Short histories of the literatures of the world Volume 2

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ...de Chamberi (1577). A rhymed epistle to the Secretary of State, Mateo Vazquez, also belongs to this time. We must suppose Cervantes to have written copiously on regaining his liberty, since Galvez de Montalvo speaks of him as a poet of repute in the Pastor de Filida (1582); but the earliest signs of him in Spain are his eulogistic sonnets in Padilla's Romancero and Rufo Gutierrez' Austriada, both published in 1583. Padilla repaid the debt by 1 In Felipe II.'s time the normal value of an escudo de oro was 8s. 4jd. The actual exchange value varied between seven and eight shillings. classing the sonneteer among "the most famous poets of Castile." In December 1584, Cervantes married Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, a native of Esquivias, eighteen years younger than himself. It is often said that he wrote the Galatea as a means of furthering his suit. It may be so. But the book was not printed by Juan Gracian of Alcald de Henares till March 1585, though the aprobacion and the privilege are dated February 1 and February 22, 1584. In the year after his marriage, Cervantes' illegitimate daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, was born. We shall have occasion to refer to her later. Our immediate concern is with the Primera Parte de Galatea, an unfinished pastoral novel in six books, for which Cervantes received 1336 reales from Blas de Robles; a sum which, with his wife's small dowry, enabled him to start housekeeping.1 As a financial speculation the Galatea failed: only two later editions appeared during the writer's lifetime, one at Lisbon in 1590, the other at Paris in 1611. Neither could have brought him money; but the book, if it did nothing else, served to make him known. He trimmed his sails to the popular breeze. Montem6r had...