Questing for the Golden Age from

Cervantes’s Spain to

Today’s USA

Harry Vélez QuiñonesDistinguished Professor of Hispanic Studies

What is the Golden Age?

George Ticknor (1791−1871) and American Empire

Ticknor’s America at the Start of the XX Century

A 1900 Campaign poster for the Republican Party with the motto "The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory

but for humanity's sake."

Ticknor’s Spain: The Spanish Golden Age

The Golden Age Speech − Don Quixote, I,11 (1605)

John Vanderbank – Don Quixote Addressing the Goatherds – 1730

Walter Crane – Don Quixote and the Goatherds – 1900

The Golden Age

Ovid – Metamorphoses – Book 6

• In the beginning was the Golden Age, when men of their own accord, without threat of punishment, without laws, maintained good faith and did what was right. . . . The earth itself, without compulsion, untouched by the hoe, unfurrowed by any share, produced all things spontaneously. . . . It was a season of everlasting spring.(3)

Publius Ovidius Naso(43 BC−AD 17) Roman poet

Luigi Deluise − 1840

Lucas Cranach the Elder − The Golden Age − 1530

1492Beginning of Spanish political, social, economic and

cultural power

• At the end of the middle ages, the totality of the Iberian Peninsula was under the authority of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, after the capitulation of the last Muslim kingdom, Granada in 1492. That year some other decisive events took place:

• The expulsion of an important religious minority: The Sephardi Jews

• The finding of vast and rich overseas territories: The New World

• The systematization of the Castilian language in the first in the first grammar of of its kind: Nebrija

Excelente (coin denomination) of Ferdinand and Isabella c. 1497−1520

Grammar of the Castilian Language Antonio de Nebrija

•Nebrija said, justifying the usefulness of his Grammar in the Prologue, “has always been the companion of empire.” These words were remarkably prophetic, for Spanish soon became, of course, an imperial language with the “discovery” of America and with Spain’s expansion into northern Europe, just as Latin had been the great imperial language of its day.

The Catholic MonarchsFerdinand II of Aragón (1452−1516)

Isabel I of Castile (1451−1504)

Juan Cordero Hoyos – Columbus Before the Catholic Monarchs – 1850

Charles V: King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)

Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Muehlberg – Titian – 1547

Philip II(1527–1598)

Titian – Philip II in Armor

1548

Sofonisba Anguissola – Philip II

c. 1568

Spain in Europe and the World c. 1560

Philip III(1578–1621)

Philip III, on horseback – Diego Velázquez – 1629−1635?

Philip IV(1605–1665)

Philip IV – Diego Velázquez – 1655−1660

Charles II(1661–1700)

Charles II of Spain

Juan Carreño de Miranda – 1685

1898: Ticknor and the End of the Spanish Golden Age?

• In every country that has yet obtained a rank among those nations whose intellectual cultivation is the highest, the period in which it has produced the permanent body of its literature has been that of its glory as a state. The reason is obvious (. . .) Just so it was with Spain (. . .) Only a little more than a century elapsed before the government that had threatened the world with a universal empire was hardly able to repel an invasion from abroad (. . .) As a people, they sunk away from being a first-rate power in Europe, till they became one of altogether inferior importance (. . .) the earnest faith, the loyalty, the dignity of the Spanish people were gone . . .

George Ticknor, History of Spanish literature (I, 419-433)

El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha

(1605−1615)

The Golden Age Speech − Don Quixote, I,11 (1605)

John Vanderbank – Don Quixote Addressing the Goatherds – 1730

Walter Crane – Don Quixote and the Goatherds – 1900

Jean−Charles−Léonard Simonde de Sismondi (1773−1842)

•“He [Cervantes] stands foremost in that band of classical authors who cast such glory on the reigns of the three Philips, during the latter part of the sixteenth, and the commencement of the seventeenth century”

•Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe (1853)

Spanish Golden Age Literature

• La Celestina (1499) – Fernando de Rojas

• Bookends of the Golden Age• Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) – Anon.

– [Don Quijote (1605 & 1615) – Miguel de Cervantes]• El criticón (1657) – Baltasar Gracián

• Other Golden Age writers: • Garcilaso de la Vega − 1501−1536• Teresa de Ávila 1515−1582• Hernando de Acuña − c.1520−1580• Luis de León 1528−1591• Juan de la Cruz 1542−1591• Luis de Góngora 1561−1627• Lope de Vega 1562−1635• Tirso de Molina 1579−1648• Francisco de Quevedo 1580−1645• María de Zayas 1590−1661• Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600−1681

Cervantes: Soldier and PoetPaolo Veronese - The Battle of Lepanto (1571)

• The son of a deaf surgeon, Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid in 1547.

• He became a soldier in 1570 and was badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto.

• Captured by the Turks in 1575, Cervantes spent five years in prison. He was freed in 1580 and returned home.

• Cervantes finally achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don Quixote in 1605 and the second in 1615..

• He died in 1616.

• Since his passing, Cervantes has been credited with writing the first modern novel. His work has inspired countless other authors, including Gustave Flaubert, Henry Fielding, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

A force de toujours lire...le pauvre gentil−homme perdit l'esprit.

Horace Vernet (1822)

The Golden Age

• Metamorphoses 1:113−122, Ovid (43 BC–17 AD)

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:And, with a native bent, did good pursue.Unforc'd by punishment, un−aw'd by fear,His words were simple, and his soul sincere;Needless was written law, where none opprest:The law of Man was written in his breast:No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd,No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

Garcilaso de la Vega – (1503−1536)and his First Elegy

Hernando de Acuña (c.1520-1580)and his sonnet To the King our Lord

Cervantes (1547–1616)and his sonnet At the catafalque of Philip II in Seville

Garcilaso, Acuña, Cervantes and the Chivalric Ideal

• Vittore Carpaccio• Portrait of a Knight (1510)• Museo

Thyssen−Bornemisza, Madrid

The Plight of the Moriscos (1502−1609)

Moriscos from Granada Arrival of the moriscos in Oran, North Africa – Vicent Mestre (1613)

The Plight of the Mexican and Central American Immigrants

Cervantes’s tongue in the USA

Hispanics and Cervantes’s Tongue in the USA

• Hispanic educational attainment rose sharply from 2009 to 2010: The share of Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds who have completed high school increased to 73% in 2010 from 70% in 2009, and the share of young Hispanic high school graduates who are attending college increased to 44% in 2010 from 39% in 2009.

• Although Hispanic youths have narrowed the gap in college enrollment, Hispanic young adults continue to be the least educated major racial or ethnic group in terms of completion of a bachelor’s degree. In 2010, only 13% of Hispanic 25- to 29-year-olds had completed at least a bachelor’s degree. In comparison, more than half (53%) of non-Hispanic Asian young adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 39% of white young adults completed a four-year degree. The low college completion of Hispanic young adults partly reflects the lower schooling levels of Hispanic immigrants.

A New Golden Age

The End

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