Part 3

Becquer's prose is doubtless at its best in his letters entitled _Desde mi Celda_, written, as has been said, from the monastery of Veruela, in 1864. Read his description of his journey to the ancient Aragonese town of Tarazona, picturesquely situated on the River Queiles, of his mule trip over the glorious Moncayo, of the peacefulness and quiet of the old fortified monastery of Veruela, and you will surely feel inspired to follow him in his wanderings. Writing of his life in the seclusion of Veruela, Becquer says: "Every afternoon, as the sun is about to set, I sally forth upon the road that runs in front of the monastery doors to wait for the postman, who brings me the Madrid newspapers. In front of the archway that gives entrance to the first inclosure of the abbey stretches a long avenue of poplars so tall that when their branches are stirred by the evening breeze their summits touch and form an immense arch of verdure. On both sides of the road, leaping and tumbling with a pleasant murmur among the twisted roots of the trees, run two rivulets of crystalline transparent water, as cold as the blade of a sword and as gleaming as its edge. The ground, over which float the shadows of the poplars, mottled with restless spots of light, is covered at intervals with the thickest and finest of grass, in which grow so many white daisies that they look at first sight like that rain of petals with which the fruit-trees carpet the ground on warm April days. On the banks of the stream, amid the brambles and the reeds, grow wild violets, which, though well-nigh hidden amongst their creeping leaves, proclaim themselves afar by their penetrating perfume. And finally, also near the water and forming as it were a second boundary, can be seen between the poplar trunks a double row of stocky walnut-trees with dark, round, compact tops." About half way down the avenue stands a marble cross, which, from its color, is known in the vicinity as the Black Cross of Veruela. "Nothing is more somberly beautiful than this spot. At one end of the road the view is closed by the monastery, with its pointed arches, its peaked towers, and its imposing battlemented walls; on the other, the ruins of a little hermitage rise, at the foot of a hillock bestrewn with blooming thyme and rosemary. There, seated at the foot of the cross, and holding in my hands a book that I scarcely ever read and often leave forgotten on the steps of the cross, I linger for one, two, and sometimes even four hours waiting for the papers." At last the post arrives, and the _Contemporáneo_ is in his hands. "As I was present at its birth, and as since its birth I have lived its feverish and impassioned life, _El Contemporáneo_ is not for me a common newspaper like the rest, but its columns are yourselves, my friends, my companions in hope or disappointment, in failure or triumph, in joy or bitterness. The first impression that I feel upon receiving it, then, is one of joy, like that experienced upon opening a letter on whose envelope we recognize a dear familiar handwriting, or when in a foreign land we grasp the hand of a compatriot and hear our native tongue again. The peculiar odor of the damp paper and the printer's ink, that characteristic odor which for a moment obscures the perfume of the flowers that one breathes here on every hand, seems to strike the olfactory memory, a strange and keen memory that unquestionably exists, and it brings back to me a portion of my former life,--that restlessness, that activity, that feverish productiveness of journalism. I recall the constant pounding and creaking of the presses that multiply by thousands the words that we have just written, and that have come all palpitating from our pens. I recall the strain of the last hours of publication, when night is almost over and copy scarce. I recall, in short, those times when day has surprised us correcting an article or writing a last notice when we paid not the slightest attention to the poetic beauties of the dawn. In Madrid, and for us in particular, the sun neither rises nor sets: we put out or light the lights, and that is the only reason we notice it."

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."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Obras_, _vol._ II, pp. 222-229.]

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,"[1] 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 Nuñez de Arce or Campoamor, with whom he forms "a triumvirate that directs and condenses all the manifestations of contemporary Spanish lyrics."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Macmillan's Magazine_, February, 1883, p. 307.]

[Footnote 2: Blanco Garcia, _op. cit._, vol. II, p. 79.]

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?"[1] The answer to the problem must be found in his lineage.

[Footnote 1: _Ibid._, p. 80.]

