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CAMPOAMOR Y CAMPOOSGRIO, RAMON DE (18...
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CAMPOAMOR Y CAMPOOSGRIO, RAMON DE (1817-1901) , See also:Spanish poet, was See also:born at Navia (See also:Asturias) on the 24th of See also:September 1817. Abandoning his first intention of entering the Jesuit See also:order, he studied See also:medicine at See also:Madrid, found an opening in politics as a supporter of the Moderate party, and, after occupyingseveral subordinate posts, became See also:governor of Castellon de la. Plana, of See also:Alicante and of See also:Valencia. His conservative tendencies See also:grew more pronounced with See also:time, and his Polemicas See also:con la Democracia (1862) may be taken as the definitive expression of his See also:political opinions. His first See also:appearance as a poet dated from 1840, when he published his Ternezas y flares, a collection of idyllic verses, remarkable for their technical excellence. His Ayes del See also:Alma (1842) and his Fdbulas morales y politicas (1842) sustained his reputation, but showed no perceptible increase of See also:power or skill. An epic poem in sixteen cantos, See also:ColOn (1853), is no more successful than See also:modern epics usually are. Campoamor's theatrical pieces, such as El Palacio de la Verdad (1871), See also:Dies Irae (1873), El Honor (1874) and Glorias Humanas (1885), are interesting experiments; but they are totally lacking in dramatic spirit. He always showed a keen See also:interest in metaphysical and philosophic questions, and defined his position in La Filosofia de See also:las leyes (1846), El Personalismo (1855), Lo See also:Absolute (1865) and El Ideismo (1883). These studies are chiefly valuable as embodying fragments of self-See also:revelation, and as having led to the See also:composition of those doloras, humoradas and pequenos poemas, which the poet's admirers consider as a new poetic See also:species. The first collection of Doloras was printed in 1846, and from that date onwards new specimens were added to each succeeding edition. It is difficult to define a dolora. One critic has described it as a didactic, symbolic See also:stanza which combines the lightness and See also:grace of the See also:epigram, the See also:melancholy of the endecha, the concise narrative of the ballad, and the philosophic intention of the See also:apologue. The poet himself declared that a dolora is a dramatic humorada, and that a pequeno poema is a dolora on a larger See also:scale. These See also:definitions.are unsatisfactory. The humoristic, philosophic epigram is an See also:ancient poetic See also:form to which Campoamor has given a new name; his invention goes no further. It cannot be denied that in the Doloras Campoamor's See also:special gifts of See also:irony, grace and pathos find their best expression. Taking a See also:commonplace theme, he presents in four, eight or twelve lines a perfect See also:miniature of condensed emotion. By his choice of a vehicle he has avoided the fatal facility and copiousness which have led many Spanish poets to destruction. It pleased him to affect a vein of melancholy, and this affectation has been reproduced by his followers. Hence he gives the impression of insincerity, of trifling with See also:grave subjects and of using See also:mysticism as a See also:mask for frivolity. The genuine Campoamor is a poet of the sunniest See also:humour who, under the pretence of teaching morality by See also:satire, is really seeking to utter the See also:gay See also:scepticism of a genial, epicurean nature. His See also:influence has not been altogether for See also:good. His See also:formula is too easily mastered, and to his example is due a See also:plague of doloras and humoradas by poetasters who have caricatured their See also:model. Campoamor, as he himself said, did not practise See also:art for art's See also:sake; he used art as the See also:medium of ideas, and in ideas his imitators are poor. He died at Madrid on the 12th of See also:February 1901. Of See also:late years a deep silence had fallen upon him, and we are in a position to See also:judge him with the impartiality of another See also:generation. The overwhelming bulk of his See also:work will perish; we may even say that it is already dead. His pretensions, or the pretensions put forward in his name, that he discovered a new poetic genre will be rejected later, as they are rejected now by all competent See also:judges. The See also:title of a philosophic poet will be denied to him. But he will certainly survive, at least in See also:extract, as a distinguished humorist, an See also:expert in epigrammatic and sententious See also:aphorism, an artist of extremely finished See also:execution. (J. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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