^{Note 1 in page 194} “Las Rimas de Bécquer y la influencia de Byron,” Bol. de la Acad. de la Historia, Vol. xcviii.

^{Note 2 in page 194} Montevideo, 1953: it includes important listings in tabular form (pp. 265–266) of sources which have been suggested for the Rimas.

^{Note 3 in page 194} The parallel cited between Hölderlin's “Buonaparte” and the final stanza of Rima v is unnecessary. This stanza is discussed below. It is highly improbable that Bécquer knew anything of Hölderlin, whose work was not well known at the time, in Spain not at al.

^{Note 4 in page 195} Relevant stanzas of Sanz's poem and the full text of Blest Gana's are reprinted by Diaz, pp. 118–119, 125–126.

^{Note 5 in page 196} I have found no Spanish translation of this poem, but a French version exists in S. Albin's Ballades el chants populaires de l'Allemagne (1841). This book apparently influenced the Album de Señoritas y Correo de la Moda; cf. J. Gómez de las Cortinas, “La formación literaria de Bécquer,” RBD, iv (1950), 77–99. Gómez de las Cortinas stresses the important role played by this journal in introducing German literature into Spain. Diaz, on the other hand, thinks La America was equally important. But we must not forget the Barcelona periodical La Abeja, one of the only two periodicals founded specifically to spread a knowledge of Germany and her culture. The other was El Sábado, founded by Nombela. Most scholars dutifully mention it, but singularly little information is forthcoming. It was started in Sept. 1860, but apparently did not outlast the year. The solitary copy I have been able to locate (No. 2) in the Hemeroteca Municipal of Madrid contains only one German item—a translation by Ferrán of a Grimm fairy tale.

^{Note 6 in page 197} Most conveniently to be found in Rückerls Werke, ed. Ellinger (Leipzig, 1897), Vol. i. 7 In the preface to the Obras (1st ed.).

^{Note 8 in page 197} Vicetto published in the Semanario Popular (18 Sept. 1862) a ballad which has, I believe, been entirely overlooked by scholars, but which is of considerable interest to students of Bécquer. As it is not easily accessible I reprint it in full:

Cuando el sol llega a Occidente y plega la flor su broche, cuando se inclina tu frente porque ha cerrado la noche;; no sientes sobre el albor de tu rostro encantador algo de arrullo y rocio … fresco, puro, alhagador? pues es un suspiro mfo.

Cuando el alba plateada su cabellera preciada estiende desde el Oriente y orla de fulgor la almohada donde descansa tu frente;,;no sientes, nifia, en tu lecho de azucena, levé frio que pasa raudo, deshecho? pues es un suspiro mio otro suspiro del pecho.

Cuando sola algún momento te encuentras en tu aposento en las tardes de verano

y vaga tu pensamiento ya del cielo al Océano; no sientes sobre tu sien sútil soplo abrasador? pues eso, mi dulce bien, es un suspiro de amor que te dirijo también.

Y si suspira por tí Siempre mi aima amorosa porqué no me quieres, dí? porqué no tienes joh rosa! sino espinas para mí?

Vicetto may have found inspiration for his last 2 lines in Ruckert's “Lass es nicht auf Dor-nenspitzen/ Sondern weichauf Rosen sitzen.”Both Blest Gana andE. F. Sanz (who was perhaps also influenced by Heine) probably knew Vicetto's poem, but students of Bécquer will be more concerned with the striking similarity between this ballad and Bécquer's Rima xxviii. There is possibly an echo of Vicetto's “no sientes sobre tu sien / sútil soplo abrasador” in Bécquer's “al sentir en tus labios un aliento abrasador” (Rima xvi).

Another poem on this theme, which has escaped attention, was composed by Guillermo Matta, who in 1887 published his Nuevas Poesías (Berlin), containing the following verses:

Cuando en tu almohada posas

La frente y duermes no has sentido, dime,

Como un rumor de voces carinosas

Y un labio que en tu boca un beso imprime?

Y no has visto en la oscura Sombra que por momentos se ilumina, Algo como la apariciôn de una figura Que enamorada junto a tl se inclina?

