El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections

El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections

Don Jos de Espronceda y Lara, Spain's foremost lyric poet of the nineteenth century, was born on the 25th of March, 1808, the year of his country's heroic revolt against the tyranny of Napoleon. His parents were Lieutenant-Colonel Don Juan de Espronceda y Pimentel and Doa Mara del Carmen Delgado y Lara. Both were Andalusians of noble stock, and, as we learn from official documents, were held to be Christians of clean blood "without taint of Jews, heretics, Moors, or persons punished by the Holy Inquisition, and who neither were nor had been engaged in mean or low occupations, but in highly honorable ones." This couple of such highly satisfactory antecedents had been married four years previously. In 1804 Don Juan, a mature widower of fifty-three, was still mourning his first wife when he obtained the hand of Doa Mara, a young widow whose first husband, a lieutenant in the same regiment, was recently deceased. The marriage was satisfactory in a worldly way, for Doa Mara brought as a dower four hundred thousand reales to be added to the two hundred thousand which Don Juan already possessed. By his first marriage Don Juan had had a son, Don Jos de Espronceda y Ramos, who became ensign in his father's regiment, then studied in the Artillery School at Segovia, and later entered the fashionable Guardia de Corps regiment. He died in 1793 at the early age of twenty-one, soon after joining this regiment. By the second marriage there were two other children, both of whom died in infancy: Francisco, born in 1805, and Mara, born in 1807. During the early months of 1808 the Bourbon cavalry regiment in which Don Juan served was stationed in the little hamlet of Villafranca de los Barros, Estremadura, and there the future poet was born. We do not know where the mother and son found refuge during the stormy years which followed. The father was about to begin the most active period of his career. We learn from his service record that he won the grade of colonel on the field of Bailn; that a year later he recaptured the cannon named Libertad at the battle of Consuegra (a feat which won him the rank of brigadier), and fought gallantly at Talavera as a brother-in-arms of the future Duke of Wellington. The mere enumeration of the skirmishes and battles in which he participated would require much space. In 1811 he distinguished himself at Medina Sidonia and Chiclana, and sought promotion to the rank of field-marshal, which was never granted. After the Peninsular War he seems to have been stationed in Madrid between 1815 and 1818. His family were probably permanently established in that city, for we know that mother and son resided there during the time that the brigadier was doing garrison duty in Guadalajara (1820-1828), and there is no evidence that they followed him to Corua during his term of service in that city (1818-1820). Possibly the old soldier preferred the freedom of barrack life, where his authority was unquestioned, to the henpecked existence he led at home. "Ella era l y l era ella," says Patricio de Escosura in speaking of this couple; for Doa Mara was something of a shrew. She was a good business woman who combined energy with executive ability, as she later proved by managing successfully a livery-stable business. But, however formidable she may have been to her hostlers, her son Jos found her indulgent. He, the only surviving son of a mature couple, rapidly developed into a nio consentido, the Spanish equivalent of a spoiled child. Parallels are constantly being drawn between Byron and Espronceda. It is a curious fact that both poets were reared by mothers who were alternately indulgent and severe. In 1820 the Espronceda family occupied an apartment in the Calle del Lobo. It was there and then that Patricio de Escosura firmed his intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over certain eminently nervous temperaments." The belief that Espronceda studied at the Artillery School of Segovia in 1821 appears to rest upon the statement of Sols alone. Escosura, who studied there afterwards, never speaks of his friend as having attended the same institution. Sols may have confused the younger Jos with his deceased, like-named brother, who, we know, actually was a cadet in Segovia. On the other hand, Sols speaks with confidence, though without citing the source of his information, and nothing would have been more natural than for the boy to follow in his elder brother's footsteps, as he did later when he joined the Guardia de Corps. However, the matter is of slight moment, for if he studied in Segovia at all he cannot have remained there for more than a few weeks. What little education Espronceda was able to acquire in the course of his stormy life was gained mostly in the Colegio de San Mateo between the years 1820 and 1830. This was a private school patronized by sons of the nobility and wealthy middle class. Two of the masters, Jos Gmez Hermosilla and Alberto Lista, were poets of repute. Lista was the best teacher of his time in Spain. The wide range of his knowledge astonished his pupils, and he appeared to them equally competent in the classics, modern languages, mathematics, philosophy and poetics, all of which subjects he knew so well that he never had to prepare a lecture beforehand. Plainly Lista was not a specialist of the modern stamp; but he was something better, a born teacher. In spite of an unprepossessing appearance, faulty diction, and a ridiculous Andalusian accent, Lista was able to inspire his students and win their affection. It is no coincidence that four of the fellow students of the Colegio de San Mateo, Espronceda, Felipe Pardo, Ventura de la Vega, and Escosura, afterwards became famous in literature. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 15781
Author: Espronceda, José de
Release Date: May 7, 2005
Format: eBook
Language: Spanish

Contributors

Editor: Northup, George Tyler, 1874-1964