In spite of the fascination early exercised by Julia Espin y Guillén over the young poet, it may be doubted if she can fairly be said to have been the muse of his _Rimas_. She doubtless inspired some of his verse; but the poet seems to sing the praises or lament the cruelty of various sweethearts. The late Don Juan Valera, who knew Gustavo well, goes so far as to say: "I venture to suspect that none of these women ever lived in the world which we all corporeally inhabit. When the mind of the poet descended to this world, he had to struggle with so much poverty, he saw himself engulfed and swallowed up by so many trials, and he was obliged to busy himself with such prosaic matters of mean and commonplace bread-winning, that he did not seek, nor would he have found had he sought them, those elegant and semi-divine women that made of him now a Romeo, now a Macías, now an Othello, and now a Pen-arch.... To enjoy or suffer really from such loves and to become ensnared therein with such rare women, Becquer lacked the time, opportunity, health, and money.... His desire for love, like the arrow of the Prince in one of the tales of the Arabian Nights, shot high over all the actual _high-life_ and pierced the golden door of the enchanted palaces and gardens of the Fairy Paribanú, who, enraptured by him, took him for her spouse."[1] In fact Becquer, speaking of the unreality of the numerous offspring of his imagination, says in the Introduction to his works, written in June, 1868: "It costs me labor to determine what things I have dreamed and what things have happened to me. My affections are divided between the phantasms of my imagination and real personalities. My memory confuses the names and dates, of women and days that have died or passed away with the days and women that have never existed save in my mind."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Florilegio de Poesías Castellanas del Siglo XIX_, con introducción y notas, por Juan Valera. Madrid, 1902, vol. I, pp. 186-188.]

[Footnote 2: _Obras_, vol. I, p. L.]

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 Provençal 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."[1] 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 León.

[Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, _op. cit._, p. 83.]

In one of Becquer's most beautiful writings in prose, in a _Prológo_ to a collection of _Cantares_ by Augusto Ferran y Forniés, our author describes two kinds of poetry that present themselves to one's choice: "There is a poetry which is magnificent and sonorous, the offspring of meditation and art, which adorns itself with all the pomp of language, moves along with a cadenced majesty, speaks to the imagination, perfects its images, and leads it at will through unknown paths, beguiling with its harmony and beauty." "There is another poetry, natural, rapid, terse, which springs from the soul as an electric spark, which strikes our feelings with a word, and flees away. Bare of artificiality, free within a free form, it awakens by the aid of one kindred idea the thousand others that sleep in the bottomless ocean of fancy. The first has an acknowledged value; it is the poetry of everybody. The second lacks any absolute standard of measurement; it takes the proportions of the imagination that it impresses; it may be called the poetry of poets."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Obras_, vol. III, pp. 112-113.]

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:

_¡Dios mío, qué solos Se quedan los muertos!_

His poetry has often been compared to that of Heine, whom he is said to have imitated. Becquer did not in fact read German; but in _El Museo Universal_, for which he was a collaborator, and in which he published his _Rimas_, there appeared one of the first versions of the _Intermezzo_,[1] and it is not unlikely that in imitation of the _Intermezzo_ he was led to string his _Rimas_ like beads upon the connecting thread of a common autobiographical theme. In the seventy-six short poems that compose his _Rimas_, Becquer tells "a swiftly-moving, passionate story of youth, love, treachery, despair, and final submission." "The introductory poems are meant to represent a stage of absorption in the beauty and complexity of the natural world, during which the poet, conscious of his own high, incommunicable gift, by which he sees into the life of things, is conscious of an aimless fever and restlessness which is forever turning delight into weariness."[2]

[Footnote 1: Blanco Garcia, op. cit., p. 86.]

[Footnote 2: Mrs. Ward, _loc. cit._, p. 316.]

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."[1] "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."[2]

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Ward, _loc. cit._, p.319.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, p. 316.]