Las voces carinosas,

El labio que te besa, la figura

Que te acompafia, mientras tu reposas,

Es mi alma errante por la sombra oscura.

It would be interesting to know when this poem was first published. It comes under the heading Tiempos Pasados 1857–1859. Was it perhaps the first of the Spanish poems on this theme?

^{Note 9 in page 198} Obras Complétas (Santiago de Chile, 1907), i, 27. The poem is undated, but I infer the date of composition from the arrangement of the volume.

^{Note 10 in page 199} No. 11 of 16 poems, all signed “A,” and presumably by Ferrán. The title of the group is quite misleading.

^{Note 11 in page 199} Díaz, who discovered the similarity, concludes simply, “De modo más o menos fragmentary pueden advertirse algunos contactos con Goethe.”

^{Note 12 in page 199} The metre is not Goethe's invention. Matthisson, for example, uses it several times.

^{Note 13 in page 200} The most attractive explanation is that Bécquer heard the song sung in German. Bécquer's interest in music is well known and it seems likely that he was inspired by one of the several musical settings of “Náhe des Geliebten.” Goethe was first attracted by Zelter's music, not by Friederike Brun's poem. The analogy is striking.

^{Note 14 in page 200} We are forced to assume that the Rima is written from the masculine viewpoint solely because of the word “ciego” in 1. 14. But the whole atmosphere is as feminine as that of “Náhe des Geliebten.”

^{Note 15 in page 201} To be found in Friedrich Matthissons Gedichte, ed. Gottfried Bölsing (Tübingen, 1912). I have not yet found any Spanish or French translations of the poem, but a number of Matthisson's poems were translated into French and one or two appeared also in Spanish periodicals.

^{Note 16 in page 203} I make no attempt to give a full list of poems on these themes. There are further German examples (particularly in Matthisson), but they also occur in other literatures. Lanson gives details of non-German versions in his edition of Lamartine's Méditations poétiques (Paris, 1922), i, 49, 111.

^{Note 17 in page 204} Composed in 1819; printed in Gesammelte Gedichte (Erlangen, 1836), Vol. ii.

^{Note 18 in page 204} Printed in full by Hendrix, and also by J. M. Monner Sans in G. A. Bécquer: Rimas y otras páginas (Buenos Aires, 1947).

^{Note 19 in page 206} If we accept J. M. de Cossío's thesis (Bol. Bib. Menéndez y Pelayo, 1950) then Grün's poem was perhaps the first German poem to influence Bécquer. But I doubt whether Bécquer did find the poem in the Diario de Barcelona. It seems to me much more likely that he read it in French after his interest in Germany had been stimulated by his friends in Madrid. It was translated by S. Albin, and by N. Martin in Les poètes contemporains de l'Allemagne (Paris, 1846).

^{Note 20 in page 206} But Selgas' “Tú y Yo” was not in El Estio. I do not know when it first appeared. Diaz quotes La America, 1863. This raises the problem of whether it preceded the Rima or was itself influenced by it, but the indebtedness of both poets to Rückert still holds good.

^{Note 21 in page 207} Printed by Ellinger, Vol. i.

^{Note 22 in page 208} R. Balbín Lucas has already shown that Ferrán inspired Rima xxvii. Cf. RFE (1942), Vol. xxvi.

^{Note 23 in page 209} But see discussion below of Bécquer's relationship with Schiller.

^{Note 24 in page 210} “Originalidad de Bécquer,” Ensayos sobre Poesía Española (Madrid, 1944).

^{Note 25 in page 212} Gil Sanz's Intermezzo is not complete. Nos. 5, 11, 20, 24, 28, 30, 31, 38, 43, 50, 54, 60 are missing. Spanish scholars vary in their numberings of the Intermezzo. I take “Im wun-derschbnen Monat Mai” as No. 1.

^{Note 26 in page 212} Páginas Escogidas de Heine (Madrid, 1918).

^{Note 27 in page 213} Memorias Intimas (Madrid, 1904), Pt. xviii, pp. 151–152, in Vol. iv of Obras Completas.

