Ortiz: see preceding note.

Colombia y Espana: In this poem, dated July 20, 1882, the poet begins by recalling the war of independence that he witnessed as a boy and the heroic figure of Bolivar; then he laments the fratricidal struggles that rent the older and larger Colombia; and, finally, in the verses that are here given, he rejoices over the friendly treaty just made by the mother country, Spain, and Colombia, her daughter.

8. The colors of the Colombian flag are yellow, blue and red.

9. The colors of the Spanish flag are red and yellow. On the Spanish arms two castles (for Castilla) and two lions (for Leon) are pictured.

164.—J.E. Caro: see note to p. 162.

167.—Marroquin: see note to p. 162.

Los cazadores y la perrilla: compare with Goldsmith's "Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog."

168.—7. Moratin: see note to p. 26. La caza is in Bibl. de Aut. Esp., II, 49 f.

169.—16. describilla, archaic or poetic for describirla.

171.—M.A. Caro: see note to p. 162.

174.—14-16. =sombria... alcanzaran= = (siendo la Eternidad) sombria y eterna, ni el odio ni el amor, ni la fe ni la duda, alcanzaran nada en sus abismos.

179.—Cuba. Although the literary output of Cuba is greater than that of some other Spanish-American countries, yet during the colonial period there was in Cuba a dearth of both prose and verse. The Colegio Semanario de San Carlos y San Ambrosio was page 292 founded in 1689 as a theological seminary and was reorganized with lay instruction in 1769. The University of Havana was established by a papal bull in 1721 and received royal sanction in 1728; but for many years it gave instruction only in theological subjects. The first book printed in Cuba dates from 1720. Not till the second half of the eighteenth century did poets of merit appear in the island. Manuel de Zequeira y Arango (1760-1846) wrote chiefly heroic odes (Poesias, N.Y., 1829; Havana, 1852). Inferior to Zequeira was Manuel Justo de Rubalcava (1769-1805), the author of bucolic poems and sonnets (Poesias, Santiago de Cuba, 1848).

The Cuban poet Don Jose Maria Heredia (1803-1839) is better known in Europe and in the United States than Bello and Olmedo, since his poems are universal in their appeal. He is especially well known in the United States, where he lived in exile for over two years (1823-1825), at first in Boston and later in New York, and wrote his famous ode to Niagara. Born in Cuba, he studied in Santo Domingo and in Caracas (1812-1817), as well as in his native island. Accused of conspiracy against the Spanish government, he fled to the United States in 1823, and there eked out a precarious existence by giving private lessons. In 1825 he went to Mexico, where he was well received and where he held several important posts, including those of member of Congress and judge of the superior court. In Heredia's biography two facts should be stressed: that he studied for five years in Caracas, the city that produced Bolivar and Bello, respectively the greatest general and the greatest scholar of Spanish America; and that he spent only twelve years, all told, in Cuba. As he lived for fourteen years in Mexico, that country also claims him as her own, while Caracas points to him with pride as another child of her older educational system.

Heredia was most unhappy in the United States. He admired page 293 the political institutions of this country; but he disliked the climate of New York, and he despaired of learning English. Unlike Bello and Olmedo he was not a classical scholar. His acquaintance with the Latin poets was limited, and seldom does a Virgilian or Horatian expression occur in his verses. Rather did he stand for the manner of Chateaubriand in France and Cienfuegos in Spain. Though strictly speaking not a romantic poet, he was a close precursor of that movement. His language is not seldom incorrect or lacking in sobriety and restraint; but his numbers are musical and his thought springs directly from imaginative exaltation.

Heredia's poorest verses are doubtless his early love-songs: his best are those in which the contemplation of nature leads the poet to meditation on human existence, as in Niagara, El Teocalli de Cholula, En una tempestad and Al sol. In these poems the predominant note is that of gentle melancholy. In Cuba his best known verses are the two patriotic hymns: A Emilia and El himno del desterrado. These were written before the poet was disillusioned by his later experiences in the turbulent Mexico of the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, and they are so virulent in their expression of hatred of Spain that Menendez y Pelayo refused to include them in his Anthology. Heredia undertook to write several plays, but without success. Some translations of dramatic works, however, were well received, and especially those of Ducis' Abufar, Chenier's Tibere, Jouy's Sila, Voltaire's Mahomet and Alfieri's Saul. The Garnier edition (Paris, 1893) of Heredia's Poesias contains an interesting introduction by the critic Elias Zerolo (Poesias, N.Y., 1825; Toluca, 1832; N.Y., 1875; Paris, 1893).

The mulatto poet Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, better known by his pen-name "Placido" (1809-1844), an uncultivated comb-maker, wrote verses which were mostly commonplace and often incorrect; but some evince remarkable sublimity and dignity (cf. Plegaria page 294 a Dios). Cf. Poesias, Matanzas, 1838; Matanzas, 1842; Veracruz, 1845; Paris, 1857; Havana, 1886. The greatest Cuban poetess, and perhaps the most eminent poetess who has written in the Castilian language, is Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (1814-1873). Since Avellaneda spent most of her life in Spain, an account of her life and work is given in the Introduction to this volume, p. xxxviii. Next only to Heredia, the most popular Cuban poet is Jose Jacinto Milanes y Fuentes (1814-1863), who gave in simple verse vivid descriptions of local landscapes and customs. A resigned and touching sadness characterizes his best verse (Obras, 4 vols., Havana, 1846; N.Y., 1865).

A lawyer, educator and patriot, Rafael Maria Mendive y Daumy (1821-1886) wrote musical verse in which there is spontaneity and true poetic feeling (Pasionarias, Havana, 1847; Poesias, Madrid, 1860; Havana, 1883). Joaquin Lorenzo Luaces (1826-1867) was more learned than most Cuban poets and fond of philosophizing. Some of his verse has force and gives evidence of careful study; but much is too pedantic to be popular (Poesias, Havana, 1857). A poet of sorrow, Juan Clemente Zenea,—"Adolfo de la Azucena" (1832-1871),—wrote verses that are marked by tender melancholy (Poesias, Havana, 1855; N.Y., 1872, 1874).

Heredia was not the only Cuban poet to suffer persecution. Of the seven leading Cuban poets, often spoken of as "the Cuban Pleiad," Avellaneda removed to Spain, where she married and spent her life in tranquillity; and Joaquin Luaces avoided trouble by living in retirement and veiling his patriotic songs with mythological names. On the other hand Jose Jacinto Milanes lost his reason at the early age of thirty years, Jose Maria Heredia and Rafael Mendive fled the country and lived in exile; while Gabriel Valdes and Juan Clemente Zenea were shot by order of the governor-general.

