Información sobre el texto
Título del texto editado:
The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega. Preface
Autor del texto editado:
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes 1792-1836
Título de la obra:
The Works of Garcilasso de la Vega, surnamed The Prince of Castilian Poets
Autor de la obra:
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes 1792-1836
Edición:
London:
Hurst, Robinson and Co.,
1823
Relación de todos los textos preliminares de la obra:
* Preface, Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, Woburn Abbey, 4 de agosto de 1823
Transcripción realizada sobre el ejemplar de la Universidad de Harvard.
(texto completo)Encoding: Noelia Santiago López
Editor: Mercedes Comellas
Transcriptor: Irene Reyes Noguerol
Sevilla, 22 julio 2020
PREFACE
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 contemporary 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 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
Boscán,
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, 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 reestablished 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, 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 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
Bouterwek,
on Spanish and Portuguese poetry; another is going through the press of Sismondi
Sur la Littérature 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
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 countrymen -a 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 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 lyrists -the 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 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
Poesías 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 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.
It is time to conclude these prefatory observations; yet I cannot forego the pleasure of first acknowledging the great advantage I have derived from the kind revision of my
MSS.
by the Rev. Blanco
White.
That gentleman's desire to aid in any thing that might seem to serve the reputation of his country -the country, whose customs and institutions he has pourtrayed with such vivid interest, originality, and talent, joined to his native goodness of heart, could alone have led him to volunteer his services, in a season of sickness, to one nearly a stranger; and if I submit the following pages to the public with any degree of confidence in its favour, it is from the many improvements to which his
friendly
and judicious
criticisms
have led.
To Mr. Heber also, who, with the spirit of a
nobleman,
throws open so widely the vast stores of his invaluable library, I feel bound to express my obligations for the use of
Herrera's
rare
edition
of the works of Garcilasso, which I had in vain sought for in other collections of Spanish books, both
public
and
private
: his voluntary offer of this, on a momentary acquaintance, enhances in my mind the value of the favour.
The astonishing number of authors which the
Bibliotheca Hispanica
of Don Nicolás
Antonio
displays, is a sufficient
proof
of the great intellect that Spain would be capable of putting forth, if her mind had a play proportioned to its activity. No
nation
has given to the light so many and such weighty volumes upon Aristotle, so many eminent writers in scholastic theology, so many and such subtle moral casuists, or so many profound
commentators
on the Codices and Pandects. And if she has produced these works in ages when the withering influence of
political
and
religious
despotism, like the plant which kills the sylvan it embraces, searched into every coigne of her literary fabric, what may not be expected from her, when the present distractions, fomented by the accursed gold of France, are composed into tranquillity, and the inquiries of her talented men embrace under free institutions a wider range of science than they have yet dared to follow, except by stealth! There is not one lettered Englishman but will rejoice with his whole heart when the winged
Genius
that is seen in
Quintana's
poems, chained to the gloomy threshold of a Gothic
building,
looking up with despondency to the Temple of the Muses, may be represented soaring away for ever from the irons that have eaten into its soul.
The present work will be shortly followed by a Spanish Anthology, containing
translations
of the
choicest
Specimens of the Castilian Poets, with short biographical notices, and a selection of the
Morisco
ballads.
WOBURN ABBEY
4th Month 8th, 1823
GRUPO PASO (HUM-241)
FFI2014-54367-C2-1-R
FFI2014-54367-C2-2-R
2018M Luisa Díez, Paloma Centenera