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INTRODUCTION LIFE OF BECQUER UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF BECQUER BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE SPANISH PROSODY DESDE MI CELDA--CARTA SEXTA LOS OJOS VERDES LA CORZA BLANCA LA AJORCA DEL ORO EL CRISTO DE LA CALAVERA EL BESO MAESE P?REZ EL ORGANISTA LA CRUZ DEL DIABLO CREED EN DROS LAS HOJAS SECAS RIMAS VOCABULARY

INTRODUCTION

LIFE OF BECQUER

"In Seville, along the Guadalquivir, and close to the bank that leads to the convent of San Jer?nimo, may be found a kind of lagoon, which fertilizes a miniature valley formed by the natural slope of the bank, at that point very high and steep. Two or three leafy white poplars, intertwining their branches, protect the spot from the rays of the sun, which rarely succeeds in slipping through them. Their leaves produce a soft and pleasing murmur as the wind stirs them and causes them to appear now silver, now green, according to the point from which it blows. A willow bathes its roots in the current of the stream, toward which it leans as though bowed by an invisible weight, and all about are multitudes of reeds and yellow lilies, such as grow spontaneously at the edges of springs and streams.

"The white poplars, swaying night and day above my grave, should seem to utter prayers for my soul in the rustling of their green and silver leaves. In them the birds should come and nest, that they might sing at dawn a joyous hymn to the resurrection of the spirit to regions more serene. The willow, covering the spot with floating shadows, should lend to it its own vague sadness, as it bent and shed about its soft, wan leaves, as if to protect and to caress my mortal spoils. The river, too, which in flood tide might almost come and kiss the border of the slab o'ergrown with reeds, should lull my sleep with pleasant music. And when some time had passed, and patches of moss had begun to spread over the stone, a dense growth of wild morning-glories, of those blue morning-glories with a disk of carmine in the center, which I loved so much, should grow up by its side, twining through its crevices and clothing it with their broad transparent leaves, which, by I know not what mystery, have the form of hearts. Golden insects with wings of light, whose buzzing lulls to sleep on heated afternoons, should come and hover round their chalices, and one would be obliged to draw aside the leafy curtain to read my name, now blurred by time and moisture. But why should my name be read? Who would not know that I was sleeping there?"

So mused the poet Becquer in the golden days of his youth, when his veins were swelling with health, when his heart was fired with ambition, and in his ears was ringing the joyous invitation of his muse.

His knowledge of the world was confined to the enchanting city of his birth. Her gems of art and architecture had wrought themselves into the fabric of his dreams; he had mused in her palm-gardens, worshiped in her temples, and dreamed long afternoons on the shores of her historic river. He knew nothing of the cold, prosaic world of selfish interests. The time had not yet come when, in bitterness of spirit, and wrapping his mantle about him against the chill wind of indifference, he should say: "To-day my sole ambition is to be a supernumerary in the vast human comedy, and when my silent role is ended, to withdraw behind the scenes, neither hissed nor applauded, making my exit unnoticed."

Here Gustavo Adolfo Dominguez Becquer opened his eyes upon this inhospitable world. Eight days later he was baptized in the church of San Lorenzo. He was one of a family of eight sons, Eduardo, Estanislao, Valeriano, Gustavo Adolfo, Alfredo, Ricardo, Jorge, and Jose. His father, Don Jose Dominguez Becquer, was a well-known Seville genre painter. He died when Gustavo was but a child of five, too young to be taught the principles of his art; but he nevertheless bequeathed to him the artistic temperament that was so dominant a trait in the poet's genius. Becquer's mother, Do?a Joaquina, survived his father but a short time, and left her children orphaned while they were yet very young. Gustavo was but nine and a half years old at the time of his mother's death. Fortunately an old and childless uncle, D. Juan Vargas, took charge of the motherless boys until they could find homes or employment.

Among the students of San Telmo there was one, Narciso Campillo, for whom Gustavo felt a special friendship,--a lad whose literary tastes, like his own, had developed early, and who was destined, later on, to occupy no mean position in the field of letters. Writing of those days of his youth, Se?or Campillo says: "Our childhood friendship was strengthened by our life in common, wearing as we did the same uniform, eating at the same table, and sleeping in an immense hall, whose arches, columns, and melancholy lamps, suspended at intervals, I can see before me still.

