ABSTRACT
The life of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer was short and bitter. It is the old, old story of the poet in poverty and the painful struggle for which he is ill equipped. Ramon de Campoamor born at Navia (Asturias), is a far more complex character. His life, at least, was simple and unromantic; it was that of a well-to-do bourgeois, thrice governor of a province, who chiseled bitter Doloras even while he savored his comfortable otium cum dignitate. Federico Balart gained public esteem by his volume Dolores, poems in memory of his wife; they are sincere in their emotion, but necessarily somewhat monotonous. Joaquín María Bartrina was a Catalan. He left a bitterly pessimistic collection of verse called Algo. The prime mover and prince of these poets, "the great master of beauty fixed in Spanish verse," to use the words of Martinez Sierra, was not a Spaniard, but an American of Nicaragua, Ruben Darío.
