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Later Spanish Conceptions of RomanticismAuthor(s): E. Allison PeersSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1923), pp. 37-50Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3714181 .

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LATER SPANISH CONCEPTIONS OF ROMANTICISM.

IN an earlier articlel we discussed some representative conceptions of Spanish Romanticism held by leading literary men in Spain and by contributors to its leading periodicals during the formative period of the movement. We saw how gradually one new constructive element after another was added to the growing concept, and how for the vague cos-

mopolitanism of the Europeo with its zeal for 'conciliation' and for

Schlegel's 'vermittelnde Kritik' there was substituted a national ideal, gaining somewhat, as time went on, in clearness and power, though partly obscured by the influence of French Romanticism, and wholly ignored by those uncompromising opponents who identified the Romantic movement with 'lawlessness in literature.'

One would naturally expect, with the establishment of Romanticism in Spain, to meet no more vagueness, no more fundamental misconcep- tions as to the aims and ideals of that school. Opposition to it there

might still be, but both of the conflicting parties would be presumed to know what they were fighting about. Those inimical to Romanticism

might exaggerate their opponents' claims, as happens in all controversies, or misinterpret their ends or motives: the surprising thing would be if the Romantics themselves were divided as to the falsity or truth of those

interpretations. Nor would one look for much indifference: those who identified themselves with Romanticism might be expected to support it whole-heartedly-to believe in it-to write about it-to labour its

principles and aims until all but wilful misunderstandings were cleared

away. The object of this article is to show that such a state of affairs was never reached at all2.

Who can wonder if there is confused and loose thinking among present-day writers on Spanish Romanticism, when the very protagonists of the movement were openly at variance with each other over its principles, and the contemporary critic could never be sure if his friendly

1 Modern Language Review, Vol. xvi, pp. 281-296. 2 In both this and the earlier article I have endeavoured to select as representative

quotations as possible from a comparatively large number which I have gathered from different sources. I hope in the future, after treating more fully the general literary ideas of this period, to contrast the real nature of Romanticism in Spain, as judged by the works it produced, with what its various contemporary critics supposed it to be. As this will involve preceding articles also I shall add to it a full bibliography illustrating conceptions and the nature of Romanticism in Spain.



38 Later Spanish Conceptions of Romanticism

and often flattering articles would be approved by more than a small

proportion of the men whose work they praised ? Who can tell when the Romantic movemlent ended, if we find men who were considered as

Romantics, whether five, ten or twenty years after its first appearance, still advocating the 'vermittelnde Kritik' and pointing out rather

pathetically the virtues of the other side. We are driven to two conclusions: first, that no general understanding or agreement was ever reached on the nature of the national type of Romanticism-that its full possibilities were never realised, except by an insignificant minority secondly, that militant, constructive and self-conscious Romanticism in

any form lived but for a few years in Spain and never, as a movement,

really dominated literature at all. The freedom which it had brought was accepted; the patriotic impetus which belonged to it continued- for the rest, men fled to the justo nedio and returned to the 'vermittelnde Kritik.' There were surpassingly great individual Romantics in

Spain, but there was no surpassing greatness in the movement known as Spanish Romanticism.

A complete justification of these views would require chapters where we have only pages, but the following notes are offered as an indication of the path to be pursued. We shall begin our investigations at the

year of Don Alvaro, when, as El curioso parlante put it shortly after- wards, 'la palabra romanticismo pareceria ser la dominante desde el

Tajo al Danubio, desde el mar del Norte al estrecho de Gibraltar'.' And we shall carry them some twenty years forward, to a point of time at which Juan Valera could say: 'El romanticisilo, por lo tanto, no se ha de

considerar, hoy dia, como secta militante, sino como cosa pasada, y per- teneciente a la historia2,' and Ger6nimo Borao: 'Ociosa parece hoy la

cuestion, no ha muchos anios debatida, entre los sistemas clasico y romantico, y raros son a la verdad los escritores que, ni aun por inci-

dencia, se ocupan ya de amlbas escuelass.' Both these statements might probably have been made as truly in the preceding decade, but even those who would grant the Romantic movement a longer life than we are prepared to do would allow that it was dead by 1854. Great Romantics still lived, it is true, but whatever individuality Romanticism in Spain had possessed had completely disappeared.

1 'El Romanticismo y los romanticos,' September 1837 (in Escenas ,matritelses). Juan Valera, Del Romanticismo en Espafia y de Espronceda,' in Revista espaiola

de ambos mllundos, 1854, Vol. II, p. 613. 3 Ger6nirno Borao, ' El Romanticismo,' in lievista espalnola d(e ambos wundos, 1854, Vol. Ir, p. 801.



