To give a catalogue _raisonnée_ of all the poets that flourished in
Spain in this age would be of little avail, as little is known of them
and their poetry: though much of it is beautiful, and much more of it
agreeable, it does not bear the stamp of the originality and genius
necessary to form an era in literature. Sedano gives brief notices of
some of them. From him we learn that Fernando de Acuna, a nobleman of
Portuguese extraction, a distinguished courtier in the court, a gallant
soldier in the camp of Charles V., was also an intimate friend of
Garcilaso de la Vega, and imitated him and Boscan in the style of his
poetry. He died in Granada about the year 1580. There is elegance, and a
certain degree of originality in his poems. Sedano almost places him
above his friend Garcilaso. He mingled the Italian and old Spanish
styles together, introducing metres more adapted to the Castilian
language than the terzets of his predecessors, being shorter, more airy,
and more graceful.
Gil Polo, a native of Valentia, flourished about the year 1550. He
continued the Diana of Montemayor, and called his work "La Diana
Enamorada." He is chiefly famous for the praise that Cervantes bestows
on him, when in "Don Quixote" the curate says to the barber "Take as
much care of Gil Polo's work, as if it were written by Apollo himself."
Posterity has not confirmed this preference, and it is chiefly praised
for elegance and purity of style.
Cetina, an anacreontic poet of merit, also finds a place in the "Parnaso
Español." The same honour is not bestowed on Castillejo, who, however,
deserves peculiar mention as the great partisan of the old Castilian
style, and the antagonist of Boscan. Cristoval Castillejo flourished
also in the time of Charles V., in whose service he went to Vienna,
remaining there as secretary to Ferdinand I.; as, notwithstanding, the
imperial crown of Germany was separated from the regal one of Spain, on
the death of Charles V., there continued to subsist for some years
intimate relations between the courts of Vienna and Madrid. The greater
part of Castillejo's poems were written at Vienna, and are full of
allusions to the gaieties of the court. He admired and celebrates a
young German lady, named Schomburg, whose barbaric appellation he
translates into Xomburg. Late in life he returned to Spain, became a
Cistercian monk, and died in a convent in 1596.
Some Spanish critics raise Castillejo to a high rank among the poets of
that nation, while others give him a juster place, and perceive that it
was the want of strength to soar beyond, that led him, in his own
compositions, to confine himself to the old coplas, and want of
penetration that made him so violent an enemy of those whom he named the
Petrarquistas. His satires against them are witty, and not without some
justice; and certainly prolixity is a fault to be attributed to these
poets he attacks. He begins with the true Spanish taste for persecution,
exclaiming,--
As the holy Inquisition
Is apt, with saintly diligence,
To make eager perquisition,
And punish too with violence,
Each novel heresy and sect,
I would that it were found correct
To castigate in native Spain
A heresy as bad as any
That Luther, to our grief and pain,
Has introduced in Germany.
The Anabaptists' crime they share,
And well deserve their punishment:
Petrarchists--the new name they bear,
Which they assume with bad intent;
And they are renegades most fierce
To the old Castilian measure;
Believing in Italian verse.
Finding there more grace and pleasure.[30]
Upon this, he institutes a ghostly tribunal, presided over by Juan de
Mena, Jorge Manrique, and other ancient poets, before whom Bosean and
Garcilaso are forced to appear--of course, to their utter discomfiture
and disgrace. While it is impossible to accede to this sentence, and
while we must look on Castillejo as an inferior poet, he merits great
praise within the boundaries which he prescribes himself. His lyrics are
light, airy, graceful; and though they possess a fault little known in
Spain--that of levity,--this defect is with him akin to that animation
and wit which is the proper charm of poetry of this class.
[Footnote 30: "Pues la santa Inquisicion
suele ser tan diligente,
en castigar con razon
qualquier secta y opinion
levantada nuevamente:
resucitese luzero
á castigar en España
una muy nueva y estraña,
como á quello de Lutero
en las partes de Alemaña.
Bien se pueden castigar
á cuenta de Anabaptistas
pues por ley particular
se tornan á baptizar
y se llaman Petrarquistas
Han renegado la fé
de la trobas Castellanas
y tras las Italianas
se pierden, diziendo, que
son mas ricas y galanas."]