MAIN CURRENTS OF SPANISH LITERATURE BY J. v D. M. FORD WKW Smith Professor of the French and Spanish Languages in Harvard University, Correspondiente de la Real Aca demia Espafiola, Correspondiente de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona, Member of the Hispanic Society of America NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1919 COPTRIQHT, 1919 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY TO RAMON MENENDEZ PIDAL AND JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY THESE LECTURES ARE DEDICATED AS A TOKEN OF HIGH ESTEEM PREFACE IN the winter of 1918 the following eight lectures were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston. They are now published exactly as they were given. In them my aim is to afford a survey of certain important currents running through the history of Spanish literature as written in the motherland, and to call attention to the great worth of the literature produced by writers in Spanish America. I have sought to be informative as to a large body of fact rather than exhaustively analytical with respect to any subject of limited scope. J. D. M. F. April, 1919. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE HEROIC TRADITION The Epic 3 II. THE HEROIC TRADITION The Ballad 33 III. CERVANTES the Man and his Work 68 IV. THE RISE OF THE DRAMA AND ITS TRIUMPH IN THE GOLDEN AGE Lope de Vega 103 V, THE CULMINATION OF THE DRAMATIC MOVEMENT Calder6n 136 VI. LYRIC POETRY 170 VII. THE NOVEL 208 VIII. HIGH POINTS OF SPANISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE . . 242 MAIN CURRENTS OF SPANISH LITERATURE