most polished and inspired poets of Colombia. He was an
intimate friend of Caro and like him a journalist and
politician. He was a good representative of the chivalrous
and aristocratic type of Colombian writers of the first
half of the nineteenth century. His best work is the
narrative poem _Gonzalo de Oyón_ which, though incomplete,
is the noblest epic poem that a native Spanish-American
poet has yet given to the world. After studying in Europe
he engaged in journalism and politics. He took part in
several civil wars. A candidate for the presidency of the
Republic, he was assassinated before election (_Poesías,
colección formada sobre los manuscritos originales, con
prólogo por M.A. Caro_, New York, 1883).
The educator and journalist José Joaquín Ortiz (1814-1892) page 289
imitated Quintana in form but not in ideas.
Though a defender of neo-classicism, he did not entirely
reject romanticism. Ortiz was an ultra-catholic, sincere
and ascetic. His verses are impetuous and grandiloquent,
but often lacking depth of thought (_Poesías_, Bogotá,
1880).
The poet Gregorio Gutiérrez González, "Antioco"
(1820-1872), was a jurist and politician. He began as an
imitator of Espronceda and Zorrilla and is the author of
several sentimental poems (_Á Julia_, _¿Por qué no canto?_
_Una lágrima_, _et al._) that are the delight of Colombian
young ladies. His fame will doubtless depend on the rustic
Georgic poem, _Memoria sobre el cultivo del maíz en
Antioquia_. This work is an interesting and remarkably
poetic description of the homely life and labors of the
Antioquian country folk (_Poesías_, Bogotá, 1881; Paris,
1908).
The minor poets of this generation are legion. Among these
are: Manuel María Madiedo (b. 1815), a sociologist; Germán
Gutiérrez de Piñeres (1816-1872), author of melancholy
verses; José María Rojas Garrido (1824-1883), a noted
orator, one-time president of Colombia; Joaquín Pablo
Posada (1825-1880), perhaps the most clever versifier of
Spanish America, but whose _décimas_ were mostly written
in quest of money; Ricardo Carrasquilla (b. 1827),
an educator and author of genial verses; José Manuel
Marroquín (b. 1827), a poet and author of articles on
customs and a foremost humorist of South America (he was
president when Colombia lost Panama); José María Samper
(b. 1828), a most voluminous writer; Rafael Núñez
(1825-1897), a philosopher and skeptic, and one-time
president of the Republic; Santiago Pérez (1830-1900),
educator, journalist and one-time president; José María
Vergara y Vergara (1831-1872), a Catholic poet and
author of a volume of sentimental verses (_Libro de los
cantares_); Rafael Pombo (1833-1912), an eminent classical
scholar and literary critic, and "perpetual secretary" of
the Colombian Academy; Diego Fallón (b. 1834), page 290
son of an English father, and author of several highly
finished and beautiful poems; Pinzón Rico (b. 1834),
author of popular, romantic songs; César Conto (b. 1836),
a jurist and educator; Jorge Isaacs (1837-1895), better
known as author of the novel _María_; and Felipe Pérez (b.
1834).
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the most
eminent man of letters in Colombia has been Miguel Antonio
Caro (1843-1909), a son of J.E. Caro. A neo-Catholic and
"traditionalist," a learned literary critic and a poet,
the younger Caro, like Bello before him and like his
distinguished contemporary Rufino José Cuervo, has worked
for purity of diction and classical ideals in literature.
Caro is also the translator of several classic works,
including one of Virgil which is recognized as the best in
Spanish.
Other poets of the closing years of the century are:
Diógenes Arrieta (b. 1848), a journalist and educator;
Ignacio Gutiérrez Ponce (1850), a physician; Antonio Gómez
Restrepo (b. 1856), a lawyer and politician; José María
Garavito A. (b. 1860); José Rivas Groot (b. 1864), an
educator and literary critic, and editor of _La lira
nueva_; Joaquín González Camargo (b. 1865), a physician;
Agripina Montes del Valle (b. about the middle of the
nineteenth century) noted for her ode to the Tequendama
waterfall, and Justo Pastor Ríos (1870-), a philosophic
poet and liberal journalist.
The "modernista" poet José Asunción Silva (1860-1896) was
a sweet singer, but he brought no message. He was fond of
odd forms, such as lines of 8+8, 8+8+8 and 8+8+4 syllables
(_Poesías, con Prólogo de Miguelde Unamuno_, Barcelona,
1908).
References: Cf.: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas
Hisp.-Amer._, III, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, 332
f.; Juan Valera, _Cartas Am., primera serie_, p. 121
f.; _Historia de la literatura (1538-1820) en Nueva
Granada_, José María Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1867;
_Apuntes sobre bibliografía colombiana, con page 291
muestras escogidas en prosa y verso_, Isidoro Laverde
Amaya, Bogotá, 1882; _Parnaso colombiano_, J.M.
Vergara y Vergara, 3 vols.; _La lira granadina_, J.M.
Vergara y Vergara, Bogotá, 1865; _Parnaso colombiano_,
Julio Áñez, _con Prólogo de José Rivas Groot_, 2
vols., Bogotá, 1886-87; _La lira nueva_, J.M. Rivas
Groot, Bogotá, 1886; _Antología colombiana,_ Emiliano
Isaza, Paris, 1895.
Ortiz: see preceding note.
=Colombia y España=: 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 _León_) 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. =Moratín=: 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. =sombría... alcanzarán= = _(siendo la
Eternidad) sombría y eterna, ni el odio ni el amor, ni la
fe ni la duda, alcanzarán 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 (_Poesías_, N.Y., 1829; Havana,
1852). Inferior to Zequeira was Manuel Justo de Rubalcava
(1769-1805), the author of bucolic poems and sonnets
(_Poesías_, Santiago de Cuba, 1848).