Whatever Becquer may have owed to Heine, in form or substance, he was no servile imitator. In fact, with the exception of the thirtieth, no one of his _Rimas_ seems to be inspired directly by Heine's _Intermezzo_. The distinguishing note in Heine's verse is sarcasm, while that of Becquer's is pathos. Heine is the greater poet, Becquer, the profounder artist. As Blanco Garcia well points out,[1] the moral inclinations of the two poets were distinct and different also. Becquer's instinct for the supernatural freed him from Heine's skepticism and irreligion; and, though he had suffered much, he never doubted Providence.

[Footnote 1: op. _cit._, p.86.]

The influence of Alfred de Musset may be felt also in Becquer's _Rimas_, particularly in the forty-second and forty-third; but in general, the Spanish poet is "less worldly and less ardent"[1] than the French.

[Footnote 1: Corm, _op. cit._, p. xl.]

The _Rimas_ are written for the most part in assonanced verse. A harmonious rhythm seems to be substituted for the music of the rhyme. The meter, too, is very freely handled. Notwithstanding all this, the melody of Becquer's verse is very sweet, and soon catches and charms even the foreign ear. His _Rimas_ created a school like that inspired by the _Doloras_ of Campoamor. But the extreme simplicity and naturalness of Becquer's expression was difficult to reproduce without falling into the commonplace, and his imitators have for the most part failed.

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.[1]

[Footnote 1: The accentuation and punctuation of the original are preserved. This letter is of particular interest, showing, as it does, the tender solicitude of Becquer for his children, his dire financial straits when a loan of three or four dollars is a godsend, and his hesitation to call upon friends for aid even when in such difficulties. The letter was presented to the writer of this sketch by Don Francisco de Laiglesia, a distinguished Spanish writer and man of public life and an intimate friend of Becquer. Señor de Laiglesia is the owner of the magnificent portrait of Gustavo by Valeriano Becquer, of the beauty of which but a faint idea can be had from the copy of the etching by Maura, which serves as a frontispiece to the present volume.]

Mi muy querido amigo:

Me volvi de esa con el cuidado de los chicos y en efecto parecia anunciarmelo apenas llegue cayó en cama el mas pequeño. Esto se prolonga mas de lo que pensamos y he escrito á Gaspar y á Valera que solo pagó la mitad del importe del cuadro Gaspar he sabido que salio ayer para Aguas Buenas y tardará en recibir mi carta Valera espero enviará ese pico pero suele gastar una calma desesperante en este apuro recurro una vez mas á vd. y aunque me duele abusar tanto de su amistad le ruego que si es posible me envie tres ó cuatro duros para esperar el envio del dinero que aguardamos el cual es seguro pero no sabemos que dia vendrá 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. á su amigo que le quiere

Gustavo Becquer

Espresiones á Pepe Marco S/c Calle de San Ildefonso Toledo. Si le es á 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

Obras de Gustavo A. Becquer. _Quinta edición aumentada con varias poesías y leyendas. Madrid, Librería de Fernando Fé, 1898._ Three volumes.

Historia de los Templos de España, _publicada bajo la protección de SS. MM. AA. y muy reverendos señores arzobispos y obispos--dirigida por D. Juan de la Puerto Vizcaino y D. Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. Tomo I, Madrid, 1857. Imprenta y Estereotipia Española de los Señores Nieto y Campañía._ Becquer is the author of only a portion of this work--see Introduction, p. xx.

La Ilustración 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

Gustave Becquer--Légendes espagnoles. _Traduction de Achille Fouquier, dessins de S. Arcos. Paris, Librairie de Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1885_. French.

Terrible Tales--Spanish. _W. W. Gibbings, London, W. C._ In this collection the following seven out of the twelve tales that it contains are by Becquer,--"The Golden Bracelet," "The Green Eyes," "The Passion Flower," "The White Doe," "Maese Pérez, the Organist," "The Moonbeam," and "The Mountain of Spirits." The translation is often inaccurate.

