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Historia de la critica españolacontemporántaDaniel P. Testaa

a Syracuse UniversityPublished online: 06 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Daniel P. Testa (1968) Historia de la critica españolacontemporánta, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 22:2,193-195, DOI: 10.1080/00397709.1968.10733009

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00397709.1968.10733009

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EMILIA DE ZULETA: Historia de la critica espaflola contempordnea. Madrid:Editorial Gredos, 1966. 454pp.

WITH THE APPEARANCE of Emilia de Zuleta's study, the student of Spanishliterature has for the first time a single volume which covers the wholepanorama of modern Spanish literary criticism. The wealth of primary textsand the accumulation of studies on individual writers and specific move­ments make the task of organization and orderly focus an arduous one. Themost difficult challenge, however, facing the historian is the handling of thesubject itself: the term is not only elusive, it almost defies restrictive limits.Literary criticism has a way of cropping up at any time in any place, fromthe systematic thoughts of the philosophically inclined critic, to the hap­hazard though useful remarks often found in the pages of newspapers andweeklies. In the case of Spain, as the author points out in the introduction,the fact that the best minds are involved with philology, literary, cultural,and intellectual history, ideology and philosophy, means that frequently theworthwhile insights and statements about literary works are hopelessly en­tangled with other intellectual concerns. But while the obstacles to anorderly control of the material are formidable, the reader does expect awork of this type to avoid, on the one hand, the confusion resulting fromunclear perspectives, and on the other, the cataloguing of names that leadsto irrelevance. Professor Zuleta's prodigious efforts would have broughtforth a more readable account of the dominant critical ideas of the periodshe undertakes to study had she chosen not to be diverted by secondaryconcerns, and had she not felt obligated to touch on the admittedly un­important writers, many of whom are only incidentally critics.

Of the eight chapters of the book, the first is devoted wholly to MenendezPelayo, and the other important chapters are organized by literary move­ments (Realism and Naturalism, the Generation of 1898), and by schools ortypes (Menendez Pidal and his School, Ortega and the Critical Essay).Since these chapters rely on a dominant factor-outstanding figure, literarymovement, genre, chronology-they constitute externally valid divisions aswell as provide a useful basis for the author's panoramic approach to thehistory of criticism. The remaining chapters are looser groupings: writersare brought together by common activity (journalistic, university) or becausethey are "representative" of the most recent trends. But no matter how wejudge the validity of the divisions and groupings, there is no doubt that theauthor is fundamentally more interested in studying individual critics thanin tracing and delineating general trends or approaches. Once havingfocussed on a specific writer, she presents a survey of the pertinent works,summarizes the basic attitudes and ideas, and sympathetically sifts the soundfrom the unsound judgments. There are times, however, when her desire to

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194 Summer z,68 SYMPOSIUM

be conciliatory in tone and objective in approach leads her to gloss overpolemical matters which, if carefully pursued, would have provided a morelively and penetrating account of the issues. The author's treatment ofMenendez Pelayo, for example, while informative and useful as a survey ofthis critic's vast interests, suffers from an insistence on the presence of a"sentido de unidad" (p. q) in all of his works. It would have been moreinstructive, in my opinion, to give more space to his polemical pronounce­ments and to his "rectificaciones," an example of which is discussed onpage 36 (i.e., his attitude toward "la poesia tradicional"). In another instanceof skirting a controversy, Zuleta credits Guillermo de Torre's MenendezPelayo y las dos EspaRas (Buenos Aires, 1943) with being one of the firstpost-Civil War attempts to reconcile "las dos Espafias,' a statement whichis undoubtedly true, but in this work and especially in a later article, whichZuleta does not mention." Torre's assessment, whatever its intention, ismuch better described as ambivalent, and one might say ultimately deni­grating.

