HISTORY IN LITERATURE

Professor Rafael Altamira of the University of Oviedo, Spain, delivered a lecture on "Literature as the Fountain of Spanish History" in Emerson D last night. Professor Altamira's subject does not indicate the scope of his address. He endeavored to show the general value of literature to the historian and took Spanish history as an example. There is little positively known of some of the greatest events in Spanish history; they are obscured in myth and legend. But that is not all. Having lost their orientalism, the Spanish people ask how they came to be what they are. Is there any truth in the general impression that they are a nation of individualists, free from the restraint of other than common law, with free institutions and customs? Examination of documentary evidence gives merely the political, territorial, external history of the people, Literature must be the fountain of their inward, intimate history. Examination of such poetic myths as the Cid, or Cervantes' Don Quixote is valuable in showing this. At Oviedo law students are encouraged in using literature as a means to discovering the spirit and principles of Spanish Common Law and institutions.

But there are many precautions to be taken in employing literature in historical work. Literature appeals primarily to the emotions; truth is often sacrificed to artistic effect; anachronisms, foreignisms, exaggerations, abound in most literature. Thus it becomes necessary to study the tendencies of different literary schools, and also comparative literature, in order to discount these qualities and reach beneath them the true, naturally distinctive characteristics of the times. There is a great need of men who are able to interpret literature in this way, both from the aesthetic and historical standpoints.