Of all the Spanish poets of the period of Romanticism, Espronceda is the
most commanding figure. Piñeyro, adopting Emerson's phrase, calls him
the Representative Man of that age of literary and political revolt.
More than that, criticism is unanimous in considering him Spain's
greatest lyric poet of the nineteenth century.
First of all he interests as the poet of democracy. The Romantic poets
were no more zealous seekers for political liberalism than the
classic poets of the previous generation had been; but their greater
subjectivity and freedom of expression rendered their appeal more
vigorous. Espronceda's hatred for absolutism was so intense that in
moments of excitement he became almost anti-social. The pirate, the
beggar, the Cossack, were his heroes. The love of this dandy for the
lower classes cannot be dismissed as mere pose. He keenly sympathized
with the oppressed, and felt that wholesale destruction must precede
the work of construction. We look in vain for a reasoned political
philosophy in his volcanic verse. His outpourings were inspired by the
irresponsible ravings of groups of café radicals, and the point of view
constantly changed as public sentiment veered. According to his lights
he is always a patriot. Liberty and democracy are his chief desires.
Like most Romanticists, Espronceda was intensely subjective. He
interests by his frank display of his inner moods. Bonilla, in his
illuminating article "El Pensamiento de Espronceda," states that the
four essential points in the philosophy of Romanticism were: doubt,
the first principle of thought; sorrow, the positive reality of life;
pleasure, the world's illusion; death, the negation of the will to live.
Espronceda shared all of these ideas. It is often impossible to say how
much of his suffering is a mere Byronic pose, and how much comes from
the reaction of an intensely sensitive nature to the hard facts of
existence. There is evidence that he never lost the zest of living;
but in his writings he appears as one who has been completely
disillusionized by literature, love, politics, and every experience
of life. Truth is the greatest of evils, because truth is always sad;
"mentira," on the other hand, is merciful and kind. He carries doubt so
far that he doubts his very doubts. Such a philosophy should logically
lead to quietism. That pessimism did not in the case of Espronceda
bring inaction makes one suspect that it was largely affected. There is
nothing profound in this very commonplace philosophy of despair. It is
the conventional attitude of hosts of Romanticists who did little
but re-echo the _Vanitas vanitatum_ of the author of Ecclesiastes.
Espronceda's thought is too shallow to entitle him to rank high as a
philosophic poet. In this respect he is inferior even to Campoamor
and Núñez de Arce. Genuine world-weariness is the outgrowth of a more
complex civilization than that of Spain. Far from being a Leopardi,
Espronceda may nevertheless be considered the leading Spanish exponent
of the _taedium vitae_. He has eloquently expressed this commonplace and
conventional attitude of mind.
Like so many other writers of the Latin race, Espronceda is more
admirable for the form in which he clothed his thoughts than for those
thoughts themselves. He wrote little and carefully. He is remarkable for
his virtuosity, his harmonious handling of the most varied meters. He
never, like Zorrilla, produces the effect of careless improvisation. In
the matter of poetic form Espronceda has been the chief inspiration of
Spanish poets down to the advent of Rubén Darío. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, with
his happy knack of hitting off an author's characteristics in a phrase,
says: "He still stirs us with his elemental force, his resonant musical
potency of phrase, his communicative ardor for noble causes."
Much harm has been done Espronceda's reputation for originality by those
critics who fastened upon him the name of "the Spanish Byron." Nothing
could be more unjust than to consider him the slavish imitator of a
single author. In literature, as in love, there is safety in numbers,
and the writer who was influenced by Calderón, Tasso, Milton, Goethe,
Béranger, Hugo, Shakespeare, and Scott was no mere satellite to Byron.
Señor Cascales is so sensitive on the point that he is scarcely willing
to admit that Byron exerted any influence whatsoever upon Espronceda.
The truth is that Byron did influence Espronceda profoundly, as
Churchman has sufficiently proved by citing many instances of borrowings
from the English poet, where resemblance in matters of detail is wholly
conclusive; but it is another matter to assert that Espronceda was
always Byronic or had no originality of his own.
In considering Espronceda's writings in detail, we need concern
ourselves little with his dramatic and prose writings. The quickest road
to literary celebrity was the writing of a successful play. Espronceda
seems never to have completely relinquished the hope of achieving such a
success. His first attempt was a three-act verse comedy, "Ni el Tío ni
el Sobrino" (1834), written in collaboration with Antonio Ros de Olano.
