judgment, and occasional provincialisms disfigure his style; but his power is undeniable, and even his shorter tales are remarkable examples of truthful impressionism. Ramón del Valle-Inclan (b. 1869) tends to preciosity in Corte de amor and Flor de santidad, but excels in finesse and patient observation; J. Martinez Ruiz (b. 1876) is wittier and weightier in Las Confesiones de un pequeno filosofo and the other stories which he publishes under the pseudonym of “Azorin,” but he lacks much of Valle-Inclan’s picturesque and perceptive faculty; Pio Baroja’s restless and picaresque talent finds vigorous but incoherent expression in El Camino de perfection and Aurora roja, and Gregorio Martinez Sierra (b. 1882) has shown considerable mastery of the difficulties of the short story in Pascua florida and Sol de la tarde.
The tendency of Spanish historical students is rather to collect the raw material of history than to write history. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was absorbed by politics to the loss of literature, for his Ensayo sobre la casa de Austria en España is ample in information and History and Criticism. impartial in judgment; the composition is hasty and the style is often ponderous, but many passages denote a genuine literary faculty, which the author was prevented from developing. The Historia de los Visigodos, in which Aureliano Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe collaborated with Eduardo de Hinojosa, illuminates an obscure but important period. Francisco Cardenas (1816–1898) in his Historia de la propriedad territorial en España did for Spain much that Maine did for England. Eduardo Perez Pujol (b. 1830) in his Historia de las instiluciones de la España goda (1896) supplements the work of Fernandez-Guerra and Hinojosa, the latter of whom has published a standard treatise entitled Historia del derecho romano. Joaquin Costa’s Estudios ibericos (1891) and Coleclivismo agrario en España (1898) have been praised by experts for their minute research and exact erudition; but his Poesta popular espanola y mitologia y literatura celto-hispanas, in which a most ingenious attempt is made to reconstitute the literary history of a remote period, appeals to a wider circle of educated readers. The monographs of Francisco Codera y Zaidin (b. 1836), of Cesareo Fernandez Duro (1830–1907), of Francisco Fernandez y Gonzalez (b. 1833), of Gumersindo Azcarate (b. 1840), and of many others, such as the Jesuit epigraphist Fidel Fita y Calome, are valuable contributions to the still unwritten history of Spain, but are addressed chiefly to specialists. Many of the results of these investigators are embodied by Rafael Altamira y Crevea (b. 1866) in his Historia de España y de la civilization espanola, now in progress. Literary criticism in Spain, even more than elsewhere, is too often infected by intolerant party spirit. It was difficult for Leopoldo Alas (" Clarin ") to recognize any merit in the work of a reactionary writer, but his prejudice was too manifest to mislead, and his intelligent insight frequently led him to do justice in spite of his prepossessions. In the opposite camp Antonio Valbuena, a humorist of the mordant type, has still more difficulty in doing justice to any writer who is an academician, an American or a Liberal. Pascual de Gayangos y Arce and Manuel Mila y Fontanals escaped from the quarrels of contemporary schools by confining their studies to the past, and Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo has earned a European reputation in the same province of historical criticism. Among his followers who have attained distinction it must suffice to mention Ramon Menendez Pidal (b. 1869), author of La Leyenda de los infantes de Lara (1897), a brilliant piece of scientific, reconstructive criticism; Francisco Rodriguez Marin (b. 1855), wno has published valuable studies on 16th and 17th century authors, and adds to his gifts as an investigator the charm of an alembicated, archaic style; Emilio Cotarelo y Mori (b. 1858), who, besides interesting contributions to the history of the theatre, has written substantial monographs on Enrique de Villena, Villamediana, Tirso de Molina, Iriarte and Ramon de la Cruz; and Adolfo Bonilla y San Martin (b. 1875), whose elaborate biography of Juan Luis Vives, which is a capital chapter on the history of Spanish humanism, gives him a foremost place among the scholars of the younger generation.
