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On Iriarte's Versification
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Tomás de iriarte (1750-91) is often called upon to furnish early or embryonic examples of modern metric forms because he, perhaps more than any other writer of his time, consciously attempted to exploit the wealth of Spanish verse and strophe arrangements then known and to enrich the language with new forms and combinations. Emiliano Díez Echarri even goes so far as to say that Iriarte was “capaz con un poco más de estro poético de haber renovado toda nuestra métrica.” Other well-known scholars, including Menéndez y Pelayo, Miguel Antonio Caro, Manuel González Prada, Julio Saavedra Molina, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, and Marasso Roca, to name only a few, have at one time or another studied some phase of Iriarte's versification, though no general survey of it has, to my knowledge, been made. The “Géneros de metro usados en estas fábulas” appended to the Fábulas literarias lists forty types, but does not tell the whole story of the versification in the Fábulas—much less of Iriarte's work as a whole. A study of Iriarte's versification would have at least a threefold value: it might (1) serve as a near equivalent to a summary of Spanish formal or learned versification to and including his time; (2) indicate a stronger Italian influence on Spanish metrics at this particular period than has generally been suspected; and (3) bring into clearer focus the original or near-original phases that may have influenced subsequent metric technique, given the fact that Iriarte's work has been so widely known. This paper will attempt to expand especially the first and third of these features of Iriarte's work.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1952
References
1 References to Iriarte's works are from Colección de obras en verso y prosa (Madrid, 1787), herein referred to as Fábulas for Vol. I and Obras plus the volume number for other volumes; E. Cotarelo y Mori, Iriarte y su época (Madrid, 1897), herein referred to as Cotarelo; and Biblioteca ole Autores Españoles, Vol. lxiii, referred to as BA E lxiii.
2 Teorías métricas del siglo de oro (Madrid, 1949), p. 298.
3 Alfred Coester, “Octavas and octavillas italianas,” Homenatge a Antoni Rubio y Lluch (Barcelona, 1936), m, 451-462, and Mattie M. Ramelli, “The polimetria of Spanish Romantic Poets,” unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, Stanford Univ., May 1938, have emphasized the influence of Italian music on certain aspects of 18th- and 19th-century poetry, particularly on the octava and the octavilla italianas. I shall try to avoid duplication of this material.
4 A complete analysis of the octosyllable is to be found in Julio Saavedra Molina, El octosílabo castellano (Santiago, 1945).
5 Obras ii, ed. J. Domínguez Bordona (Madrid, 1927), p. 139.
6 “El verso de nueve sílabas,” Nuevas páginas libres (Santiago, 1937), pp. 149-192. For a history and an analysis of this verse, see also Miguel Antonio Caro, “Del verso eneasílabo,” Obras completas (Bogotá, 1928), v, 297-306, and Julio Saavedra Molina, Tres grandes metros: el eneasílabo, el tredecasílabo y el endecasílabo (Santiago, 1946).
7 Two anapests plus one iamb or amphibrach. The normal verse in Spanish adds one unstressed syllable to the final anapest of an anapestic verse, though Iriarte's verse obviously could not be completely anapestic in any case.
8 The classification of the enneasyllable made by Miguel Antonio Caro omits the form with accents on three and five cited by Luzán, La poética (Madrid, 1789), i, 348.
9 Three anapests plus the final unaccented syllable in each line. Since Spanish words, and therefore verses, are predominately paroxytonic, a poem written in any rhythm except trochaic or amphibrachic will generally find the verses lacking one syllable or more in the final rhythmic group, or having one or more in excess of the correct number, depending on the rhythm being used.
10 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poesías completas, ed. Ermilo Abreu Gómez (México, 1948), p. 294.
11 La ciencia del verso (Madrid, 1907), p. 131.
12 “De la versificación castellana,” Artículos críticos y literarios (Palma, 1840), i, 158.
13 R. Foulché-Delbosc, ed. Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, ii, 439.
14 Arte poética española, ed. 1703 (Barcelona), p. 65. The poem containing these lines may be found on p. 363 of Sor Juana's work above cited.
15 The standard classification of the hendecasyllable is that of Pedro Henríquez Ureña, “El endecasílabo castellano,” Revista de Filología Española, vi (1919), 132-157, where a discussion of this type may be found. Iriarte's originality lies principally in the consistent use of the same metric pattern throughout the poem.
16 Except for the final dactyl—see n. 9, above.
17 Fábula lvi. See also BAE lxiii, 21b.
18 Julio Saavedra Molina, El verso de arte mayor (Santiago, 1946), has made a detailed study of this verse. For references to Iriarte's arte mayor, see esp. pp. 10, 65, 76.
19 Discussed by P. Henríquez Ureña in “Sobre la historia del alejandrino,” Revista de Filología Hispánica, vm (1946), 1-11. See also Arturo Marasso, “Ensayó sobre el verso alejandrino,” Boletín de la Academia Argentina de Letras, vii (1939), 63-127. P. Henríquez Ureña's La versificación española irregular, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1933), also has references to Iriarte's verse (see index).
20 Cf. above, “endecasílabos agudos de arte mayor.”
21 El verso que no cultivó Rubén Darío (Santiago, 1933), pp. 16-17; see also p. 21. Gil Polo is sometimes credited with being the first to use French Alexandrines in Castilian.
22 See Saavedra Molina's last named work, esp. pp. 17 ff., and the above mentioned Tres grandes metros ....
23 In the last footnote to “La música, poema” (Obras, i) he explains why Castilian is “respecto al canto, superior a todas las [lenguas] que hoy se usan, después de la italiana ...” and gives a few instructions to the poet who writes words for music (p. xliii), though none of them discusses rhythmic beat.
24 Those that were apparently inventions, including forms so rarely used before his time that the chances of his being acquainted with them are exceedingly slight, or restorations made by him are marked with an asterisk, the traditional forms being left unmarked. Although the anacreóntica, the endecha, and the romancillo are strophically the same, they are here listed separately.
25 Apparently not used in the Golden Age proper, but found in the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and listed in the 1703 edition of Rengifo's Arte poética española.
26 Consult esp. M. Ramelli, op. cit.