Shortly after the matriculation of young Becquer, the College of San Telmo was suppressed by royal orders, and the lad found himself in the streets. He was then received into the home of his godmother, Do?a Manuela Monchay, who was a woman of kind heart and much intelligence. She possessed a fair library, which was put at the disposal of the boy; and here he gratified his love for reading, and perfected his literary taste. Two works that had considerable influence upon him at this time were the Odes of Horace, translated by P. Urbano Campos, and the poems of Zorrilla. He began to write verses of his own, but these he later burned.

It cannot be said that he received the news of his dismissal regretfully, for he had accepted the position largely to please a sympathetic friend. Slight as was the remuneration, however, it had aided him to live; and when this resource was removed, Gustavo was again obliged to depend upon his wits. His skill with the brush served him in good stead at this time, and he earned a little money by aiding a painter who had been employed by the Marquis of Remisa to decorate his palace, but who could not do the figures in the fresco.

Essentially an artist in temperament, he viewed all things from the artist's standpoint. His distaste for politics was strong, and his lack of interest in political intrigues was profound. "His artistic soul, nurtured in the illustrious literary school of Seville," says Correa, "and developed amidst Gothic Cathedrals, lacy Moorish and stained-glass windows, was at ease only in the field of tradition. He felt at home in a complete civilization, like that of the Middle Ages, and his artisticopolitical ideas and his fear of the ignorant crowd made him regard with marked predilection all that was aristocratic and historic, without however refusing, in his quick intelligence, to recognize the wonderful character of the epoch in which he lived. Indolent, moreover, in small things,--and for him political parties were small things,--he was always to be found in the one in which were most of his friends, and in which they talked most of pictures, poetry, cathedrals, kings, and nobles. Incapable of hatred, he never placed his remarkable talent as a writer at the service of political animosities, however certain might have been his gains."

His friends were not slow in discovering that the tall, dark, and beautiful Julia was the object of his adoration, and they advised him to declare his love openly. But his timid and retiring nature imposed silence upon his lips, and he never spoke a word of love to her. It cannot be said, moreover, that the impression created upon the young lady by the brilliant youth was such as to inspire a return of his mute devotion. Becquer was negligent in his dress and indifferent to his personal appearance, and when Julia's friends upbraided her for her hardness of heart she would reply with some such curt and cruel epigram as this: "Perhaps he would move my heart more if he affected my stomach less."

Finding his devotion to Julia unrequited, Becquer, in a rebellious mood, and having come under the influence of the charms and blandishments of a woman of Soria, a certain Casta Est?ban y Navarro, contracted, in or about the year 1861, an unfortunate marriage, which embittered the rest of his life and added cares and expenses which he could ill support. He lived with his wife but a short time, during which period two sons were born to them--Gustavo, whose later career was unfortunately not such as to bring credit to the memory of his illustrious father, and, Jorge, who died young. Becquer was passionately fond of his children, and succeeded in keeping them with him after the separation from his wife. They were constantly the objects of his affectionate solicitude, and his last thoughts were for them.

Their life of hardship and anxiety was tearing to shreds the delicate health of the two young artists, and on September 23, 1870, Valeriano breathed his last in the arms of Gustavo. His death was a blow from which Gustavo never recovered. It was as though the mainspring was broken in a watch; and, though the wheels still turned of their own momentum, the revolutions were few in number and soon ceased. "A strange illness," says Correa, "and a strange manner of death was that! Without any precise symptom, that which was diagnosed as pneumonia turned to hepatitis, becoming in the judgment of others pericarditis, and meanwhile the patient, with his brain as clear as ever and his natural gentleness, went on submitting himself to every experiment, accepting every medicine, and dying inch by inch."

Shortly before the end he turned to his friends who surrounded his bed, and said to them, "Acordaos de mis ni?os." He realized that he had extended his arm for the last time in their behalf, and that now that frail support had been withdrawn. "At last the fatal moment came, and, pronouncing clearly with his trembling lips the words 'Todo mortal!', his pure and loving soul rose to its Creator." He died December 22, 1870.

Thanks to the initiative of Ram?n Rodriguez Correa and to the aid of other friends, most of the scattered tales, legends, and poems of Becquer were gathered together and published by Fernando Fe, Madrid, in three small volumes. In the Prologue of the first edition Correa relates the life of his friend with sympathy and enthusiasm, and it is from this source that we glean most of the facts that are to be known regarding the poet's life. The appearance of these volumes caused a marked effect, and their author was placed by popular edict in the front rank of contemporary writers.

Becquer may be said to belong to the Romantic School, chief of whose exponents in Spain were Zorilla and Espronceda. The choice of mediaeval times as the scene of his stories, their style and treatment, as well as the personal note and the freedom of his verse, all stamp him as a Romanticist.

