History Of Spanish Literature Research Articles

Tradition and evolution of 'Ojos garços ha la niña'

‘Ojos garcos ha la nina:/?quien ge los namoraria?’ With this estribillo Juan del Encina began a villancico which has undergone a convoluted and thematically convergent evolution in the history of sixteenth-century Spanish lyric poetry. These blue eyes cast a spell, both upon their admirer, and upon the named and unnamed poets who have participated in the several reworkings of the original text and of its various offshoots. An examination of some of the known compositions which, directly or indirectly, are related to Encina's poem will, it is hoped, serve to illustrate an admittedly limited aspect of Spanish literary history and, more important, will seek to point up some of the processes of poetic creation and re-creation at work in the traditional lyric.

"Exemplo" 51 of "El Conde Lucanor": the problem of authorship

One neglected aspect of Spanish literary history has been the authorship of Exemplo 51 of El Conde Lucanor. Several scholars have at one time or another suggested tentatively that the tale may or may not have been composed by Don Juan Manuel, but to the best of my knowledge no one has yet undertaken a systematic analysis in order to test the authorship of this impressive story. I hope to show that Don Juan Manuel is without doubt the author of Exemplo 51, and that this will free critics from their noticeable embarrassment when including a consideration of Exemplo 51 in an analysis of El Conde Lucanor.

DID CERVANTES KNOW THECAVALLERO ZIFAR?

One of the most frequently encountered—and least substantiated—clichés in histories of Spanish literature is the assertion that Cervantes modelled his Sancho Panza, a creation of which he was justifiably proud, on the Ribaldo, the squire of the knight Zifar in the early fourteenth-century romance El libro del cavallero Zifar. Recently, however, this time-honoured assumption has been challenged in passing by Jules Piccus in two articles, neither of which is concerned primarily with this problem but with particular aspects of the Zifar, as the titles show. My purpose in this article is to examine in more detail the arguments on both sides and offer some new evidence for consideration. The main points that have been advanced in favour of the hypothesis that Cervantes used the Ribaldo as a prototype for Sancho can be summarized very briefly. First, both men differ significantly from the conventional squires of chivalric literature. They are not fledgling knights but peasants; and they show all the qualities that amateur sociologists like to ascribe to peasants—practicality and home-spun wisdom, astuteness and mild dishonesty, down-to-earthness and humour. Secondly—and this is the point that has received most emphasis—both squires frequently express themselves through the medium of proverbs, the acknowledged vehicle of ‘folk wisdom’. In these two respects at least it is possible to agree entirely with Menéndez Pelayo's statement that the Ribaldo ‘es hasta ahora el único antecesor conocido de Sancho Panza’.

Did Cervantes know the "Cavallero Zifar"?

One of the most frequently encountered—and least substantiated—cliches in histories of Spanish literature is the assertion that Cervantes modelled his Sancho Panza, a creation of which he was justifiably proud, on the Ribaldo, the squire of the knight Zifar in the early fourteenth-century romance El libro del cavallero Zifar. Recently, however, this time-honoured assumption has been challenged in passing by Jules Piccus in two articles, neither of which is concerned primarily with this problem but with particular aspects of the Zifar, as the titles show. My purpose in this article is to examine in more detail the arguments on both sides and offer some new evidence for consideration. The main points that have been advanced in favour of the hypothesis that Cervantes used the Ribaldo as a prototype for Sancho can be summarized very briefly. First, both men differ significantly from the conventional squires of chivalric literature. They are not fledgling knights but peasants; and they show all the qualities t...

