accidentally he is about to refer to her misfortunes when she tells him that she is going to sail to Europe to join her husband called there because his aged mother was dying. Such indifference and levity of mind in Lucia puts an end to Leon's infatua- tion. When he reaches home he discovers that he is really in love with Cruzita, an orphan girl whom his mother had brought up. To marry her he postpones indefinitely his European trip. Th^ interes ting pictures of native life, the carnival, parties, dances, th e fash ionable Progres o club, t he su mme r sports, the wedding, are drawn from reality wuth a master hand. Ocantos applied his descriptive talent to the com- I position of a series of novels which now numbers a long list of titles. They treat the many phases of life in the Argentine metropolis. The important one of immigration, especially of Italians, receives due consideration, notably in one of the latest novels El Peligro, 191 1. The peculia rities of society in Buenos Aires from the fem - inine standpoint found an excellent interpretation in Stella^ ARGENTINA 167 published anonymously in 1905 hy "Cesar Dua ycn," who aftcnvar d proved to be a well-kn o wn la dy, Emma de la Bar ra. The keennes s of observation displayed in this book, the accuracy of its details of wealthy families, and its pathos awakene d a justly merited interest. WHile" the story does not deal specifically with the question of the mingling of races in Argentina, the fact that its heroine, Alcjandra Fussier, is the daughter of a Norwegian scientist who had married into a prominent family touches the problem. The child of the south had been unable to with- stand the climate of the cold north' and had died leaving two daughters. The novel opens with the arrival at her rich uncle's house of Alejandra bearing her little sister Stella, whose lower limbs are paralyzed. Her father had never returned from a scientific expedition to the Arctic. According to his instructions in that event she had come to Buenos Aires. Having inherited her father's talent, being well educated and showing in her disposition the northern strain in her blood, Alejandra proved very at- tractive to the men of the household, especially to Maximo, the bachelor brother of her uhcle's wife, because she was such a contrast to the native women. Moreover, her womanly qualities in caring devotedly for the crippled Stella irresistibly drew the man of the world to her side. Maximo began to devote almost as much attention to Stella as Alejandra herself. Consequently when the poor child died, it was easy for Alejandra to accept Maximo's offer of marriage. Conditions on the estancias and in the country villag es have also formed the subject of nulnerous s ketchcs„anq. tales. Their realistic details lend them both .-trrrarrion ,. i68 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA and power, though the author's choice of episode is often , gruesome and sometime s revolti ng. \Roberto J. Payro, Martiniano P. Leguizamon, Manuel Ugarte, Godofredo Dairea ux, and Carlos Octavio Bunge have practiced^ itli "I success this type of literature. Bimge-aftd—Ufiaite have ^| also attracted attention as essayists on ma tters of litera ture ,^nd public aiFairs. The latest novels to win praise are La Gloria de Don Ramirez, 191 1, by Enrique Rodriguez Larreta, which in most excellent style reconstructs a historical epoch of the Middle Ages in Spain; and La Novela de Torquato Mendez by Martin Aldeo, 191 2. The latter is another study of wealthy society in Buenos Aires, and is spec ially recommended to those who wish to obtain a conception. of the great cosmopolitan metropolis of th e southern hemisphere. CHAPTER V URUGUAY In studyinp; the l iterary productions of the Repu biica Oriental do Urupuay it is well to hear in mind the adjec- tivc in the oHicial n ame of this co untry. It remains from, the K)cal term of Banda Oriental applied to the re g ion before its establishment as an independent republic. After the strugpl g ^^ith S pain the emperor of Bra zil l aid claim to the countn,', but the political question was sett led^ at the battle of Ituzaingo, where troops from Buenos Aires assisted. The capital, Montevideo, situated on the eastern side of the estuary^ of La Plata is a sister c ity to the capital of the Argentine Republic. Their intellectual life has been similar and their literary^ productions have apj^eared in the journals of either city according as po lit- / ical exigencies have dictated the resid ence of the author. Again their material wealth is based on the same indus- tncs, cattle and grain, so that conditions of life are much , IK e same. ^rhe pa triarch of letters in Uruguay w^as FrnnriQm Acurla de P'igueroa (1790-1862). ^ He was a monarchist, educated by the Jesuits, and hij earliest verses were satires against the colonists who were fighting for in- Jependence. When they were successful he h ad to take refuge in Brazil. Later he was permitted to return. How well he became reconciled, is evident from the truly pa- 169 I/O LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA triotic inspiration of the national hymn of which he Is the author. His popularity as a literary man