Larra censured it for its insipidity and lack of plan. A more ambitious
effort was "Amor venga sus agravios" (1838), written in collaboration
with Eugenio Moreno López. This was a five-act costume play, in prose,
portraying the life at the court of Philip IV. It was produced without
regard to expense, but with indifferent success. Espronceda's most
ambitious play was never staged, and has only recently become easily
accessible: this was "Blanca de Borbón," a historical drama of the times
of Peter the Cruel in five acts, in verse. The first two acts were
written in Espronceda's early Classic manner; the last three, written
at a later period, are Romantic in tone. The influence of "Macbeth" is
apparent. "Blanca de Borbón" could never be a success on the stage. The
verse, too, is not worthy of the author. Espronceda was too impetuous
a writer to comply with the restrictions of dramatic technique. The
dramatic passages in "El Estudiante de Salamanca" and "El Diablo Mundo"
are his best compositions in dialogue.
"Sancho Saldaña" is Espronceda's most important prose work. It is a
historical novel of the thirteenth century, written frankly in imitation
of Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. The romance contains many tiresome
descriptions of scenery, and drags along tediously as most old-fashioned
novels did. But Espronceda had none of Sir Walter's archaeological
erudition, none of his ability to seize the characteristics of an epoch,
and above all none of his skill as a creator of interesting characters.
The personages in "Sancho Saldaña" fail to interest. The most that can
be said of the work is that among the numerous imitations of Scott's
novels which appeared at the time it is neither the best nor the worst.
Of his shorter prose works only two, "De Gibraltar a Lisboa, viaje
histórico" and "Un Recuerdo," are easily accessible. They are vivid
portrayals of certain episodes of his exile, and may still be read
with interest. His most important polemical work is "El Ministerio
Mendizábal" (Madrid, 1836). In this screed we find the fiery radical
attacking as unsatisfactory the ultra-liberal Mendizábal. This and
shorter political articles interest the historian and the biographer,
but hardly count as literature. His rare attempts at literary criticism
have even less value.
Espronceda shows true greatness only as a lyric poet. For spirit and
perfection of form what could be more perfect than the "Canción del
Pirata"? Like Byron in the "Corsair," he extols the lawless liberty of
the buccaneer. Byron was here his inspiration rather than Hugo. The
"Chanson de Pirates" cannot stand comparison with either work. But
Espronceda's indebtedness to Byron was in this case very slight. He
has made the theme completely his own. "El Mendigo" and "El Canto del
Cosaco," both anarchistic in sentiment, were inspired by Béranger. Once
more Espronceda has improved upon his models, "Les Gueux" and "Le Chant
du Cosaque." Compare Espronceda's refrain in the "Cossack Song" with
Béranger's in the work which suggested it:
¡Hurra, Cosacos del desierto! ¡Hurra!
La Europa os brinda espléndido botín
Sangrienta charca sus campiñas sean,
De los grajos su ejército festín.
Hennis d'orgueil, o mon coursier fidèle!
Et foule aux pieds les peuples et les rois.
The "Canto del Cosaco" was a prime favorite with the revolutionary youth
of Spain, who thundered out the "hurras" with telling effect. "El Reo de
Muerte" and "El Verdugo" are in a similar vein, though much inferior.
"Serenata," "A la Noche," "El Pescador" (reminiscent of Goethe), "A una
Estrella," and "A una Rosa, soneto" are lighter works. They make up in
grace what they lack in vigor. "El Himno al Sol" is the most perfect
example of Espronceda's Classic manner, and is rightly considered one of
his masterpieces. It challenges comparison with the Duque de Rivas' very
similar poem. Of the numerous patriotic poems "Al Dos de Mayo" and "A
la Patria" deserve especial mention. He attempted satire in "El Pastor
Clasiquino," recently reprinted by Le Gentil from "El Artista." In
this poem he assails academic poetry like that produced by his old
fellow-academicians of the Myrtle. It betrays the peevishness of a
Romanticist writing when Romanticism was already on the wane.
"El Diablo Mundo," Espronceda's most ambitious work, is commonly
considered his masterpiece; an unfinished masterpiece, however. Even
if death had spared him, it is doubtful if he could have finished so
all-embracing a theme as he proposed:
Nada menos te ofrezco que un poema
Con lances raros y revuelto asunto,
De nuestro mundo y sociedad emblema....
