The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, Translated into English Verse

The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, Surnamed the Prince of Castilian Poets, Translated into English Verse - With a Critical and Historical Essay on Spanish Poetry and a Life of the Author

Till within the last few years but little attention appears to have been paid in England to Castilian verse. Our earliest poets of eminence, Chaucer and Lord Surrey, struck at once into the rich field of Italian song, and by their imitations of Petrarch and Boccaccio, most probably set the fashion to their successors, of the exclusive study which they gave to the same models, to the neglect of the cotemporary writers of other nations, to those at least of Spain. Nor is this partiality to the one and neglect of the other to be at all wondered at; for neither could they have gone to more suitable sources than the Tuscans for the harmony and grace which the language in its first aspirations after refinement wanted, nor did the Spanish poetry of that period offer more to recompense the researches of the student than[Pg viii] dry legends, historical ballads, or rude imitations of the Vision of Dante. But it is a little singular that this inattention should have continued when the influence of the Emperor Charles the Fifth became great in the courts of Europe, and the Spanish language, chastised into purity and elegance by Boscn, Garcilasso, and their immediate successors, obtained a currency amongst the nations correspondent with the extent of his conquests. The hostile attitude in which England stood to Spain under Elizabeth, may be regarded as perhaps the principal cause why we meet in the constellation of writers that gave lustre to her reign, with so few traces of their acquaintance with the literature of that country; whilst the strong jealousy of the nation to Spanish influence, catholicism, and jesuitical intrigue, no less than the purely controversial spirit of the times, had, I doubt not, their full effect under the Stuarts, in deterring the scholars of that period from any close communion with her poets. Meanwhile the corruption of style which had so baneful an effect on her literature,[Pg ix] was silently going forward under Gongora, Quevedo, and their numerous imitators. Before the reign of Philip the Fifth, this corruption had reached its height; his accession to the crown of Spain, and the encouragement he gave to letters, might have re-established the national literature in its first lustre, if the evil had not struck root so deeply, and if another cast of corrupters had not opposed themselves to the views of this monarch, viz. the numerous translators of French works, who disfigured the idiom by forming a French construction with native words. Thus the curiosity of the poets of Queen Anne's time, if it was ever excited, must have been speedily laid asleep; and (though we may notice in Dryden, and perhaps in Donne, a study of Castilian,) it was scarcely before the middle of the last century that this study began permanently to tinge our literature. To Mr. Hayley, who first directed public attention to the great merits of Dante, must be ascribed the praise also of first calling our notice in any great degree to the Spanish poets. Southey followed,[Pg x] and by his "Chronicle of the Cid" and "Letters from Spain," quickened the curiosity excited by Mr. Hayley's analysis and translated specimens of the Araucana of Ercilla. Lord Holland's admirable dissertation on the genius and writings of Lope de Vega, gave us a clearer insight into the literature of Spain, whilst the French invasion brought us into a more intimate connexion and acquaintance with her chivalrous people; nor could the many English visitants which this drew to her shores view the remains which she keeps of Arabian and Moorish magnificence, or even listen to her language, which preserves such striking vestiges of oriental majesty, without having their imagination led back to her days of literary illumination, and without deriving some taste for the productions of her poets. The struggle which she then made, and that which she is now making, first against the unhallowed grasp of foreign coercion, and next of that priestly tyranny which has so long cramped her political and intellectual energies, have excited in every British bosom[Pg xi] the most cordial sympathy; and it is evident that from these causes, there is a growing attention amongst us to her language and literature. Since the present volume was begun, a translation has appeared of the excellent work of Bouterewek, on Spanish and Portuguese poetry; another is going through the press of Sismondi "Sur la Littrature du Midi de l'Europe;" and Mr. Lockhart has just given us a choice selection of those beautiful old Spanish ballads, which, as Mr. Rogers observes of the narratives of the old Spanish