The Cuban poet Don José María 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 _Niágara_, _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: _Á 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 Menéndez 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_,
Chénier's _Tibère_, Jouy's _Sila_, Voltaire's _Mahomet_
and Alfieri's _Saul_. The Garnier edition (Paris, 1893) of
Heredia's _Poesías_ contains an interesting introduction
by the critic Elías Zerolo (_Poesías_, N.Y., 1825; Toluca,
1832; N.Y., 1875; Paris, 1893).
The mulatto poet Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés,
better known by his pen-name "Plácido" (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
á Dios_). Cf. _Poesías_, 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 Gómez
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 José Jacinto Milanés 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 María Mendive y
Daumy (1821-1886) wrote musical verse in which there
is spontaneity and true poetic feeling (_Pasionarias_,
Havana, 1847; _Poesías_, Madrid, 1860; Havana, 1883).
Joaquín 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 (_Poesías_, Havana,
1857). A poet of sorrow, Juan Clemente Zenea,--"Adolfo de
la Azucena" (1832-1871),--wrote verses that are marked by
tender melancholy (_Poesías_, 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 Joaquín
Luaces avoided trouble by living in retirement and veiling
his patriotic songs with mythological names. On the other
hand José Jacinto Milanés lost his reason at the early age
of thirty years, José María Heredia and Rafael Mendive
fled the country and lived in exile; while Gabriel
Valdés 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 Julián del Casal, a skeptic
and a Parnassian poet who wrote pleasing but empty verses
(_Hojas al viento_, _Nieve_, _Bustos y Rimas_); and
Francisco Sellén, whose philosophy is to conceal suffering
and to put one's hand to the plow again (_Libro íntimo_,
Havana, 1865; _Poesías_, N.Y., 1890). José Martí
(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: Menéndez y Pelayo, _Ant. Poetas
Hisp.-Am._, II, p. 1 f.; Blanco García, III, p.
290 f.; E.C. Hills, _Bardos cubanos_ (contains a
bibliography), Boston, 1901; Aurelio Mitjans, _Estudio
sobre el movimiento científico y literario en Cuba_,
Havana, 1890; Bachiller y Morales, _Apuntes para la
historia de las letras y de la instrucción pública de
la Isla de Cuba_, Havana, 1859; _La poesía lírica en
Cuba_, M. González del Valle, Barcelona, 1900; _Cuba
poética_, 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. =Iztaccíhual= and =Popocatepec= are the popular
names of these mountains, but their official names are
_Iztaccíhuatel_ and _Popocatépetel_. These words are of
Nahuatlan origin: see in _Vocab_.
16--18. =do... teñirse= = _donde el indio ledo los mira
teñirse en púrpura 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 =Iztaccíhual=, 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_ (_Æneid_, II, 325), "Troy is no more."
=186.=--4-5. =Que... seguir= = _que, en su vuelo, la
turbada vista quiere en vano seguir_.
=190.=--"Plácido": see note to p. 179.
=Plegaria á Dios=: this beautiful prayer was written a few
days before the poet's death. It is said that "Plácido"
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= = _á_ (in) _la clara
transparencia del aire_.
Avellaneda: see _Introduction_, p. xxxviii.
19. =No... modelo= = _(la historia) no [dió] modelo á tu
virtud en lo pasado_.
21. =otra= = _otra copia_.
=192.=--1-2. =Miró... victoria= = _la Europa miró 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 Bogotá. 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
Perú till 1721, after which date Quito and the contiguous
territory were governed from Bogotá. 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
poéticas_ which contains, beside those by Evia, verses
by Antonio Bastidas, a Jesuit teacher, and by Hernando
Domínguez 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, José Orozco (_La conquista de Menorca_, an epic
poem in four cantos), Ramón Viescas (sonnets, _romances_,
_décimas_, 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, José Joaquín 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 Perú.
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 Græco-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 Junín_, 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
Junín_. 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, _Á
un amigo en el nacimiento de su primogénito_, 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 (_Poesías_, Valparaíso, 1848, Paris, 1853;
_Poesías inéditas_, Lima, 1861).
For a time after Olmedo's muse had become mute, little
verse of merit was produced in Ecuador. Gabriel García
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 (_Poesías_, 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 León Mera (1832-1894)
was one of the most prominent literary historians and
critics of the Republic. Besides his _Poesías_ (2d
ed., Barcelona, 1893), León Mera left a popular novel,
_Cumandá_ (Quito, 1876; Madrid, 1891), an _Ojeada
histórico-crítica sobre la poesía 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 Sánchez and Remigio Crespo y Toral.
References: Men. Pel., _Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Amer._, III, p.
lxxxiii f.; Blanco García, III, 350 f.; _Ensayo sobre la
literatura ecuatoriana_, Dr. Pablo Herrera, Quito, 1860;
_Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la poesía ecuatoriana_,
Juan León Mera, Quito, 1868, 2d ed., Barcelona, 1893;
_Escritores españoles é hispano-americanos_, Cañete,
Madrid, 1884; _Lira ecuatoriana_, Vicente Emilio
Molestina, Guayaquil, 1865; _Nueva lira ecuat._, Juan Abel
Echeverría, Quito, 1879; _Parnaso ecuat._, Manuel Gallegos
Naranjo, Quito, 1879; _América poética_, Juan María
Gutiérrez, Valparaíso, 1846 (the best of the early
anthologies: contains a few poems by Olmedo); _Antología
ecuat._, published by the Academy of Ecuador, with a
second volume entitled _Cantares del pueblo ecuat._
(Edited by Juan León Mera), both Quito, 1892.