E. ALLISON PEERS

I.

That all the elements inherent in Romanticism, together with certain

specific traits attached to it in various European countries, were present when the Spanish movement matured, will hardly be disputed. Two or three representative periodicals and the preface to the Moro exposito should make so much certain. The writers quoted in our earlier study are sufficient evidence that these elements were in 1835 inextricably confused and that no definite Spanish theory of Romanticism had emerged from them. A satirist two years after the production of Don Alvaro- none other than Mesonero Romanos-describes the state of popular opinion thus:

t Qud cosa es romanticismo ? les ha preguntado el pdblico; y los sabios le han contestado cada cual a su ruanera. Unos le han dicho que era todo lo ideal y romanesco; otros por el contrario, que no podfa ser sino lo escrupulosamente hist6rico; cuales han crefdo ver en 61 a la naturaleza en toda su verdad; cuales a la imaginacion en toda su mentira; algunos han asegurado que solo era propio a describir la edad media; otros le han hallado aplicable tambi6n a la moderna: aquellos le han querido hermanar con la religion y con la moral; estos le han echado a refiir con ambas; hay quicn pretende dictarle reglas; hay por iltimo quien sostiene que su condicion es la de no guardar ninguna .

But the appearance of several striking dramas since 1835 had suggested that a clearly Spanish type of Romanticism was slowly evolving: 'a Romanticism entirely our own, as befits a nation of so Romantic a character. Let our drama be as Romantic as we ourselves are2.'

It is easy to understand that so fervent a champion of Spanish Romanticism as Ochoa should think of it in 1835-6 as a revolution, and that he should, in rather a one-sided way, emphasise its debt to France. He has eyes and ears for little more in 1836:

La revoluci6n literaria que empezaba a formarse cuando sali6 a luz este peri6dico, y que nosotros abrazamnos con entusiasmo y conviccion, ha sido ya coronada por el mas brillante triunfo. A las piececitas de Mr. Scribe, que antes reinaban desp6tica- mente en nuestra escena, han succedido los dramas de Victor Hugo, de Casimir de la Vigne, de Dumgs y muchas producciones de ingenios espanioles: la poesia lirica nacional ha tomado un caracter muy diferente del que antes tenfa: el buen gusto en las artes ha hecho progresos evidentes, la afici6n a ellas y a la literatura ha aumentado de un modo casi increible3.

We should expect, too, that the opponents of Romanticism would continue to make capital out of its negative side, as in fact they did. Want of constructive principles is always an excellent weak spot in

1 ' El Romanticismo y los romanticos' (September 15, 1837) in Escenas )matritenses. It will be remembered that the author went so far as to read his satirical sketch in the Liceo de Madrid.

2 See Revista espai?ola, Aug. 27, 1835. Review of Angelo: '...Un romanticismo espafiol, enteramente nuestro, el del pueblo donde todo lleva el caracter del romanticismo; romantica es nuestra historia, romantico nuestro cielo...romanticese tambi6n nuestra escena.'

3 El Artista, Vol. II, p. 1. Cf. Vol. I, p. 6.

39




one's opponent's armour, and, in most controversies, it yields to the feeblest attack. It is not surprising, then, to find Lista, even after the

highly moral, religious and monarchical works of Rivas had appeared- the Moro expdsito, Don Alvaro and the Romances historicos-speaking thus of Romanticism:

El romanticismo actual, antimonarquico, antireligioso y antimoral, no puede ser la literatura propia de los pueblos ilustrados por la luz del cristianismo, inteligentes, (.ivilizados..1.

The negativeness of Romanticism, whether French or Spanish, obsesses him even more than its ' horrors':

El actual drama frances, llamado vulgarmente romantico, pinta el hombre fisi,- logico como el de Atenas, sin sonieterse a sus reglas2. He attacks its love of freedom, endeavouring to turn it against its own

exponents: Se dice que el romanticismo es el sistema de la libertad literaria. Si esto es asi,

preciso sera...coronar a Horacio como al prinmer proclamador conocido de este sistema con su celebre quidlibet a2udendi2. After which he returns to the old thesis: lo cldsico = lo bueno-an easy assumptions !

