Moral Phraseology in Early Spanish Literature
John H. R. Polt
University of California, Berkeley
In a recent stylistic study1, Richard Glasser explores the development in the major Western Romance languages of a phraseology expressing man's relationship to moral abstractions. «Es gibt», he writes, «zwei Grundformen, in denen die persönlich gedachte Beziehung des Menschen zu einem abstrakten Begriff in der Sprache auftritt» (7). These basic types, capable of modifications, are abstractum agens and homo reagens. The former, not uncommon in the Middle Ages, portrays the impact of an abstraction on man as something outside his responsibility or power to prevent; the latter, a product chiefly of the early Italian Renaissance, envisages the abstraction as the original aggressor but introduces the possibility or actuality of man's resistance to its attack (7-8, 93, 100). Glasser holds that this second and more sophisticated stylistic form, as well as the philosophical concept underlying it, exists in classical Latin authors; that its spread in the modern literatures stems from the «rediscovery» of the classics by the Italians of the early Renaissance; that it is therefore rare in medieval writings, from whose allegorical formations it must be distinguished (8, 93).
In general, Glasser's work is richly documented; but his list of quoted sources invites the following rough comparisons:
This imbalance in the Spanish examples makes the stylistic distinction between medieval and Renaissance literatures suspiciously neat, since it allows Glasser to study the varieties of homo reagens in Boccaccio, Petrarch, etc., and then in much later Spanish authors such as Garcilaso, Lope, and Calderón. The present article seeks to amplify Glasser's observations by examining additional Spanish authors prior to 15002, with a view to a more precise delimitation of the stylistic uses of action and reaction.
The Cid yields at least one abstractum agens in: «Mucho nos afinca el que Valençia gañó, / quando de nuestros averes, assíl prende sabor» (3221-22); but the formation is infrequent. Man's invulnerability to the attacks of abstractions is expressed with the aid of por: «que por miedo de los moros non dexen nada» (448; cf. 1021, 1080, 3027, 3084); but, as Glasser indicates (24), such prepositional constructions imply no clearly personalized abstraction incapable of swaying the individual (abstractum impotens)3. Not surprisingly, the homo reagens, involving a higher degree of personalization, is almost absent from the Poema. Opposition to abstractions is left to God: «Dios vos curie de mal» (1396; cf. 1407, 1410). The same verb, however, may be used more personally: «nos [no se] curiava de fonta mio Çid el Campeador» (2569). This negative reaction, closely approaching homo reagens, seems to be unique. Corroborating Glasser's findings, this earliest literary text shows a scarcity, almost a total lack, of personified abstractions in contact with man. Although the Cid faces moral problems, he operates with tangible facts, not with abstractions, lending stylistic support to the Poem's «realism».
For our purposes, the Razón de amor yields a negative result; and the Auto de los Reyes Magos employs only the formula already noted in the Cid: «Dios te curie de mal» (74); «Dios te de longa uita i te curie de mal» (76).
Berceo, however, allots abstractions a more important rôle. Besides conventional uses of mover (Milagros, 254c, 335b; Domingo, 377c), we find vivid military terms with abstractum agens: «¡Sos peccados tovieronli una mala celada!» (Milagros, 440d; cf. 590c); «Venciólo so locura e mueda del peccado» (727b); «matóme mi locura» (753b). Abstractum impotens is also represented, though at times involving quasi-abstractions:
|
| (Domingo, 250a-c) | ||
|
| (Millán, 50; in MS A lines b and c are reversed) | ||
Catalogues of impotentia (second example above), commoner in the Renaissance, are abundantly documented for that period by Glasser, who draws his first Spanish abstractum impotens from Garcilaso (16). Characteristically mixing the supernatural with the military, Berceo exclaims: «Señor [St. Dominic], tu nos ayuda que seamos barones, / que uençer non nos puedan las malas temptaciones» (Domingo, 763cd). The abstraction is here rendered powerless by supernatural intervention. Such protection is often invoked, most vividly in: «Señor, tu me defendi de colpe del peccado, / que de la su saeta non me uea colpado» (ibid., 761cd; cf. 494d and Milagros, 499b); «que la error amate, la caridat ençienda» (Domingo, 774b). One abstraction confronts another in: «la Tu mjsericordia uença al mj peccado» (ibid., 651d).