Since the disappearance of the "Pleiad," the most popular page 295 Cuban poets have been Julian del Casal, a skeptic and a Parnassian poet who wrote pleasing but empty verses (Hojas al viento, Nieve, Bustos y Rimas); and Francisco Sellen, whose philosophy is to conceal suffering and to put one's hand to the plow again (Libro intimo, Havana, 1865; Poesias, N.Y., 1890). Jose Marti (1853-1895) spent most of his life in exile; but he returned to Cuba and died in battle against the Spanish forces. He wrote excellent prose, but few verses (Flor y lava, Paris, 1910(?)).

References: Menendez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., II, p. 1 f.; Blanco Garcia, III, p. 290 f.; E.C. Hills, Bardos cubanos (contains a bibliography), Boston, 1901; Aurelio Mitjans, Estudio sobre el movimiento cientifico y literario en Cuba, Havana, 1890; Bachiller y Morales, Apuntes para la historia de las letras y de la instruccion publica de la Isla de Cuba, Havana, 1859; La poesia lirica en Cuba, M. Gonzalez del Valle, Barcelona, 1900; Cuba poetica, Havana, 1858; Parnaso cubano, Havana, 1881.

Heredia: see preceding note.

5. This is quite true. On the coast of central and southern Mexico the climate is tropical; on the central plateau it is temperate; and on the mountain slopes, as at the foot of Popocatepetl, it is frigid.

13-14. Iztaccihual and Popocatepec are the popular names of these mountains, but their official names are Iztaccihuatel and Popocatepetel. These words are of Nahuatlan origin: see in Vocab.

16—18. =do... tenirse= = donde el indio ledo los mira tenirse en purpura ligera y oro.

181.—3. This poem was written in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, when Mexico was torn by civil war. There was peace only when some military leader assumed despotic power.

21. Note that the moon set behind Popocatepec, a little to the south of west from Cholula, while the sun sank behind Iztaccihual, a little to the north of page 296 west from the city. This might well occur in summer.

182.—14. Fueron (lit. they were), they are no more. In this Latinism the preterit denotes that a thing or condition that once existed no longer exists. Cf. fuit Ilium (AEneid, II, 325), "Troy is no more."

186.—4-5. =Que... seguir= = que, en su vuelo, la turbada vista quiere en vano seguir.

190.—"Placido": see note to p. 179.

Plegaria a Dios: this beautiful prayer was written a few days before the poet's death. It is said that "Placido" recited aloud the last stanza on his way to the place of execution, and that he slipped to a friend in the crowd a scrap of cloth on which the prayer was written.

191.—4. =del... transparencia= = a (in) la clara transparencia del aire.

Avellaneda: see Introduction, p. xxxviii.

19. =No... modelo= = (la historia) no [dio] modelo a tu virtud en lo pasado.

21. =otra= = otra copia.

192.—1-2. =Miro... victoria= = la Europa miro al genio de la guerra y la victoria ensangrentar su suelo. The genio was Napoleon Bonaparte.

4. =Al... cielo= = el cielo le diera al genio del bien. Note that le is dative and al genio accusative. This otherwise admirable sonnet is marred by the numerous inversions of the word-order.

193.—Ecuador is a relatively small and mountainous country, lying, as the name implies, directly on the equator. The two principal cities are Guayaquil, a port on the Pacific coast, and Quito, the capital. Quito is beautifully situated on a plateau 9300 feet above the level of the sea. The climate is mild and salubrious, and drier than at Bogota. The early Spanish colonists repeatedly wrote of the beautiful scenery and the "eternal spring" of Quito. page 297 All of the present Ecuador belonged to the Virreinato del Peru till 1721, after which date Quito and the contiguous territory were governed from Bogota. In 1824 Guayaquil and southern Ecuador were forcibly annexed to the first Colombia by Bolivar. Six years later Ecuador separated from Colombia and organized as a separate state.

In the territory now known as Ecuador the first colleges were established about the middle of the sixteenth century, by the Franciscans, for the natives, and by the Jesuits, as elsewhere in America, for the sons of Spaniards. Several chronicles by priests and other explorers were written during the early years of the colonial period; but no poet appears before the seventeenth century. In 1675 the Jesuit Jacinto de Evia published at Madrid his Ramillete de varias flores poeticas which contains, beside those by Evia, verses by Antonio Bastidas, a Jesuit teacher, and by Hernando Dominguez Camargo, a Colombian. The verses are mediocre or worse, and, as the date would imply, are imbued with culteranism.

The best verses of the eighteenth century were collected by the priest Juan de Velasco (1727-1819) and published in six volumes under the title of El ocioso de Faenza. These volumes contain poems by Bautista Aguirre of Guayaquil, Jose Orozco (La conquista de Menorca, an epic poem in four cantos), Ramon Viescas (sonnets, romances, decimas, etc.) and others, most of whom were Jesuits.

The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 caused the closure of several colleges in Ecuador, and for a time seriously hampered the work of classical education. But even before the edict of expulsion scientific study had been stimulated by the coming of French and Spanish scholars to measure a degree of the earth's surface at the equator. The coming of Humboldt in 1801 still further encouraged inquiry and research. The new spirit was given concrete expression by Dr. Francisco Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo, a physician of native descent, in page 298 El nuevo Luciano, a work famous in the literary and the political history of South America. In this work Dr. Espejo attacked the prevailing educational and economic systems of the colonies, and his doctrine did much to start the movement toward secession from the mother country.

Although the poetry of Ecuador is of relatively little importance as compared with that of several other American countries, yet Ecuador gave to the world one of the greatest of American poets, Jose Joaquin de Olmedo. In the Americas that speak Castilian, Olmedo has only two peers among the classic poets, the Venezuelan Bello and the Cuban Heredia. Olmedo was born in Guayaquil in 1780, when that city still formed part of the Virreinato del Peru. Consequently, two countries claim him,—Peru, because he was born a Peruvian, and because, furthermore, he received his education at the Universidad de San Marcos in Lima; and Ecuador, since Guayaquil became permanently a part of that republic, and Olmedo identified himself with the social and political life of that country. In any case, Olmedo, as a poetic genius, looms suddenly on the horizon of Guayaquil, and for a time after his departure there was not only no one to take his place, but there were few followers of note.

Olmedo ranks as one of the great poetic artists of Spanish literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He is of the same semi-classic school as Quintana, and like him devoted to artistic excellence and lyric grandiloquence. The poems of Olmedo are few in number for so skilled an artist, and thoroughly imbued with the Graeco-Latin classical spirit. His prosody nears perfection; but is marred by an occasional abuse of verbal endings in rime, and the inadvertent employment of assonance where there should be none, a fault common to most of the earlier Spanish-American poets. Olmedo's greatest poem is La victoria de Junin, which is filled with sweet-sounding phrases and beautiful images, but is logically inconsistent and improbable. Even page 299 Bolivar, the "Libertador," censured Olmedo in a letter for using the machina of the appearance at night before the combined Colombian and Peruvian armies of Huaina-Capac the Inca, "showing himself to be a talkative mischief-maker where he should have been lighter than ether, since he comes from heaven," and instead of desiring the restoration of the Inca dynasty, preferring "strange intruders who, though avengers of his blood, are descendants of those who destroyed his empire."

