Poets, Spanish; Spanish poetry -- History and criticism; Spanish poetry -- Translations into English
Ferrer del Rio says of him, “that he has cultivated a style so much his
own, that at the first few verses of one of his works, the spectators
cry out his name from all parts. Originality is thus one of the
qualities that recommend him. He tyrannizes over the public, obliging
them to cast away ill-humour, and laugh against their will from the
time the curtain rises till the representation ends, and this the
same whether in the comedies they applaud, or those they disapprove.
He is consequently mirthful and witty in the extreme, and no one
can dispute the palm with him under this consideration. None of his
scenes fatigue from weariness; none of his verses fail of fullness and
harmony; they do not appear made one after another, but at one blow,
and as by enchantment. Thus all hail him as a perfect versifier and
easy colloquist. Infinite are the matters he has introduced in his
comedies, multiplied the characters sketched by his pen, innumerable
the situations imagined, and undoubtedly there is due to him the
well-founded ascription of a fertile genius. Originality, wit, easy
dialogue, sonorous versification, an inexhaustible vein, would not be
sufficient to form a good comic writer of manners without the criterion
of observation, fit for filling up his pictures with exactness. This
criterion also he possesses in a high degree.”
High as is this encomium, the writer says of him further, that if it
were decreed by Providence that a new race of barbarians should overrun
Spain, destroying libraries and other depositaries of human knowledge,
yet the name of Breton de los Herreros would survive the disaster,
and some vestige of his comedies would remain. “Histories, books of
learning, works of legislation, science, philosophy and politics are,
no doubt, more profound than his comedies, though from their peculiar
nature not so popular. Thus what we have said is to be understood as
a means of distinguishing between writings which, that they may not
perish in the course of ages, require studious men to adopt them for
a test, and learned men to illustrate them by their commentaries,
and those compositions that, to succeed in obtaining the honours of
immortality, require only a people to recite and transmit them verbally
from father to son. The name of Breton may become traditional in Spain,
that of other celebrated writers will belong to history.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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