Human reaction, however, is also possible:
A forceful verb of acceptance dominates «Cogieron en sus almas maior devoción» (Milagros, 305b) and «Cogieron muchos miedo de fazer tal peccado» (410c). Military imagery reappears in this expression of invincibility:
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| (Millán, 123; cf. Domingo, 768-769) | ||
We learn that Teófilo «non amava contienda, / Bien sabie a sus carnes ["lust"] tenerlas so su rienda» (Milagros, 705cd) -our earliest Spanish example of metaphoric reining-in (see Glasser, 65). Similar instances of checking and mastery are «prendia el omne bueno de sus carnes derecho» (Domingo, 68b) and, negatively, «Non podien a la cuita poner nulla medida» (Millán, 385c). Abstractions are thus more frequent in Berceo than in the Cid; and the poet's stylistic resources, still limited, are considerably livelier and more varied. A picturesque visualization of a psychological concept will further illustrate this trend: «Non levava de miedo la voluntat vazia» («he was afraid», Milagros, 292b).
In the Fernán González the prevailing type of reaction is again avoidance or protection: «"Todavyas" guardaron de malfecho fazer» (213a); «El uiçioso e el lazrado amos an de moryr, / el vno nin el otrro non lo puede foyr» (349ab). The more forceful reaction of combat is represented by «los vnos e los otros fyrme mientre lidiavan, / navarros con la muerte lidiavan e lazravan» (311cd). Most interesting is an early example of lasciarsi vincere (see Glasser, 34-37), a modernized abstractum agens rare in the Middle Ages and gaining currency only in 16th-century Italy4. The 13th-century Spanish poem clearly presents this form: «Quiero contrra el conde vna cosa fazer, / al su fuerte amor dexar me yo vençer» (627ab).
The Alexandre has a fair representation of abstracta agentia and several examples of abstractum impotens; the clearest is «non los podie vençer frio njn calentura» (1732d), reminiscent of Berceo (Millán, 50, see above). Most characteristic here is the frequent use of vençer:
The commonest form of homo reagens is again that of avoidance: «non te prenga cobdiçia» (62b, 82b); «mas la mala ventura non la podie rredrar» ( 1326d; the subject is Darius); constructions with guardar (53d, 2395ab), estorçer (72a), perder (103a, 678a), aver dubda (1826a). In addition, one finds the familiar «Dios te curie de mal» (455d). The Alexandre also repeats the concept of restraining, familiar from Berceo: «rrefirio los sospiros» ( 1441b, P; O: «arredro los sospiros»); «que son fado e viento malos de rretener» (2213d); «su lengua rrefrenar» (2321c).
Figurative vencer (by and large «to excel») appears fairly often in the Alfonsine General estoria. An examination of two hundred chapters discloses these typical examples: «e uencie en este saber a todos los omnes daquella sazon» (I, 202a; cf. II, 68b); «por su bondad uençrie atodos los omnes de su tiempo» (I, 292ab; cf. 205a). More closely related to the impact of abstractions are: «e uenciera el amor a la uerguença» (I, 159a) and «Uençudo fue el rey Pandion por los afincados ruegos del rey Thereo e de Philomena» (II, 248a). The chapters examined yield only one abstractum impotens, of the catalogue variety:
| (II, 250a) | ||
In this and the preceding example, Ovidian constructions are preserved (Met., vi, 483, 534-536); but such is not always the case: «yo non catare la tu fonta nin la tu uerguença e dire los tus fechos» ( III, 250b; cf. «ipsa pudore / proiecto tua facta loquar», vi, 544-545).
Homo reagens appears in only a few instances of avoidance:
Similar is «oluidar...la crueleza» (I, 3006). The action of man against an abstraction, albeit an abstraction affecting someone else, is instanced by tirar a alguno de sanna (I, 302a, 3026; II, 596). Though the General estoria slightly postdates both poems just discussed, the concept of man in conflict with an abstraction is less frequent here; examples are as scarce in chapters based on classical sources as in those of biblical inspiration.