The Canto al general Flores is considered by some critics to be the poet's most finished work, though of less substance and inspiration than La victoria de Junin. This General Flores was a successful revolutionary leader during the early days of the Republic; and he was later as bitterly assailed by Olmedo as he is here praised. Of a different type is the philosophic poem, A un amigo en el nacimiento de su primogenito, which is filled with sincere sympathy and deep meditation as to the future. With the coming of middle age Olmedo's poetic vein had apparently been exhausted, and the Peruvian bard Felipe Pardo addressed to him an ode in which he sought, though to no avail, to stimulate the older poet to renewed activity (Poesias, Valparaiso, 1848, Paris, 1853; Poesias ineditas, Lima, 1861).

For a time after Olmedo's muse had become mute, little verse of merit was produced in Ecuador. Gabriel Garcia Moreno (1821-1875), once president of the Republic and a champion of Catholicism, wrote a few strong satires in the style of Jovellanos. Dolores Veintemilla de Galindo (1831-1857), who committed suicide on account of domestic infelicity, left a short poem, _Quejas_, which is unique in the older Spanish-American literature by reason of its frank confession of feeling. The reflexive and didactic poet Numa P. Llona (1832-_) was the author of passionate outpourings of doubt and despair after the fashion of Byron and Leopardi (_Poesias_, Paris, 1870; page 300 _Cantos americanos_, Paris, 1866; _Cien sonetos_, Quito, 1881). The gentle, melancholy bard, Julio Zalumbide (1833-1887), at first a skeptic and afterwards a devout believer in Christianity, wrote musical verse in correct language but of little force. Juan Leon Mera (1832-1894) was one of the most prominent literary historians and critics of the Republic. Besides his _Poesias_ (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), Leon Mera left a popular novel, _Cumanda_ (Quito, 1876; Madrid, 1891), an _Ojeada historico-critica sobre la poesia ecuatoriana_ (2d ed., Barcelona, 1893), and a volume of _Cantares del Pueblo_ (Quito, 1892), published by the Academia del Ecuador, which contains, in addition to many semi-popular songs in Castilian, a few in the Quichua language.

A younger generation that has already done some good work in poetry includes Vicente Pedrahita, Luis Cordero, Quintiliano Sanchez and Remigio Crespo y Toral.

References: Men. Pel., Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, p. lxxxiii f.; Blanco Garcia, III, 350 f.; Ensayo sobre la literatura ecuatoriana, Dr. Pablo Herrera, Quito, 1860; Ojeada historico-critica sobre la poesia ecuatoriana, Juan Leon Mera, Quito, 1868, 2d ed., Barcelona, 1893; Escritores espanoles e hispano-americanos, Canete, Madrid, 1884; Lira ecuatoriana, Vicente Emilio Molestina, Guayaquil, 1865; Nueva lira ecuat., Juan Abel Echeverria, Quito, 1879; Parnaso ecuat., Manuel Gallegos Naranjo, Quito, 1879; America poetica, Juan Maria Gutierrez, Valparaiso, 1846 (the best of the early anthologies: contains a few poems by Olmedo); Antologia ecuat., published by the Academy of Ecuador, with a second volume entitled Cantares del pueblo ecuat. (Edited by Juan Leon Mera), both Quito, 1892.

Peru. The literature of Ecuador is so closely associated with that of Peru, that the one cannot be properly treated without some account of the other. The Virreinato del Peru was the wealthiest and most cultivated Spanish colony in South America, and in North America only Mexico rivaled it in influence. Lima, an attractive city, thoroughly Andalusian in character and appearance, was the page 301 site of important institutions of learning, such as the famed Universidad de San Marcos. It had, moreover, a printing-press toward the close of the sixteenth century, a public theater by 1602, and a gazette by the end of the seventeenth century. The spread of learning in colonial Peru may be illustrated by the fact that the Jesuits alone, at the time of their expulsion in 1767, had twelve colleges and universities in Peru, the oldest of which dated from the middle of the sixteenth century and offered courses in philosophy, law, medicine and theology.

The Peruvians seem to have been content with their lot as a favored Spanish colony, and they declared for independence only when incited to do so and aided by Bolivar of Colombia and San Martin of Buenos Aires. After the revolution, Peru was torn by internal discord rather more than other Spanish-American countries during the period of adolescence; and it was its misfortune to lose territory after territory. Bolivar took northern Peru, including the valuable seaport of Guayaquil, and made it a part of the first Colombia; and largely through the influence of Bolivar much of Upper Peru was made a separate republic, that of Bolivia. Lastly, Chile, for centuries a dependency of Peru, became independent and even wrested a considerable stretch of the litoral from her former mistress. It is hard to realize that Peru, to-day relatively weak among the American countries, was once the heart of a vast Inca empire and later the colony whose governors ruled the territories of Argentina and Chile to the south, and of Ecuador and Colombia to the north. With the decline of wealth and political influence there has come to Peru a decadence in letters. Lima is still a center of cultivation, a city in which the Castilian language and Spanish customs have been preserved with remarkable fidelity; but its importance is completely eclipsed by such growing commercial centers as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile, and by page 302 relatively small and conservative towns such as Bogota.

In the sixteenth century Garcilasso Inga de la Vega (his mother was an "Inga," or Inca, princess), who had been well trained in the Latin classics by Spanish priests, wrote in excellent prose his famous works, Florida del Inca, Comentarios reales and Historia general del Peru. The second work, partly historical and largely imaginary, purports to be a history of the ancient Incas, and pictures the old Peru as an earthly paradise. This work has had great influence over Peruvian and Colombian poets. Menendez y Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, Introd.) considers Garcilasso, or Garcilaso, and Alarcon the two truly classic writers that America has given to Spanish literature.

In the Golden Age of Spanish letters several Peruvian poets were known to Spaniards. Cervantes, in the Canto de Caliope and Lope de Vega in the Laurel del Apolo make mention of several Peruvians who had distinguished themselves by their verses.

An unknown poetess of Huanuco, Peru, who signed herself "Amarilis," wrote a clever silva in praise of Lope, which the latter answered in the epistle Belardo a Amarilis. This silva of "Amarilis" is the best poetic composition of the early colonial period. Another poetess of the period, also anonymous, wrote in terza rima a Discurso en loor de la poesia, which mentions by name most of the Peruvian poets then living.

Toward the close of the sixteenth century and in the early decades of the seventeenth century, several Spanish scholars, mostly Andalusians of the Sevillan school, went to Peru, and there continued literary work. Among these were Diego Mexia, who made the happiest of Spanish translations of Ovid's Heroides; Diego de Ojeda, the best of Spanish sacred-epic poets, author of the Cristiada; Juan Galvez; Luis de Belmonte, author of La Hispalica; Diego de Avalos y Figueroa whose page 303 Miscelanea austral (Lima, 1603) contains a long poem in ottava rima entitled Defensa de damas; and others. These men exerted great influence, and to them was largely due the peculiarly Andalusian flavor of Peruvian poetry.

