A Second Spanish Reader: A Dual-Language Book

A Second Spanish Reader

A Second Spanish Reader

A Dual-Language Book

Edited and Translated by

STANLEY APPELBAUM

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

Mineola, New York

Copyright

Selection, English translations, Preface, and Introduction copyright © 2009 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2009, is a new selection of excerpts from 50 Spanish and Spanish-American authors (reprinted from standard texts) writing between ca. 1540 and ca. 1920 (the original publication dates extend from 1552 to 1922; see Introduction for data on individual authors), together with new English translations by Stanley Appelbaum, who made the selection and wrote the Preface and Introduction.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A second Spanish reader : a dual-language book / edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum.

p. cm.

In English and Spanish.

Summary: A new selection of excerpts from 50 Spanish and Spanish-American authors (reprinted from standard texts) writing between ca. 1540 and ca. 1920.

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-47235-5

ISBN-10: 0-486-47235-3

1. Spanish language—Readers. I. Appelbaum, Stanley.

PC4117.S37 2009

468.6′421—dc22

2009010094

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

47235302

www.doverpublications.com

PREFACE

A Second Spanish Reader is a more advanced follow-up to Dover’s First Spanish Reader (Angel Flores, ed.; 1988; ISBN 0-486-25810-6).

The present volume is comprised of excerpts (with new corresponding translations into English on facing pages) from actual works by fifty different authors, all of them important enough to have entries of their own in the Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature (except for Bolívar, the South American Liberator, who was not a professional writer). Each excerpt is roughly two pages long (per language). Of the fifty authors, seventeen are from Spanish America: four each from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico; two from Cuba; and one each from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. Included are four women and two Nobel laureates.

The Spanish texts, though relatively unchallenging, are left exactly as originally written, except that the spelling has been modernized or regularized wherever necessary. Most of the excerpts are continuous; only in a handful of cases are particularly difficult paragraphs or longer passages omitted, such omissions being indicated by an ellipsis in square brackets: [. . .]. (Such adjuncts as section numbers and headings, epigraphs, footnotes, and stage directions are intentionally left out.) In general, the texts do not involve slang, jargon, archaic vocabulary, technical terms, dialects or languages other than Castilian, or material demanding lengthy explanations; the brief annotations thought desirable have been included in the Introduction, which concisely discusses all fifty authors and works. (This annotation was limited by considerations of space; a basic knowledge of the history and geography involved will come in handy.) Many of the excerpts occur at or near the very beginning of the works from which they are taken; this has two advantages: it avoids explaining plot complications, and openings are often written with particular care. There is no duplication of material already in earlier Dover dual-language books.

To avoid difficulties stemming from older forms of Spanish, the excerpts begin around 1550, the outset of the hundred or so years known as the Golden Age; various major genres and authors of this period are included, such as the three chief playwrights, the pastoral and picaresque novels, the religious meditation, and the report from the New World. Three outstanding exponents of the 18th-century Enlightenment will also be found here. The 19th and early 20th centuries are especially well represented: the major Romantic playwrights and poets; masters of costumbrismo (see no. 16 in the Introduction); several Realist and Naturalist novelists; the poets of modernismo (see no. 41); and the pillars of the Generation of 1898.

Here readers can make or renew their acquaintance with such authors as Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Alarcón, Unamuno, and Darío, and with such works as El buscón, Cartas marruecas, El estudiante de Salamanca, and Santa. They will find plays, lyric and narrative verse, and prose of many kinds: fiction, philosophy, autobiography, and more. There are serious and humorous works—a generous sampling of an extraordinarily diverse and rich literary heritage.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.Las Casas (1474?–1566): / Brevísima relación / Very Brief Report

2.Montemayor (1519?–1561): La Diana / Diana

3.Luis de León (1527?–1591): De los nombres de Cristo / On the Names of Christ

4.Alemán (1547–1615): Guzmán de Alfarache

5.Cervantes (1547–1616): El licenciado Vidriera / The Graduate Vidriera

6.Espinel (1550–1624): Marcos de Obregón

7.Lope de Vega (1562–1635): El mejor alcalde, el rey / The Best Mayor—the King

8.Quevedo (1580–1645): El buscón / The Swindler

9.Tirso de Molina (1583–1648): Los cigarrales de Toledo / The Country Houses of Toledo