As we enter the 14th century, El cauallero Zifar, though quite medieval in subject and form, displays a relative profusion of homo reagens, including the mere adoption of an attitude («el que non teme la muerte» [116]) and forms of avoidance with guardar (135), esquiuar (242), and fuyr. Man and abstraction clearly interact in:
| (113) | ||
Vigorous reactions enliven the following examples:
The last example plays with an etymologically sharpened alternative. Self-domination appears in: «"Çertas", dixo el cauallero, "mientras que ouiere paçiençia e alegria, bien abre poder en mi; e crey que aquel non es poderoso el que non ha poder en sy"» (111-112; cf. 324). Perhaps Cicero inspired the stylistic richness of the following passage:
| (303; cf. 270, 297, quotations from the 13th-century Flores de filosofía) | ||
The alternative formulation «abstractum agens or homo reagens» which Glasser (154-155) illustrates with examples from Lope, Calderón, and Gracián, also appears in the Zifar some three hundred years earlier:
These clear conceptions of the power of abstractions and of man's ability to resist represent, stylistically and geistesgeschichtlich, a notable advance over the earlier medieval examples5.
In another 14th-century narrative, the Conde Lucanor, the clearest and most picturesque instance of homo reagens is:
| (pp. 277-278; see also 23, 265) | ||
More frequent, however, are expressions of avoidance, involving the verbs guardar (13, 42, 247, 266, 280), escusar (10, 172, 269), salir (12), dexar (37), foyr (115, 259), and escapar (222). Juan Manuel often uses the relatively weak prepositional construction to indicate the power of abstractions or man's resistance. Thus we find: «Por verguença faze omne bien sin arte» (240; cf. 233, 238, 256); conversely, «por miedo de la muerte non dexaria de lo guardar» (134; cf. 18, 45, 55, 169, 217); and the more complex, alternatively structured «Por rriqueza nin pobreza nin buena andança nin contraria non deve omne partirse del amor de Dios» (254; cf. 54, 67, 165, 167, 218). These features also mark the author's earlier Libro de los estados. Here again we find «esto fizo el rey por grant amor que vos ha» (285b) and «nin los deve dexar de fazer por trabajo nin por peligro nin por miedo» (311a; cf. 301b, 308b). Similarly, expressions of avoidance abound (286a, 321b, 327a, 334b, 345a, 366a) with the same verbs employed in the Conde Lucanor, also perder (286b, 317a, 326b), partirse (327b, 352b, 367a), and sacar (348a). Examples of relatively sophisticated word-play involving vencer include: «por la su muerte eran la muerte e el diablo vencidos» (354a) and «cómo por esfuerço se vencen muchas lides de pocos a muchos, e por flaqueza de coraçón e desmayo son muchas vezes vencidos los muchos» (321b). The concept of battle pervades «deven lidiar con el diablo e con el mundo e consigo mismos» (344b); and domination underlies the following passage, in which lasciarsi vincere also appears:
| (287a) | ||
Glasser (114) finds in Juan Ruiz three examples of señor de sí, none of them used in a moral sense; but this does not exhaust the possibilities. Apart from divine intervention and the struggle against such completely personified abstractions as Amor, Ruiz permits one abstraction to conquer another: «Dios e el trabajo grande pueden los fados vençer» (692d; cf. 160c, 452d, 611d, 793d). Human reactions of avoidance and rejection transpire in guardar (67c, 904b, 909c, 1154a), dexar (1452a), escusar (706c), estorçer (793b), and partir (580c). The idea of keeping the abstract enemy in check leads to «ligeramente podremos a la loxuria rrefrenar» (1592a). Expressions of combat are numerous:
Examples are easily multiplied (see 1583-84, 1598); but does one always know whether loxuria, avariçia, etc., are personified abstractions or true persons in an allegorical scheme? The latter is certainly the case with amor, «un ome grande, fermoso, mesurado» (181c).
Strength to withstand possible attacks by (abstract) temptations, as in «en el buen dezir sea ome firme e verdadero» (419d), is metaphorized as a tower or fortress (see Glasser, 54-55): «torre alta desque tyenbla non ay synon caer: / la muger que esta dubdando lygera es de aver» (642cd). Finally, an alternative in the sense suggested above prevails in «acabad vuestros desseos, matan uos como a enemigo» (858, MS G).
The commonest abstractions in Ruiz are love (usually personified), the mortal sins, and the virtues which counteract them. The imagery, largely that of combat, tends to become so vivid that it lacks abstract content, as in the battle between Don Carnal and Doña Quaresma.