chroniclers, 'have a spirit like the freshness of waters at the fountain head, and are so many moving pictures of the actions, manners, and thoughts of their cotemporaries;' like rough gems redeemed from an oriental mine, they have assumed under his hand a polish and a price that must render them indispensable to the cabinets of our men of taste. Nor, in speaking of those whose labours have tended to spread a knowledge of Hesperian treasure, must we pass over without due praise the masterly notices on Spanish poetry, which Mr. Frere and[Pg xii] Mr. Bowring are understood to have given forth in the Quarterly and Restrospective Reviews. In this situation of things, it may not be wholly unacceptable to the public to receive, though from an inferior hand, a translation of Garcilasso de la Vega, the chastest and perhaps the most celebrated of the poets of Castile. A desire to vary the nature of my pursuits, with other reasons not necessary to mention, first led me to his pages; but the pleasure I derived at the outset from his pastoral pictures and harmony of language, soon settled into the more serious wish to make his merits more generally known, and thus to multiply his admirers amongst a people ever inclined, sooner or later, to do justice to foreign talent. I would, however, deprecate any undue expectations that may be raised by the high title bestowed on Garcilasso by his countrymena title conferred in their enthusiastic admiration of his success in giving suddenly so new and beautiful an aspect to the art, and in elevating their language to a point of perfection, truly surprising, if we consider all the circumstances connected with that[Pg xiii] revolution; but this peculiar merit, so far at least as relates to the language, must necessarily from its nature be wholly untranslateable, and he is thus compelled to lose much of the consideration with the merely English reader that is his real due. But it would be unjust in an English reader, who glances over the subjects of his fancy, to conclude that because Garcilasso has written little but Eclogues and Sonnets, compositions, he may say, at best but of inferior order, he is therefore worthy of but little regard in this age of poetical wonders. I will be bold to assert, that the poets, and readers of the poets of the day, will be no way degraded by coming in contact with his simplicity: our taste for the wilder flights of imagination has reached a height from which the sooner we descend to imitate the nature and unassuming ease of simpler lyriststhe Goldsmiths and Garcilassos of past ages, the better it may chance to be both for our poetry and language. Nor let the name of Eclogues affright the sensitive reader that has in his recollection the Colins and Pastoras that sickened[Pg xiv] his taste some thirty or forty years ago. The pastorals, as they were called, of that period, are no more to be compared with the rime boschereccie of Garcilasso, than the hideous distortion of the leaden Satyr that squirts water from its nostrils in some city tea-garden, and that is pelted at irresistibly by every boy that passes,with the marble repose and inviolable beauty of the Piping Faun in a gallery of antique sculptures. Whilst employed on this translation, I was struck with the lucid view which Quintana gives, in the Essay prefixed to his "Poesias selectas Castellanas," of the History of Spanish Poetry, and I thought that it might be made yet more serviceable to the end which its author had in view, by a translation that would disclose to the English reader what he might expect from a cultivation of the Spanish language. The only fault perhaps of this Essay is, that Quintana has judged his native poets too strictly and exclusively by the rules of French criticism and French taste, which ought not I think to be applied as tests to a[Pg xv] literature so wholly national as the Spanish is, so especially coloured by the revolutions that have taken place upon the Spanish soil, and so utterly unlike that of any other European nation. Still the Essay will be found, if I mistake not, as interesting and instructive to others as it has proved to me: from it a more compact and complete view of the art in Spain may be gathered, than from more extensive histories of the kind; nor was I uninfluenced in my purpose by the advantage which the judgment of a native, himself one of the most distinguished of the living poets and lettered men of Spain, would have over any original Essay derived from the writings of foreigners, who, whatever may be their critical sagacity and literary repute, can neither be supposed to be so intimately acquainted with the compositions of which they treat, nor such good judges of Castilian versification. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49410
Author: Vega, Garcilaso de la
Release Date: Jul 10, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes, 1792-1836