10.Calderón (1600–1681): El purgatorio de San Patricio / Saint Patrick’s Purgatory

11.Cadalso (1741–1782): Cartas marruecas / The Moroccan Letters

12.Jovellanos (1744–1811): Espectáculos y diversiones públicas / Shows and Public Entertainments

13.Samaniego (1745–1801): Fábulas / Fables

14.Bolívar (1783–1830): A los pueblos de Venezuela / To the People of Venezuela

15.Duque de Rivas (1791–1865): Don Álvaro

16.Fernán Caballero (1796–1877): La gaviota / The Seagull

17.Heredia (1803–1839): Al retrato de mi madre / To My Mother’s Portrait

18.Mesonero Romanos (1803–1882): Escenas matritenses / Scenes in Madrid

19.Echeverría (1805–1851): El matadero / The Slaughterhouse

20.Hartzenbusch (1806–1880): Los amantes de Teruel / The Lovers of Teruel

21.Espronceda (1808–1842): El estudiante de Salamanca / The Student of Salamanca

22.Sarmiento (1811–1888): Recuerdos de provincia / Provincial Recollections

23.García Gutiérrez (1813–1884): El trovador / The Troubadour

24.Gómez de Avellaneda (1814–1873): Sab

25.Gil y Carrasco (1815–1846): El Señor de Bembibre / The Lord of Bembibre

26.Lastarria (1817–1888): Rosa

27.Zorrilla (1817–1893): A buen juez, mejor testigo / For a Good Judge, a Witness Better Yet

28.Mármol (1817–1871): Amalia

29.Tamayo y Baus (1829–1898): Un drama nuevo / A New Drama

30.Blest Gana (1830–1920): Martín Rivas

31.Alarcón (1833–1891): La mujer alta / The Tall Woman

32.Altamirano (1834–1893): Clemencia

33.Bécquer (1836–1870): Leyendas / Legends

34.Castro (1837–1885): En las orillas del Sar / On the Banks of the Sar

35.Pérez Galdós (1843–1920): El amigo Manso / Our Friend Manso

36.López Portillo (1850–1923): La parcela / The Plot of Land

37.Gutiérrez Nájera (1859–1895): Cuentos frágiles / Fragile Tales

38.Unamuno (1864–1936): Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho / Life of Don Quixote and Sancho

39.Gamboa (1864–1939): Santa

40.Valle-Inclán (1866–1936): Flor de santidad / Flower of Sanctity

41.Darío (1867–1916): Canto a la Argentina / Hymn to Argentina

42.Blasco Ibáñez (1867–1928): Cuentos valencianos / Valencian Stories

43.Baroja (1872–1956): Camino de perfección / On the Way to Perfection

44.Azorín (1873–1967): La voluntad / Willpower

45.Lugones (1874–1938): La guerra gaucha / The Gaucho War

46.Quiroga (1878–1937): El hombre muerto / The Dead Man

47.Jiménez (1881–1958): Segunda antolojía poética / Second Poetic Anthology

48.D’Halmar (1882–1950): En provincia / In the Provinces

49.Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955): El Espectador / The Spectator

50.Mistral (1889–1957): Desolación / Desolation

INTRODUCTION

1. Known as the Apostle of the Indies (the New World), BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS (1474?–1566) was born in Seville, but had become a rancher on Hispaniola (later, Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by 1512. Ten years later he turned to religion, becoming a Dominican friar in 1523, and was finally named bishop of Chiapas in Guatemala. His major work was the Historia de las Indias (begun 1527, left incomplete in 1561), but he is more widely known for his Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Very Brief Report on the Destruction of the Indies; written 1542, published 1552), in which he informs the king of Spain of the genocide carried out by the conquistadores among the aborigines (the work is also one of the earliest appearances of the noble savage theme). The friar’s findings were rejected, and to this day he is often accused of serious exaggeration. Our selection is the entire chapter on Cuba.

2. The greatest pastoral novel in Castilian (emulated by Lope, Cervantes, Sidney, and others) is Los siete libros de la Diana (The Seven Books of Diana; first published 1559?) by the courtier JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR (1519?–1561), who was born near Coimbra in Portugal and moved to Spain around 1543; a sometime chapel chorister and diplomat, he was murdered in Piedmont. Montemayor, who also wrote lyric verse, religious pieces, and translations, based his Diana on classical and Italian Renaissance models. The elegantly though artificially composed book examines the theme of all-conquering love from many angles; Diana, sincerely loved by one shepherd, weds another and becomes unhappy. Our excerpt is the very beginning of Book III, the preamble to one of the major interpolated love stories.

