Montengón's "El Mirtilo" in its Eighteenth-century Context

Abstract

Pedro Montengon's pastoral novel, El Mirtilo o los pastores trashumantes, bears so much similarity to its predecessors in the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries that it is difficult to believe that virtually a hundred-and-fifty years intervened before it came off the Madrid presses of Antonio de Sancha in 1795.1 We find the familiar figure of a young man of good family, Mirtilo, leaving for the countryside because he will no longer tolerate the injustices that society fosters. He takes up with two shepherds, Silvanio and the head herdsman, Montano, who are leading their flock to Extremadura. After several encounters, interpolated tales, many songs and dances, the group reaches its destination. Mirtilo then goes on to discover an idyllic valley where, in complete seclusion, the widowed Melania lives with her innocent daughter, Melanira. As the novel ends, Mirtilo has found his wife and his future in an earthly paradise.