E. M. Wilson, "Some aspects of Spanish literary history" (Book Review)

E. M. Wilson, "Some aspects of Spanish literary history" (Book Review)

Some Aspects of Spanish Literary History

Some Aspects of Spanish Literary History

George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins (review)

BOOK REVIEWS63 die institution to resistance to its extension. More people opposed die Kansas-Nebraska Act dian opposed die gag rule, but racism or jealousy of die Soudi's political power, not hostility to slavery, often engendered freesoil sentiment. Even dien, free-soilism and sectional forces alone cannot explain the politics of the 1850's or die defeat of northern Democratic congressmen. In many areas of die North nativism and anti-Catholicism as represented by the Know Nodiings contributed very heavily to die Democratic defeats. Indeed, die very fact diat sectional forces divided Congress for twenty-five years without producing war suggests diat we must look to otiier factors, in addition to real sectional differences, in order to explain die outbreak of die Civil War. Despite these reservations, diis is an important book which everyone interested in the coming of the Civil War should consult. Michael F. Holt Yale University George Ticknor and the Boston Brahmins. By David B. Tyack. (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1967. Pp. xiv, 289. $6.95.) David B. Tyack uses die life of George Ticknor (1791-1871) as a kind of emblem of Boston Brahmin conservatism. Arguing that Brahmmism originated in die Federalist, Calvinist-Unitarian conception of die Commonwealth as organic republic; drew life from the great family fortunes established in Boston in the eighteenth and nineteendi centuries; turned to Europe, especially England, for standards of social and literary decorum; and finally disintegrated under "die accelerating social changes in America" during die nineteenth century, Professor Tyack interprets Ticknor's life as a particular instance of diese general developments. After introducing Ticknor widi a chapter on his "formative years," Professor Tyack explores Brahmin attitudes towards Europe by following Ticknor to the continent and Gottingen University in 1815. When Ticknor returns to Boston in 1819 Professor Tyack analyzes Harvard as Brahmin breeding-ground—this because Ticknor himself taught there for fifteen years and played a leading role in the unsuccessful effort to raise Harvard's standards to diose of die German university. In 1835 Ticknor retires from Harvard and becomes die "autocrat of Nine Park Street," working desultorily on his History of Spanish Literature, dispensing oracular literary pronouncements, and ruling die cultural life of Boston with an iron hand. In diis section Professor Tyack probes die conservatives ' equation of literature, morality, and die organic state and explains why so many who, like Ticknor, did not have to earn a living were nevertheless driven to make tiiemselves useful by keeping die cultural and hence moral tone of the community high and hard. In his last chapter Professor Tyack uses Ticknor's defense of die Fugitive Slave Law, his idolization of political heroes like Washington and Daniel Webster, and his sympadiy widi southern dieories of race to suggest die bankruptcy of die 64CIVIL WAR HISTORY Brahmin ethos in face of die realities of American democracy confronting it in mid-century. So much for summary. Aldiough Professor Tyack succeeds in analyzing the general attitudes of die conservative Brahmin caste better, I think, than anyone thus far has, he fails to justify his central character, George Ticknor , who seems too often a literary device, not a rich and convincing personality . It is rather shocking, for instance, to have been asked to follow the life of a man diroughout a book only to find him dismissed with the following sang-froid: "On the twenty-sixth of January, 1871, at the age of seventy-nine, George Ticknor died as decorously as he had lived." Ticknor seems only occasionally to command Professor Tyack's respect, never his affection. The tactical problems faced by a writer who tries to combine particularistic biography with general history in a single book are knotty, and Professor Tyack has not fully solved them. Yet as a general history the book is excellent. Part of its success stems from Professor Tyack's skill at weaving quoted material from many of Ticknor's contemporaries and near-contemporaries into his own prose, thereby capitalizing, unobtrusively, on his deep and solid research. Part stems from his wit and grace as a writer: from first to last his prose is a pleasure to read. His sense for revealing anecdote is especially good, as when he...

A Short History of Spanish Literature

A Short History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

R. E. Chandler and K. Schwartz, "A New History of Spanish Literature" (Book Review)

R. E. Chandler and K. Schwartz, "A New History of Spanish Literature" (Book Review)

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

A New History of Spanish Literature

The Philosophical Setting of George Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature"

One of the major highpoints in the rise of literary history in America is the publication of George Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature (1849). Ticknor's position in nineteenth-century scholarship has been admirably documented by Van Wyck Brooks, Thomas R. Hart, Jr., and especially Stanley T. Williams in his monumental The Spanish Background of American Literature.' But we need to know more

The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age

By the “approach” to the drama of the Golden Age I mean a guide to its understanding. I have thought that some remarks on this subject might be useful because the drama has not yet been satisfactorily handled in any histories of Spanish literature. This is mainly due, I believe, to the fact that our conceptions of what a play is and how it should be approached are derived from our inherited notions of the classical and Shakespearian dramas, and from the realistic theatre of more modern times, whereas Spanish literature offers us a form of drama that is in many respects different from any of these.The Spanish drama of this period is not, of course, uniform in technique; there are very great differences between the last plays of Calderón and the first of Lope.

