The Work
La Galatea is an imitation of the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor, and shows an even greater resemblance to Gil Polo's continuation of the Diana. Next to Don Quixote and the Novelas exemplares, his pastoral romance is considered particularly notable because it predicts the poetic direction in which Cervantes would go for the rest of his career. It possesses little originality, but is highly reminiscent of its models, and particularly of the Diana of Gil Polo.
In composing this pastoral romance, Cervantes seems to have intended to use the tale merely as an excuse for a rich collection of poems in the old Spanish and Italian styles. The story is merely the thread, which holds the beautiful garland together; the poems are the portion most deserving of attention. They are many and various, and uphold Cervantes' claim to rank among the most eminent poets, whether in reference to verse or to prose. Should his originality in versified composition be called in question, a close study of Galatea must banish all doubt.
Contemporaries of Cervantes claimed that he was incapable of writing poetry, and that he could compose only beautiful prose; but that observation referred solely to his dramatic works. Every critic sufficiently acquainted with his lyrical compositions has rendered justice to their merit. From the romance of Galatea, it is obvious that Cervantes composed in all the various kinds of syllabic measure used in his time. He even occasionally adopted the old dactylic stanza. He appears to have experienced some difficulty in the metrical form of the sonnet, but his poems in Italian octaves display great facility. Among these, the song of Caliope, in the last book of the Galatea, stands out.
In the same manner as Gil Polo in his Diana, he makes the river Turia pronounce the praises of the celebrated Valencians. The poetic fancy of Cervantes summons the muse Calliope before the shepherds and shepherdesses, to render solemn homage to those contemporaries whom he esteems worthy of distinction as poets. The most beautiful poems in the Galatea are a few in the cancion style, some of which are iambics, and some in trochaic or Old Spanish verse. Cervantes has here and there indulged in those antiquated and fantastic plays of wit, which at a subsequent period he himself ridiculed.
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