(1493-?1540)
The reign of Juan the Second of Spain (1406-1454), characterized as it
was by a succession of conspiracies and internal commotions, represents
also one of the most important epochs in the history of Spanish poetry,
which up to that period had found expression almost exclusively in the
crude though spirited historical and romantic ballads of anonymous
origin: Iliads without a Homer, as Lope de Vega called them. The first
to attempt a reform in Castilian verse was the Marquis of Villena (died
1434), who introduced the allegory and a tendency to imitate classical
models; and although he himself left nothing of consequence, his
influence is plainly revealed in the works of his far greater pupils and
successors, the Marquis of Santillana and Juan de Mena. Strangely
enough, the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Austrian
Charles the Fifth, covering the most brilliant and momentous period in
Spanish history, are yet marked by comparative stagnation in letters
until after the first quarter of the sixteenth century. During the
greater part of this period the increasing pomp and formality of the
court rendered the poetry correspondingly artificial and insincere. It
was not in fact until after many years of constant intercourse with
Rome, Naples, and Florence, while the bulk of the noble youth of Spain
resorted to the universities of those cities for higher education, that
a wide-spread and profound admiration for Italian culture and refinement
began to pave the way for another and more important revolution in
Castilian poetry than that inaugurated by Villena.
Juan Boscan Almogaver, who was the first of his nation to compose verses
after the manner of Petrarch, and whose successors in the sixteenth
century include some of the most brilliant and inspired lyrists of
Spain, was born in 1493 at Barcelona, a city which had witnessed the
recent triumphs of the Provencal Troubadours. Boscan, however, from the
beginning of his career, preferred to write in Castilian rather than in
the Limosin dialect. Of patrician descent, and possessed of ample means,
he entered the army like the majority of the young nobles of his age.
After a brief but honorable service as a soldier he traveled extensively
abroad, which led to his becoming deeply interested in the literature
and art of Italy. Meanwhile he had produced verses in the ancient lyric
style, but with only a moderate measure of success.
The year 1526 found Boscan at Granada, where Andrea Navagiero,
Ambassador from Venice to the Court of Charles the Fifth, was then in
residence. A common love of letters drew the two young men into closest
intimacy with each other. "Being with Navagiero there one day," says
Boscan in his 'Letter to the Duquesa de Soma,' "and discoursing with him
about matters of wit and letters, and especially about the different
forms they take in different languages, he asked me why I did not make
an experiment in Castilian of sonnets and the other forms of verse used
by good Italian authors; and not only spoke to me of it thus slightly,
but urged me to do it.... And thus I began to try this kind of verse. At
first I found it somewhat difficult; for it is of a very artful
construction, and in many particulars different from ours. But
afterwards it seemed to me--perhaps from the love we naturally bear to
what is our own--that I began to succeed very well; and so I went on
little by little with increasing zeal." Little dreamed the Venetian
diplomat that, owing to his friendly advice, a school was destined to
arise shortly in the poetry of Spain which would by no means have ceased
to exist after the lapse of nearly four centuries. From that day Boscan
devoted himself to the exclusive composition of verses in the Italian
measure, undeterred by the bitter opposition of the partisans of the old
school. The incomparable Garcilaso de la Vega, then scarcely past his
majority, warmly supported the innovation of his beloved friend, and
soon far surpassed Boscan himself as a writer of sonnets and _canzones_.
The Barcelonese poet spent the remainder of his life in comparative
retirement, although he appeared occasionally at court, and at one time
superintended the education of the young Duke of Alva, whose name
afterwards became one of such terror in the annals of the Netherlands.
Boscan's death took place at Perpignan about 1540.
An edition of Boscan's poems, together with those of his friend
Garcilaso, was published at Barcelona in 1543. The collection is divided
into four books, three of which are devoted to the productions of the
elder poet. The first consists of his early efforts in the old style,
songs and ballads--'Canciones y Coplas.' The second and third books
contain ninety-three sonnets and _canzones_; a long poem on Hero and
Leander in blank verse; an elegy and two didactic epistles in terza
rima, and a half-narrative, half-allegorical poem in one hundred and
thirty-five octavo stanzas. The sonnets and _canzones_ are obvious
imitations of Petrarch; yet at the same time they are stamped with a
spirit essentially Spanish, and occasionally evince a deep passion and
melody of their own, although they may lack the subtle fascination of
their exquisite models. The 'Allegory,' with its cleverly contrasted
courts of Love and Jealousy, suggests the airy, graceful humor of
Ariosto, and is perhaps the most agreeable and original of all Boscan's
works. The 'Epistle to Mendoza' is conceived in the manner of Horace,
and amidst a fund of genial philosophic comment, contains a charming
picture of the poet's domestic happiness. He also left a number of
translations from the classics.
While in no sense a great poet, Boscan united simplicity, dignity, and
classical taste in a remarkable degree; and, inclined as he seemed to
entirely banish the ancient form of verse, he yet beyond question
introduced a kind of poetry which was developed to a high degree of
perfection in the Castilian tongue, and which may be studied with keen
delight at this day in some of the noblest poetical monuments of Spanish
literature.
The best modern edition of Boscan's works is published under the title
of 'Las Obras de Juan Boscan' (Madrid, 1875).