Bibliography.—The basis of study is Nicolas Antonio’s Bibliotheca hispana vetus and Bibliotheca hispana nova, in the revised edition of Francisco PeVez Bayer (4 vols., Madrid, 1 788). Supplementary to this are Bartolome Jose Gallardo’s Ensayo de una biblioteca espanola de libros raros y curiosos (4 vols., Madrid, 1863–1889), edited by M. R. Zarco del Valle and Jose' Sancho Rayon; Pedro Salva y Mallen’s Catdlogo de la biblioteca de Salvá (2 vols., Valencia, 1872); James Lyman Whitney’s Catalogue of the Spanish Library and of the Portuguese Books bequeathed by George Ticknor to the Boston Public Library (Boston, 1879) ; Domingo Garcia Peres, Catdlogo de los autores Portugueses que escribieron en castellano (Madrid, 1890). For incunables the best authority is Conrado Haebler, Bibliografia ibérica del siglo xv. (the Hague and Leipzig, 1904). Of general histories the most extensive is George Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature (3 vols., New York, 1849, and 6th ed., 3 vols., Boston, 1872), which is particularly valuable as regards bibliography; additional information is embodied in the German translation of this work by N. H. Julius (2 vols., Leipzig, 1852) and the supplement by F. J. Wolf (1867) ; and the Spanish translation by Pascual de Gayangos and Enrique de Vedia (4 vols., Madrid, 1851–1856) may be consulted with profit. On a smaller scale are G. Baist, Die spanische Litteratur (Strasburg, 1897) in the second volume of the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie (pt. ii.), H. Butler Clarke, Spanish Literature (London, 1893); Rudolph Beer, Spanische Literaturgeschichte (Leipzig, 1903) ; Philipp August Becker, Geschichte der spanischen Literatur (Strasburg, 1904). The three last-named include modern authors, as do E. Merimee, Precis d'histoire de la litterature espagnole (Paris, 1908) and J. Fitzrnaurice-Kelly, History of Spanish Literature (London, 1898; Spanish translation, Madrid, 1901, and French translation, with a revised text and serviceable bibliography). For the middle ages the best works are F. J. Wolf, Studien zur Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen Nationalliteratur (Berlin, 1859), and M. Mila y Fontanals, De la Poesia heroico-popular castillana (Barcelona, 1874). Jose Amador de los Rios, Historia critica de la literatura espanola (7 vols., Madrid, 1861–1865), is diffusive and inaccurate, but gives useful information concerning the period before the 1 6th century. On the drama the most solid works are Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado, Catálogo bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo espanol (Madrid, 1860) ; A. Paz y M<jlia, Catdlogo de las piezas de teatro que se conservan en el departamento de manuscritos de la biblioteca national (Madrid, 1899) ; C. P6rez Pastor, Nuevos dctos acerca del histrionismo espanol en los siglos xvi. y xvii. (Madrid, 1901); Jose Sanchez-Arjona, Noticias referentes a los anales del teatro en Sevilla (Seville, 1898); Antonio Restori, “La Collezione della biblioteca palatina-parmense,” in Studj di filologia romanza, fasc. 15 (Rome, 1891); E. Cotarelo y Mori, Controversias sobre la licitud del teatro en España (Madrid, 1904). Adolf Friedrich von Schack, Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur und Kunst in Spanien (Frankfort-on-Main, 1846–1854), a valuable work when published and still to be read with pleasure, is now out of date, and is not improved in the Spanish translation by Eduardo de Mier; it is in course of being superseded by Wilhelm Creizenach’s Geschichte des neueren Dramas, of which three volumes have already appeared (Halle, 1893–1903). Two fluent and agreeable works on the subject are Adolf Schaeffer, Geschichte des spanischen Nationaldramas (2 vols., Leipzig, 1890), and Louis de Viel Castel, Essai stir le theatre espagnol (2 vols., Paris, 1882). Julius Leopold Klein’s extravagant prejudices detract greatly from the value of Das spanische Drama (Leipzig, 1871–1875), which forms part of his Geschichte des Dramas; but his acumen and learning are by no means contemptible. Other works on the Spanish drama are indicated by A. Morel-Fatio and L. Rouanet in their critical bibliography, Le Theatre espagnol (Paris, 1900). The prefaces by M. Menendez y Pelayo in the Antologia de poetas liricos castellanos desde la formation del idioma hasta nuestros dias (12 vols, already published, Madrid, 1890–1906) form a substantial history of Spanish poetry. The same writer’s Origenes de la novela (Madrid, 1905–1907) and unfinished Historia critica de las ideas esteticas en España (9 vols., Madrid, 1884–1891), are highly instructive. For the 18th century the student is referred to the Historia critica de la poesia castellana en el siglo xv-iii. (3rd ed., 3 vols., Madrid, 1893) by Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, marques de Valmar; Francisco Blanco Garcia, La Literatura espanola en el siglo xix. (3 vols., Madrid, 1891–1894), is useful and informing, but must be consulted with caution, owing to the writer’s party spirit. Similar prejudices are present in the much more suggestive and acute volumes of Leopoldo Alas. The history of modern criticism is traced by Francisco Fernandez y Gonzalez, Historia de la critica literaria en España desde Luzon hasta nuestros dias (Madrid, 1870). Among miscellaneous monographs and essays the most recommendable are Count Theodore de Puymaigre, Les vieux auteurs castillans (Paris 1861–1862 ; 2nd ed., incomplete, 2 vols., Paris, 1889–1890), and La Cour litteraire de don Juan II. roi de Castille (2 vols., Paris, 1893) ; A. Morel-Fatio, L'Espagne au xvi me et au xvii me Steele (Heilbronn, 1878), and Etudes sur l’Espagne (3 vols., Paris, 1888–1904); Enrique Pifieyro, El Romanticismo en España (Paris, 1904) ; J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Chapters on Spanish Literature (London, 1908). The Revue hispanique (Paris) and the Bulletin hispanique (Bordeaux) are specially dedicated to studies on the literary history of Spain, and articles on the subject appear from time to time in
