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Page 9
Like most Romanticists, Espronceda was intensely subjective. He
interests by his frank display of his inner moods. Bonilla, in his
illuminating article "El Pensamiento de Espronceda," states that the
four essential points in the philosophy of Romanticism were: doubt,
the first principle of thought; sorrow, the positive reality of life;
pleasure, the world's illusion; death, the negation of the will to live.
Espronceda shared all of these ideas. It is often impossible to say how
much of his suffering is a mere Byronic pose, and how much comes from
the reaction of an intensely sensitive nature to the hard facts of
existence. There is evidence that he never lost the zest of living;
but in his writings he appears as one who has been completely
disillusionized by literature, love, politics, and every experience
of life. Truth is the greatest of evils, because truth is always sad;
"mentira," on the other hand, is merciful and kind. He carries doubt so
far that he doubts his very doubts. Such a philosophy should logically
lead to quietism. That pessimism did not in the case of Espronceda
bring inaction makes one suspect that it was largely affected. There is
nothing profound in this very commonplace philosophy of despair. It is
the conventional attitude of hosts of Romanticists who did little
but re-echo the _Vanitas vanitatum_ of the author of Ecclesiastes.
Espronceda's thought is too shallow to entitle him to rank high as a
philosophic poet. In this respect he is inferior even to Campoamor
and N��ez de Arce. Genuine world-weariness is the outgrowth of a more
complex civilization than that of Spain. Far from being a Leopardi,
Espronceda may nevertheless be considered the leading Spanish exponent
of the _taedium vitae_. He has eloquently expressed this commonplace and
conventional attitude of mind.
Like so many other writers of the Latin race, Espronceda is more
admirable for the form in which he clothed his thoughts than for those
thoughts themselves. He wrote little and carefully. He is remarkable for
his virtuosity, his harmonious handling of the most varied meters. He
never, like Zorrilla, produces the effect of careless improvisation. In
the matter of poetic form Espronceda has been the chief inspiration of
Spanish poets down to the advent of Rub�n Dar�o. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, with
his happy knack of hitting off an author's characteristics in a phrase,
says: "He still stirs us with his elemental force, his resonant musical
potency of phrase, his communicative ardor for noble causes."
Much harm has been done Espronceda's reputation for originality by those
critics who fastened upon him the name of "the Spanish Byron." Nothing
could be more unjust than to consider him the slavish imitator of a
single author. In literature, as in love, there is safety in numbers,
and the writer who was influenced by Calder�n, Tasso, Milton, Goethe,
B�ranger, Hugo, Shakespeare, and Scott was no mere satellite to Byron.
Se�or Cascales is so sensitive on the point that he is scarcely willing
to admit that Byron exerted any influence whatsoever upon Espronceda.
The truth is that Byron did influence Espronceda profoundly, as
Churchman has sufficiently proved by citing many instances of borrowings
from the English poet, where resemblance in matters of detail is wholly
conclusive; but it is another matter to assert that Espronceda was
always Byronic or had no originality of his own.
In considering Espronceda's writings in detail, we need concern
ourselves little with his dramatic and prose writings. The quickest road
to literary celebrity was the writing of a successful play. Espronceda
seems never to have completely relinquished the hope of achieving such a
success. His first attempt was a three-act verse comedy, "Ni el T�o ni
el Sobrino" (1834), written in collaboration with Antonio Ros de Olano.
Larra censured it for its insipidity and lack of plan. A more ambitious
effort was "Amor venga sus agravios" (1838), written in collaboration
with Eugenio Moreno L�pez. This was a five-act costume play, in prose,
portraying the life at the court of Philip IV. It was produced without
regard to expense, but with indifferent success. Espronceda's most
ambitious play was never staged, and has only recently become easily
accessible: this was "Blanca de Borb�n," a historical drama of the times
of Peter the Cruel in five acts, in verse. The first two acts were
written in Espronceda's early Classic manner; the last three, written
at a later period, are Romantic in tone. The influence of "Macbeth" is
apparent. "Blanca de Borb�n" could never be a success on the stage. The
verse, too, is not worthy of the author. Espronceda was too impetuous
a writer to comply with the restrictions of dramatic technique. The
dramatic passages in "El Estudiante de Salamanca" and "El Diablo Mundo"
are his best compositions in dialogue.
"Sancho Salda�a" is Espronceda's most important prose work. It is a
historical novel of the thirteenth century, written frankly in imitation
of Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. The romance contains many tiresome
descriptions of scenery, and drags along tediously as most old-fashioned
novels did. But Espronceda had none of Sir Walter's archaeological
erudition, none of his ability to seize the characteristics of an epoch,
and above all none of his skill as a creator of interesting characters.
The personages in "Sancho Salda�a" fail to interest. The most that can
be said of the work is that among the numerous imitations of Scott's
novels which appeared at the time it is neither the best nor the worst.
Of his shorter prose works only two, "De Gibraltar a Lisboa, viaje
hist�rico" and "Un Recuerdo," are easily accessible. They are vivid
portrayals of certain episodes of his exile, and may still be read
with interest. His most important polemical work is "El Ministerio
Mendiz�bal" (Madrid, 1836). In this screed we find the fiery radical
attacking as unsatisfactory the ultra-liberal Mendiz�bal. This and
shorter political articles interest the historian and the biographer,
but hardly count as literature. His rare attempts at literary criticism
have even less value.
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