362 SPAIN [LITERATURE. romances, which he had studied with unequalled thorough- ness, and of which he published highly esteemed collections. If the struggle between classicists and romanticists continued even after 1830, and continued to divide the literary world into two opposing camps, it is plain that the new generation that which occupied the scene from 1840 till about 18C8 had other preoccupations. The triumph of the new ideas is now assured ; only a few reactionaries are still seen to cling to the principles bequeathed by the 18th century. What was now being aimed at was the creation of a new literature which should be truly national and no longer a mere echo of that beyond the Pyrenees. To the question whether contem- porary Spain has indeed succeeded in calling into exist- ence such a literature, we may well hesitate to give an affirmative answer. It is true that in every species of com- position, the gravest as well as the lightest, it can show works of genuine talent ; but many of them are strik- ingly deficient in originality ; all of them either bear un- mistakable traces of imitation of foreign models, or show (more or less happily) the imprint of the older literature of the 17th century, to which the historical criticism of Duran and the labours of various other scholars had given a flavour of novelty. "With this observation before him, the student can divide the authors of this period into two groups, the one composed of those who, won by modern ideas, are more or less liberal in politics, and draw their inspiration in all they write from France or from what they are able to assimilate of other literatures through France ; the other consisting of ultra-conservatives, whose dream in every sphere letters, art, and politics is the restoration of the Spain of the past. Nowhere does this antagonism manifest itself more clearly than in the drama. A play of Aureliano Fernandez Guerra might have been conceived and written by a contemporary of Lope or of Calderon, while a comedy of Adelardo Lopez de Ayala is moulded in the pattern given by the younger Dumas and by Augier. In the department of romance, on the other hand much neglected by the writers of the first half of the century the Spaniards have recovered something of the genius of Cervantes and their 17th century novelets jncarescas. The art of constructing a story and of telling it in an agreeable way, which seemed for a long time to have been lost, is recovered in such authors as Fernan Caballero, Antonio de Trueba, Pedro Antonio de Alarcon, Juan Valera, Perez Galdos, and Pereda. These novelists are far from alike in method or in spirit ; how widely separated, for example, are the somewhat banal facility and the sentimental Catholicism of Fernan Caballero on the one hand, and the searching psychological analysis and the fine scepticism of Juan Valera on the other. But all have this in common, that they understand how to interest their readers, and how to make their characters live and speak. Incontestably the novel is the triumph of contemporary Spanish literature ; it is almost the only kind of composition that actually lives with a life of its own and makes steady progress. One cannot say as much of lyric poetry, represented feebly enough by Ramon de Campoamor, Nunez de Arce, and some others. Deficient inspiration, diffuseness of style, and want of precision in language characterize them all ; it is unfortunately very easy to make mediocre verses in Spanish, and too many people give themselves over to the pursuit. Passing from the literature of amusement, we have still some very distinguished names to enumerate. Philosophy, indeed, has but one representative of merit, the traditionalist Jaime Balmes, for the Krausist school, an importation from Germany, may be ignored here, but history and literary criticism have been cultivated during the last thirty years or so with genuine success. Modesto Lafuente is in some sort the Mariana of the 19th century; much inferior as a writer to the celebrated Jesuit, he has, however, always manifested the same passion for his subject, the same persevering determination to raise a worthy monument of his fatherland; his Historia de Espaiia, in spite of all its defects, deserves respect, and is at least readable. Although primarily a politician, Antonio Cano- vas del Castillo has many of the qualities which go to the making of a good historian ; he has evinced greater acute- ness and larger acquirements than Lafuente, and his Ensayo sobre la Casa de Austria en Espana, founded upon a careful examination of a large number of documents, gives evidence of a correct judgment and praiseworthy impartiality. The literary history of old Spain has been treated in a masterly manner by Aureliano Fernandez Guerra in various studies devoted to the great writers of the 17th century, notably Quevedo, and also quite recently by a young and talented scholar, Marcelino Mencndez Pelayo, whose Historia de las Ideas Esteticas en Espana, a work as solid in its substance as -it is pure in its style, would do honour to any veteran in literature. As regards criticism of contemporary litera- ture, no one shows more spirit and taste than Juan Valera, whose delicate Andalusian nature has been matured by a refining education and by an adequate knowledge of foreign literatures. Bibliography. The base of the student's operations is always the great work of Nicolas Antonio, Bibliothcca Hispana Veins and Bibliotlicca Hispana. Nova, in the revised and completed edition of Francisco Perez Bayer, Tomas Antonio Sanchez, and Juan Antonio Pellicer (Madrid, 1783-88, 4 vols. fol.). The student can afford to disregard all the general histories which preceded Tlcknor's History of Spanish Literature (New York, 1849, 3 vols. 8vo ; 4th ed., Boston, 1872, 3 vols. 8vo), a work of solid value, especially from the bibliographical point of view ; it is quite indispensable that the reader should consult also the Spanish translation by D. Pascual de Gayangos and Enrique de Yedia (Madrid, 1851-56*) and the German translation of Julius with some important additions by Ferdinand Wolf (Leipsic, 1852-67). Nothing can be said in favour of the French translation by J. G. Magnabal (Paris, 1864- 72). The Historia Critica de la Litcratura Espaiiola of Jose Amador de los Rios (Madrid, 1861-65, 7 vols. 8vo), although de- ficient in criticism and full of errors in fact, supplies some useful information as to the period prior to the 15th century, with which it exclusively deals. JVienendez Pelayo's Historia de las Ideas Este- ticas en Etspana (Madrid, 1884-86, 3 vols. 8vo), already referred to, is very instructive. For the 18th century, Leopoldo A. de Cueto's " Bosquejo Historico-Critico de la Poesia Castellana en el Siglo xviii.," prefixed to the first vol. of Rivadeneyra's Poctas Liricos del Siglo xviii., is indispensable. For the 19th century there is not as yet any satisfactory work dealing with the literature as a whole ; that of M. G. Hubbard, Histoire de la Literature Contemporaine en Esjmrjne (Paris, 1876, 1 vol. 8vo), although superficial and inaccurate, is useful in the absence of anything better. Some descriptions of Castiliau literature have been specially studied with care and competence, notably the drama, on which we have two thorough works, Frederick von Schack's Geschichte dcr drama- tischen Literatur u. Kunst in Spanien (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1846-54, 3 vols. 8vo), unfortunately now much behindhand, and i u no way improved in this respect in the Spanish translation now in course of publication at Madrid under the superintendence of Eduardo do Mier, and Cayetano Alberto de la Ban-era's excellent Catdlogo Bibliografico y Biogrdfico del Tcatro Antiyiw Espafiol (Ma- drid, 1860, large 8vo). On the Castilian literature of the Middle Ages, the works to be consulted are Ferdinand Wolf's Stiidicn zur Geschichte der Spanischen u. Portugicsischen Nationalliteratur (Berlin, 1859, 1 vol. 8vo) and Manuel Mild y Fontanals's DC la Poesia Hcroico- Popular Castellana (Barcelona, 1874, 1 vol. 8vo). II. CATALAN LITERATURE. Although the Catalan lan- guage is simply a branch of the southern Gallo-Roman, the literature, in its origin at least, ought to be considered as a mere appendix of that of Provence. Nay more, until about the second half of the 13th century there existed in the Catalan districts no other literature than the Provengal, and the poets of north-eastern Spain used no other language than that of the troubadours. Guillem de Bergadan, Uc de Mataplana, Ramon Vidal de Besalii, Guillem de Cervera, Serveri de Gerona, and several other verse writers of a still more recent date are all genuine Provengal poets, in the same sense as are those of Poetry o: Middle Ages;