^{Note 28 in page 213} Tmpresiones y Recuerdos (Madrid, 1909–11), iii, 456.

^{Note 29 in page 214} Dámaso Alonso wonders who Bécquer's intermediary was for this poem. A number of possibilities occur, of which the likeliest is Dacarrete in his poem “Imitación del alemán” (in Almanaque del Museo Universal, 1860). For further details about Dacarrete cf. D. Gamallo Fierros' article in Eslafela Literaria (Madrid, 1944), No. 11.

^{Note 30 in page 214} “Bécquer y el romanticismo espaflol,” Cruz y Raya, xxvi (1935), 45-73.

^{Note 31 in page 216} As early as the forties an “Academia alemana-española” was founded to encourage the study of German language and literature, according to the Semanario Pintorcsco Español (1841), p. 204.

^{Note 32 in page 216} In La America (8 Aug. 1858).

^{Note 33 in page 216} Here we have perhaps the answer to the vexed problem of Bécquer's knowledge of German. He liked to associate himself with the enthusiasms of his contemporaries and it is not improbable that he turned over the pages of a German grammar book. But he would not get very far. German is a formidable language for Spaniards. I do not believe for a moment that Bécquer learnt enough to have a direct knowledge of the poems which inspired him. On the other hand I have in this paper suggested several German contacts for which I am unable to indicate French translations. But they may well exist. No one has looked for them very seriously.

^{Note 34 in page 219} The Ecos de Schiller are listed in the Testamento directly after a volume called, perhaps significantly, Átomos.

^{Note 35 in page 220} Three of them appeared in Spanish translation: La Abeja published “Die Entzückung an Laura” in 1864, “Phantasie an Laura” and “Das Geheimnis der Reminiszenz” in 1868. These 3 poems also appeared in a different translation in La América (1867).

^{Note 36 in page 221} And of course Rosalía de Castro. We recall the following lines from En las Orillas del Sar (1884) : “y cruzan por los aires, silenciosos, / átomos que se besan al pasar.” Díaz (p. 145 f.) reminds us that J. M. Cossfo drew attention to the Bécquerian quality of these lines in Poesia Española (Madrid, 1936). But “atomic” verse was known in Spain too. La America published on 24 Feb. 1859 a “Serenata” by Zorrilla, which contains these lines: “Soy un átomo amante / que voy sonoro / por la atmósfera errante …” We remember that in Rima xv (1860) Bécquer was: “En mar sin playas, onda sonante; / en el vacío, cometa errante.”

^{Note 37 in page 221} This poem was printed by Nerval (Poésies Allemandes). There is evidence that the Spaniards were reading “Die Grosse der Welt.” In the “Schiller Year” of 1867 the Sigh Ilustrado (23 June) published a poem by F. Pérez Echevarría “Los Dos Suspiros” which recalls Schiller's poem. I quote 2 of the 7 stanzas:

Cruzando en opuestos giros La inmensidad transparente hallâronse frente a frente dos amorosos suspiros.

—El raudo giro detén—dijo uno, parando el vuelo;

—dónde caminas?— —Al cielo.—

—Yo al cielo también.—

Moreover, the spurious Rima LXXXI (1869) “Errante por el mundo fuí gritando” has a Schilleresque flavor.

^{Note 38 in page 222} “Creadón” meaning “creating” as well as “things created.”

^{Note 39 in page 222} Once we link up Bécquer with the young Schiller other parallels from Sturm und Drang occur to us. Díaz (p. 268) points out similarities between some Rimas and Faust. They are not fully convincing, but Faust was serialized in La Abeja (1864–65). Bécquer is, of course, much more like Werther than Faust. Perhaps he read Goethe's novel in La Abeja (1865–66).

^{Note 40 in page 224} Uhland's poetry is a good example. Bécquer had heard of it and must have seen a great deal, both in French and Spanish, but Uhland's influence is scarcely discernible.

^{Note 41 in page 224} I am grateful to the Durham Colleges Research Fund Committee for a grant enabling me to collect material for this paper.