brought him such positions as treasurer general, director of the national library, and censor of theaters. His verses, composed in the classic forms, sonnets, letrillas, odes, canciones, and decimas, fill twelve volumes in the collected edition of 1846, so arranged according to the explanation of the author, as to afford the reader an agreeable variety of matter. There is a little of all sorts, political, religious, praise of the bull-fight, con- gratulations on family events or election to ofiice, epi- grams on current gags, anecdotes or scandals. In explain- ing the liking of the Uruguayans for the poet, F. Bauza ^ says: — "There is something local, characteristic, and pecul- iarly ours in his style, in his turns of expression, in all he has produced. On his pages may be observed the reflection of what is most habitual with us and what we like best." fit was natural that Acuiia de Figueroa should be__an opponent of the romantic school. So when the Argentine leaders of that school, Echeverrla, M i tre, F. Varela, R rvera f Indarte, Marmol, were refugees in Montevideo abo ut 1844, he turned his sharp wit upon them. He satirized their pecul iarities in a mock epic , entitled La Malam- brunada, divided in three cantos. It relates the war which some old women begin in envy upon the young women. The first canto describe^the congress of witches presided over by Satan before whom Malambrunada argues her case seeking their asslsta*nce. In the second canto the old women assemble under different standards. Falcomba strives to obtain the chief command. Voted ■ F. Bauza, Esludios Literarios. URUGUAY 171 down shf opposes tlu- plan to niarcli at nl};ht am! surprise tlu" youn^. I lu- (pustion Ining n-ftrrccl to a council of thirty they approve the plan. The scene of the third canto shifts to the young women. Venus has resolved that they shall not be surprised. So she urges them to choose a leader and prepare their forces. They elect Violante to whom is given as a badge of authority a crown of laurel interspersed with rubies. When Cupid sees her, he cries out that she is more bewitching than Psyche. Accordingly the old women fail in surprising the young and when the armies meet in a plain, Venus guides Vio- lante and her escort to the place where Malambrunada has taken her stand. The old leader is beaten and killed. The rest of the old women flee into a swamp where Satan hides them by turning them into croaking frogs. In this satire on the quarrel between the classicists and the romanticists, the poet, to be sure, gives the victory to the latter, but he makes their exaggerations and mannerisms ridiculous by imitating their style and fantastic episodes. While humor and Andalusian salt may predo minate_ in the verses ol Acuna de Figueroa, it would be wrong to suppose that he was incapable of a more elevated strain. Few poems have been written more heart-stirring than La Afadrr africana whose purpo se was to put an end to tKir .African slave trade, at least that part of it which was carried on in the ship Ag uila flying th e flag o f Uruguay. Very nobly and simply expressed are the feelings of the woman who sees herself robbed of husband and children. Very scornful are the words of the poet referring to the "bravos who proclaim liberty and make slaves." In spite of ridicule the young men in Montevideo fol-^ 72 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA f H lowed the romantic order. The first in point of time was Adolfo Berro (1819-41). The amount and quality of his work is all the more remarkable on account of the shortness of his life. His sympathies are with the fallen" and the downcast, the grief-stricken of all kinds. And true to the example of his master, Echeverria, he sought also to exploit the pnetir in native lifp, n^ in rhp b^^llnd of^ Yand ubayu and Liropeya. The young Indian and the Spaniard Carvallo are wrestling in sport. When the maiden Liropeya reminds her lover that he must that day fight for her possession with certain of her suitors, he desists from the sport. The Spaniard then treacher- ously kills him in order to make love to the maid. She indignantly rejects his advances, then suddenly consents to follow him if he will dig a grave for Yandubayu. While the Spaniard is digging, she gets possession of his sword. After he has finished his task and come for her, she kills herself, bidding him to open another grave. The same legend was used by Pedro P. Bermudez _ (1816- 60) who turned it into a lyric drama. A/ Lfiafrntti- in five acts and in verse which was produced w ith very great success in Montevideo. The title was derived from the name of the tribe of aborigines found by the Spaniards at their arrival in Uruguay. Some of their peculiar qual- ties, stubborn courage, taciturnity, and reserve, they bequeathed with the strain of their blood to the present inhabitants of that region. Hence the poetic appeal met with a certain atavistic response in the hearers of the drama. The action, laid in 1573, is slight, so that the pro- duction might better be termed a dramatic poem! ThV* youth Abayuba adores the maid Lirompeya. Her father, II URUGUAY 173 Zapicnn, is willing t(^ prant luiii lu-r hand as soon as the lail