His legends, with one or two exceptions, are genuinely Spanish in subject, though infused with a tender melancholy that recalls the northern ballads rather than the writings of his native land. His love for old ruins and monuments, his archaeological instinct, is evident in every line. So, too, is his artistic nature, which finds a greater field for its expression in his prose than in his verse. Add to this a certain bent toward the mysterious and supernatural, and we have the principal elements that enter into the composition of these legends, whose quaint, weird beauty not only manifests the charm that naturally attaches to popular or folk tales, but is due especially to the way in which they are told by one who was at once an artist and a poet.

Zorilla has been said to be Becquer's most immediate precursor, in that he possesses the same instinct for the mysterious. But, as Blanco Garcia observes, "Becquer is less ardent than Zorilla, and preferred the strange traditions in which some unknown supernatural power hovers to those others, more probable, in which only human passions with their caprices and outbursts are involved." Correa says of his legends that they "can compete with the tales of Hoffmann and of Grimm, and with the ballads of R?ckert and of Uhland," and that "however fantastic they may be, however imaginary they may appear, they always contain such a foundation of truth, a thought so real, that in the midst of their extraordinary form and contexture a fact appears spontaneously to have taken place or to be able to take place without the slightest difficulty, if you but analyze the situation of the personages, the time in which they live, or the circumstances that surround them."

At last he opens the sheet. The news of the clubs or the Cortes absorbs him until the failing light of the setting sun warns him that, though he has read but the first columns, it is time to go. "The shadows of the mountains fall rapidly, and spread over the plain. The moon begins to appear in the east like a silver circle gleaming through the sky, and the avenue of poplars is wrapped in the uncertain dusk of twilight.... The monastery bell, the only one that still hangs in its ruined Byzantine tower, begins to call to prayers, and one near and one afar, some with sharp metallic notes, and some with solemn, muffled tones, the other bells of the hillside towns reply.... It seems like a harmony that falls from heaven and rises at the same time from the earth, becomes confounded, and floats in space, intermingling with the fading sounds of the dying day and the first sighs of the newborn night.

"And now all is silenced,--Madrid, political interests, ardent struggles, human miseries, passions, disappointments, desires, all is hushed in that divine music. My soul is now as serene as deep and silent water. A faith in something greater, in a future though unknown destiny, beyond this life, a faith in eternity,--in short, an all-absorbing larger aspiration, overwhelms that petty faith which we might term personal, that faith in the morrow, that sort of goad that spurs on irresolute minds, and that is so needful if one must struggle and exist and accomplish something in this world."

This graceful musing, full in the original of those rich harmonies that only the Spanish language can express, will serve sufficiently to give an impression of the series as a whole. The broad but fervent faith expressed in the last lines indicates a deeply religious and somewhat mystical nature. This characteristic of Becquer may be noticed frequently in his writings and no one who reads his works attentively can call him elitist, as have some of his calumniators.

Beautiful as Becquer's prose may be considered, however, the universal opinion is that his claim to lasting fame rests on his verse. Mrs. Humphrey Ward, in her interesting article entitled "A Spanish Romanticist," says of him: "His literary importance indeed is only now beginning to be understood. Of Gustavo Becquer we may almost say that in a generation of rhymers he alone was a poet; and now that his work is all that remains to us of his brilliant and lovable personality, he only, it seems to us, among the crowd of modern Spanish versifiers, has any claim to a European audience or any chance of living to posterity." This diatribe against the other poets of contemporary Spain may seem to us unjust; but certain it is that Becquer in the eyes of many surpasses either Nu?ez de Arce or Campoamor, with whom he forms "a triumvirate that directs and condenses all the manifestations of contemporary Spanish lyrics."

Becquer has none of the characteristics of the Andalusian. His lyrical genius is not only at odds with that of Southern Spain, but also with his own inclination for the plastic arts, says Blanco Garcia. "How could a Seville poet, a lover of pictorial and sculptural marvels, so withdraw from the outer form as to embrace the pure idea, with that melancholy subjectivism as common in the gloomy regions bathed by the Spree as it is unknown on the banks of the Darro and Guadalquivir?" The answer to the problem must be found in his lineage.