3. Fray (Friar) LUIS DE LEÓN (1527?–1591), born in Cuenca province, Castile, is one of the greatest 16th-century Spanish poets and prose writers. After law studies in Salamanca, he entered the Augustinian order in 1544 and obtained the chair of theology at his alma mater in 1561; from 1572 to 1576 he was confined by the Inquisition for such crimes as criticizing the approved Latin translation of the Bible, but he was later reinstated in his professorship and was named to a high religious post in the year of his death. In De los nombres de Cristo, a dialogue written at least partly while he was jailed, and published in 1583, he meditates on the terms alluding to Christ in the Scriptures, such as The Way, The Shepherd, and The Bridegroom, considering this analysis as a means to understanding His essence even in this life. The author presents his theology in the vernacular, like his great contemporaries Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross. Our excerpt is the very opening of his explanatory preface, addressed to a royal counselor and member of the Inquisition.

4. One of the great Spanish genres in the 17th-century Golden Age (inspired by earlier initiatives) was the picaresque novel, generally a rambling, witty, first-person account of the misdeeds of confidence men and other rogues. Of the three major examples in this Reader, the novel Guzmán de Alfarache (published in two volumes, 1599 and 1604), the true prototype of the developed genre, was written by MATEO ALEMÁN (1547–1615). Born in Seville, he converted from Judaism, studied medicine, was jailed three times, visited Mexico, and ended as a prelate and religious writer. In the novel, Guzmán is a gambler and a thief who makes cynical use of religion but is converted while being punished as a galley slave. Our excerpt is the beginning of chapter VIII, an interpolated tale of Moorish lovers, narrated to Guzmán by a priest encountered on the road. Baza, in Granada province, was reconquered by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1489.

5. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (1547–1616), born in Alcalá de Henares, author of Don Quijote, is generally acclaimed as the greatest Spanish author. The son of a poor surgeon, he became a soldier, was wounded in the famous battle of Lepanto in 1571, was a captive in Algeria from 1575 to 1580, then occupied very minor government posts in Spain; he wrote novels, stories, excellent plays, and also poems. His twelve Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Stories; published 1613) are models of narrative skill. Our excerpt is the very beginning of one of them, El licenciado Vidriera, in which a student and soldier is driven mad by a love charm and thinks he’s made of glass (vidrio); he travels through Spain, dispensing wisdom with impunity in the form of satire, making use of elaborate puns. When he’s cured, no one gives any mind to him and he returns to the army.

6. Another major picaresque novel (though not typical, because the hero is not a rogue but an impoverished minor nobleman) is the Relaciones de la vida del escudero Marcos de Obergón (Story of the Life of the Squire M. de O.; published 1618) by VICENTE MARTÍNEZ DE ESPINEL (1550–1624). Born in Ronda, Espinel was a poet, novelist, and musician who became a soldier after his studies. Marcos’s first masters are Dr. Sagredo and his flirtatious wife Mergelina, who falls in love with a young barber’s assistant and needs Marcos to save her honor. Our excerpt, from early in this elegantly written novel, shows all these characters (Marcos is the I) beginning to interact.

7. LOPE DE VEGA CARPIO (1562–1635), the Phoenix, born in Madrid, besides writing novels and poems, laid the basis for the Spanish drama with a possible 1,500 plays (of the 500 or so that survive, a mere 314 are firmly attributed to him). His madcap existence included university studies; soldiering (he was in the 1588 Armada), a secretaryship to the Duke of Alba, the taking of holy orders, two marriages, and ardent love affairs. The verse play El mejor alcalde, el rey (written between 1620 and 1623; published 1635 in the 21st Part of his plays), one of his best (it is based freely on a medieval chronicle), deals with peasant honor and the supremacy of the monarch over a refractory feudal lord: Don Tello abducts Elvira at her wedding to Sancho; Sancho appeals to the king, who appears in disguise to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. The very opening of the play, which we reprint here, is a pastoral moment singled out for its versification in Lope’s best manner.

