ABSTRACT

The greater part of Castillejo’s poems were written at Vienna, and are full of allusions to the gaieties of the court. He admired and celebrates a young German lady, named Schomburg, whose barbaric appellation he translates into Xomburg. Late in life he returned to Spain, became a Cistercian monk, and died in convent in 1596. Some Spanish critics raise Castillejo to high rank among the poets of that nation, while others give him juster place, and perceive that it was the want of strength to soar beyond, that led him, in his own compositions, to confine himself to old coplas, and want of penetration that made him so violent an enemy of those whom he named the Petrarquistas. Castillejo’s lyrics are light, airy, graceful; and though they possess a fault little known in Spain – that of levity, – this defect is with him akin to that animation and wit which is the proper charm of poetry of this class.