Ruiz's contemporary and counterpart, Sem Tob, shows, stylistically, extreme conservatism. In his Proverbios one abstraction is apt to oppose another: «Mesura que leuanta / Sympleza e cordura, / E poder que quebranta / Soberuia e locura» (719). Vencer, however, means only «to excel» (20); and the closest approach to abstractum impotens is «Non cumple gran saber / A los que Dios non temen» (104). Yet here it is not human resistance that renders the abstraction impotent. Reaction is limited to avoidance, expressed by dexar (241), catarse (722 var. E), and especially guardar (152, 428, 456) -the favorite with more than one author. Fearlessness is the strongest reaction: «El que non tyene nada, / Non rreçela perder» (416).
By contrast, Pero López de Ayala, half a century later, offers considerable variety in treating of man's relation to abstractions; his Rimado contains several of Glasser's categories. The medieval vividness that creates allegory in Ruiz and in the Alexandre is now lost; man meets the abstractions on their own ground rather than letting them take human form to assault him. He calls on God to deliver him (35bc, 126d, 421cd, 1063b, 1358d, 1540ab), but can also defend himself: «Por ende sienpre te vela, non te engañen tales fadas» (383d; cf. 1618). Therefore, if man is overcome, his own will may be at fault (lasciarsi vincere): «La vista es comienço para ome perder: / Por ende bien te cata, non te dexes vençer» (1206cd). Reactions range from whole-hearted acceptance -«quien justiçia puede amar» (371a)- to avoidance: partir(se) (703d, 958d, 1123ab), esquiuar (71d, 73c), fuyr (958c), with partir also functioning as a transitive verb, so that man not only avoids the abstraction but repels it: «el mal dolor / Pueda de sy partir» (E 1622cd); «Tome en mi conorte, e fuy de mi partir / Grant parte del enojo que me fazia morir» ( 745cd; E 759cd: «e fuy departir / Grant partida del enojo»). Rival expressions of strong reaction:
The concept of restraint, as in: «Ca en quanto la gula vn poco es rrestrenida, / Por que la grant luxuria sea bien abatida» (E 1745ab), is extended to self-mastery: «Por ende tu te deues en tal caso tenprar» (655a) and «Otrosi es nesçesario al que ha de gouernar, / Que sepa bien primero a sy mesmo emendar» (1287ab; cf. Zifar, p. 303, quoted above). Conquest is frequent both with abstractum agens -«Qual quier tentaçion nos vençe» (E 1608d)- and with homo reagens: «qual quier que fuer vençedor /De las malas tentaçiones» (E 1622ab); «Mas con la su fortaleza vençio las tribulaçiones» (390d); «vençer / Pecado de adulterio» (1579bc). Two examples of invincibility (invictus): «Nin por ser asy tentados dellas [temptations] non se vençieron» (E 1912c); «Pero con todo esto la firmeza conplida / De aqueste santo Job non pudo ser vençida» (1273ab). Man conquered by an abstraction becomes its vassal: «e la yra con mal tiento del ome se enseñoreo» (1620d; cf. 1344).
Similar variety marks the slightly later Corbacho. Here man rejects or avoids abstractions:
Human beings act as aggressors in this unkind but picturesque remark about women: «Jugando van con su entendimiento a la pelota» (45v).
Verbs of resistance and restraint become frequent:
Negatively, this image appears as «apetito desfrrenado» (26v; cf. 6r). As an example of stubborn resistance, evoking the ideal of invincibility, Martínez describes a drowning woman continuing an argument with fingers gesturing above the water: «E luego començo a çabullirse so el agua, e vinosele [en] miente que non dexaria su porfia avnque fuese afogada: ¡muerta sy, mas non vencida!» (49v).
