1910 Articles

Gonzalo de Berceo in Spanish Literary Criticism before 1780

Fitz-Gerald, J. D.

In Spanish literature the first poet whose name we know with certainty is Gonzalo de Berceo, who flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. The first complete edition of his works did not appear until toward the end of the eighteenth century. What happened to them and what was thought of them during the five centuries that intervened between the death of the poet and the year 1780, when the learned Librarian of the King, Don Tomás Antonio Sánchez, published the second volume of his Collección de Poesías Castellanas Anteriores al Siglo XV giving it the subtitle of Poesías de Don Gonzalo de Berceo?

The question is not without interest; neither are the results of the investigations that lead us toward the possibility of answering it. Consequently, I propose setting forth with the utmost brevity the results that I have so far been able to obtain from my investigations. In citing the texts that speak of Berceo, I shall not stop to comment on them, nor even to correct the errors–sometimes rather serious-they may contain.