The best Gongoristic Poetics came from Peru. This is the Apologetico en favor de D. Luis de Gongora (Lima, 1694), by Dr. Juan de Espinosa Medrano.

In the eighteenth century the poetic compositions of Peru were chiefly "versos de circunstancias" by "poetas de ocasion." Many volumes of these were published, but no one reads them to-day. Their greatest fault is excessive culteranism, which survived in the colonies a half-century after it had passed away from the mother country. The most learned man of the eighteenth century in Peru was Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo, the erudite author of some fifty volumes of history, science and letters. His best known poem is the epic Lima fundada (Lima, 1732). He wrote several dramas, one of which, Rodoguna, is Corneille's play adapted to the Spanish stage, and has the distinction of being one of the first imitations of the French stage in Spanish letters. All in all, the literary output of Peru during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is disappointingly small in quantity and poor in quality, in view of the important position held by this flourishing colony. The Peruvian writers, then and now, lack in sustained effort.

During and immediately following the revolutionary period, the greatest poet is Olmedo, who was born and educated in Peru and became a citizen first of the primitive Colombia and then of Ecuador, only as his native city, Guayaquil, formed a part of one political division after another. It is customary, however, to consider Olmedo a poet of Ecuador, and it is so done in this volume.

After Olmedo, the commanding figure among the classical poets of Peru is Felipe Pardo y Aliaga (1806-1868). Pardo was educated in Spain, where he studied with Alberto Lista. From his teacher he acquired a fondness page 304 for classical studies and a conservatism in letters that he retained throughout his life. In his later years he was induced to adopt some of the metrical forms invented or revived by the romanticists, but in spirit he remained a conservative and a classicist. He had a keen sense of wit and a lively imagination which made even his political satires interesting reading. Besides his Poesias y escritos en prosa (Paris, 1869), Pardo left a number of comedies portraying local types and scenes which are clever attempts at imitation of Spanish drama. As with all the earlier poets of Spanish America, literature was only a side-play to Pardo, although it probably took his time and attention even more than the law, which was his profession. A younger brother, Jose (1820-1873), wrote a few short poems, but his verses are relatively limited and amateurish. Manuel Ascension Segura (1805-1871) wrote clever farces filled with descriptions of local customs, somewhat after the type of the modern genero chico (Articulos, poesias y comedias, Lima, 1866).

The romantic movement came directly from Spain to Peru and obtained a foothold only well on toward the close of the first half of the century. The leader of the Bohemian romanticists of Lima was a Spaniard from Santander, Fernando Velarde. Around him clustered a group of young men who imitated Espronceda and Zorrilla and Velarde with great enthusiasm. For an account of the "Bohemians" of the fourth and fifth decades in Lima [Numa Pompilio Llona (b. 1832), Nicolas Corpancho (1830-1863), Luis Benjamin Cisneros (b. 1837), Carlos Augusto Salaverry (1830-1891), Manuel Ascension Segura (b. 1805), Clemente Althaus (1835-1881), Adolfo Garcia (1830-1883), Constantino Carrasco (1841-1877) and others, see the introduction to the _Poesias_ (Lima, 1887) of Ricardo Palma (1833-_: till 1912 director of the national library of Peru).]

Not often could the romanticists of America go back to page 305 indigenous legend for inspiration as their Spanish cousins so often did; but this Constantino Carrasco undertook to do in his translation of the famous Quichua drama, Ollanta. It was long claimed, and many still believe, that this is an ancient indigenous play; but to-day the more thoughtful critics are inclined to consider it an imitation of the Spanish classical drama, perhaps written in the Quichua language by some Spanish priest (Valdes?). The 8-syllable lines, the rime-scheme and the spirit of the play all suggest Spanish influence. In parenthesis it should be added that Quichua verse is still cultivated artificially in Peru and Ecuador.

The two men of that generation who have most distinguished themselves are Pedro Paz-Soldan y Unanue, "Juan de Arona" (1839-1894), a poet of satire and humor; and Ricardo Palma (1833-_) a leading scholar and literary critic, best known for his prose _Tradiciones peruanas_ (Lima, 1875 and 1899).

The strongest representative of the present-day "_modernistas_" in Peru is Jose Santos Chocano (1867-_), a disciple of Dario. Chocano writes with much grandiloquence. His many sonnets are mostly prosaic, but some are finished and musical (cf. _La magnolia_). He is more Christian (cf. _Evangeleida_) than most of his contemporaries, and he sings of the _conquistadores_ with true admiration [cf. _En la aldea_, Lima, 1895; _Iras santas_, Lima, 1895; _Alma America_ (_Prologo_ de Miguel de Unamuno), Madrid, 1906; _La selva virgen_, Paris, 1901; _Fiat lux_, Paris, 1908].

A younger man is Edilberto Zegarra Ballon of Arequipa (1880-_), author of _Vibraciones, Poemas, el al._ His verse is simpler and less rugged than that of the more virile Chocano.

References: Men. Pel., Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., III, p. cxlix f.; Blanco Garcia, III, 362 f.; Diccionario historico y biografico del Peru, formado y redactado por Manuel de Mendiburu, 9 vols., Lima, 1874-80; Coleccion de documentos literarios del Peru, 11 vols., Manuel de Odriozola, Lima, 1863-74; page 306 America poetica, Juan Maria Gutierrez, Valparaiso, 1846; Parnaso peruano, J.D. Cortes, Paris, 1875; La Bohemia limena de 1848 a 1860, Prologo de Poesias de Ricardo Palma, Lima, 1887; Lira americana, Ricardo Palma, Paris, 1865.

193.—Olmedo: see preceding note.

8. A, with.

194.—15-17. The following is a translation of a note to these lines which is given in Poesias de Olmedo, Garnier Hermanos, Paris, 1896: "Physicists have attempted to explain the equilibrium that is maintained by the earth in spite of the difference of mass in its two hemispheres" (northern and southern). "May not the enormous weight of the Andes be one of the data with which this curious problem of physical geography can be solved?"

195.—4. The religion of the ancient Peruvians, before they were converted to Christianity by the Spaniards, was based on the worship of the sun. The chief temple of the sun was at Cuzco.

25. Bolivar was a native of Caracas, Venezuela; but, when this poem was written, Colombia comprised most of the present States of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Moreover, Colombia is probably used somewhat figuratively by the poet to designate the "land of Columbus."

26. The Peruvians and the Colombians were allies. It is an interesting fact that in the war for independence waged by the Spanish Americans against Spain, the leaders of the Americans were nearly all of Spanish descent, while the majority of the rank and file of the American soldiery was Indian. To this day, a majority of the population of Spanish America, excepting only Chile, Argentina and the West Indian Islands, is indigenous, and their poets still sing of "indigenous America," but they sing in the Spanish tongue! See p. 211, l. 7. page 307 196.—21. See note to p. 162, l. 8. The Peruvian flag has an image of the sun in its center.