Mastery and domination are especially well represented in the Corbacho:
Various reactions combine in this fully orchestrated passage:
| (12v) | ||
The Marqués de Santillana's brief circumstantial poems include few if any noteworthy passages, but his more ambitious works offer a relative abundance. Abstractum impotens appears in parallel constructions:
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Nin tanto logar avra el nuçible apetito, nin la çiega saña, que tales e tan grandes aldabadas e vozes de serviçios sus orejas non despierten |
| (Bias contra Fortuna, «Prohemio», p. 476); | ||
|
| (La Comedieta de Ponça, 17) | ||
Avoidance is expressed by fuyr (Proverbios, 23, 42, 43; Comedieta, 18, 29, 116; Bias, 137, 146, 167); dexar (Bias, 141); and, more vigorously, aborrescer (Proverbios, 21, 58). Posponer shows rejection in these ablative absolute constructions: «pospuesto todo amor / e sentimiento» (Proverbios, 26); «pospuesto el espanto», «pospuesto temor» (Comedieta, 70, 74); «pospuesta cura de todos ofiçios» (Sonetos, p. 523a). The opposite also appears: «Antepon la libertad / batallosa / a servitud vergonçosa» (Proverbios, 55). Other forms of reaction:
The reaction may be expressed by a noun: «cruel adverssario de torpe avariçia» (Comedieta, 25); victory, by triunphar: «Tu, virgen [St. Clara], triunphas del triunpho, triunphante» (Sonetos, p. 525b), but more usually it is conveyed by vençer: «vençio la pereza con esta cobdiçia [of virtues]» (Comedieta, 26); «vençer las passiones de humanidad» (41; cf. Proverbios, 42). The concept of invictus, the man unshakable in his resistance to abstractions, appears several times
Bias, arguing with Fortuna, personifies this Stoic attitude, which, along with the Fortuna concept, Santillana derives from the Romans (Bias, «Prohemio» and 40, 93). Resistance here results from a virtud synonymous with «viril extremidad» («Prohemio»; cf. 117).
Beside these varieties of human resistance, Santillana employs a construction which Glasser, identifying it in Montaigne (141), calls abstractum reagens: «Sea tal engaño / lexos de nos e fuyga toda via» (Sonetos, p. 524a); «O gente desacordada, / cuya fama se destruye, / e de quien vergueña fuye / e virtud es separada» (El sueño, 62).
Juan de Mena is quoted by Glasser (73) to illustrate the use of fuyr (Laberinto, 107). This passing mention hardly does justice to the poet's inventiveness. He also expresses avoidance with the relatively original perder (ibid., 133) and desechar (Coplas... contra los pecados mortales, p. 132b); fuyr itself marks a passage which exploits the juxtaposition of figurative and literal meanings: «fuyendo non fuye la muerte el couarde / que mas a los viles es sienpre llegada» (Laberinto, 149; cf. above Zifar, p. 113). Conquest, as in the familiar vençer: «la muy casta dueña de manos crueles, / dina corona de los Coroneles, / que quiso con fuego vençer sus fogueras» (Laberinto, 79; cf. 90, 106), can also be juxtaposed with its literal meaning: «auiltado vencimiento, / abto disforme, escondido, / do el vencedor es vencido» (Coplas, 130b). Destruction and extinction pervade «e los viles actos del libidinoso / fuego de Venus del todo se maten» (Laberinto, 114); «Es la prudençia çiençia que mata / los torpes deseos de la voluntad / ... / destroça los viçios, el mal desbarata» (137). Taming of appetites and other abstractions calls for domar: «doma el brio», «ni tus apetitos domas» (Coplas, pp. 124b, 126a); «domar los sus viçios» (Laberinto, 76). The instrument of taming appears in the description of Don Álvaro de Luna as one who «caualga sobre la Fortuna / e doma su cuello con asperas riendas» (235). Luna is also called «de la Fortuna jamas ["always"] vencedor» (236). Personified Reason applies reins to herself: «Con paciencia muy prudente / la Razon se refreno» (Coplas, 132a). More picturesque expressions permeate this passage:
|
| (Laberinto, 84) | ||
After telling how Fortuna failed to overthrow Luna, plena depicts her as contented with a sop and now willing to live in peace with the Constable: «La çiega Fortuna, que auia de vos fanbre, / farta la dexa la forma de aranbre» (267).