Whatever may be one's opinion of the personality of the muse or muses of his verse, the love that Becquer celebrates is not the love of oriental song, "nor yet the brutal deification of woman represented in the songs of the Proven?al Troubadours, nor even the love that inspired Herrera and Garcilaso. It is the fantastic love of the northern ballads, timid and reposeful, full of melancholy tenderness, that occupies itself in weeping and in seeking out itself rather than in pouring itself forth on external objects." In this matter of lyrical subjectivism Becquer is unique, for it cannot be found in any other of the Spanish poets except such mystic writers as San Juan de la Cruz or Fray Luis de Le?n.

In this description of the short, terse, and striking compositions of his friend Ferran, Becquer has written likewise the apology for his own verse. His was a poetry of "rapid, elemental impressions." He strikes but one chord at a time on his lyre, but he leaves you thrilled. This extreme simplicity and naturalness of expression may be well illustrated by the refrain of the seventy-third poem:

Some of these poems are extremely beautiful, particularly the tenth. They form a sort of prelude to the love-story itself, which begins in our selections with the thirteenth. Not finding the realization of his ideal in art, the poet turns to love. This passion reaches its culminating point in the twenty-ninth selection, and with the thirtieth misunderstanding, dissatisfaction, and sadness begin. Despair assails him, interrupted with occasional notes of melancholy resignation, such as are so exquisitely expressed in the fifty-third poem, the best-known of all the poet's verse. With this poem the love-story proper comes to a close, and "the melancholy, no doubt more than half imaginary and poetical, of his love poems seems to broaden out into a deeper sadness embracing life as a whole, and in which disappointed passion is but one of the many elements." "And, lastly, regret and passion are alike hushed in the presence of that voiceless love which shines on the face of the dead and before the eternal and tranquil slumber of the grave."

AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF THE POET BECQUER, ONE OF THE FEW THAT HAVE SURVIVED HIM, ADDRESSED TO SOR. C. FRANCO DE LA IGLESIAS, MINISTERIO DE ULTRAMAR, MADRID. DATED IN TOLEDO, JULY 18TH, 1869.

Mi muy querido amigo:

Me volvi de esa con el cuidado de los chicos y en efecto parecia anunciarmelo apenas llegue cay? en cama el mas peque?o. Esto se prolonga mas de lo que pensamos y he escrito ? Gaspar y ? Valera que solo pag? la mitad del importe del cuadro Gaspar he sabido que salio ayer para Aguas Buenas y tardar? en recibir mi carta Valera espero enviar? ese pico pero suele gastar una calma desesperante en este apuro recurro una vez mas ? vd. y aunque me duele abusar tanto de su amistad le ruego que si es posible me envie tres ? cuatro duros para esperar el envio del dinero que aguardamos el cual es seguro pero no sabemos que dia vendr? y aqui tenemos al medico en casa y atenciones que no esperan un momento.

Adios estoy aburrido de ver que esto nunca cesa. Adios mande vd. ? su amigo que le quiere

Gustavo Becquer

Espresiones ? Pepe Marco S/c Calle de San Ildefonso Toledo. Si le es ? vd. posible enviar eso hagalo si puede en el mismo dia que reciba esta carta por que el apuro es de momento.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A list of the works consulted in the preparation of the sketch of Becquer's life.

WORKS BY BECQUER

La Ilustraci?n de Madrid, January 12-October 12, 1870, contains a large number of articles by Becquer that have never been published in book form. The same can be said of other periodicals for which Becquer collaborated.

TRANSLATIONS

WORKS OR ARTICLES ON BECQUER

SPANISH PROSODY

Spanish versification has nothing to do with the quantity of vowels , which was the basis of Latin prosody.

There are four important elements in Spanish versification. Of these four elements two are essential, and the other two are usually present.

The essential elements, without which Spanish verse cannot exist, are--

The additional elements usually present in Spanish poetical compositions are--

Consonants.--In verse the same rules hold as in prose for the distribution of consonants in syllables.

Vowels.--If there were but one vowel in a syllable, Spanish syllabification would be easy; but sometimes two or more vowels are found either between consonants, or at the beginning or at the end of a word. When such is the case, intricacies arise, for sometimes the contiguous vowels are pronounced in a single syllable and sometimes they are divided into separate syllables.

The contiguous vowels may belong to a single word ; or they may be the final vowel or vowels of one word and the initial vowel or vowels of a following word or words .

A. DIPHTHONGIZATION

The vowels may be divided into strong vowels and weak vowels . For purposes of versification y as a vowel may be treated as i. The five vowels taken in pairs may form diphthongs in twenty-five possible combinations, as follows:

a. Pairs of two weak vowels: ui, iu, ii, uu.

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