WORKS OR ARTICLES ON BECQUER

P. Francisco Blanco Garcia. _La Literatura Española en el Siglo XIX, parte segunda, Madrid, 1891_, contains a good criticism of the literary work of Becquer, pp. 79-91, and pp. 274-277.

Narciso Campillo. _Gustavo Adolfo Becquer_ is the title of an excellent article on the Seville poet, by one who knew him well, in _La Ilustración Artística_, Barcelona, December 27, 1886, pp. 358-360. This number (261--Año V) is dedicated to Becquer, and contains many prose articles and much verse relative to him.

Achille Fouquier. _Gustave Becquer, Légendes Espagnoles. Traduction de Achille Fouquier, dessins de S. Arcos. Paris, Firmin-Didot et Cie, 1885,--Avant-Propos_, pp. 1-19. An interesting sketch of Becquer's life and an excellent appreciation of his style.

José Gestoso y Pérez. _Carta á Mr. Achille Fouquier_ is the title of a valuable article in _La Ilustración Artistica_, Barcelona, December 27, 1886, pp. 363-366. This article contains important genealogical matter regarding Becquer, which had not until that time been published.

Eduardo de Lustono. Becquer is the titie of a sketch by this writer, published in _Alrededor del Mundo_, No. 109, July 4, 1901, pp. 11-13, and No. 110, July 11, 1901, pp. 22-23. It is largely a copy of the article by Narciso Campillo, mentioned above, and of the following by Rodriguez Correa.

Ramón Rodriguez Correa. _Prólogo de las Obras de Gustavo A. Becquer. Quinta edición, Madrid, Fernando Fé, 1898_. Vol. I, pp. IX-XLV. This is the principal biography of Becquer and the source of all the others. Its author was Becquer's most intimate friend.

Juan Valera. In _Florilegio de Poesías Castellanas del Siglo XIX, Tomo I, Madrid, Fernando Fé, 1902_, pp. 182-191, may be found an excellent appreciation of the poet by one of the most capable of Spanish critics and a personal friend of Becquer.

P. Restituto del Valle Ruiz, Agustino. In his _Estudios Literarios_, pp. 104-116, there is a chapter devoted to Gustavo A. Becquer, which contains an interesting critique of his poetry.

Mrs. (Mary A.) Humphrey Ward, in _Macmillan's Magazine_, No. 280, February, 1883, pp. 305-320, has an article entitled "A Spanish Romanticist: Gustavo Becquer." This is one of the best articles on Becquer that have been published.

SPANISH PROSODY

The basis for the following remarks on Spanish prosody is, for the most part, E. Benot's _Prosodia Castellana y Versification_, 3 vols., Madrid, 1892. Other works which have been consulted are the _Ortologia y Arte Metrica_ of A. Bello, published in his _Obras Completas_, vol. 4, Madrid, 1890; Rengifo's _Arte Poètica Española_, Barcelona, 1759; J. D. M. Ford's "Notes on Spanish Prosody," in _A Spanish Anthology_, published by Silver, Burdett & Co., 1901; and a _Tratado de Literatura Preceptiva_, by D. Saturnino Milego é Inglada, published at Toledo in 1887.

Spanish versification has nothing to do with the quantity of vowels (whether long or short), 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--

I. A determined number of syllables per line.

II. A rhythmic distribution of the accents in the line.

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

III. Caesural pauses.

IV. Rhyme.

I. SYLLABIFICATION

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 (see A); or they may be the final vowel or vowels of one word and the initial vowel or vowels of a following word or words (see B).

A. _Diphthongization_,--If two contiguous vowels of a single word are pronounced in but one syllable they form a diphthong, e.g. _hu^esped_.

B. _Synalepha_.--If two or more contiguous vowels belonging to two or more words are pronounced in a single syllable, they form synalepha.

Ex. _Yo sé^un himno gigante y^extraño_, p. 164, I, l. 1.