PEZA (JUAN DE DIOS) (1852-1910)
Reir llorando
Fusiles y munecas

NICARAGUA

DARIO (RUBEN) (1864-)
A Roosevelt
page ix
VENEZUELA

BELLO (ANDRES) (1781-1865)
A la victoria de Bailen
La agricultura de la zona torrida
PEREZ BONALDE (JUAN ANTONIO) (1846-1892)
Vuelta a la patria
MARTIN DE LA GUARDIA (HERACLIO) (1830-)
Ultima ilusion

CANCIONES

La carcelera
Riverana
La cachucha
La valenciana
Cancion devota
La jota gallega
El tragala
Himno de Riego
Himno nacional de Mexico
Himno nacional de Cuba

NOTES

VOCABULARY[a]

[Transcriber's note a: The vocabulary section has
not been submitted for transcription.}

INTRODUCTION page xi

I

SPANISH LYRIC POETRY TO 1800

It has been observed that epic poetry, which is collective
and objective in its nature, always reaches its full
development in a nation sooner than lyric poetry, which is
individual and subjective. Such is certainly the case in
Spain. Numerous popular epics of much merit existed there
in the Middle Ages.[1] Of a popular lyric there are few
traces in the same period; and the Castilian lyric as an
art-form reached its height in the sixteenth, and again in
the nineteenth, centuries. It is necessary always to bear
in mind the distinction between the mysterious product
called popular poetry, which is continually being created
but seldom finds its way into the annals of literature,
and artistic poetry. The chronicler of the Spanish lyric
is concerned with the latter almost exclusively, though he
will have occasion to mention the former not infrequently
as the basis of some of the best artificial creations.

[Footnote 1: The popular epics were written in assonating
lines of variable length. There were also numerous monkish
narrative poems _(mester de clerecia)_ in stanzas of four
Alexandrine lines each, all riming _(cuaderna via)_.]

If one were to enumerate _ab origine_ the lyric
productions of the Iberian Peninsula he might begin
with the vague references of Strabo to the songs of its
primitive inhabitants, and then pass on to Latin page xii
poets of Spanish birth, such as Seneca, Lucan and Martial.
The later Spaniards who wrote Christian poetry in Latin,
as Juve