The Uniqueness of the Comedia

EVER since Hugo Albert Rennert's biography of Lope de Vega (1904), American Hispanists have contributed significantly to a better understanding of Spanish Theater of Golden Age. Versification and orthoepy of various dramatists were studied with aim of establishing authorship and chronology. Numerous trustworthy editions, with and without commentary, have been published. Lately, analytical studies of structure and meaning of single plays have appeared. After so many decades of vigorous activity it might now be appropriate to look at comedia as a whole and to ask ourselves: What is Spanish Theater of Golden Age? The question is based on commonly held belief that comedia has a literary Gestalt of its own, distinct from theater preceding and following it, with an approximate span of active life of about one hundred years, ca. 1580 to 1680. Although, implicitly, answers to this question may be found in histories of Spanish literature, in special histories of Spanish theater from Schack to Valbuena Prat and J. H. Parker, in biographical studies of Lope de Vega and even in monographic publications, problem has been treated explicitly only two times. Alfred Morel-Fatio gave his Legon d'ouverture on La comedia espagnole du XVII siecle (Paris, 1885) and republished it, virtually unchanged, almost forty years later (Paris, 1923). His viewpoint is heavily tinged by French classicist dramatic theory.' Professor A. A. Parker's lecture The Approach to Spanish Drama of Golden Age, No. VI in Diamante series (London, 1957), concludes that the Spanish drama of Golden Age speaks a language of its own (p. 27) and emphasizes unity of theme vs. unity of action and subordination of theme to a moral purpose through principle of poetic justice (loc. cit.).

Rengifo's Debt to Antonio da Tempo

The most important versification manual in the history of Spanish literature is undoubtedly Juan Díaz Rengifo's Arte poética española, which first appeared in Salamanca in 1592 and was reissued a number of times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That the influence of this Renaissance treatise on Spanish verse has been great cannot be questioned. For approximately four centuries, in fact, it was the handbook on metrics for versifiers and poets. Reasons for the value and usefulness of the Arte poética española are not lacking. Rengifo was a scholarly investigator—scholarly in the modern sense. He worked systematically; he based his conclusions on actual practice rather than on theory; he illustrated his rules with examples chosen generally from the best-known poets; he studied the investigations of previous writers and, in full bibliographical references in marginal notes that correspond to today's footnotes, frankly gave them credit for all ideas and material borrowed from them; he showed unbiased judgment in the presentation of controversial topics; he described accurately, but never prescribed; he wrote clearly in simple language and without unnecessary wordage; he supplied time-saving devices for the reader; and he presented his work in an orderly, logical, and concise manner. His work is comprehensive and well balanced.

George Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature: The New England Background

George Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature: The New England Background

The Imprisonment of the Archpriest

All histories of Spanish literature, however much they may vary on other points, are agreed on one: Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, spent a number of years in jail.* From 1790, when Sanchez put it into currency, this alleged fact has been parroted by every historian of Spanish literature, as well as by critics writing specialized works on Juan Ruiz. Various attempts have been made to explain why he might have been imprisoned and to determine the number of years he must have been there, but no one has ever given thought to sifting the evidence to ascertain if it is probable that he actually ever was in prison. The statement that he was imprisoned has been accepted with no critical evaluation of the evidence, and such is the purpose of this paper. In the words of Felix Lecoy, the best critic of the Archpriest: To all these questions [concerning the life and works of Juan Ruiz] up to now we have been given only replies which are rapid, little studied, most of the time superficial, often contradictory.' In his thoroughly critical, sound, and scholarly study of Juan Ruiz, written in 1938, Lecoy is chiefly concerned with the literary composition and sources of the Libro de Buen Amor, but these involve necessarily some biographical inferences, and his work has been of inestimable value in the preparation of this paper.