Fiel traslado ha de ser, cierto trasunto
De la vida del hombre y la quimera
Tras de que va la humanidad entera.
Batallas, tempestades, amoríos,
Por mar y tierra, lances, descripciones
De campos y ciudades, desafíos,
Y el desastre y furor de las pasiones,
Goces, dichas, aciertos, desvaríos,
Con algunas morales reflexiones
Acerca de la vida y de la muerte,
De mi propia cosecha, que es mi fuerte.
Adam, hero of the epic, is introduced in Canto I as an aged scholar
disillusioned with life, but dreading the proximity of Death, with whom
he converses in a vision. The Goddess of Life grants him the youth of
Faust and the immortality of the Wandering Jew. Unlike either, he has
the physical and mental characteristics of an adult joined to the
naïveté of a child. In Canto III Adam appears in a _casa de huéspedes_,
naked and poor, oblivious of the past, without the use of language, with
longings for liberty and action. Here his disillusionment begins. His
nakedness shocks public morality; and the innocent Adam who is hostile
to nobody, and in whom the brilliant spectacle of nature produces
nothing but rejoicing, receives blows, stonings, and imprisonment from
his neighbors. Childlike he touches the bayonet of one of his captors,
and is wounded. This symbolizes the world's hostility to the innocent.
In Canto IV we find Adam in prison. His teachers are criminals. He was
born for good; society instructs him in evil. In Canto V he experiences
love with the _manola_ Salada, but sees in this passion nothing but
impurity. He longs for higher things. Circumstances abase him to crime.
He joins a band of burglars, and, falling in love with the lady whose
house they are pillaging, protects her against the gang. In Canto VI he
continues along his path of sorrow. He enters a house where a beautiful
girl is dying, while in another room revelers are making merry. This
leads him to speculate on life's mysteries and to reason for himself.
The poem ends where Adam has become thoroughly sophisticated. He is now
like any other man.
Evidently it was the poet's intention to make Adam go through a series
of adventures in various walks of life, everywhere experiencing
disillusionment. In spite of the elaborate prospectus quoted above,
we may agree with Piñeyro that the poet started writing with only the
haziest outline planned beforehand. Espronceda frankly reveals to us his
methods of poetic composition:
¡Oh cómo cansa el orden! no hay locura
Igual a la del lógico severo.
And again:
Terco escribo en mi loco desvarío
Sin ton ni són, y para gusto mío....
Sin regla ni compás canta mi lira:
Sólo mi ardiente corazón me inspira!
"El Diablo Mundo" is no mere imitation of Byron's "Don Juan" and
Goethe's "Faust," though the influence of each is marked. It has
numerous merits and originalities of its own. Inferior as Espronceda
is to Byron in wit and to Goethe in depth, he can vie with either as a
harmonious versifier.
The philosophy of "El Diablo Mundo" is the commonplace pessimism of
Romanticism. The following excerpt shows how the author's skepticism
leads him to doubt his very doubts; hence his return to a questioning
acceptance of Christianity:
Las creencias que abandonas,
Los templos, las religiones
Que pasaron, y que luego
Por mentira reconoces,
¿Son quizá menos mentira
Que las que ahora te forges?
¿No serán tal vez verdades
Los que tú juzgas errores?
Canto II of "El Diablo Mundo" consists of the poem "A Teresa. Descansa
en Paz." This has not the slightest connection with the rest of the
poem, and can only be understood as a separate unity. It is included
in the present collection because it is the supreme expression of our
poet's subjective method. As such it stands in excellent contrast to "El
Estudiante de Salamanca," which is purely objective. No reader knows
Espronceda who has read merely his objective poems. For self-revelation
"A Jarifa en una Orgía" alone may be compared with "A Teresa." We may
agree with Escosura that Espronceda is here giving vent to his rancor
rather than to his grief, that it is the _menos hidalgo_ of all his
writings. But for once we may be sure that the poet is writing under the
stress of genuine emotion. For once he is free from posing.
"THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA"
"El Estudiante de Salamanca" represents the synthesis of two well-known
Spanish legends, the Don Juan Tenorio legend and the Miguel Mañara
legend. The first of these may be briefly stated as follows: Don Juan
Tenorio was a young aristocrat of Seville famous for his dissolute life,
a gambler, blasphemer, duelist, and seducer of women. Among numerous
other victims, he deceives Doña Ana de Ulloa, daughter of the Comendador
de Ulloa. The latter challenges Don Juan to a duel, and falls. Later Don
Juan enters the church where the Commander lies buried and insults his
stone statue, after which he invites the statue to sup with him that
night. At midnight Don Juan and his friends are making merry when a
knock is heard at the door and the stone guest enters. Don Juan, who
does not lose his bravery even in the presence of the supernatural,
plays the host, maintaining his air of insulting banter. At the end of
the evening the guest departs, offering to repay the hospitality the
following night if Don Juan will visit his tomb at midnight. Though
friends try to dissuade him, Don Juan fearlessly accepts the invitation.
At the appointed hour he visits the tomb. Flames emerge from it, and Don
Juan pays the penalty of his misdeeds, dying without confession.
This is the outline of the story as told by Tirso de Molina in "El
Burlador de Sevilla o el Convidado de Piedra." The same theme has been
treated by Molière, Goldoni, Mozart, Byron, and Zorrilla, to mention but
a few of the hundreds of writers who have utilized it. In the hands of
non-Spanish writers the character of Don Juan loses the greater part of
its essential nobility. To them Don Juan is the type of libertine and
little more. He was a prime favorite with those Romanticists who, like
Gautier, felt "Il est indécent et mauvais ton d'être vertueux." But
as conceived in Spain Don Juan's libertinage is wholly subsidiary and
incidental. He is a superman whose soaring ambition mounts so high that
earth cannot satisfy it. The bravest may be permitted to falter in the
presence of the supernatural; but Don Juan fears neither heaven nor
hell. His bravery transcends all known standards, and this one virtue,
though it does not save him from hell, redeems him in popular esteem.
Don Félix de Montemar is the typical Don Juan type, a libertine,
gambler, blasphemer, heartless seducer, but superhumanly brave. Yet the
plot of Espronceda's poem bears closer resemblance to the story told of
Miguel Mañara.
Miguel Mañara (often erroneously spelled Maraña) Vicentelo de Leca
(1626-1679) was an alderman (_veintecuatro_) of Seville and a knight of
Calatrava. As a youth his character resembled that of Don Juan. One day
some hams sent to him from the country were intercepted by the customs.
He started out to punish the offending officers, but on the way repented
and thenceforth led a virtuous life. In 1661, after his wife's death,
he entered the Hermandad de la Caridad, later becoming superior of that
order. In his will he endowed the brotherhood with all his wealth and
requested that he be buried under the threshold of the chapel of San
Jorge. His sole epitaph was to be "Here repose the bones and ashes of
the worst man who ever existed in the world." Don Miguel's biography was
written by his friend the Jesuit Juan de Cardeñas and was added to by
Diego López de Haro, "Breve relación de la muerte, de la vida y virtudes
de Don Miguel de Mañara," Seville, 1680.
There soon sprang up a legend around the name of Mañara. He is said
to have fallen in love with the statue on the Giralda tower. On one
occasion the devil gave him a light for his cigar, reaching across
the Guadalquivir to do so. Again, he pursued a woman into the very
cathedral, forcibly pulled aside her mantilla and discovered a skeleton.
Yet more surprising, he was present, when still alive, at his own
funeral in the Church of Santiago. But these stories associated with the
name of Mañara are much older than he. Antonio de Torquemada, "Jardín de
Flores Curiosas," Salamanca, 1570, tells of an unnamed knight who fell
in love with a nun. He enters her convent with false keys only to find a
funeral in progress. On inquiring the name of the deceased, he is told
that it is himself. He then runs home pursued by two devils in the form
of dogs who tear him to pieces after he has made pious repentance.
Cristóbal Bravo turned this story into verse, Toledo, 1572. One or other
of these versions appears to have been the source of Zorrilla's "El
Capitán Montoya." Gaspar Cristóbal Lozano, "Soledades de la Vida y
Desengaños del Mundo" (Madrid, 1663), tells the same story, and is the
first to name hero and heroine, Lisardo and Teodora. Lozano, too, is the
first to make the male protagonist a Salamanca student. Lozano's version
inspired two ballads entitled "Lisardo el Estudiante de Córdova." These
were reprinted by Durán, _Romancero general_, Vol. I, pp. 264-268, where
they are readily accessible.