has Jrivtii rhi' Spaiiianls from the country. He calls together the chiefs who ciecicie on war. Act three is dc- voteil to the farewells of the lovers, in act four the Spanish captain Carvallo challenges Ahayuba, but by guile he gets him as well as the maid Lirompeya into his power. Ihe latter resists the captain's advances even though he announces to her the torture of her lover in prison. In act five Lirompeya succeeds in getting hold of Car^allo's dagger. Ahayuba breaks from his prison and finds his beloved. After a love scene, she strikes herself with the dagger and hands it to the young man who follows her example by killing himself. In lyric poetry- the most successful romantic was Juan Carlos Gomez (1820-84). There is a personal note in his lin es undoubtedly derived from ._the.3d£is'^"^"^<^'= f^f his life. One fe els that he is sincere when he sings his ho mesickness or rails at the evil of the world. H e was by profession a lawyer, but during his many proscriptions from his native country he earned his living by journalis- tic work. He was one of the group who carried the roman- tic movement to Chile and was employed as a writer for the Mirrcurio of Santiago from 1S45 to 1852. When he returned to his home he engaged in politics only to be obliged shortly to flee to Buenos Aires. There he became one of the leading journalists possessed of a trenchant, epigrammatic style quite in contrast with the vague, mournful tone of his verses. But he was not beloved in Montevideo, because he long waged a press campaign in favor of annexing the Banda Oriental to the Argentine Republic. f 174 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA In spite of his sufferings at the hands of political tyrants, Gomez did not break forth in vituperation like Marmol, but expressed his emotion s in poetical metapho r. La Nube is an example of this. In this poem he inquires of the cloud: — "Why weep upon the earth that does not deserve ft.'' Its perfumes serve only to cover its evil." In many poems he finds comparisons between his personality and the sea, the sea that he had crossed so often, as a fugitive. He put himself also in a legend in six cantos dealing with an old man, Figueredo, who hates to see Uruguay under the domination of Brazilians. To the accompaniment of his guitar he sings to stir up his sons to a desire for emancipation. Finally he throws away the instrument, urging them to fight. Unfortunately in the first encounter through the fall of his horse the old man is taken prisoner and his sons are unable to rescue him. When he is lib- erated and permitted to return to his country, in a long apostrophe he refuses to do so because it is under the domination of Brazil. Of the same period as Gomez but with decided class- ical leanings were Bernardo Prudencia Berro (1803-68), at one time president of the republic who met his d eath^* leading a revolution; Enrique de Arrascaeta a correct but cold rhymster; and Francis X. de Acha (1828-88 ). "'*' While the Argentines were pouring ou t their diatrib es against the tyrant Rosas, the Uruguayans found material for the drama in his rule. Francis X. de Acha wrote m verse Una Victima de Rosas, then La Fusion, produced in 1 85 1, the story of two friends separated by the civil war. Acha was a journalist and editor of El Molinillo, a satirical sheet. To this and to other papers he contrib- URUGUAY 175 uted many verses of a r*)inanfic type protesting against the civil war aiul various social evils. The fun-loving strain of his nature led him also to write comedies. Bromas caseras depicts in three acts the torments suffered by the husband of a jealous wife. In 1877 was represented his romantic drama, Como empieza acaba. Federico tricks Magdalena, the daughter of his partner, into marriage during the absence of her lover Carlos, who had been sent to Havana on business. Carlos, on his return, is found making love to the lady by her husband. They tight and Federico dies. But Magdalena refuses to marr>', preferring the convent. Another drama concerning Rosas, Camila O'Gorman, was written by Heraclio C. Fajardo (1S33-67) and pro- duced in 1856, with great success. This dealt with a particularly notorious act, the execution of a priest named Gutierrez and a woman, Camila O'Gorman. In the play a platonic affection is shown to exist between Camila and the priest who is her piano teacher. A mutual friend, Lazaro, is arrested as a conspirator against Rosas. To save their friend's life by pleading with the tyrant, they go together to his house. Rosas is smitten with violent desire at the sight of Camila's beauty. During a momen- tary absence of the former, the friends refer their case to Manuelita, Rosas* angelic daughter. She promises to save Lazaro but warns that only flight can save Camila's virtue from the base purposes of her father. Act four discloses Gutierrez, Lazaro, and Camila free but in the act of conspiring against Rosas. A certain Ganon who is him- self in love with Camila leads the police to their resort. All escape the raid except Camila, but she is rescued later 176 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA by her friends. The love between Gutierrez and Camila ceases