Revue hispanique: recueil consacré á l'étude des langues, des littératures ...

MINOR ENGLISH INFLUENCES

ON SPANISH ROMANTICISM

Now that studies have been published dealing with the influence in Spain of Shakespeare, Milton, Young 3, Gray 4, Ossian 5, Southey 6, Scott 7 and Byron, it would seem that we are in a position to write more positively of English influences in general upon Spanish literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than has been possible up to the present. The present study aims at gathering up notes on

1. E. Julia Martinez: Shakespeare en España, Madrid.

2. E. Allison Peers: « Milton in Spain », in Studies in Philology, 1926.

3. E. Allison Peers: « The Influence of Young and Gray in Spain », in Modern Language Review, 1926.

4. Ibid.

5. E. Allison Peers: « The Influence of Ossian in Spain », in Philological Quarterly, 1925, pp. 121-138.

6. Ludwig Pfandl : « Robert Southey und Spanien », in Revue Hispanique, t. XXVII.

7. Philip H. Churchman and E. Allison Peers: « A Survey of the Influence of Sir Walter Scott in Spain », in Revue Hispanique, 19.2. 8. Philip H. Churchman: « The Beginnings of Byronism in Spain », in Revue Hispanique, 1910, and « Byron and Espronceda », ibid, 1909; E. Allison Peers: « The earliest notice of Byron in Spain », in Revue de littérature comparée, 1922, and « Sidelights on Byronism in Spain », in Revue Hispanique, 1921.

some of the minor English influences which have been made from time to time in the course of some years' wide and continuous reading in the literature, — especially the periodical literature of the early nineteenth century'.

One would not expect to find any other very strong literary influences from England other than those just mentioned, nor even these except comparatively late. The poor results yielded by a study of the influence of Ossian warn one against expecting over-much. In general terms, it is true to say that till almost the end of the eighteenth century English influence was inhibited by the influence of France. When it began to make itself felt in earnest, it came partly as a reaction from the more persistent influence, and partly from the increased contact with England which resulted from the Peninsular War and the Emigrations 2. It was deepened by the striking vogue of Byron and Scott, who, in their own country, were flourishing, as it chanced, just at the time of this contact. Not only was it deepened: it was also widely extended. Hence we find English authors of quite secondary importance, and sometimes of little merit, being translated into Spanish when their vogue elsewhere was over. But the translations were too often made from French versions, so little English was known at the time in a Spain which owed so much to England. Few were the writers who could show the acquaintance with English literature which Alcalá Galiano betrays in his preface to Rivas' Moro Expósito 3. Not only does he describe the literary affinities

1. Though I use the word « Romanticism » in the title of this study, I have given instances of English influences on both pre-Romantic and post-Romantic writers also.

2. See E. Allison Peers: « The Literary Activities of the Spanish « Emigrados >> in England (1814-1834) », in Modern Language Review, 1924, PP. 315-324, 445-458.

3. Obras completas de D. Angel de Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, Ma

of Dryden, Addison, and Pope, and enumerate the qualities of the better known poets of his day, but he writes in detail of others of whose influence upon his country it is hard to find more than the merest trace:

Pintor del hombre social de las clases ínfimas Crabbe, que en su estilo vigoroso y bronco, no menos que vivo y brillante, describe costumbres que retratan las pasiones naturales y enérgicas, y los vicios y delitos, en vez de presentarnos los modelos estudiados y las flaquezas y arterías de la sociedad; Burns, que la pinta, es sin embargo fogoso y fiel intérprete de afectos vehementes; galante, agudo, conceptuoso y vivo de fantasía, aunque amanerado, Moore 2.

