A REACTION against the poetry of the Italian Renaissance, which
had been introduced by Garcilaso de la Vega and developed by
Herrera, set in about the time of the Spanish Armada. It took the
form of a return to Spanish measures. The hendecasyllable did
not disappear, but remained the metre for poems of a grave and
stately kind, as well as for sonnets. But for other purposes the
octosyllables of the romance became the fashion. The cause of this
change was the strong popular and romantic movement that was
making its appearance in the large towns, in defiance of the
economic difficulties through which the country was passing. It
expressed itself in the new sentimental romances that were coming
out in bulky collections, and still more in the comedias, or verse
plays, that were written on the same subjects and very largely in
the same metre. All the poets of this age show the influence of this
popular romanticism.

Another tendency of the time was that towards culteranismo,
which was the name given to the search for a more refined and
stylized diction, influenced by Latin syntax. This met with a strong
resistance from the purists. The names associated with these two
schools were, respectively, Gόngora and Lope de Vega, and their
opposition led to a war of poets, which became more fierce and
unrelenting when, in the following century, new writers appeared
upon the scene. But there is one thing that all the poets and drama-
tists of this generation, whatever school they belonged to, had in
common--their insularity. Lope de Vega and Gόngora were only
fifteen years younger than Cervantes, but they lacked both his
humanist background and his acquantance with foreign countries.
This meant that they took the Spanish scene for granted and
showed no trace of his critical and moral approach to life. If we
except Quevedo and Gracián, who both saw further than their

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