Para nosotros es cldsico todo lo que esti bien escrito2.... Nosotros designaremos las composiciones con los titulos de buenas o malas, sin curarnos mucho de si son cldsicas o romdnticas; y este es en nuestro entender el mejor partido que puedel tomar los hombres de juicio, naturalmente poco aficionados a dejarse alucinar por palabras ni frases4. His is a comfortable doctrine for the middle-aged, if unsatisfying (as one would think) to the youth of Spain: 'Las escuelas denominadas clasicas v romanticas pueden ser buenas a la vez, pero nunca los ex- tremos de ambos5.'

But emphatically one would not expect such a shallow and negative conception of Romanticism as Lista's from those who were Romantics in sympathy. And yet we can find articles like one by Alcala Galiano in the Revista de Madrid for 1838 (I, pp. 41-55). Alcala Galiano had indeed fled from the name of Romanticism in 1834, but much had

happened since then; it is surprising, at the least, to find him in 1838

showing unmistakable signs of fleeing from the reality.

1 'De lo que hoy se llama romanticismo,' p. 39. In Volume II of Lista's En,sayos criticos y literarios (Sevilla, 1844). This article was first published in La Colmena for 1842 (Vol. i, pp. 72-5).

2 Ibid. p. 42. 3 See Modeern Language Revielw, art. cit., xvi, p. 294. 4 'De lo que hoy se llama romanticismo,' p. 43. 5 Revista espawila, June 16, 1836, from a report of Lista's inaugural lecture to the

Ateneo. Cueto (see Appx. to Memorias de un Setentdn, Madrid, 1881, Vol. II, p. 232) declares that the reactionaries read the works of the great Romantics with as much avidity as any.



E. ALLISON PEERS

After commenting upon the confused state of opinion with regard to Romantic drama, he propounds three questions: (1) Is the division made between Classical and Romantic drama accurate ? (2) If so, is the distinction merely one of forms or not ? (3) What are the essentials of a good drama ? The conclusions he comes to are, briefly, that the division is not accurate, and that, except in certain questions of form, it is a distinction without a difference. In such matters only as observance or

neglect of the unities can a line be clearly drawn between Classical and Romanticl. It is not possible to say that Romanticism alone draws its

plots from Spanish history or from the Middle Ages2; still less is it a question of metre3. Then comes the astounding conclusion (for with the third of his questions we are not here concerned):

Bien mirado, pues, el romanticismo de hoy consiste en el quebrantamiento de las reglas adoptadas e impuestas por el clasicismo frances del siglo de Luis decimocuarto, y la epoca a e1 siguiente4.

Comment is surely needless; and if we remember that the writer was a convert to Romanticism and an intimate friend of more than one

great Romantic, comment is hardly possible Three years after this-in the Pensamiento for 1841-we find

Cayetano Cortes complaining of vague and loose literary thinking, un-

certainty in literary aspirations, and the like, so that 'grave and serious minds' are turning to history and the literatures of the past5. It was not to be wondered at: opinions were as diverse and as conflicting as ten years earlier, when the greatest Romantics were in exile and no considerable work had appeared to inaugurate the movement.

Later still, in 1847, Hartzenbusch makes a speech to the Ateneo on the state of contemporary literature6. Several of his contemporaries, he

says, have treated this matter, but they were quite unable to agree as to what the state of literature was. He can only say that their opinions fall into two classes:

1 Op. cit. p. 51: 'La observancia de las tres unidades, y la uniformidad de estilo, esto es, el cuidado de no mezclar lo serio con lo festivo, son los distintivos del drama hoy llamado clasico. Por abrazar muchos anos y pasar de un lugar a otro; y por usar de un estilo desigual, y alternar alguna vez escenas jocosas o pedestres con otras pateticas o elevadas, se llaman romanticas otras composiciones.'

2 Ibid.: 'Dicen, por ejemplo, que drama romantico es el que trata de asuntos de las edades medias y de la historia respectiva de la nacion donde esta compuesto.' 3 Ibid.: 'Dicen tambien que la tragedia romantica debe estar escrita en prosa o verso libre, y la clasica en metro mas artificioso, contra lo cual sirve de argumento que en prosa compuso Perez de Oliva sus dramas clasicos; y que en versos de mucho artificio, y por lo general aconsonantados o asonantados, estan escritas todas nuestras comedias antiguas.'

4 Ibid. p. 51. 5 The passage is quoted in Le Gentil, Les Revues litteraires de l'Es)pagne, p. 116. 6 Sobre el carActer de la literatura contemporanea,' in Siglo Pintoresco, 1847, Vol. II,

pp. 149-152.

41




De estas dos opiniones la una es negativa; afirmativa la otra: por la una se establece que la literatura contemporinea carece de caracter propio o tiene por dis- tintivo la confusion y la anarqufa; por la otra, se le atribuye un caracter formado ya, o por lo menos en camino para formarse.

