Virgilian Resonances in La madre naturaleza

In Los poetas 9picos cristianos (1877-79, 1895), while discussing the significance and influence of such moderns as Dante, Tasso, and Milton, the Countess of Pardo Bazain evidenced a broad grasp of the epic and classical roots of her time, as well as a particular appreciation for Virgil's permeating presence in European literature. She later confessed in her Apuntes autobiogrdficos (1886) that in her girlhood instead of having to study the piano she had asked to be able to learn Latin to read a copy of the Aeneid and the Georgics displayed prominently in a bookcase in her home. She was told to continue her musical endeavors, and while that constraint soured her on the piano, her interest in Virgil, the Aeneid, and things classical was only whetted (III, 704). This interest would become very apparent in La madre naturaleza (1887) where a number of parallels to incidents, themes, and ideas in the Aeneid are prominent. Other critics of this novel have demonstrated classical Greek and biblical, as well as more contemporary French and Portuguese influences on its composition.' But in light of Pardo Bazain's thoroughgoing eclecticism and talent for utilizing various aspects of the literary tradition of which she was so avidly a part, a diverse admixture of the ancient and the modern neither trespasses the boundaries of credibility nor detracts from her work's coherence. The Virgilian resonances figure among a number of significant pitches to be used in sounding out the intertextual symphony of her fiction. If any of these levels were omitted or neglected, the tonal richness and flavor of La madre naturaleza would certainly be diminished. There have been numerous analyses of Virgil's role in Spanish letters, but even Menendez y Pelayo, the august latinist who was otherwise quite familiar with Pardo Bazain's work, made no mention of possible parallels between La madre naturaleza and the most famous of the Latin epics. Like such scholarly commentators, the Countess was well aware of the long tradition of imitation and related sorts of utilization of Virgilian art in Spanish and other literatures, and the possibility that some of these later works might have served as intermediaries between her composition and Virgil'swhether augmenting, extenuating, or otherwise modifying his influence-ought not to be overlooked. For instance, hers is one among many other Hispanic contributions to a longstanding tradition of what Maria Rosa Lida de Malkiel has termed la de Dido, in which the authors would come o the aid of the Carthaginian queen whom Virgil seemed to have treated too harshly (Dido y su defensa 209-52, 313-82). Neverheless, the strongest presence in Pardo Bazain's novel is the original source, theAeneid itself and this present study shall generally be limited to it. Much of the first four books of Virgil's poem detail the relationship between Aeneas and Dido as they are entangled in what ultimately was for both an illicit and doomed love affair. Whether or not Dido's breaking of her dutiful vow of fidelity to her murdered husband, Sychaeus, actually condemns her new love, she is nevertheless moved to call her furtiuum amorem a coniugium, covering with words what Virgil referred to as her culpamwhatever the interpretation of that word might be.:, Aeneas's fault was even more serious, for his dalliance kept him in Carthage and away from his destiny in Italy. This same wrenching conflict of humanity and human

Physics · Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

• Retrospectives, Nineteenth Century

  Peter Antonio Bly•Hispania•1998

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