to be platonic. Gano'n betrays their whereabouts to the police. Arrested, they are shot according to the orders of Rosas in spite of the pleadings of Manuelita. Cursing Rosas in imitation of Marmol was also a poetic diversion of Fajardo, but he did not do it quite so well as his master. In other ways he won a reputation as a poet. He won the gold medal in the certamen of 1858 by an ode on Avierica y Colon. Two years later he published a long /^oem occupying over a hundred printed pages. La Cruz de^ Azabache and in 1862 a volume of collected verse, Arenas del Uruguay. The long poem treats the love affai rs of a poet, Helio by name. After a series of women. Ana. Maria, Yola who deceives him, he meets Vitalia. The last he is obliged to leave in order to take part in the war. As a remembrance he takes with him a "cross of jet." Little results from his participation in the war though he is constantly dreaming of Vitalia. In the meantime, Yola writes a lying letter to Vitalia saying all manner of evil about Helio, among other things that he had left her. The poem concludes with the death of Vitalia distressed by the vision of a battle field on which vultures devour the corpse of Helio. The greatest figure in Uruguayan letters is undoubt edly Alejandr o Magannos Cervantes (182^-9;;). At the ag e of twenty he was connected with the legation in Brazil. A year later he started for Euro pe. While still a student in Madrid he published his first novel. La Estrella del Sur, which he had written in part during his voyage from America. This was followed by two plays, Percances matrimoniales and Amor y P atria. In 1852 he gave to the I URUGUAY 177 world his poetic legend Cfliar to which he owed his great- est fame. On somewhat similar lines was written in prose Caramuru, his best novel. In 1855 he returned to Uruguay where during the remainder of his life he enjoyed various public offices among which were those of rector of the university and senator. 1 he volumes of collected verse, Br is as del Plata, 1S64, and P almas y OmbueSy 1884, were distinguished by their intense patriotism and local color. The scene of Cellar is laid on a ranch belonging to Don Diego Sandoval, father of a pretty daughter. The social conditions are those of the eighteenth centur}\ Don Juan de Altamira is the commander and tyrant of the town near the ranch. He makes love to Isabel, but her head and heart have no place for him, because the handsome and dashing gaucho, Celiar, fills them. She even snubs the proud Spaniard, who then pretends to give her up to his rival. Three days before their projected wedding there is brought to Celiar a letter asking him to come to the bedside of a dying uncle who had been a father to him in his childhood. Celiar sets out by moonlight, but well on the way his party is surprised by "Indians," of whom Don Juan is the leader. Don Juan stabs Celiar three times. Nobody dares denounce this act because the Spaniard is the legal representative of the king of Spain. He himself, however, is somewhat uneasy because Celiar's corpse disappeared. Another victim of Altamira is then introduced to the reader, a maid, Emilia. When she dies in child-birth her betrothed promises to avenge her wrongs paniard. So he flees to the Charruas, who at the moment are ravaging the white settlements 178 LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA under a mysterious cacique Toluba. He is really Celiar. The band descends upon the village where Don Juan com- mands and Celiar kills him. But Celiar and Isabel, who are both injured, die in each other's arms. Celiar is a novel in verse, written for the public in Ma- drid. Consequently the poet was obliged to make ex- planations of conditions, which mars the flow of his nar- rative. In Caramurtl, however, prose allows the author greater liberty of expression. Caramuru is a gaucho, who has carried oflF Lia, the daughter of a city lawyer, to save her from marrying a man whom she dislikes. Moreover, he had saved her life from a wild beast so that she has fallen in love with him, but he maintains her in platonic affection, in a covert in the woods. After her flight with him, Caramuru enters a drinking place where other gauchos are discussing the mysterious event. One of them remarks significantly that he knows the abductor and the whereabouts of the young woman. Caramuru fights with him and kills him. When the other gauchos pursue the assassin through the night, he eludes them by dropping off his horse, which goes racing on, leading the pursuers far astray. Under the name of Amaro our gaucho enters the service of a rich Brazilian. In time he asks his employer to loan him a large sum of money. The Brazilian promises him a large reward, if Amaro will obtain a horse that can win a cer- tain race. Now Amaro is aware that an Indian cacique possesses an exceedingly swift horse, so he proceeds to his camp. By a little trickery, by frightening the Indians by big medicine, he succeeds in getting away with the horse. When the day of the race is at hand the Indian URUCJUAY 179 horse Dayman has for its only serious cpmpctito^, a n«)ble animal, Atahualpa. 1 he descripf^on of thi- horse race forms one of the most spiritt