And what does he say of Romanticism ? we may ask. The reply is that he says nothing at all!

Another prominent critic, though still a young man-Juan Valera- held tenaciously to the idea of Romanticism as 'una feliz revoluci6n literaria' and very little more. The essence of the movement, he writes, twenty years after its first successes, is its opposition to French precep- tists and pseudo-classicismI. Upon this he insists with great vigour, and

passing on to consider extraneous phenomena which have been called 'Romantic' he disposes of most of them (of some very properly) as unessential additions, mainly from abroad. 'Our Romanticism,' he says in effect, 'came to us from France, and we added so much to it from various sources that Germany, whence it first sprang, would not have known the product':

Nosotros...como los franceses, aiiadimos a estos elementos del romanticismo, no s6lo cuanto nos parecio romantico en nuestro propio pals, que no fu6 poco, sino otro romanticismo venido de un pais diferente, y que por sf solo imprimio un carActer singular a la nueva literatura. Hablo de las obras de lord Byron...y de las de Walter Scott...2.

As soon as Valera touches the question of form we feel that he is tending to exaggerate the negative side of Romanticism once more 3. It

is, however, near the truth to say that the Spanish Romantics paid little attention to form, nor have we any quarrel with Valera's remarks on the

melancholy, the Satanism and the rehabilitation of Christianity in literature which he thinks of as non-essential to Romanticism. More

disputable, perhaps, though not of course peculiar to himself, is his de-

scription of the 'idealisation of the criminal' as a Romantic trait: his

argument is full of exceptions4 and somewhat crudely put. But the fundamental misfortune of the article is its limited outlook: misunder-

1 In Revista espaftola de amibos nmundos, 1854, Vol. iI, pp. 610-630: 'El romanticismo ha sido una revoluci6n, y solo los efectos de ella podian ser estables. Entre nosotros vino a libertar a los poetas del yugo ridiculo de los preceptistas franceses, y a separarlos de la imitaci6n superficial y mal entendida de los clasicos; y lo consiguio. Las demas ideas y principios del romanticismo fueron exageraciones revolucionarias, que pasaron con la re- voluci6n; y de las cuales, aun durante la revoluci6n misma, se salvaron los hombres de buen gusto.' (p. 613.)

2 Ibid. p. 614. 3 ' En cuanto a la forma, los romanticos la desatendian, presumiendo de espiritualistas,

y poniendo la belleza en lo sustancial y recondito. El poeta no escribia ni debia escribir por arte, sino por inspiraci6n; su existencia debia tener algo de excepcional y de extrava- gante; hasta en el vestido se debia diferenciar el poeta de los demas hombres ; y el universo Mundo le debia considerar como un ap6stol, con mzisi6n especial que cumplir en la tierra.'

4 He has to admit that the same thing occurs frequently in Classical drama, cites examples, and endeavours to distinguish them as a class from those of Romantic drama.



E. ALLISON PEERS

standing the true nature of Spanish Romanticism, Valera places a false

emphasis upon its revolutionary side, and throws his picture into confusion.

To illustrate the diversity of opinion regarding Romanticism, as late as 1854, we may quote from a striking article by Ger6nimo Borao in the same review and the same volume. It might, indeed, have been called forth by Valera's exposition, for it represents as nearly as possible the complement of it: Valera's and Borao's conceptions of Romanticism, if combined, form a full and a not unworthy one.

Beginning, like so many others, with a comment upon the need for a study of Romanticism , Borao devotes the greater part of his space to

analysing it as it had appeared in Spain. He first clears away miscon-

ceptions by demonstrating the 'futility of the charges made against Romanticism' and the 'chapter of crimes for which it has been excom- municated.' Some of these charges are merely rhetorical efforts: 'sofis- teria de la argumentaci6n,' and'tendencia depresiva contra los principes y sacerdotes,' for example, speak for themselves. The others, namely, non-observance of the unities, mingling of the sublime with the mean or grotesque and of prose with verse, the idealisation of vice, violence in characterisation and plot, and familiarity of style, describe, sometimes

well, sometimes badly, reforms or the exaggeration of reforms which Romantics of every country found it more or less necessary, as the case

might be, to advocate. This is the less important part, however, of the article.