Alternatives and repetition heighten the effect of these instances of homo reagens: «Sabed al amor desamar, amadores» (106); «presuma de vos e de mi la Fortuna, / non que nos fuerça, mas que la forçamos» (173). Among other expressions of invincibility (28, 183, 193, 213), we find Luna described as «mas duro... que robre» in resisting Fortune (265; Glasser's earliest Spanish example [55-56] is from Lope). Man's unshakable superiority over abstractions can turn these into their opposites:
| (Mena's «Proemio» to Luna, Virtuosas é claras mujeres, pp. 7-5) | ||
By comparison, Jorge Manrique is stylistically conservative. His poems A la Fortuna and Quexándose del Dios de Amor... present genuine personifications in the medieval allegorical tradition, not properly instances of homo reagens. His Cancionero as a whole, however, contains several cases of abstractum impotens: «¿Qué dolor puede dezir / Ventura que m'a de dar, / que no lo pueda sofrir?» (1042-44; cf. 267-272, 412, 421, 1052-56). Castillo d'Amor opens with a similar expression of the helplessness of oluidança and continues with nine more strophes describing the defenses of the Castle of Love. Homo reagens and lasciarsi vincere jointly inform: «Amansa tu turbación, / recoge tu seso un poco, / no quieras dar ocasión / a tu gran alteración / que te pueda tornar loco» (51-55). The torments of love are portrayed as a battle within the self: «esta fuerte pelea / que yo comigo peleo» (1494-95; cf. 1455-56, 1549-50). An alternative construction repeats the popular pairing of victory and defeat: «Es victoria conoscida / quien de vos queda vencido, / qu'en perder por vos la vida / es ganado lo perdido» (1429-32).
Neither are Fernán Pérez de Guzmán's Generaciones y semblanzas rich in the types studied by Glasser. As in Ruiz, abstractions here oppose one another: «a Castilla posee oy e la enseñorea el interese, lançando della la virtud e humanidat» (p. 107; cf. 34). An instance of human reaction: «Çiertamente natura ha grant poder e es muy difiçil e graue la resistençia a ella sin graçia espeçial de Dios» (100). The alternative construction is not unknown: «el rey era mas para seer rigido que rigidor» (142), «Yo aterraua los rreyes, / a mi la muerte me atierra; / a mi, que a todos mataua, / muerte me mata e sotierra» (Mar de historias, p. 152). Here abstractions play only a limited rôle; characteristically, the alternative to abstractum agens is not homo reagens.
This stylistic poverty -for our special purpose- disappears when Pérez de Guzmán adapts the Latin of Diego de Campos (early 13th century) in a passage containing «e podra vençer e sobrar los deseos de la carne» and explaining that certain prayers tame pride, pacify anger, restrain lust, etc. (Mar de historias, 191). An excellent example of abstractum impotens stems from Petrarch:
| (Mar de historias, 201) | ||
Concepts and elaborate parallel cadences alike are alien to Pérez de Guzmán's normal style.
Toward the end of the century, the constructions at issue gain in frequency. This is particularly noticeable when we compare Fernando del Pulgar with Pérez de Guzmán. Pulgar's Letras, written before 1484, contain more examples of homo reagens than the entire Generaciones y semblanzas, and in greater variety. Here we find expressions of resistance, such as that applied to Queen Isabel, «a quien todos los negocios deste reino e los suyos propios en tan poco despacio, a manera de tormenta arrebatada concurrieron, e los sufrió con igual cara» (Letra v, p. 24); expressions of flight: «huír de vida torpe» (XIII, 61); of checking: «cuando me refreno de algunos vicios» (XXIII, 109; cf. also 96 and XVI, 71-72, 77; Glosa a las «Coplas de Mingo Revulgo», pp. 147, 175, 186, 195); of rejection: «sacudir los malos pensamientos» (XXIII, 93); and of victory: «ni sopiste repugnar las tentaciones que se vencen peleando, ni la luxuria que se vence huyendo» (IV, 22; cf. XXIII, 92, 99). Man's firm resistance renders the abstractions powerless: «ni el amor de la vida ni el temor de la muerte le corronpe para fazer cosa que no deua» (XIII, 61).
Similar parallel constructions express abstractum impotens in Pulgar's Claros varones (princeps 1486):
His heroes are unconquerable («con ánimo no vencido le respondió» [75; cf. 24, 44, 46]), reflecting the Stoic ideal so elegantly exemplified by his description of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Conde de Alba:
| (50-51) | ||
The binary parallelism stresses the Count's position between two alternatives.
Heroic attitudes are variously formulated by Pulgar:
This abundance is but one feature of his style, a trait which, with parallelisms, careful subordination of clauses, and periodic sentence structure, differentiates him from Pérez de Guzmán and other earlier prose writers.
