though he reads the works of his contemporaries, is not passive enough to let his neighbours influence him. That is why the literary atmosphere is rarefied, and the individualistic tendency finds little check in social modes of thought.

A certain underlying unity results, however, from a common tendency towards seeking inspiration in human nature as seen through Spanish contemporary reality. The people continue to be a prominent factor in the literary life of the nation. They remain the race of spontaneous poets to whom we owe the old epic Romancer•and that other lyrical Romancero', no less admirable if less known, the priceless treasure of Spanish popular songs.' Moreover, the wealth of poetical ore which they possess makes them excellent subjects for literary treatment, and thus they contribute, passively with their lives no less than actively with their songs, to that transformation of present-day reality into poetry which is, and always was, the distinctive characteristic of Spanish literature. The most typical example of this double influence of the people on present-day art is to be found in the Theatre, and particularly in that peculiar variety of it called genero chico. The very name (small genre) is an apposite instance of the intellectualist attitude towards genuine Spanish creations. Your intellectual playwright prefers to imitate Ibsen or Bernard Shaw, but the audiences, who pay ', prefer the genero chico, and so the author sighs and writes little marvels for the stage. The genero chico is no doubt a chaotic type of theatre, vague and free enough to admit the classical masterpiece, the sentimental Viennese ineptitude, and the Parisian deshabille sketch. In this, as in its self-ignorance and in its admirable vitality, it resembles the Golden Century comedia.

1 gee my essay on Spanish Popular Poetry in Shelley and Calderon and other Essays, Constable, 192o.

A similar orientation towards a spiritual realism in harmony with the deepest instinct of the race can be observed in all the other literary genres. It inspires the poetry of the brothers Machado as well as the novels of Baroja, the poems and novels of Perez de Ayala as well as the admirable sketches of Azorin, the essays of Ortega as well as the innumerable newspaper articles into which Maeztu has poured his mind born for more permanent tasks ; it is the very essence of the art of Valle Inclân, poet, novelist, and playwright, and the comfort and discomfort of that unequal, solitary, and self-torturing genius, Unamuno. Thus Spanish contemporary literature may achieve the fusion of the intellect and the instinct of the race, and lead to a culture which would add to its vital creative vigour, intellectual consistency, self-confidence, and a capacity for harmonious development.