8. FRANCISCO GÓMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS (1580–1645), born in Madrid, is one of the glories of the Golden Age, as poet, satirist, moralist, and novelist. A courtier in Valladolid by about 1600, he followed the court to Madrid in 1606 and underwent many vicissitudes of royal favor and disfavor over the years, including both secretaryship to Philip IV and a long prison term for opposing that king’s favorite. Quevedo’s picaresque novel, the most artistic in the genre (written between 1603 and 1614, and published in 1626), Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de Vagamundos, y espejo de Tacaños (History of the Life of the Swindler called Don Pablos, Exemplar of Vagabonds and Mirror of Cheats), concerns a petty thief, son of a pickpocket and a witch, who runs away to serve a rich young man and after innumerable scrapes finally emigrates to the New World. Our excerpt, the very opening, introduces the first-person hero and his parents; it typifies the author’s huge vocabulary from all walks of life and his intricate wordplays, some of which are untranslatable, while others have been paraphrased (or expanded with explanations) in the present English rendering.

9. TIRSO DE MOLINA was the pseudonym of Gabriel Téllez (1583–1648). Born in Madrid, he became a Mercedarian friar about 1600, traveled widely in Spain, Portugal, and the Indies, and settled in Madrid again by 1620. Deemed the third greatest Golden Age playwright (along with Lope and Calderón; Tirso’s play El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra [The Seducer from Seville and the Stone Guest] is the quintessential version of the Don Juan story), he is also known for his cycle of stories Los cigarrales de Toledo (written 1621; published ca. 1624), inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron: friends gather at their country houses and each host provides poems, plays, and tales as entertainment. Our excerpt is the beginning of a story told at the fifth session. The count to whom the three wives appeal promises to award the diamond to the one who plays the best (nonadulterous) trick on her husband; eventually they all share equally in a monetary reward, while the third wife’s trick cures her husband of his jealousy.

10. The greatest pride of the Spanish stage along with Lope (any preference between them being a matter of personal taste) is the less exuberant and more self-controlled PEDRO CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA (1600–1681), among other things the foremost writer of the allegorical religious plays known as autos sacramentales. Born in Madrid, Calderón led a sometimes violent life, soldiering abroad, serving nobility and royalty, and becoming a priest, all the time continuing to write outstanding verse drama. El purgatorio de San Patricio (written before 1629; published 1636 in the First Part of his plays) explains in highly imaginative fashion the origin of Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, a cavern on an island in Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland; pilgrims spending the night in that cavern (the name of which is attested by ca. 1290) could view the afterlife in both hell and heaven. Our excerpt is from the shipwrecked Patrick’s first major speech (29 lines precede those given here, 63 follow) telling the godless king of Ireland (it’s the 5th century) who he is. Later in the extremely complex plot, Patrick converts Ireland, and after the saint’s death the play’s most villainous character (whose physical body Patrick had rescued from the shipwreck at the beginning) now has his soul saved by Patrick after a sojourn in the cavern.

11. JOSÉ CADALSO Y VÁZQUEZ (1741–1782), born in Cádiz, poet and satirist, was one of the major Enlightenment figures of late 18th-century Spain. A soldier from 1762 on, he spent parts of 1773 and 1774 in Salamanca, where he wrote his two major works, the Cartas marruecas and the Noches lúgubres (Funereal Nights; published 1798; sepulchral literature inspired by the English poet Edward Young’s Night Thoughts of the 1740s); Cadalso, now a colonel, was killed during the Spanish siege of Gibraltar, 1779–1783, a vain attempt to recover the island from Britain, its owner since 1713 (in the War of the Spanish Succession). The Cartas were first serialized posthumously in 1789 in the periodical Correo de Madrid, then published in volume form in 1793. The book was inspired by Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes of 1721. The letters are written by three correspondents: the Arab Gazel, a diplomat; Nuño Núñez, his Christian friend; and Ben-Beley, a wise Moor. They satirize the features of Spanish life that Cadalso disliked, as seen through the eyes of a fictional foreigner. Our excerpt is the beginning of letter 3, from Gazel to Ben-Beley.

