Fray Luis de León

Fray Luis de León

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Title: Fray Luis de León A Biographical Fragment
Author: James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
Release Date: June 29, 2005 [EBook #16148]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HISPANIC NOTES & MONOGRAPHS
ESSAYS, STUDIES, AND BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES ISSUED BY THE
HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
I
[Illustration: EL MAESTRO FRAI LVIS DE LEON]

FRAY LUIS DE LEON
A Biographical Fragment
BY
JAMES FITZMAURICE KELLY, F.B.A.

With a Portrait from an engraving after Pacheco.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS HUMPHREY MILFORD 1921
PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY FREDERICK HALL

PREFACE
This biographical sketch is, in fact, a fragment of a book which will
now never come into existence. This particular chapter has been
snatched from the burning by an accident. The name of Luis de Leon
deservedly ranks as high as that of any poet in the history of Spanish
literature; but his reputation as a poet is mostly local, while he is known
all the world over as the subject of a dubious anecdote. The attempt is
now made to render him more familiar than he has hitherto been to
English-speaking people, and to do this, to exhibit the man as he was, it
proved necessary to analyse the two volumes of his first trial, the
evidence of which is brought together in vols. X and XI of the
_Coleccion de Documentos inéditos para la Historia de España_.
Edited by Miguel Salvá and Pedro Sainz de Baranda, these volumes
appeared in 1847; their value is incontestable, but, though they give the
evidence as it occurs in the register of the Inquisition, this evidence is
not arranged in consistent chronological order, nor is it supplied with
an index. The work, printed seventy-three years ago, is not within easy
reach of every reader; and of those who have access to it not all are
patient enough to read steadily through so large a mass of somewhat
incoherent matter. Should any such readers be tempted to examine the
record closely, it is hoped that this sketch will do something to make
their task easier. An attempt is made here to picture the man as he was,
full of fortitude, yet not exempt from human weakness. I trust that I
have avoided the temptation to go to the opposite extreme, and lay the
blame--as has been done--for the irregularities of the trial at Luis de
Leon's own door.
In dealing with his Spanish poems, I have tried not to put his claims to
consideration too high. Laboulaye, in _La Liberté religieuse_, calls
Luis de Leon 'le premier lyrique de l'Europe moderne'. This phrase

dates from 1859, and was addressed to a generation which delighted in
arranging authors in something like the order of a class list. Though I
have the highest opinion of Luis de Leon's genius, I have not felt
tempted to follow Laboulaye's example; I have by preference discussed,
so far as space allows, such points as the probable chronology of Luis
de Leon's poems. Once more I repeat that this is a chapter of a book
that will now never be written.
It may be as well to add at this point a few explanatory words
concerning the plan of accentuation adopted here. There seems to be no
valid reason for applying, in a book primarily intended for English
readers, the modern Academic system to proper names borne in the
sixteenth century by men who lived more than three hundred years
before the current system was ever invented. Except of course in the
case of quotations, that system is applied rigidly only to the names of
those who have adopted it formally (as on pp. 114 _n._ and 191 _n._). I
have gone on the theory that accents should be sparingly used in a work
of this kind, and that, as accents are almost needless for Spaniards they
should be employed only when the needs of foreigners compel their use.
It is a fundamental rule in Spanish that nearly all words ending in a
consonant should be stressed on the last syllable. But since nobody,
however slightly acquainted with Spanish, is tempted to pronounce
such words as Velazquez (p. 79) or Gomez (p. 250) incorrectly, no
graphic accent is employed in such cases. Names ending in _s_--such
as Valbás--are accentuated, however, when the stress falls on the