23. It is reported that the first onslaught of the Spanish-American cavalry failed, partly by reason of their impetuousness, and that they would probably have been defeated if Bolivar had not rallied them and led them on to victory.

198.—10. The battle of Junin began at about five o'clock in the afternoon, and it is said that only night saved the Spaniards from complete destruction.

11. El dios oia: destiny did not permit the god to stay his course for an hour, but the god left behind him his circlet of diamonds (the stars).

199.—Mexico. The Virreinato de Nueva Espana was a favored colony, where Spanish culture took deepest root. It had the first institution of learning in America (opened in 1553 by decree of Charles I) and the first printing-press (1540?). Some 116 books were printed in Mexico City during the sixteenth century, most of which were catechisms or grammars and dictionaries in the native languages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several Spanish poets, mostly Sevillans, went to Mexico. Among these were Diego Mexia (went to Mexico in 1596); Gutierre de Cetina, Juan de la Cueva, and Mateo Aleman (published Ortografia castellana in Mexico in 1609). Certamenes poeticos ("poetic contests") were held in Mexico, as in other Spanish colonies, from time to time. The first of importance occurred in Mexico City in 1583, to which seven bishops lent the dignity of their presence and in which three hundred poets (?) competed. After the discovery and conquest of the Philippines, great opulence came to Mexico on account of its being on a direct route of Pacific trade between Europe and Asia, and Mexico became an emporium of Asiatic goods (note introduction of Mexican dollar into China).

The first native poet deserving of the name was Francisco page 308 de Terrazas (cf. Cervantes, Canto de Caliope, 1584), who left in manuscript sonnets and other lyrics and an unfinished epic poem, Nuevo mundo y conquista. It is interesting that in the works of Terrazas and other native poets of the sixteenth century the Spaniards are called "soberbios," "malos," etc. Antonio Saavedra Guzman was the first in Mexico to write in verse a chronicle of the conquest (El peregrino indiano, Madrid, 1599). Coloquios espirituales (published posthumously in 1610), autos of the "morality" type, with much local color and partly in dialect, were written by Fernan Gonzalez Eslava, whom Pimentel considers the best sacred dramatic poet of Mexico. Sacred dramatic representations had been given in Spanish and in the indigenous languages almost from the time of the conquest. According to Beristain, at least two plays of Lope were done into Nahuatl by Bartolome de Alba, of native descent, and performed, viz.: El animal profeta y dichoso parricida and La madre de la Mejor.

The first poet whose verses are genuinely American, exotic and rich in color like the land in which written (a rare quality in the Spanish poetry of the period), was Bernardo de Balbuena (1568-1627: born in Spain; educated in Mexico). Balbuena had a strong descriptive faculty, but his work lacked restraint (cf. Grandeza mexicana, Mex., 1604; Madrid, 1821, 1829 and 1837; N.Y., 1828; Mex., 1860). The great dramatist, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon (1581?-1639), was born and educated in Mexico; but as he wrote in Spain, and his dramas are Spanish in feeling, he is best treated as a Spanish poet.

Next only to Avellaneda the most distinguished Spanish-American poetess is the Mexican nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), whose worldly name was Juana Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez de Cantillana. Sor Juana had intellectual curiosity in an unusual degree and early began the study of Latin and other languages. When still a young girl she became a maid-in-waiting in the viceroy's palace, where her beauty and wit attracted much page 309 attention; but she soon renounced the worldly life of the court and joined a religious order. In the convent of San Jeronimo she turned for solace to books, and in time she accumulated a library of four thousand volumes. Upon being reproved by a zealous bishop for reading worldly books, she sold her entire library and gave the proceeds to the poor. Sor Juana's better verses are of two kinds: those that give evidence of great cleverness and mental acuteness, and those that have the ring of spontaneity and sincerity. As an exponent of erotic mysticism, she is most interesting. In the most passionate of her erotic verses there is an apparent sincerity which makes it difficult for the lay reader to believe that she had not been profoundly influenced by human love,—as when she gives expression to the feelings of a loving wife for a dead husband, or laments the absence of a lover or tells of a great jealousy. In addition to her lyrics Sor Juana wrote several autos and dramas. Her poems were first published under the bombastic title of Inundacion castalida de la unica poetisa, Musa decima, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Madrid, 1689 (vol. II, Seville, 1691; vol. III, Madrid, 1700).

During the first half of the eighteenth century the traditions of the preceding century persisted; but in the second half there came the neo-classic reaction. Among the best of the prosaic poets of the century are: Miguel de Reyna Zeballos (La elocuencia del silencio, Madrid, 1738); Francisco Ruiz de Leon (Hernandia, 1755, based on the Conquista de Mexico by Solis); and the priest Jorge Jose Sartorio (1746-1828: Poesias sagradas y profanas, 7 vols., Puebla, 1832). The Franciscan Manuel de Navarrete (1768-1809) is considered by Pimentel superior to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz as a philosophic poet (the writer of this article does not so consider him) and is called the "restorer of lyric and objective poetry in Mexico" (cf. Pim., Hist. Poesia Mex., p. 442). Navarrete wrote in a variety of styles. His verses are harmonious, but altisonante and often incorrect. His best page 310 lyrics, like those of Cienfuegos, have the personal note of the romanticists to follow (Entretenimientos poeticos, Mex., 1823, Paris, 1835; Poesias, Mex., 1905).

There were no eminent Mexican poets during the revolutionary period. Andres Quintana Roo (1787-1851) was a lawyer and journalist and president of the congress which made the first declaration of independence. Pimentel (p. 309) calls him an eminent poet and one of the best of the period. Two of the most important in the period are: Manuel Sanchez de Tagle (1782-1847), a statesman given to philosophic meditation, but a poor versifier (Poesias, 1852); and Francisco Ortega (1793-1849), an ardent republican, who opposed Iturbide when the latter had himself proclaimed emperor of Mexico in 1821 (Poesias liricas, 1839; cf. A Iturbide en su coronacion). To these should be added Joaquin Maria del Castillo y Lanzas (1781-1878), one-time minister to the United States (Ocios juveniles, Philadelphia, 1835); and the priest Anastasio Maria Ochoa (1783-1833), who translated French, Italian, and Latin (Ovid's Heroides) works, and wrote some humorous verses (Poesias, N.Y., 1828: contains two dramas).

Next to Alarcon, the greatest dramatist that Mexico has produced is Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza (1789-1851), who wrote few lyric verses, but many dramas in verse and prose. His plays, which are full of humorous contrasts, were written during his residence in Spain and are, for the most part, typically Spanish in all respects. Gorostiza, in manner and style, is considered a bridge between Moratin and Breton. His best comedy is La indulgencia para todos (cf. Teatro original, Paris, 1822; Teatro escogido, Bruxelles, 1825; Obras dramaticas, Bibl. Aut. Mex., vols. 22, 24, 26, 45, Mex.,-1899).