Of such authors Alcalá Galiano says that they « form a body of writers of the first order » 3 and considers British poetry of his day to be unrivalled :

drid, 1897, vol. III, p. xXVII: « Dryden quiso y no supo seguir [la escuela clásica francesa] pues su gusto era correcto, y su fantasía harto más viva que la de los poetas franceses: Addison, aunque compuso versos, nada tenía de poeta. Pope fué el principal clásico inglés..., etc. »

1. Ibid, p. xXVII : « Caballeroso Scott: metafísico y descriptivo Byron; patético y a la par limado, Campbell; tierno y erudito Southey; sencillo y afectuoso Wordsworth, etc. »>

2. Ibid., p. xXVIII, Juan Valera (Florilegio de Poesías Castellanas del siglo XIX, I, 92) comments on this passage thus: « Yo me atrevo a dar por seguro que, ni D. Angel de Saavedra, ni casi ningún español, durante la primera mitad del siglo XIX, leyó las poesías de los autores mencionados, ni supo más de ellos que los nombres, dado que los supiese. >> This amazing assertion loses much of its force when we read Alcalá Galiano's lectures delivered in 1844 (Historia de la literatura española, francesa, inglesa e italiana en el siglo XVIII, Madrid, 1845) where (in lecture XXIII) he shows evident first-hand acquaintance with the authors mentioned. Furthermore, Valera, in spite of his close personal connection with Rivas, gives no sign of knowing the extent to which the latter was influenced by Shakespeare, Byron, and Scott, nor that he went to the length of translating passages from at least one of them to embody in his work. One can hardly, therefore, take Valera too seriously.

3. Ibid., p. xXVIII.

Desde Cowper hasta el día presente, quizá es la poesía britanica la más rica entre las modernas, así por la abundancia, cuanto por el valor de sus producciones 1.

Of prose works, those of Richardson and Fielding made their way into Spain before the end of the eighteenth century, together with a few other individual works of fiction of varying merit. In certain old Spanish bookshops there still languish copies of an eight-volume edition of Pamela 2, though I have never myself come across any in libraries. The anonymous translator of this novel prefaces his work with a lengthy introduction upon the virtues of Richardson's heroine; apparently, however, he has a poor opinion of those of Richardson himself, since he has been forced to omit many expressions which would have shocked Spanish taste! England, he thinks, must be more corrupt in its morals than Spain. There is a better-known edition, in four volumes, of Tom Jones 3, translated, however, from the French of La Place, and quoting La Harpe's eulogy of it together with Warburton's. Le Tourneur's version of Clarissa Harlowe was turned into Spanish about the end of the eighteenth century I have never found a copy of the book, but have

1. Ibid., p. XXVII.

seen the second edition of 1829, which testifies to its vitality at a time wheen the popular taste in fiction had changed.

The historical novel, of course, was largely responsible for this, in which connection it is interesting to put on record the terms in which Scott was, almost for the first time, introduced to the Spanish public. Aribau, reviewing an edition of Scott in 1823, begins thus:

Este autor rival de Lord Byron ha sido mirado por algunos como el primero de los románticos modernos, y colocado al lado de Richardson (sic) y Fielding 2.

The implication is obvious: Richardson and Fielding were considered by Aribau to be at the head of their profession. Although the popularity of the Richardson-Fielding novel in Spain could not be maintained in the early nineteenth century 3, the periodicals still show that these authors were read even when Scott held the field. In the Miscelánea, that well known periodical edited by Heredia, we find in 1830 an «< Ensayo sobre la Novela », which eulogises Richardson to the skies, mentioning also Fielding and Sterne, though with less enthusiasm. After a description of Richardson which errs on the side of idealism, the writer proceeds to qualify his works as those of an «< eminently sagacious observer »,

2. Europeo, 1823, p. 351. See « A Survey of the Influence of Sir Walter Scott in Spain », p. 11, for further details.

3. An article on the novel in the Redactor General de Cádiz (Sept. 4 1814) laments the backward state of the novel in modern Spain (« que ningún humanista se haya tomado el trabajo de dar reglas a la novela »!). It mentions with approval, as examples of the best type of novel, Tom Jones, Pamela, and Clarissa Harlowe.

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