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The Diana of Montemayor: Tradition and Innovation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The publication of the Diana, probably in Valencia, 1559, marks the birth of the pastoral novel in Spain. Most of what has been written on the book has been centered around the problem of influences, that is to say, the extent of Montemayor's imitation of Sannazaro's Arcadia. Such a view, regardless of its merits, tends to leave unexplained the book itself, since a book—the artistic accomplishment—is not what it is because of any certain, or uncertain, influences, but in spite of them. Life, and thereby literature, are not only the sum total of our actions, of what we do, but also of what we refrain from doing, and, furthermore, our actions are a composite of inherited patterns of reaction plus the new and improvised attitudes we strike when challenged by the renewing and omnipresent crossroads of life. If we are to study the Diana, or any other book, as a distillation of life, one of the important things is not to point out the influence of Sannazaro, which I fail to see, or of anybody else, but to underline the measure of acceptance of such an influence (the thin dividing line between the “done” and “not done” by the author in search for artistic expression), and then to seek the way it is to be harmonized with the new chords the author is trying to strike.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959
References
* This article constitutes part of the chapter on Montemayor in ray forthcoming book, “La novela pastoril en el Renacimiento español.”
1 See James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, “The Bibliography of the Diana emmorada,” Revue Hispanique, iii (1895), 304–311.
2 The study of influences, imitations, etc., highly meritorious as one of the weapons in the critic's arsenal, lacks all meaning when sublimated to the category of an end in itself.
3 The reader of the Quijote, for example, should be well aware of this; cf. “Pide [el autor] no se desprecie su trabajo, y se le den alabanzas, no por lo que escribe, sino por lo que ha dejado de escribir” (Pt. ii, Ch. xliv). It is legitimate to talk about “artistic selection” in this case if one remembers that ultimately this depends on vital contents.
4 Whether Sannazaro's Arcadia is the model of the Diana or not is a problem that can be dispelled by a close reading of the two novels. The keynotes of the Arcadia are the humanist's rejoicing in classic literature, the exultation when faced with the richness and variety of nature; the author gleefully goes out to meet all these pleasures and wonders. Montemayor, on the contrary, is morosely restrained, locked tight within himself so as to be able to more fully analyze the passions of the human soul.
5 The reader interested in such a study should consult: Bruce W. Wardropper, “The Diana of Montemayor: Revaluation and Interpretation,” SP, XLVIII (April 1951), 126–144; Introd., Diana, ed. Francisco López Estrada, 2nd ed., Clásicos Castellanos (Madrid, 1954); Introd., Diana, ed. Enrique Moreno Báez, Biblioteca Selecta de Clásicos Españoles (Madrid, 1955).
6 Cf. Le roman de Renart, ed. Ernest Martin, i (Strasbourg, 1882), 265–278. See, also, Léopold Sudre, Les sources du roman de Renart (Paris, 1893), pp. 205–225, where the author studies other works of similar type, especially the Latin poem Ysengrimus, which corresponds to the French Pèlérinage.
7 According to the classification of A. Aarne and Stith Thompson, The Types of the Folk-Tale, Folklore Fellows Communications, No. 74 (Helsinki, 1928), this type of tale is No. 130. In the work of Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Folklore Fellows Communications, Nos. 106–109, 116–117, 6 vols. (Helsinki, 1932–1936), it is type No. K 1161. Both works carry a copious bibliography and references to the numerous variants of the archetype.
8 Some critics have seen in this episode an influence of Sannazaro (episode of the magician Enarato): e.g., M. Menéndez Peïayo, Orígenes de la novela, I (Madrid, 1905), cdxxxvii; Hugo A. Rennert, The Spanish Pastoral Romances (Philadelphia, 1912), p. 54; Hector Genouy, L“‘Arcadia” de Sydney dans ses rapports avec l‘“Arcadia” de Sannazaro et la “Diana” de Montemayor (Montpellier, 1928), p. 70; Mia Gerhardt, La pastorale: Essai d'analyse littéraire (Assen, 1950), p. 179. The only point in common I can see is the very external one of the use of magic.
9 Cf. Chandler R. Post, Mediaeval Spanish Allegory (Cambridge, Mass., 1915), and Howard R. Patch, El otro mundo en la literatura medieval (Mexico, 1956), with an appendix by M. R. Lida de Malkiel, where there are innumerable examples of the allegorical castle.