This ballad of Lisardo the Student of Cordova was undoubtedly
Espronceda's main source in writing "The Student of Salamanca," and to
it he refers in line 2 with the words _antiguas historias cuentan_. Yet
the indebtedness was small. Espronceda took from the ballad merely the
idea of making the hero of the adventure a Salamanca student, and
the episode of a man witnessing his own funeral. Needless to say
Espronceda's finished versification owed nothing to the halting meter of
the original. Lisardo, a Salamanca student, though a native of Cordova,
falls in love with Teodora, sister of a friend, Claudio. Teodora is
soon to become a nun. One night he makes love to her and is only mildly
rebuked. But a ghostly swordsman warns him that he will be slain if he
does not desist. Nevertheless he continues his wooing in spite of the
fact that Teodora has become a nun. She agrees to elope. While on his
way to the convent to carry out this design, his attention is attracted
by a group of men attacking an individual. This individual proves to be
himself, Lisardo. Lisardo, then, witnesses his own murder and subsequent
funeral obsequies. This warning is too terrible not to heed. He gives
over his attempt at seduction and leads an exemplary life.
There are many other examples in the literature of Spain of the man who
sees his own funeral. Essentially the same story is told by Lope de
Vega, "El Vaso de Elección. San Pablo." Bévotte thinks that Mérimée in
"Les Ames du purgatoire" was the first to combine the Don Juan and the
Miguel de Mañara legends, so closely alike in spirit, into a single
work. But Said Armesto finds this fusion already accomplished in a
seventeenth-century play, "El Niño Diablo." Dumas owed much to Mérimée
in writing his allegorical play "Don Juan de Maraña," first acted April
30, 1836. This became immediately popular in Spain. A mutilated Spanish
version appeared, Tarragona, 1838, Imprenta de Chuliá. It is doubtful
whether Espronceda owes anything to either of these French works,
although both works contain gambling scenes very similar to that in
which Don Félix de Montemar intervened. In the Dumas play Don Juan
stakes his mistress in a game, as Don Félix did his mistress's portrait.
It seems likely that Espronceda derived his whole inspiration for this
scene from Moreto's "San Franco de Sena," which he quotes.
The legend of the man who sees his own funeral belongs to the realm of
folk-lore. Like superstitions are to be found wherever the Celtic race
has settled. In Spain they are especially prevalent in Galicia and
Asturias. There the _estantigua_ or "ancient enemy" appears to those
soon to die. These spirits, or _almas en pena_, appear wearing
winding-sheets, bearing candles, a cross, and a bier on which a corpse
is lying. Don Quijote in attacking the funeral procession probably
thought he had to do with the _estantigua_. Furthermore, Said Armesto in
his illuminating study "La Leyenda de Don Juan" proves that the custom
of saying requiem masses for the living was very ancient in Spain. One
recalls, too, how Charles V in his retirement at Yuste rehearsed his own
funeral, actually entering the coffin while mass was being said.
Of all Espronceda's poems "El Estudiante de Salamanca" is the most
popular. It has a unity and completeness lacking in both the "Pelayo"
and "El Diablo Mundo." Every poet of the time was busy composing
_leyendas_. Espronceda attempted this literary form but once, yet of
all the numerous "legends" written in Spain this is the most fitted
to survive. Nowhere else has the poet shown equal virtuosity in the
handling of unusual meters. Nowhere among his works is there greater
variety or harmony of verse. Though not the most serious, this is the
most pleasing of his poems. Espronceda follows the Horatian precept
of starting his story "in the middle of things." In the first part he
creates the atmosphere of the uncanny, introduces the more important
characters, and presents a striking situation. Part Second, the most
admired, is elegiac in nature. It pleases by its simple melancholy. This
part and the dramatic tableau of Part Three explain the cause of the
duel with which Part One begins. Part Four resumes the thread of the
narration where it was broken off in Part One, and ends with the Dance
of Death which forms the climax of the whole. The character of Don Félix
de Montemar is vigorously drawn. Originality cannot be claimed for it,
as it is the conventional Don Juan Tenorio type. The character of Doña
Elvira hardly merits the high praise of Spanish critics. She is
a composite portrait of Ophelia, Marguerite, and two of Byron's
characters, Doña Julia and Haidée, a shadowy, unreal creation, as
ghostly in life as in death. "The Student of Salamanca" tells a story
vigorously and sweetly. It does not abound in quotable passages like the
"Diablo Mundo." It is neither philosophic nor introspective. It teaches
no lesson. Its merit is its perfection of form.