Romanticism came into Mexico through Spain. It was probably introduced by Ignacio Rodriguez Galvan (1816-1842), a translator, lyric poet, and page 311 dramatist. His lyrics have the merit of sincerity; pessimism is the prevailing tone and there is much invective. His Profecias de Guatimoc is considered the masterpiece of Mexican romanticism (Obras, 2 vols., Mex., 1851; Paris, 1883). Another well-known romantic lyricist and dramatist is Fernando Calderon (1809-1845), who was more correct in form than Rodriguez Galvan (Poesias, Mex., 1844 and 1849; Paris, 1883; Mex., 1902).

The revival of letters in Mexico is generally attributed to the conservative poets Pesado and Carpio, both of whom sought to be classic, although they were not altogether so in practise. Probably the best known Mexican poet, though certainly not the most inspired, is Jose Joaquin Pesado (1801-1861). He translated much from Latin, French and Italian, and in some cases failed to acknowledge his indebtedness (cf. Pimentel, p. 694). His best translations are of the Psalms. The Aztecas, which were published as a translation of, or an adaptation from, indigenous legends, are mostly original with Pesado in all probability. He is an unusually even writer, and some of his verses are good (cf. certain sonnets: Mi amada en la misa del alba, which reminds one of Melendez Valdes in Rosana en los fuegos; Elegia al angel de la guardia de Elisa; and parts of La revelacion in octavas reales). Montes de Oca and Menendez y Pelayo consider Pesado the greatest of Mexican poets; but Pimentel does not (p. 694). Cf. Poesias originales y traducciones, Mex., 1839-40 (most complete), 1886 (introduction of Montes de Oca); Biografia de Pesado, by Jose Maria Roa Barcena, Mex., 1878. Manuel Carpio (1791-1860) began to write verses after he had reached the age of forty years, and there is, consequently, a certain ripeness of thought and also a lack of feeling in his poetry. His verses are chiefly narrative or descriptive and generally treat of biblical subjects. His language is usually correct, but often prosaic (Poesias, Mex., 1849). page 312 Minor poets of this period are: Alejandro Arango (1821-1883), an imitator of Leon (Versos, 1879; Ensayo historico sobre Fr. Luis de Leon, Mex., 1866); Ignacio Ramirez (1818-1879), of Indian race, who was a free lance in religion and politics, and largely responsible for the separation of Church and State in Mexico (Poesias, Mex., 1889, and Lecciones de literatura, Mex., 1884); and Ignacio M. Altamarino (1834-1893), an erotic and descriptive poet (Obras, Mex., 1899).

The most popular Mexican poets during the second half of the nineteenth century have been Acuna, Flores, Peza and Gutierrez Najera. A materialistic iconoclast, Manuel Acuna (1849-1873) was uneven and incorrect in language, but capable of deep poetic feeling. In his Poesias (Garnier, Paris, 8th ed.) there are two short poems that may live: Nocturno, a passionate expression of disappointment in love; and Ante un cadaver, a poem of dogmatic materialism. Acuna committed suicide at the age of twenty-four years. Manuel Maria Flores (1840-1885), an erotic poet largely influenced by Musset, is very popular in Mexico (Pasionarias, Paris, 1911). Probably the most widely read poet of the period is Juan de Dios Peza (1852-1910). His verses are often incorrect and weak, as he improvised much; but they are interesting, as they usually treat of homely topics (Poesias completas: El arpa del amor, 1891; Hogar y patria, 1891; Leyendas, 1898; Flores del alma; Recuerdos y esperanzas, 1899, Garnier, Paris). The romantic pessimist, Manuel Gutierrez Najera (d. 1888), was tormented throughout life by the vain quest of happiness and the thirst of truth. His verses, which are often elegiac or fantastic, are highly admired by the younger generation of Mexican poets. In a letter to the writer of this article, Blanco-Fombona praises Gutierrez Najera above all other Mexican poets (Poesias, Paris, 1909, 2 vols.).

References: Menendez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., I, p. xiv f.: Blanco Garcia, III, 304 f.; Francisco Pimentel, Historia critica de la page 313 poesia en Mexico, Mex., 1892; Biblioteca hispano-americana septentrional, D. Jose Mariano Beristain de Souza, Mex., 1816-21, 3 vols. (has more than 4000 titles),—reprinted by Fortino Hipolito de Vera, Amecameca, 1883; Bibliografia mexicana del siglo XVI (catalogo razonado de los libros impresos in Mexico de 1539 a 1600); Biografias de mexicanos distinguidos, D. Francisco Sosa, Mex., 1884; Poetas yucatecos y tabasquenos, D. Manuel Sanchez Marmol y D. Alonso de Regil y Peon, Merida de Yucatan, 1861; Poetisas mexicanas, Bogota, 1889; Coleccion de poesias mexicanas, Paris, 1836; El parnaso mexicano, 36 vols., R.B. Ortega, Mex., 1886; Biblioteca de autores mexicanos, some 75 vols. to 1911, Mex.; Antologia de poetas mexicanos, publ. by Acad. Mex., Mex., 1894; Poetas mexicanos, Carlos G. Amezaga, Buenos Aires, 1896; Los trovadores de Mexico, Barcelona, 1900.

Pesado: see preceding note.

La Serenata: see Introduction, Versification, p. lxviii.

200.—6-11. These lines of Pesado are similar to those found in the first stanzas of Su alma by Milanes. See Hills' Bardos cubanos (Boston, 1901), p. 69.

Calderon: see note to p. 199.

202.—Acuna: see note to p. 199.

204.—15. The language is obscure, but the meaning seems to be: borrarte (a ti que estas) en mis recuerdos.

19. The forced synalepha of yo haga is discordant and incorrect.

204.—23 to 205.—8. That is, when the altar was ready for the marriage ceremony, and the home awaited the bride. The reference, apparently, is to a marriage at an early hour in the morning,—a favored time for marriages in Spanish lands.

208.—1. la alma, by poetic license, since el alma would make the line too long by one syllable.

207.—Peza: see note to p. 199.

211.—Dario: with the appearance in 1888 of a small volume of prose and verse entitled Azul, by Ruben Dario (1864-) of Nicaragua, there triumphed in Spanish America the "movement of emancipation," the "literary page 314 revolution," which the "decadents" had already initiated in France. As romanticism had been a revolt against the empty formalism of later neo-classicism, so "decadence" was a reaction against the hard, marmoreal forms of the "Parnasse," and in its train there came inevitably a general attack on poetic traditions. This movement was hailed with joy by the young men of Latin America, who are by nature more emotional and who live in a more voluptuous environment than their cousins in Spain; for they had come to chafe at the coldness of contemporary Spanish poetry, at its lack of color and its "petrified metrical forms." With the success of the movement there was for a time a reign of license, when poet vied with poet in defying the time-honored rules, not only of versification, but also of vocabulary and syntax. But as in France, so in Spanish America, "decadence" has had its day, although traces of its passing are everywhere in evidence, and the best that was in it still lingers.