We may wish that what follows had been written by a Spaniard of influence twenty years earlier. For Borao goes on to establish three

principles of Spanish Romanticism, in refutation of Lista and others who would make it merely destructive. It is enough to say that these

principles, which he expounds at length, are Nationality, Christianity and Liberty. How far are we here from Lista and even from Valera Romanticism is no more essentially an imitation than it is essentially a revolt2. It is a national literary 'system'; it is even a 'necessity.' And.

yet there are those who can call it a 'colecci6n de todos los extravios y libertades de cerebros calenturientos y de escritores disolventes' ! The

1 Revista espaiola de ambos mundos, 1854, Vol. iI, pp. 801-842: 'Hay...pocas cosas menos a fondo examinadas que el romanticismo literario, en cuyo examen detenido vamos a empeiarnos ' (p. 801). 2 Op. cit. p. 832: ' Hemos dicho que el romanticismo es por una parte la nacionalidad, y todos saben en efecto, que s6lo se llama clasica la obra dramatica que imita a la anti- giiedad, o mejor, a los remedos de ella. Hemos dicho tambien que el romanticismo no era una invenci6n, tal cual nosotros le concebimos, sino una reproducci6n del hecho verificado en siglos de oro modernos en donde la lucha actual era todavia mas sensible que hoy entre la poesia popular y la erudita.'

43




fact is-he concludes, as he began-Romanticism has never been under- .stood1.

II.

Yet, however many and diverse opinions there might be in Spain, three men, above all others, might be expected to have held worthy conceptions of that national type of Romanticism which the Revista

espaiola had looked for in 1835; they, if any, should have championed their conceptions, and, by precept as well as by example, commended them to the Spanish people. For all three-Rivas, Espronceda and Zorrilla-were thorough-going Romantics, by whatever criterion Roman- ticism may be judged: in their actual works we undoubtedly have a wider and a more generous ideal than any which we have yet found in the theory of any one writer. If, then, we find that they made any con- tributions to an understanding of the subject, we must at once follow them up, and ask why they proved ineffective.

In point of fact, they made none. Espronceda was an individualist

through and through. Brought up in the school of Lista and Hermosilla, it was natural that, when he reacted against it, the reaction should be a

strong one, as it was. But his work was profoundly personal: he had no idea of solidarity, nor of a constructive Romantic movement. And this

though he lived in the Paris of 1830, and, returning to Spain, joined the Parnasillo in which met nearly all the great Romantics of a later day. Perhaps Mesonero Romanos' sketch of him throws some light upon his attitude': he could launch epigrams, but he could not lay down

principles; he could satirise3 but not generalise; he could declaim

against a school but he could not found one. Zorrilla was born into Romanticism, or, at the least, grew up into it.

Coming to manhood just as the movement of 1835 was winning success, he might well have stabilised it, set it on a broader basis, and given it

reality. He himself realised the significance to letters of the date of his birth:

Yo era el primero y debil eslabon de la nueva epoca literaria, el atropellador desaforado de la tradici6n y de las reglas clasicas, el fuego fatuo, leve e inquieto, personificacion de la escuela del romanticismo revolucionario4.

But how disappointing is the way in which he speaks of the time when he began his career:

1Op. cit. p. 841. 2 Mlemtorias de iun Setenton, ii, p. 59: 'Alli Espronceda, con su entonada y un tanto

pedantesca actitud, lanzando epigramas contra todo lo existente, lo pasado y lo futurp.' :; Cf. ' El Pastor clasiquino ' in El Artista, Vol. I, p. 251. 4 Recuerdos del tiempo riejo (Barcelona, 1880), Vol. i, p. 226.



E. ALLISON PEERS

Comence yo el primer aAio de mi carrera dramitica, con asombro de la crftica, atropello del buen gusto y comienzo de la descabellada escuela de los espectros y asesinatos hist6ricos, bautizados con el nombre de dramas romanticosl.

His early love for the great Romantics2, his admiration of Espronceda3, his friendship with the Duque de Rivas4-all were powerless to make him a Romantic by conviction, as he was undoubtedly one by tempera- ment and by the accident of the age in which he lived. One phrase in which he speaks of Espronceda illuminates the whole attitude of both

poets. Espronceda, according to Zorrilla, is:

lanzado, Luzbel-poeta, en el infierno insondable y nuevamente abierto del roman- ticismo5.

No: in this Romantic we shall find no constructive Romanticism. He welcomes the movement as a liberating force: it is 'necessary' and 'spon- taneous'; its success makes a reaction in favour of classicism, with its unwanted mythological deities, impossible6. But once that revolution is

accomplished, Zorrilla wants nothing further with 'Romanticism.' It would not do to press him too closely as to the force of his adjective when he attributes his fame to the 'romantic inspiration of Toledo7.' He has two ('romantic') principles and only two: we are never in danger of forgetting them:

Cristiano y espaiiol, con fe y sin miedo Canto mi religi6n, mi patria canto8.