10 For more details, see my article, “El arco de los leales amadores en el Amadis,” Nueva Revista de Filologia Hispánica, vi (April 1952), 149–156.
11 The quotations that follow are from López Estrada's second edition.
12 Although its emphasis is mainly on English literature, see Elizabeth Lee Harris, The Mural as Decorative Device in Mediaeval Literature (Knoxville, Tenn., 1935).
13 Cf. Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), with special emphasis on the folkloric. In Spain the savage acquired special vogue in the plastic arts in the 15th and 16th centuries; cf. José M. de Azcárate, “El tema iconográfico del salvaje,” Archivo Español de Arte, xxxi (1948), 81–99.
14 Cf. Leo Spitzer, “En torno al arte del Arcipreste de Hita,” Lingüística e historia literaria (Madrid, 1955) pp. 145–146.
15 Ed. Adolfo Bonilla y San Martin, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espaiioles, xi, 52: “Un hombre grande de cuerpo, cubierto todo de pelo a manera de salvaje, la barba blanca y crecido el rostro ya arrugado, en la mano izquierda un arco y en la derecha una flécha con su yerba, y una aljaba llena delias, y alrededor del brazo una cuerda con que el león se prendia.”
16 Apud Diego de San Pedro, Obras, ed. Samuel Gili y Gaya, Clásicos Castellanos (Madrid, 1950), p. 116: “Vi salir a mi encuentro por entre unos robredales do mi camino se hazía, vn caballero assí feroz de presencia como espantoso de vista, cubierto todo de cabello a manera de salvaie. Leuaua en la mano yzquierda vn escudo de azero muy fuerte, y en la derecha vna ymagen femenil entallada en vna piedra muy Clara.”
17 Cf. Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages, Ch. v, “The Erotic Connotations.”
18 Years after the publication of the Diana, Fernando de Herrera will expressly condemn the appearance of violence in a pastoral work. See his Anotaciones a las obras de Garcilaso (Sevilla, 1580) s.v. Egloga: “La materia desta poesía es las cosas i obras de los pastores, mayormente sus amores, pero simples i sin dano, no funestos con rabia de celos, no manchados con adulterios; competencias de rivales, pero sin muerte i sangre.”
19 Some “scholars” have chosen the easiest solution and ignore the whole episode. Alfonso Lopes Vieira, in his adaptation A Diana de Jorge de Montemôr (Lisbon, 1924), pp. xxxiii–xxxiv, explains the suppression of the passage in the following terms: “Num passo apenas me sobrepus ao pensamento do poeta por nāo havê-lo alcançado: os sátiros que sorpreendem as ninfas no livro segundo. No texto castelhano descrevemse copiosamente uns ‘salvajes’ cuja natureza nâo logre compreender, tāo misturada me pareceu de medieval e pagâ.”
20 Let me point out that including the savage in the unnatural order or accepting him within the human sphere was a subject hotly debated by medieval theologians.
21 Diálogos de amor, trans. Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, NBAE, xxi, 324b: “La concordancia y correspondencia mutua y recíproca que se halla en los cuerpos celestiales más aína me parece efeto y señal de su amor, que causa de él.” Cf. Baldassare Castiglione, El cortesano, trans. Juan Boscán, Libros de Antaño, iii (Madrid, 1863), 493.
22 Cf. Wardropper, p. 133.
23 Cf. F. López Estrada, prologue to his second ed. of the Diana, pp. lxxxi–lxxxii, and, also, his edition of Heliodorus, Historia etiópica de los amores de Teágenes y Cariclea (Madrid, 1954), pp. xix–xxiii.
24 For the many problems in literary theory faced by the 16th-century neo-Aristotelian, specially the antinomy between the universal-poetic and the historic-particular, see Giuseppe Toffanin, La fine dell'Umanesimo (Turin, 1920), and Américo Castro, El pensamiento de Cervantes (Madrid, 1925).
25 Actually the palace of Felicia is outside the pastoral setting, but at the same time it is also outside the natural order of life.
26 See, e.g., the long description of Coimbra and surroundings, pp. 280–281.
27 The situation is somewhat ironical: it is in terms of life that Montemayor strives to solve the theoretical antithesis (the counterpoise of vital experiences, that we find in the intercalated stories, and the text), but his solution remains still too literary to satisfy us. The dichotomy life-literature would remain as long as the creative emphasis was placed on the second term.