The conciliatory manner, however, does not prevent the author fromvoicing doubts about the validity of a particular approach, but we shouldobserve that these doubts usually come as afterthoughts and would thereforenot seem to represent fundamental condemnation. While approving generallyof Ortega, for example, she can find that he has serious limitations as aliterary critic which "proceden de que su interes por la literatura es evidente­mente secundario y subordinado a meditaciones mas amplias sobre la viday la cultura" (p, 306). With respect to Americo Castro's later works, shethinks that it is premature to judge the "ultimate viability" of the approach,but she nonetheless expresses misgivings: " ... es posible que este tipo decritica existencial resulte, a la larga, mas disgregante que clarificadora"(p. 215). In her balanced evaluation of Casalduero's critical work, the authorpinpoints a serious blemish: ..... a veces se excede en la sistematizaci6n ydescuida la intencionalidad de la obra de arte que-aun dentro de unatendencia 0 escuela-es siempre fruto de la creaci6n individual de unartista" (p. 265). In other cases, the defects are more crucial. Thus, CansinosAssens has historical interest because he is an "irremplazable testimoniocoetaneo,' but his work, forty years later, is almost devoid of any criticalvalidity (p, 180).

To those critics whose approach and judgments rely almost wholly onliterary criteria, the author gives high praise (though not always the mostspace). Among those who have established and developed intrinsicallyviable methods are Amado Alonso, Damaso Alonso, Carlos Bousofio, andMariano Baquero Goyanes. But other critical practices are considered equallyvalid. She enthusiastically joins the historians and writers who have steadilyacclaimed Menendez Pelayo as the single most important Spanish source ofintegral 'criticism (historical factualism and aesthetic criteria). In the pagesdevoted to Guillermo de Torre, the author extols his energetic, polemicalintellectuality, his vital, contemporary sensibility, and his far-ranging literaryconcerns, and rates him as the most successful practitioner of the essaytradition which was given its impetus by Ortega. There is also recognitionof the importance of newspapers and journals as vehicles for critical articles,

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REVIEWS

and special attention is given to "La Gaceta Literaria," "Cruz y Raya," andthe "Revista de Occidente," the latter serving as a focal point for the mostsignificant intellectual and literary activity in and out of Spain during thezo's and 30'S. The author at times goes beyond the works of well-publicizedand traditionally revered writers to stir up interest in the writings ofneglected or little-known authors, as she does in the case of EduardoGOmezde Baquero (Andrenio), or the krattris/a Manuel de la Revilla. Theseexamples should suffice to give an idea of the content and the encomiasticnature of much of Professor Zuleta's evaluations. The many rhapsodicpassages often annoy and sometimes are simply irrelevant.

Much of what is contained in this study on Spanish criticism is hardlyoriginal, and it is unlikely that anyone would consider the presentation of aparticular critic's theories or practice the best or definitive one. To give onlytwo examples, Manuel Olguin's essay on Menendez Pelayoz and LeonLivingstone's on Ortega,3 offer an infinitely deeper understanding of thesewriters' aesthetic ideas (though of course not of their practical criticism).Undoubtedly the specialist or the exigent reader will find Zuleta's studydisappointingly heterogeneous, will be displeased with the emphasis on thepractical aspects of criticism, and will discover that the thirty-page biblio­graphy is not without errors. But we should be grateful for this volume if,as a manual or introduction to the modern Spanish critics, it can serve auseful purpose.

DANIEL P. TESTAs..yrtKttre University

r, Guillermo de Torre, "Nueva discusi6n de Menendez Pelayo," Cuadernosamericanos, ano 16, mim. S (19n), 233-47.

2. Manuel Olguin, "Marcelino Menendez Pelayo's Theory of Art, Aesthetics,and Criticism," Uni/lersityo/California (Los Angeier) Publica/ions in Modtrn Philology,XXVIII (1950), No.6, pp. viii + 333-3S8.

3. Leon Livingstone, "Ortega y Gasset's Philosophy of Art," PMLA, LXVII(19S2) , 609-654·

JULIAN PALLEY: La IIiZ no IIrada: La poula tk Pedro Salinas. Mexico, Ed. deAndrea, 1966. I I5 pp.

THE AUTHOR'S INTENTION is to trace throughout the work of Pedro Salinasthe "c., dialectica entre el ser y el no ser, entre el amor y la nada" (p. 7).Since this theme is readily discernible in Salinas' poetry, a book whichproposes to treat of it should go beyond the form of an outline and studyin depth how the dialectic informs the texture of the poetry and the natureof the relationship between the nada of the mystics and that of the existen­tialists. Mr. Palley, however, adheres fairly closely to a purely descriptivemethod. He isolates examples of the dialectic from all of Salinas' works thatlend themselves to this task, and then proceeds to enumerate, paraphrase,

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