By these lines, he says proudly near the end of his life, he has always been guided9.

And what of Rivas, the protagonist of Romanticism in Spain ? We have seen how the writer of the preface to his Moro expdsito developed: the author of the poem itself takes an almost equally reactionary position. First, he re-enters politics, and literature becomes for him mainly a diversion: he is primarily the popular ambassador at

Naples, or the genial Sevillan, or the famous peer of the realm. His

pronouncements on Romanticism are few and disappointing: he never

1 Ibid. I, p. 59. 2 Cf. ibid. I, p. 19. 3 Ibid. i, pp. 46 ff.: 'Yo crela,' he says, ' yo idolatraba en Espronceda.' 4 Ibid. i, pp. 127 ff. 5 Ibid. i, 48. 6 Ibid. ii, 33: ' Asi sucedio con nuestra fogosa y desatalentada, pero necesaria y espon-

tanea, revolucion romantica.... La reaccion clasica no pudo cuajar; el romanticismo habfa echado de nuestra poesfa popular a las divinidades mitologicas....'

7 Ibid. i, 51: ' Yo debia mi fama a mis inspiraciones romanticas de Toledo.' 8 Granada. 9 Recuerdos, II, 187-8: ' Porque yo i vive Dios! he vivido once aiios en America como

espafiol y como cristiano, fiel al lema con que encabecd mi poema de Granada...y en el estrecho circulo de poeta, en el cual me he constituido por mi propia voluntad y por con- ciencia de no servir para mas, he cumplido con mi deber y he cantado a mi patria y a mi religi6n, hasta que he perdido la voz y la fuerza, pero sin perder la fe; porque yo soy cristiano a pies juntillos y espanol a macha martillo.'

45




advanced beyond the position of AlcalA Galiano's preface. His later works show clearly his own inclinations for narrative poetry. In the Romances histdricos and Leyendas he follows those two principles which were also Zorrilla's. In his later dramas he goes back more or less com-

pletely upon the Romanticism of Don Alvaro: in reading them we can understand why he left the arena in 1835. His true Romanticism is that of the Romances historicos.

Such were the poets who might have been leaders of a national Romantic movement. Would Larra, we may wonder, have done their

work, had he lived ?......

III.

With the greatest writers evincing such lukewarmness or unconcern for the fortunes of Romanticism as a school in Spain it was only to be

expected that the lesser men would follow suit. Just as they have no clear conception of what Romanticism is, so they have no enthusiasm for whatever they conceive it to be. There is still a party, no doubt, holding doctrines:

Do toda regla es traba iguominiosa, Que la pedanterfa al genio impuso.

El romancesco es por esencia triste, El horror es el mote de su secta; Horror es a sus ojos cuanto existe.

The well-known writer who gives us this testimony in 1847 implies that there were still those (discredited, but persevering) who were faithful to

eighteenth-century traditions and regarded the Moro expdsito, with

horror, as ' romantic': Si a las rnmximas clAsicas te rindes

Y te convida un clasico a su mesa, No por el Moro de Savedra (sic) brindes1.

But all respectable writers, it would seem, now follow the custom (set, after all, by the Moro expdsito itself) of disclaiming connection with either party. Mora, in the preface to his Leyendas espaiolas (1840) combines respectability with self-esteem when he says:

En una palabra, no desea [el autorj que las Leyendas sean juzgadas como clasicas, ni como romsnticas, sino como suyas.

But did all the minor Romantics acquiesce in this convention ? Let us hear a few. Here, for example, is Enrique Gil y Carrasco, undoubtedly a Romantic in practice, an ardent admirer of Espronceda, whom he fol- lowed so soon to the grave, a reader of the great Romantics of England,

1 J. J. de Mora: ' Mis opiniones,' in Revista de Espafia, Vol. xi (1847). ' Op. cit. p. xiv.



E. A TLTSON PEERS

Germany and France, a student and perhaps an imitator of Sir Walter Scott. Yet Gil, as early as 1839, when reviewing Zorrilla's poetry for El Semanario pintorescol, and writing of 'Classicism and Romanticism,' could go back quite complacently to the old Europeo doctrine of 'some of each2.' Four years after Don Alvaro, a man whose sympathies were

entirely with the Romantics, could call Sophocles and Shakespeare, Calder6n and Moliere, Byron and Cervantes,' brothers3,' and write of the

opposing schools thus: Y si variamos de 6poca anadiremos que aceptamos el clasicismo por entero entre

nosotros durante todo el siglo xviii, como una idea poderosa de orden y de disciplina, unica capaz de corregir la anarquia y confusi6n que se introdujo en la literatura hacia la postrera mitad del siglo xvin; y que aceptamos el romanticismlo aun con sus extravios a principios del siglo presente, como uinico medio de emancipar el genio de las injustas cadenas de los reglistas3. A 'reconciling criticism,' indeed, and perhaps a salutary one. But how far removed is this Romantic from the Romantics of France, Germany or England!