To-day the Spanish-American poets are turning their attention more and more to the study of sociological problems or to the cementing of racial solidarity. These notes ring clear in some recent poems of Dario, and of Jose S. Chocano of Peru and Rufino Blanco-Fombona of Venezuela. The lines given in the text are an ode which was addressed to Mr. Roosevelt when he was president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. The meter of the poem is mainly the Old Spanish Alexandrine, but with a curious intermingling of lines of nine, ten and eight syllables, and with assonance of the even lines throughout. In all fairness it should be stated here that Senor Dario, in a recent letter to the writer of these Notes, said: "I do not think to-day as I did when I wrote those verses" (Dario: Epistolas y poemas, 1885; Abrojos, 1887; Azul, 1888; Cantos de vida y esperanza, Madrid, 1905; El canto errante, Madrid, 1907). page 315 212.—8. Argentina and Chile are the most progressive of the Spanish-American States. The Argentine flag is blue and white, with a sun in the center; the flag of Chile has a white and a red bar, and in one corner a white star on a blue background.

11. This refers, of course, to the colossal bronze Statue of Liberty by the French sculptor, Frederic Bartholdi, which stands in New York harbor.

14. In a letter to the writer of these Notes, Senor Dario explains this passage as follows: "Bacchus, or Dionysius, after the conquest of India (I refer to the semi-historical and not to the mythological Bacchus) is supposed to have gone to other and unknown countries. I imagine that those unknown countries were America. Pan, who accompanied Bacchus on his journey, taught those new men the alphabet. All this is related to the tradition of the arrival of bearded men, strangely dressed, in the American countries.... These traditions exist in the South as well as the North."

16. Que consulto los astros: the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans had made considerable progress in the study of astronomy.

214.—Venezuela. During the colonial period the development of literary culture was slower in the Capitania de Caracas than in Colombia, Peru and Mexico. The Colegio de Santa Rosa, which was founded at Caracas in 1696, was made a university in 1721. Not till 1806 was the first printing-press set up in the colony.

Poetry in Venezuela begins with Bello, for the works of his predecessors had little merit. Andres Bello (1781-1865) was the most consummate master of poetic diction among Spanish-American poets, although he lacked the brilliancy of Olmedo and the spontaneity of Heredia. Born in Caracas and educated in the schools of his native city, Bello was sent to England in the year 1810 to further the cause of the revolution, and he remained in that country till 1829, when he was called to page 316 Chile to take service in the Department of Foreign Affairs. His life may, therefore, be divided into three distinct periods. In Caracas he studied chiefly the Latin and Spanish classics and the elements of international law, and he made metrical translations of Virgil and Horace. Upon arriving in England at the age of twenty-nine years, he gave himself with enthusiasm to the study of Greek, Italian and French, as well as to English. Bello joined with the Spanish and Hispano-American scholars in London in the publication of several literary reviews, notably the Censor americano (1820), the Biblioteca americana (1823) and the Repertorio americano (1826-27), and in these he published many of his most important works. Here appeared his studies of Old French and of the Song of My Cid, his excellent translation of fourteen cantos of Boiardo's Orlando innamorato, several important articles on Spanish syntax and prosody, and the best of all his poems, the Silvas americanas.

In 1829, when already forty-eight years of age, Bello removed to Chile, and there entered upon the happiest period of his life. Besides working in a government office, he gave private lessons until in 1831 he was made rector of the College of Santiago. In the year 1843 the University of Chile was established at Santiago and Bello became its first rector. He held this important post till his death twenty-two years later at the ripe age of eighty-four. During this third and last period of his life Bello completed and published his Spanish Grammar and his Principles of International Law, works which, with occasional slight revisions, have been used as standard text-books in Spanish America and to some extent in Spain, to the present day. The Grammar, especially, has been extraordinarily successful, and the edition with notes by Jose Rufino Cuervo is still the best text-book of Spanish grammar we have. In the Grammar Bello sought to free Castilian from Latin terminology; but he desired, most of all, to correct the abuses so common to writers page 317 of the period and to establish linguistic unity in Spanish America.

Bello wrote little original verse during these last years of his life. At one time he became exceedingly fond of Victor Hugo and even tried to imitate him; but his classical training and methodical habits made success impossible. His best poetic work during his residence in Chile, however, are translations of Victor Hugo, and his free metrical rendering of La Priere pour tous (from the Feuilles d'automne), is amongst his finest and most popular verses.

It is interesting that Andres Bello, the foremost of Spanish-American scholars in linguistics and in international law, should also have been a preeminent poet, and yet all critics, except possibly a few of the present-day "modernistas," place his American Silvas amongst the best poetic compositions of all Spanish America. The Silvas are two in number: the Alocucion a la poesia and the Silva a la agricultura de la zona torrida. The first is fragmentary: apparently the poet despaired of completing it, and he embodied in the second poem an elaboration of those passages of the first work which describe nature in the tropics. The Silvas are in some degree imitations of Virgil's Georgics, and they are the best of Spanish imitations. Menendez y Pelayo, who is not too fond of American poets, is willing to admit (Ant., II, p. cxlii) that Bello is, "in descriptive and Georgic verse, the most Virgilian of our (Spanish) poets." Caro, in his splendid biography of Bello (in Miguel Antonio Caro's introduction to the Poesias de Andres Bello, Madrid, 1882) classifies the Silvas as "scientific poetry," which is quite true if this sort of poetry gives an esthetic conception of nature, expressed in beautiful terms and adorned with descriptions of natural objects. It is less true of the Alocucion, which is largely historical, in that it introduces and sings the praises of towns and persons that won fame in the revolutionary wars. The Silva a la agricultura, page 318 which is both descriptive and moral, may be best described in the words of Caro. It is, says this distinguished critic, "an account of the beauty and wealth of nature in the tropics, and an exhortation to those who live in the equator that, instead of wasting their strength in political and domestic dissensions, they should devote themselves to agricultural pursuits." Bello's interest in nature had doubtless been stimulated by the coming of Humboldt to Caracas in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In his attempt to express his feeling for nature in poetic terms, he probably felt the influence not only of Virgil, but also of Arriaza, and of the several poems descriptive of nature written in Latin by Jesuit priests, such as the once famous Rusticatio Mexicana by Father Landivar of Guatemala. And yet there is very little in the Silvas that is directly imitative. The Silva a la agricultura de la zona torrida, especially, is an extraordinarily successful attempt to give expression in Virgilian terms to the exotic life of the tropics, and in this it is unique in Spanish literature. The beautiful descriptive passages in this poem, the noble ethical precepts and the severely pure diction combine to make it a classic that will long hold an honored place in Spanish-American letters (Obras completas, Santiago de Chile, 1881-93).