12. BALTASAR MELCHOR GASPAR MARÍA DE JOVELLANOS (1744–1811), an impoverished nobleman born in Gijón in the Asturias, northern Spain, was the embodiment of the Spanish Enlightenment, writing plays, serious poems, and nonfictional prose that were the best of his time. This statesman and polymath was at various times a judge of criminal cases, an administrator of roads and mines, and (for 1797) Minister of Justice, before becoming a political prisoner on Majorca from 1801 to 1808. He championed reform in economics, education, the law, and, as we shall see, even in entertainment. Our excerpt is from a report he made (and was congratulated on) to the Council of Castile with a view to new legislation. The report, published in 1790 and 1796, was entitled Memoria para el arreglo de la policía de los espectáculos y diversiones públicas, y sobre su origen en España (Memorial for Establishing Control over [government-sponsored] Shows and [spontaneous] Public Entertainments, and On Their Origins in Spain).

13. An author inspired by the fables of Phaedrus, John Gay, and La Fontaine to take a more lighthearted approach to Enlightenment and Encyclopedist reform of education and society was FÉLIX MARÍA SAMANIEGO (1745–1801), born in Laguardia in the Basque country. He began writing his graceful, natural, and intentionally simple fables in verse in 1775, and they were published in two volumes, 1781 and 1784, as Fábulas en verso castellano para el uso del Real Seminario Vascongado (Fables in Castilian Verse for the Use of the Royal Basque Seminary). (He also wrote plays and essays.) Our excerpt is the full narrative part (only the moral at the end is omitted) of fable XVI from the Ninth (last) Book, El ciudadano pastor (The Shepherd from the City). Nise, Mopsus, and Meliboeus are the names of a shepherdess and two shepherds from ancient Latin pastoral poetry.

14. SIMÓN BOLÍVAR (1783–1830), born in Caracas, is the only non-professional writer included here, but his style is educated and graceful. Known as the Liberator from 1813 on, he had traveled as an army officer in Europe and the United States from 1799 to 1807, and had joined the Venezuelan fight for independence in 1810. A decisive victory in 1819 that freed Great Colombia (now Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, and Venezuela) was followed by further successes in 1824 in Peru (Alto Perú became a separate republic in 1825, and was named Bolivia after Bolívar). The hero’s last years as strongman in Great Colombia were soured by disappointments, especially the breaking away of Venezuela. His Documentos were published in 22 volumes between 1826 and 1833. Our excerpt is the beginning of the proclamation A los pueblos de Venezuela, issued in August 1817 from Bolívar’s headquarters in Guayana (southeastern Venezuela). General Manuel Carlos Piar (born 1774) was captured and shot two months later; a mulatto who had injected a racial element into the struggle against Spain, he had been a popular rival of Bolívar and in 1814, working together with General José Félix Ribas (1775–1815), had removed from office Bolívar and his co-regent of Venezuela, General Santiago Mariño (1788–1854).

15. One of the three key plays of the Spanish Romantic era (performed in Madrid in 1835 and an immediate triumph; published 1839) was Don Álvaro, o la fuerza del sino (Don Álvaro; or, The Force of Destiny), source of Verdi’s 1862 opera La forza del destino. Its author was the Córdoba-born poet and playwright Ángel de Saavedra— from 1834 on, the DUQUE (Duke) DE RIVAS—who represents the historic and nationalistic strand of Spanish Romanticism (whereas Espronceda, no. 21, represents the subjective, Byronic strand). A soldier since 1807, Saavedra was in exile from 1823 to 1833, and abandoned his early Neoclassicism under the influence of recent English literature. Don Álvaro, a descendant of the Incas who dreams of restoring their monarchy, accidentally kills the father of Leonor de Vargas while attempting to elope with her; her brother promises to take revenge on both. In our excerpt, Leonor, disguised as a man, prepares to take refuge, as a mysterious hermit, near a monastery in the wilderness.

16. FERNÁN CABALLERO was the masculine pseudonym of Cecilia Boehl von Faber (1796–1877), born in Morges on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and a novelist and costumbrista (writer of costumbrismo, picturesque descriptions of regional or local folkways, a major element in 18th- and 19th-century Spanish literature). Her father was a German Hispanophile who converted to Catholicism, served as a German consul in Cádiz, and became a defender of old Spanish ballads and Golden Age drama at a time when they were unfashionable. After her first husband died, Cecilia wed a wealthy marquess in 1822; on the other hand, her third husband, whom she married in 1837, was not well off and she began publishing her works for profit. The novel La gaviota, which she had originally written in French, ran in a Spanish paper in 1849 and was then published in two volumes in 1856. It recounts the failed marriage of the German immigrant Dr. Stein to the seagull, a fisherman’s daughter, who leaves him to become a singer; when her voice goes, she is reduced to marrying a barber; the novel includes many scenes of Andalusian life. Our excerpt is its very opening, which introduces Dr. Stein (toward the end of the extract).