Another contribution to the ' moderate' side is made by Gil y Zarate in the Revista de Madrid ('Teatro antiguo y teatro moderno,' 1839). Here he scouts the idea of a return to classicism, but is equally sure that the 'revolution' of the past few years has no longer the confidence or the support of reasonable men. The same views he expresses in later

articles, notably in his inaugural speech to the Academy 'Sobre la poesia dramatica.' He wishes to see a new genero in drama which shall com- bine the best qualities of the drama of many nations-his own included- and thus be truly eclectic, both cosmopolitan and patriotic.

It might have been supposed that Hartzenbusch, after the success of his greatest play, in 1837, and the ultra-Romantic qualities of certain others, would have been an enthusiastic apologist and exponent of Romanticism. Yet we find him, commending it not at all, but adopting a tone of half-hearted acquiescence which indicates that if the movement is not doomed he certainly thinks it to be5. In discussing the Unities6,

1 The article is reproduced in volume n of Gil's works, ed. 1883. 2 'Asi que, nosotros aceptamos del clasicismo el criterio de la 16gica; no de la 16gica de

las reglas, insuficiente y mezquina para las necesidades morales de la epoca; sino la 16gica del sentimiento, la verdad de la inspiraci6n; y del romanticismo aceptamos todo el vuelo de esta inspiraci6n, toda la llama y el calor de las pasiones.'

3 Op. cit. pp. 39-40. 4 Revista de Madrid, 1839, Vol. m, pp. 147-157. Here he speaks most disrespectfully

of 'La revoluci6n que ha acontecido filtimamente en esta clase de literatura, y que espan- tada ya el aspecto de su inmoralidad y funestas consecuencias, va cediendo en fuerza de una reacci6n provechosa.' 5 El Panorama, 1839, Vol. I, p. 230.

6 The revival of interest in the two discredited unities of time and place, as well as the general acceptance of the unity of action, and the animated discussions on all three from 1838 onwards, are most significant indications of the impotence of Romanticism in Spanish drama at that time.

47



48 Later Spanish Conceptions of Romanticismt

though he ventures mildly to say a word for the French Romantics, his conclusions are distinctly in favour of the Rules, and his language sug- gests that the tide of opinion in Spain has turned against Romantic drama. In 1845 the Revista de Espana prints a speech delivered by Hartzenbusch in the Ateneo on the relative merits of Classical (Greek) and mediaeval types in modern literaturel. The judgment which he

gives upon the two is the familiar one of the 'moderate' man: each has certain advantages over the other. In 1847, as we have seen, he writes on the state of contemporary literature without mentioning Romanticism as such at all. The period for him is one of conflicting ideas; the only clear fact which emerges is that a great change has come over Spanish literature since 1800.

Another Romantic, in fact, has deserted, and when we find Hartzen- busch playfully counselling a Romantically-minded lady to leave sighing for sewing2, he seems to be speaking from the opposing camp.

After these examples of eclecticism, it is no surprise to find Donoso Cortes, whose liberalism in literature was even less pronounced than in

politics, following the same line of thought. Yet he was, after all, some-

thing of a progressive in both. In 1838, a young man of less than thirty, he is searching for an eclectic solution to the differences between the two schools. In the Correo nacionalt he analyses the respective virtues of classicism aid Romanticism, and the opinions which the one school had of the other. He spends much unnecessary space in showing, in his serious way, that neither can contain 'absolute' error, which is 'absolutely an impossibility,' nor for that matter 'absolute truth.' Each, however, contains much truth; each school must be studied in the period of its

greatest glory to be understood, and in its social, political and philo- sophical bearings. Two summary quotations will show the attitude of Donoso Cortes when Spanish Romanticism was achieving its greatest triumphs:

Se deducen las consecuencias siguientes: la. Que si por clasicismo se quiere significar la poesia de las sociedades antiguas, y por romanticismo la de las sociedades modernas, el clasicismo y el romanticismo son dos escuelas legftimas, porque estAn fundadas en hechos histdricos irrecusables: 2a. Que esas dos escuelas se diferencian profundamente entre sf, como quiera que el clasicismo se distingue por la perfeccidn de las formas, y el romanticismo por la profundidad de las ideas; el clasicismo por la riqueza de las imagenes; el romanticismo por la elevacidn de los sentimientos. De donde se sigue, que los clasicos y los romanticos, cuando se niegan mutuamente

1 ' Son preferibles en el estado actual de la literatura y de las artes los tipos de la edad media a los del gusto clasico griego?' (Rerista de Espaita, Vol. xi, 1845, cit. Le Gentil, p. 125).

