Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-25
SPANS PLACE IN LETTERS.
Not n Famous Book In 200 Years 1t
Can Call It's Own.

SPANS PLACE IN LETTERS.
Not n Famous Book In 200 Years II
Can Call It's Own.
From the Chicago Times Herald.
The backwardness of Spain in all things
save cruelty finds luminous example in
the practically total absence of Spanish
names from the literature of the world
Who but a specialist can mention more
than one world-famous Spanish author?
Who are Spain's epic. dramatic. narrative
and lyric poets? Who are her historians,
her critics, her novelists? Who are her
scientific authors Qeaving out the Arabs>,
her philosophers, her essayists? In the
sixteenth century, cut of the thin soil OF
mediocrity in letters which neither gods
nor men can tolerate-sprang the immoral
Cervantes, the only writer that Spain has
produced who can be at all compared with
the literary geniuses of other peoples.
Don Quixote" was the recoil of gen
timely worthy and ambitious intellect from
the literary trash the best wits of Spain
could manufacture up to that time. This
satire on the commonplace chivalric novel
then in vogue has never been even ap-
preached in its style by any Spaniard an
cient or modern. /. has its place high up
in the temple of fame, appealing to all
hearts and all heads, admired and loved by
learned and unlearned alike-in word,
the elements of all that is good in letters.
But aside from Cervantes Spain has no
place in literature comparable with that of
any Of the great nations OF the Aryan Or
Semitic races. 'Amadis de Gaul, generally
accredited to Spain. and standing out as a
true original-the first and one of the best
roniances constructed of the material of
chivalry-was not written by Spaniard,
but by Vasco de Lobeira. a Portuguese. 1t
translated into Spanish in the begin
nj he
cannot by the widest stretch of generosity
be given to Spain. 1t is Portuguese. and
probably lives in its Spanish dress because
the original is lost. Had Spain produced
these. with Don Quixote." had saved her.
But Cancers was Portuguese and Luis
tania is not Spanish. There is, it is true,
Thu Poem of the CID one of the Ho-
meric narrative-epics of the middle ages,
and if Spain has an epic it is that. But
measured with the performances of other
nations this narrative represents the begin
ming of literature without its develop
ment. The Poem of the CID is strongly
national, and deserved better than single
manuscript to preserve it Take from
Spain this ancient and simple piece and
the Don Quixote" of Cervantes and what
is concerned? -& 49,. .
A glance at Spain's best writers-poets
prose writer's and dramatistS-wil bring
forward names that are strikingly unfa-
miliar to eyes accustomed to the great
names of England, France, Germany, Italy
and even Russia. Her best lyric poets are
Fernando de Herrera and Fray Luis de
Leon, both of whom We're dead before the
beginning of the seventeenth century.
Herrera is of interest only to the deep
student of letters and their growth Luis
de Leon is religious poet, and is account
ed the most masterful of the Spanish ly-
rists. The other lyric poets of Spain-very
few in number as compared with those of
almost any other nation of Importance in
E'r,-. 81,
The first Spanish historian was Geronimo
Zurita, Cervantes in his way. who came
as a relief from the superstitious and child
ish crudities of the chroniclers
Following Cervantes arose the first of
the dramatists Spain produced. He was
Lope de Vega, to whom is given the sole
credit for lifting the Spanish drama into
position OF dignity in any manner
in Spain and gave it it's modes. He was
contemporaneous with the Elizabethan
dramatists. 1t had been marvellous indeed,
IL Spain had escaped - great movement
that reformed the literature of France,
England and Germany at that time, but
LOpe de Vegas works are sorry as COM
pared with those of the Elizabethans with
the fruit of the renaissance, with the strong
pulses of thought that stirred the Europe
of this time.
Lope de Vega wrote. it is said, 500 plays,
and 400 other works. OF these several were
epics now wholly forgotten. His dramas
lacked finish quite. The unites were I'M
known to him. The entire mass of his
work, gagged by standards of criticism
other than Spanish, was weak, even coarse.
This poet was the very crest of long
wave of poetry that rolled over Spain. long
but not deep; and even Lope de Vega, the
only one that can now be recalled, is re-
membered only by the historian. The
hordes of poets that lived with him rose
no higher than the pun of the vulgar met
their enemies-the English, as now the
Americans-pigs. At that time the poets
of Spain turned out epics by the thousand.
Erciila Zuniga attempted the epic in his
"Araucana," and proved that he had not
yet understood the very essentials of epic
poetry. Cristoval de Virtues was a Span
ish dramatist who might have lived as a
writer of tragedies had the Spanish people
been English or German. And critics have
ii that his "Semiramis' and "Cassandra''
are truly noble tragedies. Late in the age
came CalderOn de la Barca, who marked
the limit of SPANS best effort In the dra-
ma. He brought Spanish literature to the
beginning of the eighteenth century.
For 200 years Spain has wallowed in the
barbarism of a nation without a book IL
can call it's own. With the dawn of the
eighteenth century French, Italian and
English ideas overran the peninsula, with
the result that the healthy growth of ma
tional expression and origination was kill
ed The names of modern Spanish writers
are unknown to English readers. In this
time, when Hungarian, Polish and Russian
writer's find a liberal and appreciative pub
lie in England and America; when Persian
Arabic and Hindu poets lack no transla.
tors; when Norwegian authors have en-.
thusiastic admirers in English and Ameri.
can cities, Spain has not a single writer
whose thoughts appeal to the English.
speaking world. SPANS literary glory 1,
like her military glory-chiefly spangles
Her failure in letters has been brought
about by the same organic cause that has
wrought her failure in all things besides
She is unreformed and unrevolutionized
She has given nothing to science or to art
Her crUelties are notorious wherever mer
read books But for that her fame haG
never crossed the Pyrenees or left hel
shore.
e
The income Of the Emperor Of Russia 70,
| one day is about S2l 600: that of the Suit :