During the revolutionary period the most distinguished poets, after Bello, of that part of the greater Colombia which later formed the separate republic of Venezuela, were Baralt and Ros de Olano. Rafael Maria Baralt (1810-1860) took part in the revolutionary movement of secession from the first Colombia; but later he removed to Spain and became a Spanish citizen. His verses are usually correct, but lack feeling. He is best known as a historian and maker of dictionaries. Baralt was elected to membership in the Spanish Academy (Poesias, Paris, 1888).

General Antonio Ros de Olano (1802-1887) also removed to page 319 Spain and won high rank in the Spanish army. He joined the romantic movement and became a follower of Espronceda. Besides a volume of verses (Poesias, Madrid, 1886), Ros de Olano wrote El doctor Lanuela (1863) and other novels. Both Baralt and Ros de Olano were identified with literary movements in Spain rather than in Venezuela.

Jose Heriberto Garcia de Quevedo (1819-1871) was a cultivated and ambitious scholar who collaborated with Zorrilla in Maria, Ira de Dios and Un cuento de amores. Among his better works are the three philosophical poems: Delirium, La segunda vida and El proscrito (Obras poeticas y literarias, Paris, 1863). Among the lesser writers of this period are Antonio Maitin (1804-1874), the best of Venezuelan romanticists (cf. El canto funebre, a poem of domestic love); Abigail Lozano (1821-1866), a romanticist and author of musical but empty verses ("versos altisonantes"); Jose Ramon Yepes (1822-1881), an army officer and the author of legends in verse, besides the inevitable Poesias; Eloy Escobar (1824-1889), an elegiac poet; and Francisco G. Pardo (1829-1872), a mediocre imitator of Zorrilla.

Next to Bello alone, the most distinguished poet of Venezuela is Jose Perez Bonalde (1846-1892), who was a good German scholar and left, besides his original verses, excellent translations of German poets. His metrical versions of Heine, especially, exerted considerable influence over the growth of literary feeling in Spanish America (Estrofas, N.Y., 1877; El poema del Niagara, N.Y., 1880). At least two other writers of the second half of the nineteenth century deserve mention: Miguel Sanchez Pesquera and Jacinto Gutierrez Coll.

Among the present-day writers of Venezuela, Luis Lopez Mendez was one of the first to introduce into Spanish America a knowledge of the philosophy and metrical theories of Paul Verlaine. Manuel Diaz Rodriguez (1868-_) has written little verse; but he is the best known Venezuelan novelist of to-day [_Sangre page 320 patricia, Camino de perfeccion_ (essays), _Idolos rotos_, _Cuentos_, 2 vols., _Confidencias de Psiquis_, _Cuentos de color_, _Sensaciones de viaje_, _De mis romerias_]. The most influential of the younger writers is Rufino Blanco-Fombona, who was expelled from his native country by the present _andino_ ("mountaineer") government and now lives in exile in Paris. At first a disciple of Musset and then of Heine and Maupassant, he is now an admirer of Dario and a pronounced _modernista_. His _Letras y letrados de Hispano-America_ is the best recent work of literary criticism by a Spanish-American author. Blanco-Fombona is a singer of youthful ambition, force and robust love. His verses have rich coloring, but are at times erotic or lacking in restraint (prose works: _Cuentos de poeta_, Maracaibo, 1900; _Mas alla de los horizontes_, Madrid, 1903; _Cuentos americanos_, Madrid, 1904; _El hombre de hierro_, Caracas, 1907; _Letras y letrados de Hispano-America_, Paris, 1908. Verses: _Patria_, Caracas, 1895; _Trovadores y trovas_, Caracas, 1899; _Pequena opera lirica_, Madrid, 1904; _Cantos de la prision_, Paris, 1911).

References: Menendez y Pelayo, Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer., II, p. cx f.; Blanco Garcia, III, p. 321 f.; Resena historica de la literatura venezolana (1888) and Estado actual de la literatura en Venezuela (1892), both by Julio Calcano, Caracas; La literatura venezolana en el siglo XIX, Gonzalo Picon Febres, Caracas, 1906; Parnaso venezolano, 12 vols., Julio Calcano, Caracas, 1892; Biblioteca de escritores venezolanos, Jose Maria Rojas, Paris, 1875; Parnaso venezolano, Barcelona, 1906.

Bello: see preceding note.

1. The Lion symbolizes Spain, since from the medieval kingdom of Leon modern Spain sprang. The battle of Bailen (see in Vocab.) took place in 1808 when Bello was twenty-seven years of age and still loyal to Spain.

214.—16 to 215.—3. =Que... concibes= = que circunscribes el vago curso al (= del) sol enamorado, y (tu), acariciada de su luz, concibes =cuanto page 321 ser= (= every being that) se anima en cada vario clima.

18. The use of quien referring to inanimate objects is now archaic.

216.—19 to 217.—3. It is said that the banana gives nourishment to more human beings than does any other plant. The fruit is taken when it is still green, before the starch has turned to sugar, and it is boiled, or baked, or it is ground and made into a coarse bread.

6-8. =En que... bondadosa!= = en que (la) naturaleza bondadosa quiso hacer resena de sus favores...

9. The student should compare this and the following lines with Vida retirada by Fray Luis de Leon, p. 9.

19. The rime requires habita, instead of habitad.

22-23. =Y... atada= = y la razon va atada al triunfal carro de la moda, universal senora.

219.—10-16. =?Esperareis... ata?= = ?esperareis que (el) himeneo forme mas venturosos lazos do el interes, tirano del deseo, barata ajena mano y fe por nombre o plata, que do conforme gusto, conforme edad, y (= both) eleccion libre y (= and) mutuo ardor ata los lazos? Note that, by poetic license, ata agrees in number with the nearest subject, although it has two.

220.—8-11. As this poem was written after the Spanish-American colonies had revolted against the mother country, Bello no longer rejoices at the success of Spanish arms nor grieves over their losses, as he had done when he wrote A la victoria de Bailen.

Perez Bonalde: see note to p. 214.

222.—5. The Venezuelan flag is yellow, blue and red with seven small white stars in the center.

225.—La carcelera: the words and music of this song and of the first that follows are taken from the Cancionero salmantino (Damaso Ledesma), Madrid, 1907.

227.—La cachucha: the words and music of this song and of the five that immediately follow are taken page 322 from Poesias populares (Tomas Segarra), Leipzig, 1862.

238.—El tragala: (lit., the swallow it) a song with which the Spanish liberals taunted the partizans of an absolute government.

242.—Himno de Riego: a song to the liberal general, Rafael de Riego (1784-1823), who initiated the revolution of 1820 in Spain and proclaimed at Cabezas de San Juan the constitution of 1812. Cf. Versification, p. lxxix.

251.—Himno Nacional de Cuba, called also the Himno de Bayamo, on account of the importance of Bayamo (see in Vocab.) in the Cuban revolution of 1868. Note the ternary movement of this song, and see Versification, p. lxxiii.

THE END