2 Sonnet 'A una romantica' in Poesias, p. 379. 3 Reprinted in Obras, ed. 1854 (Vol. in, pp. 5-41).



E. ALLISON PEERS

el derecho de ciudadania en la repdblica literaria, se insurreccionan contra la raz6n

y se sublevan contra la historia. * * * * *

...Si por clasicismo se entiende la imitacion exclusiva de los poetas antiguos, y por romanticismo la emancipacion completa de las leyes artisticas que los antiguos encontraron, el romanticismo y el clasicismo son dos escuelas absurdas. Pero si el clasicismo aconseja el estudio de las formas en los poetas antiguos, y el romanticismo aconseja el estudio de las ideas y de los sentimientos en los poetas modernos, el clasicismo y el romanticismo, son dos escuelas razonables.

So, concludes Donoso Cortes,-three years after Ochoa had pro- claimed with a shout the triumph of Romanticism,-let us be classics and romantics at once: 'Entonces la perfeccidol consiste en ser cldsico y, romdntico a un mismo tiempo.'

These quotations show us the direction which literary thought had

begun to take even before 1840. The so-called Romantic revolution was

hardly more than a flash in the pan: even Romanticism in its wider sense burnt fitfully and unsurely for reasons some of which we have seen. The first effects of Don Alvaro had hardly passed away when eclecticism in literature came into renewed favour, strongly coloured by patriotism'. Nowhere is its popularity better seen than in that important review, El Semanario pintoresco (1836-1857), as M. Le Gentil has already admirably demonstrated2. 'We are neither romantics in the classical sense, nor classicists in the romantic sense,' begins one of its typical articles in 1837. 'Let us, then, avoid further disputes3.' The Liceo artistico, in the next year, lays down its position thus:

No sera el Liceo...cldsico ni romdntico en el sentido comi'u de estas palabras; pero no combatira tampoco al clasicismo, porque respeta las obras de Solfs, de Racine, del Tasso y de Milton; ni al romanticismo, porque no desprecia a Calderon, a Shakespeare, a Byron, ni al Ariosto4.

The moderately-inclined Revista de Madrid, in which Gil y Zarate had written in so conciliatory a tone, is full of similar articles. We find

Lopez Pelegrin, for instance, extolling the justo medio, condemning both the excesses of the one school and the tyranny of the other'. Lista6 and Gallego expound their familiar views freely; Martinez de la Rosa discusses in academic fashion 'the influence of the spirit of the age on

1 See, among other periodicals, Revista de Espaiia, Vol. ii, passiml, and El Pensamiento, which started life as a Romantic journal in May 1841, and came to an end in the following October.

2 Op. cit. pp. 57-60. 3 Critique of Bdrbara Blomberg, p. 387, 1837. 4 Liceo artistico y literario espaiol, Vol. II, p. 5. 5 Vol. II, 1840: 'Entre el desbordamiento de esta escuela (sc. romantica) y la rigida

tirantez de Moratin hay un medio que consiste en dar amplia libertad al genio, etc.' 6 'De la moderna escuela sevillana de literatura' (1838, Vol. I, p. 251).

M. L. R. XVIII. 4

49




literature'; no one comes forward to defend the theories of the out-and- out Romantics, though the works of such are occasionally printed or

praised. To discuss in detail the general literary theories of these years is

beyond the scope of an article which is concerned only with their con-

ceptions of Romanticism. Enough has probably been said to show that

by a date not far from 1840 few writers troubled about conceptions of Romanticism at all. Literature had changed very greatly since 1800; certain influences were clearly perceived; new forces were at work and classicism no longer held sway. But Romanticism was a name. It had come, had done its work, and-as an entity-with meaning and principle -had gone.

In a future article I shall endeavour to describe the literary ideas which exercised the Spanish mind after the nature and merits of Roman- ticism had ceased to occupy it.

E. ALLISON PEERS. LIVERPOOL.



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