1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jáuregui y Aguilar, Juan Martínez de

JÁUREGUI Y AGUILAR, JUAN MARTÍNEZ DE (1583–1641), Spanish poet, was baptized at Seville on the 24th of November 1583. In due course he studied at Rome, returning to Spain shortly before 1610 with a double reputation as a painter and a poet. A reference in the preface to the Novelas exemplares has been taken to mean that he painted the portrait of Cervantes, who, in the second part of Don Quixote, praises the translation of Tasso’s Aminta published at Rome in 1607. Jáuregui’s Rimas (1618), a collection of graceful lyrics, is preceded by a controversial preface which attracted much attention on account of its outspoken declaration against culteranismo. Through the influence of Olivares, he was appointed groom of the chamber to Philip IV., and gave an elaborate exposition of his artistic doctrines in the Discurso poético contra el hablar culto y oscuro (1624), a skilful attack on the new theories, which procured for its author the order of Calatrava. It is plain, however, that the shock of controversy had shaken Jáuregui’s convictions, and his poem Orfeo (1624) is visibly influenced by Góngora. Jáuregui died at Madrid on the 11th of January 1641, leaving behind him a translation of the Pharsalia which was not published till 1684. This rendering reveals Jáuregui as a complete convert to the new school, and it has been argued that, exaggerating the affinities between Lucan and Góngora—both of Cordovan descent—he deliberately translated the thought of the earlier poet into the vocabulary of the later master. This is possible; but it is at least as likely that Jáuregui unconsciously yielded to the current of popular taste, with no other intention than that of conciliating the public of his own day.