days, I must make special mention of the nun Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her name had been Juana Inés A bajé y Ramirez, who obtained a recognition far above any other truly national poet of colonial times. Even contemporaries of the peninsula gave her the appellation of the tenth muse.[1]
Among the few writers for the stage are named Vela, Arriola, Salazar, and Soria; all of whom were eclipsed by Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, a creole of Mexico, though he wrote in Spain.[2]
During colonial times, home productions were not much esteemed, even by those who ranked with the creole party. This was mainly due to the authors' subserviency to Spain. The opening of a wider field toward the end of the last century, with the admission of French, English, and Teutonic literature, could not fail to prove beneficial. The Franciscan Manuel Navarrete shines alone during the opening decade of our century, with such lustre as to win him the cognomen of the American swan. Tenderness and purity breathe in his every line, as well as religion and reflectiveness.
Many other Mexicans deserve a place in the roll of poets. Unfortunately, being cramped for space, I am unable to do justice individually to their merits.[3] Their more ambitious compositions have been as a rule translations from the classics. Yet epics have been attempted, like the Anáhua of Rodriguez y Cos. In
- ↑ Her compositions were numerous. She is compared to Camvens by Pacheco, and Feijos lauds her for a critical and philosophical mind. She was indeed a prodigy. Her works, however, show that they were produced at a time when Spanish literature had become corrupted. Some of those works, unknown to our bibliographers, are represented on my shelves.
- ↑ He stands forward as one of the most original and varied writers, though less prolific and imaginative. His diction is more formal and his versification purer than Lope de Vega's. Indeed, he ranks as a classic; but his efforts to improve moral tone in comedy were too strongly drawn for that age, and he failed to attain popularity. Twenty of his comedies were issued in 1628 and 1634, in collected form at Madrid. They by no means include all his compositions, all of which were ascribed to his greater rivals.
- ↑ As a mark of respect to her sex, I make an exception in favor of Ester Tapia de Castellanos, a poetess of no mean order, far superior to the average of more pretentious and better known singers. Her Flores Silvestres appeared in 1871.
