The origins of English Hispanismo.
One night of March, 1623 by midnight, arrived at the inn that was the residence of Lord John Digby in Madrid, Earl of Bristol, extraordinary ambassador at the court of Spain's King James I of England, two gallant English gentlemen. When waiting for the Earl, a man arrived, the Ambassador's servant. The two British men asked him, using a bad Castilian and a well coined piece of eight, what beer the Earl drank, the servant answered that they brought it from England as beer in Madrid was difficult to find and if found it was bad because here people do not drink anything but wine, which was delicious because people like being drunk more than anything else.
A long time ago, the geographic remoteness was not an obstacle for some British nobles to take part as crusaders in the Reconquista. Also as it is told by William Wey, member of Eton College, a profuse number of British people visited the grave of James. Trade relations have always existed between the two nations as well as royal weddings between the two lands.Chaucer and the Archpriest of Hita did much in their time for the the conjunction between England and Spain.
The main fact that helped to decidedly increase the influence of Spanish literature in England was the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. A very relevant person of that time was Luis Vives, great friend of Sir Thomas More, who wrote and published six editions of his “Instruction of a Christian woman "(1540-Hyrde) as well as his “Instructions to Wisdom”. In 1580 John Rastell did not perform a correct adjustment of “La Celestina". This was better performed by James Mabbe in 1681.
But the most influential person in the literature of the Islands was the Bishop of Mondoñedo, Fray Antonio de Guevara, who was followed by John Lily and the school which was born out of the novel "Euphues": The Euphuism (Euphuism). The Euphuism is, in English literature, a simulated, redundant and supremely prepared style, which took his name from the work “Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit” 1578, and from the other work, “Euphues and his England”, 1580. Lily was reached by Robert Greene and despite his harsh criticism by William Shakespeare too.
The origin of the processed Euphuism is the courtly Spanish prose of Fray Antonio de Guevara, a very well known writer on a European scale. This style flourished in England from 1580 until the early XVIIth century, getting its culmination in the reign of Elizabeth I. It is characterized by extensive use of similes and a large ornate descriptivism, domination of eloquence and poise of wise quotations.
The politic-religious wars of the period, made some Protestants in Spain to flee to England: Antonio del Corro, Valera Cipriano, González Montes, who did not lose time to begin to popularize in Castilian his Protestant Bible which were published in Londoner prints as Thomas Vantrollerius, Thomas Puerfoetus and Richard Field, who hispanicized his name turning it to “Ricardo del Campo” for starting to print protestant works in Castilian. Field is necessarily known due to the printing of the first poems of William Shakespeare. His imprint is an anchor with the motto “Anchora Spei” (anchore of hope). We can see this mark on the cover of the 1597 edition of the "Institution of the Christian religion."
In the seventeenth century, it can be remarked the work as an Hispanist of Ambassador to Madrid, Lord Bristol, who passed Calderon to the English language and Hardy, who took complete comedies of Lope de Vega. In this century the Spanish Theatre company of Juan de Navarra acted in London in 1685, acting even in the very Court and the press published Classic Spanish works on a daily basis.
The glory of Cervantes owes much to the numerous translations that the work has had in England, where the first deluxe edition was published in 1738 paid by Lord Carteret. For the publishing of the work, he launched a competition among the best English painters of the time. The winner was J. Vanderbank. The edition was great, with excellent impressions: 68 paintings of this artist, 65 of them were engraved by Vander Gucht. The work was dedicated to the Countess of Montijo, wife of the Spanish ambassador in London. This produced an increased interest for the Spanish literature, conducting many writers, travelers, collectors and onlookers to walk by our fabulous cities collecting in writing their stories and emotions.
This was the born of the the English “Hispanismo”, which has led authors who love Spain to teach on the relationships between their literature and our own. To cite a few: Alpern, Barker, Hills, Martin Hume.
Jesús Castro.
Algeciras, doce de Enero de 2010
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