A like sophistication marks the works of Pulgar's contemporary, Diego de San Pedro, the last author on our list. Curiously enough, his Tratado de amores (1491) is richer than the Cárcel de Amor (1492) in relevant constructions, besides exhibiting a generally more elaborate and Latinized style. In the Tratado, abstractions are powerless to overcome virtue: «O muerte que non me atierra» (p. 84); «La bondad conoscida ofensa ninguna rescebir puede» (94). If man is vanquished, it may be by his own consent: «Me espanto como consentir puedes que la fuerça de tu esfuerço de tan grand flaqueza esté sojuzgada» (44). Hostile abstractions can be soothed or deceived: «Quiere [imper.] agora tu dolor en sosiego poner» (93; cf. 26); «con el olvido deues contemplar el amor y con las apariencias engañarlo» (45). Failing this, man must try to avoid them: «despidiendo los miedos» (1); «despidiéndome del miedo» (10). Conversely, one does not flee from truth (11-12). Where neither appeasement nor flight avails, more forceful reactions are called for:
Abstractions, in turn, are also capable of checking: «Pero ya tú vees que para su remedio buscar quanto mi bondad refrena, tanto su dolor me aguija» (47) -a passage, incidentally, which shows the literal meaning of refrenar fully present in the author's mind. More picturesquely, «si del reués tus desseos non buelues» (26); «es mi consejo cerrarles [a los lloros] la puerta y non abrirles la voluntad» (39-40); «mi enemigo será el descanso» (37). The outcome is indicated by vencer or vencido (14, 21, 37, 41, 53, 63), while weakness is metaphorized in: «Y después que ya de mí despedido fuí, con mis pensamientos el nauío de mis passiones a remar comencé» (30; see Glasser, 59).
The Cárcel offers, in comparison, a meager harvest -because of its tendency to allegorize? Once again, the ideal is resistance: «pudo Amor prender tu libertad y no tu virtud» (p. 125). Fortune is an object of contempt (138), and death is feared less than guilt (205). Among other expressions of rejection and avoidance are «esquiuamos la pesadunbre» (199) and «huyr los plazeres» (132). There are various degrees of domination: «tenplar tu sentimento» (126), «refrenan la yra y aplacan la saña» (198; the subject is women's advice); «forçaste tu voluntad» (125); «forçada mi fortuna» (119), as against «mostráuase amigo de los dolores, recreaua con los tormentos, amaua las tristezas» (189). Finally, the novel's unfortunate hero states his situation in terms of the interplay of man and abstractions:
| (122) | ||
In choosing all the examples, we have tried to distinguish between human reaction to abstractions on an abstract level and human conflict with abstractions which are themselves personified in allegories, as in Ruiz and in the Alexandre. In general, our admittedly tentative explorations show Glasser's major stylistic formations, and also their variants, well represented in early Spanish literature. The writers examined here in approximately chronological order lie between two poles. At one extreme we -land the earliest authors, in whom formations admitting possibility of human reaction appear only sporadically; at the other, those of the late 15th century, in whore they are habitual. Their frequency increases as we approach the Renaissance; but one cannot identify any specific event, such as the introduction of Italian meters, as the starting point of this increase. Between the polar extremes, and ranging from the Zifar to Jorge Manrique, there is considerable variation from one author to another but little chronological correlation. Some of these differences seem amenable to classification, and conceivably explanation, in terms of genre or cultural milieu. Thus historical prose, including the General estoria and Pérez de Guzmán, is on the whole stylistically conservative, while prose fiction, especially the Zifar, is more inventive; the circumstantial lyrics of Santillana and Jorge Manrique, traditional in form and limited in content, are more conservative than those works by the same Santillana, and by Mena, which are more elaborate and of broader scope; Rabbi Sem Tob, perhaps somewhat isolated from general cultural trends, marks extreme conservatism. And examples from Pérez de Guzmán hint that the study of sources may help to explain other differences.
Our investigation essentially bears out Glasser's contention that the given expressions characterize the style of the Renaissance; also, their frequency and variety seem to be greatest in authors known to have been thoroughly conversant with Italian literature. Yet it is equally true that abstractum im potens, lasciarsi vincere, homo reagens, and metaphorical reining-in all appear in Berceo; that some of these also occur in the Fernán González; and that they are profuse in the Zifar. In none of these instances can there be any question of familiarity with Boccaccio and Petrarch, on whom Glasser relies so heavily for illustrations. One may therefore surmise that these stylistic features, while reinforced later by the imitation of great Italian models, were present in Spanish literature almost from its earliest period, constituting as autochthonous a development within it as within any parallel literary tradition. Their triumph in the masterworks of the Golden Age is thoroughly documented by Glasser's book, to which the present article seeks only to be an appendage.