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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Purcell, Aaron D., 1972– editor.
Title: The digital archives handbook : a guide to creation, management, and preservation / Aaron D.
Purcell [editor].
Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018041539 (print) | LCCN 2018047935 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538122396 (Elec-
tronic) | ISBN 9781538122372 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781538122389 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Electronic records—Management—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Digital preserva-
tion—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Archives—Collection management—Handbooks, manuals, etc. |
Archives—Access control—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Classification: LCC CD974.4 (ebook) | LCC CD974.4 .D538 2019 (print) | DDC 070.5/797—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041539
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-10-320.jpg)
![Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 9
tent of the records. They also emphasize the unsustainability of the practi-
tioner’s “blind faith” by relying on technological recall and the hope that the
strengths of information technology will render appraisal unnecessary.10 Fur-
ther, Brown and Caron explain:
Of the various elements contributing to the information management crisis,
surely one of the most significant has been the “blind faith” . . . in the capacity
of information technology to both handle the volumetrics of current informa-
tion production and support the “precision of recall” necessary for effective
public administration on a continuing basis. The operational manifestation of
this information technology mythology—and it is truly mythology—is that it
is unnecessary to consider the value of information resources from any lens or
frame of perspectives . . . since the [practitioner] . . . has the storage capacity to
keep everything and the computing power to render the “everything” instantly
and precisely accessible through software search tools and applications.11
Inversely, the seminal writings of Ricky Erway for OCLC indicate that
best practices should focus on item-level management of digital material.
Erway’s work concentrates on the creation of disk imaging to preserve at the
bit level as well as photographing and inventorying individual digital me-
dia.12 Likewise, the AIMS Project outlines workflows and processes and is
caveated as a “framework,” with the understanding that following the model
is not an attainable venture.13 In their 2011 essay on the case study of the
Salman Rushdie digital archive, Laura Carroll, Erika Farr, Peter Hornsby,
and Ben Ranker focus on the intense amount of attention that the collection
required. As one of the first case studies on working with hybrid collections,
archivists have held this as a gold-standard example (as they should). Yet,
many archivists work in archives programs that are unable to devote signifi-
cant resources to this level of digital archives management.14
Authors, including Brown and Caron, have emphasized the differences
between what is realistically possible with available resources and profes-
sional best practices and what are the expectations. This disconnect feeds
inaction and archival paralysis when making appraisal and acquisition deci-
sions. Robert Sink argues that the archival profession does not benefit from
“a single appraisal theory to guide archivists in making acquisition and dis-
position decisions.”15 Because of overly detailed best practices, urging archi-
vists to preserve every bit, and overarching and overly broad appraisal theo-
ry, archivists are left with little guidance on appraisal practices for digital
records.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-41-320.jpg)
![Dorothy Waugh
20
something of a gap in the literature on description and delivery of electronic
material. This has begun to be remedied in recent years, as a number of case
studies, reports, and presentations at professional conferences have focused
on describing and accessing digital materials.3
Even so, addressing the description and delivery of born-digital archival
materials can seem daunting. Efforts aimed at devising strategies raise a
series of questions. First, how can archival programs adapt existing descrip-
tive principles and practice to meet the needs of digital objects? Next, where
can archives make access available? Finally, what sorts of delivery methods
are possible within the constraints of the archives’ time, funding, and techni-
cal infrastructure? Answers to these questions provide a starting point for
delivering access to electronic material found in existing and incoming dona-
tions to archives. To remember Schellenberg is perhaps the best advice for
archivists navigating these questions and to focus on the importance of use
and the experiences of other archives programs. As Cyndi Shein, assistant
archivist at the J. Paul Getty Trust Institutional Records and Archives, ad-
vises, “We needed to think big (consider scalable, extensible models for the
future), but start small (do something now).”4
HOW DO WE FACILITATE USE?
Meaningful description is crucial for materials residing in special collections
libraries and archives where access is frequently restricted and typically must
occur on site. As a result, descriptive records are often the first point of
contact for researchers wanting to know whether the material is relevant to
their work. Traditionally, the finding aid has performed this role. Collections
are described at the aggregate level based on provenance, with description
moving from the general to the specific depending on what level of detail
resources allow. The More Product, Less Process (MPLP) method, intro-
duced by Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner in 2005, encourages archivists
to reduce backlog by “creat[ing] a baseline level of access to all collection
material.”5 Such a task demands that description is limited to only what is
necessary. Daniel Santamaria at Princeton University refers to the functional
requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) developed by the Internation-
al Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to define what
this might include. Description, according to FRBR, should enable research-
ers to find, identify, select, and obtain relevant material. