Читать книгу History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol. 1&2) - Friedrich Bouterwek - Страница 38

Table of Contents

The poet who is celebrated in Spanish literature by the name of Jorge de Montemayor, was born in the year 1520, at Montemor, a little town of Portugal, not far from Coimbra. He took for his name that of his native city, spelt and pronounced in the Spanish way, probably because his own family name was not deemed sufficiently sonorous; and thus the latter has been entirely lost. The talent of this young Portuguese developed itself without the aid of a previous literary cultivation. At an early period of life he served in the Portuguese army, and, as there is reason to believe, in the rank of a common soldier. His taste for music, and the reputation he had acquired as a singer, induced him to visit Spain, where the Infant Don Philip, afterwards Philip II. had formed a company of court musicians, who were to accompany him on his travels through Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Jorge de Montemayor, being admitted as a vocal member of this travelling musical company, gained an opportunity of seeing the world, and at the same time making himself master of the Castilian language, which became to him a second mother tongue. He was, however, attached to Spain by a still closer link, namely, his love for a beautiful Castilian lady, whom he occasionally introduces in his poems under the name of Marfida. This Marfida became the deity of his poetry; and when, on his return to Spain, he found her wedded to another, he endeavoured to divert his sorrow by poetic effusions, in which he represented the faithless beauty as a romantic shepherdess; and, uniting these with several of his other compositions, he formed the whole into a romance. This romance, which he entitled Diana, was received by the Spanish public with a degree of favour never before extended to any Spanish book, Amadis de Gaul excepted; and it speedily found no fewer imitators than Amadis itself. The Queen of Portugal was desirous that the celebrated author of Diana should return to his native country. She recalled him, and he obeyed the honourable mandate. No further particulars of his history are known. He died by some violent means, either in 1561 or 1562. He was upwards of forty at the period of his death, which, according to some accounts, took place in Portugal, and according to others in Italy.201

The Diana of Montemayor is one of the few romantic works which belong entirely to the soul of the inventor, which are embued throughout with individual interest, and which on that very account exercise the more influence over unsophisticated minds, because the author possessed sufficient poetic genius successfully to convey the joys and sorrows of his own heart under the forms of a general interest. But this romance can never be to any other cultivated people what it was to the Spaniards of the sixteenth century. Still less can it be regarded as a classical fragment, even though judged according to the lenient rules by which every fragment is estimated; unless, indeed, after the manner of some modern critics, new rules of art be deduced from defective examples, for the sake of admiring as incomparable the grossest absurdities, under the title of romantic complexity. But with all its faults, this unfinished pastoral romance (for it was not brought to a conclusion by Montemayor) possesses a poetic merit, which entitles it to the esteem of all ages.

The design of the work, so far as Montemayor’s ideas render his intention obvious, sometimes charms by its graceful simplicity, and at others becomes grotesque, through an illegitimate romantic combination of heterogeneous species of composition. The shepherd Sireno, who represents the poet himself, on his return to his native country, visits the scene of the innocent joys which the inconstant shepherdess Diana once shared along with him. Overwhelmed with grief, he draws out first a lock of hair belonging to his mistress; and then one of her letters, which he reads. While he is thus communing with himself, he is joined by another romantic adorer of the beautiful Diana. This shepherd, whose love had always been unrequited, now joins his lamentations to those of the once happy Sireno, and each vies with the other in claiming to himself the heaviest load of misery. They are joined by a shepherdess, named Selvagia, who has been no less unfortunate in love than themselves. She relates her history very circumstantially, and thus terminates the first book. In the second, the conversation of these lovers is continued, until three nymphs appear, one of whom relates Sireno’s history in a song of some length. Up to the conclusion of this song, the pastoral simplicity of the story is preserved uninterrupted by any incident approximating to the terrible; but suddenly a party of savage robbers completely armed appears. The nymphs are about to fly, but are detained by the robbers. A battle then ensues between the robbers and the shepherds, the latter attacking the former with stones. The robbers are on the point of overcoming their rustic antagonists, when a heroine, habited as a huntress, rushes from a wood, and bending her bow, pierces the robbers with her arrows, and liberates the nymphs. The fair huntress then joins the party of nymphs and shepherds, and in her turn also relates her history. This narrative, together with the conversations and songs to which it gives rise, concludes the second book. In the third book the story assumes the character of a fairy tale. The nymphs lead their protectress, together with the rest of the party, through a thick forest to the castle of the wise Felicia, who is represented as a kind of priestess to the goddess Diana. The description of the wonders and magnificence of the castle occupies a great portion of the third book. The wise Felicia conducts the party to a superb hall of state, where they behold a numerous collection of majestic statues, representing Roman emperors, Castilian knights, and Castilian ladies. Even a place is found for the statue of a Moorish knight, of whose conflicts with the Christians a long history is related in this sanctuary of the goddess Diana. By means of enchantment Felicia cures Sireno of the torments of love. At length, in the sixth book, the poet releases his shepherds and shepherdesses from Felicia’s palace, and the reader for the first time becomes acquainted with the shepherdess Diana. She attaches the blame of her infidelity to her parents, by whom, during the absence of Sireno, she was forced to give her hand to another. In the following scenes, to the conclusion of the seventh book, where Montemayor’s labour terminates, the history of the principal characters makes no further progress. Some of the other lovers in the romance are, however, united according to their wishes.

This composition, in which it is easy to recognize the uncultivated genius of a poet, who, to give vent to the emotions of his soul, deemed it necessary to wander through the whole region of romance, can only be regarded by the unprejudiced critic as a fantastical frame-work, serving to display pictures of the feelings and a philosophy of the heart, which constitute the prominent features of the whole poem. To paint romantic fidelity under the most fascinating and various forms, and at the same time to exhibit in a poetic point of view the theory of that fidelity, which even in a poem could only be verified by facts, was the idea which guided Montemayor’s inventive fancy, and the execution of which bears the full impression of his genius. The versified portion of the romance is the soul of the whole composition. A series of lyric poems, partly in the Italian and partly in the old Castilian style, are introduced; but these compositions are strikingly distinguished from the eclogues of Saa de Miranda by an epigrammatic poignancy, which frequently degenerates into antiquated subtlety.202 But this epigrammatic turn usually imparts a more pointed precision to the lyrical expression, and a degree of consistency to the whole composition, which in no way injures its pastoral simplicity;203 and when judged according to the characteristic form of the popular songs, called Villancicos, it by no means presents, to Spaniards in particular, the idea of too much refinement or incongruity with rustic nature.204 In order to judge candidly of the pastoral truth of these compositions, it is necessary to have the Spanish romantic ideas of nature present to the mind. Montemayor is inexhaustible in new turns and images for the expression of tenderness. In depth of feeling he vies with Saa de Miranda; and, though his poetry is occasionally deficient in rhythmical polish, it in general presents so exquisite a union of the grace of language, with a happy concordance of ideas, that the reader must soon become warmed by the spirit of the poet, even though he should begin to peruse the work with indifference.205

Montemayor’s style of romantic prose has been a model for all writers of pastoral romances in the Spanish language. How far he himself imitated the prose of Sanazzar, cannot easily be ascertained, as it is not known whether or not Sanazzar’s Arcadia206 was the prototype of his Diana. Though it is certain that Montemayor carefully endeavoured to give precision and dignity of expression, and to impart harmony to every line of his composition, his language nevertheless appears neither laboured nor affected. His taste seems to have been in only a few instances seduced by the influence of that ostentatious solemnity, which distinguished the common chivalrous romances, written in imitation of Amadis de Gaul. In general he remained faithful to the dignified simplicity, which the author of the Amadis appears to have regarded as the genuine characteristic of the lofty style of romantic prose. To this style his protracted but rhythmically pleasing sentences may justly be said to belong.207 It is but seldom that a low expression escapes him.208 His descriptions are never deficient in vividness and force.209 It is only in the didactic passages in which he propounds his philosophy of love, that his language becomes tinged with the scholastic formality, which at the period in which he wrote, was considered indispensable when any scholastic ideas were to be expressed; for though Montemayor had not received that kind of education, which in his age was considered learned, he had picked up some notions of the scholastic philosophy, which, when they interested him, he was fond of introducing into the romance of his heart.210

The other works of Montemayor, which are not so celebrated as his Diana, are to be found in a collection of his poems, which, according to the old custom, is entitled a Cancionero.211