17. The Cuban poet JOSÉ MARÍA HEREDIA (1803–1839), living symbol of exile for love of country, a wanderer over the earth, and a worshipper of Nature, has been called the first Romantic to write in Spanish. Born in Santiago and trained to the law, between 1823 and his early death from tuberculosis he spent only three months in Cuba (his chief field of activity was Mexico). Writing verse since childhood, he published volumes of collected poems in 1825 (in New York) and 1832; posthumous editions followed in 1852, 1875, and 1892. Our excerpt is the beginning and largest part (there are 24 more lines) of Al retrato de mi madre, written in 1835. Heredia also wrote stories, essays, plays, and translations.

18. RAMÓN DE MESONERO ROMANOS (1803–1882), born in Madrid, celebrated the folkways of his beloved city in largely satirical costumbrismo pieces (see no. 16), reaching a new level of maturity and humorous observation. His acknowledged masterpiece was the series Escenas matritenses, published in four volumes in 1842. He wrote in the purest and most savory Castilian, using a plain style in order to reach the general public. Our excerpt from the Escenas, part of the essay El romanticismo y los románticos, shows to what depths bourgeoisie-flouting Romanticism could descend among its less gifted adherents (and the perpetual infatuation of the young for new fads).

19. ESTEBAN ECHEVERRÍA (1805–1851), a novelist, poet, and essayist, has been called the most important figure of Spanish-American Romanticism; and his allegorical, antidictatorial story El matadero, the first masterpiece of Argentine literature. Written ca. 1838, while the author was safely in Uruguay, the story was published in 1871. Echeverría was a firm opponent of the political strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877; dictator of Argentina, 1842 to 1852—he had formerly been governor of Buenos Aires), ironically referred to in the story by his designation the Restorer (of law and order). The two political parties referred to developed after Argentina had won her independence; originally, the Centralists wanted all power to emanate from Buenos Aires, whereas the Federalists (Rosas’s conquering party) stood for states’ rights and a (cynical) populism (hence the support for Rosas shown by the mob in the story). The May Revolution, alluded to ironically, was that of 1810, the beginning of the independence movement.

20. Another major Spanish Romantic play is the 1837 Los amantes de Teruel, an immediate hit and the only really successful play by JUAN EUGENIO HARTZENBUSCH (1806–1880), born in Madrid, who also wrote stories and verse and edited periodicals and literary texts. The son of a German cabinetmaker, he had to practice his father’s craft when impoverished by the reactionary government in 1823. His first play dates to 1831. In 1862 he became director of the Biblioteca Nacional, retiring in 1875. Our excerpt from his great play is the very opening (the legend of the lovers is based on a Boccaccio story that had already inspired others, including Tirso de Molina): Diego, staunchly in love with Isabel back home in Aragon, has been captured while fighting the Moors in Valencia to earn enough money to marry; later, the Moorish queen who loves him tells Isabel he’s dead; Isabel marries his rival and both lovers die of sorrow. The action takes place in the year 1217.

21. JOSÉ DE ESPRONCEDA (1808–1842), born in the Extremadura region, was the major poet of the second generation of Spanish Romantics. Beginning revolutionary activity at an early age, he suffered various banishments. After sojourns in Portugal and England, he was a freedom fighter in the Netherlands in 1828, and during the Parisian uprising of 1830. Back in Spain when it was safer, he joined left-wing and republican parties. His love life was equally tempestuous. Espronceda’s literary reputation was made with the narrative poem El estudiante de Salamanca (published in two parts, 1836 and 1837). The Don-Juan–like main character, who has seduced a woman and killed her brother, eventually follows a mysterious woman to what proves to be his own funeral. Our excerpt is the atmospheric opening of this verse legend. The Byronic Espronceda also wrote plays and prose.

22. DOMINGO FAUSTINO SARMIENTO (1811–1888), born in San Juan, Argentina, had to live in exile in 1828, 1831–1836, and 1840–1851; from 1846 to 1848 he traveled in Europe, Africa, and the United States; back home, he eventually became president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874 (he had already been a newspaper publisher, law professor, and eminent politician). His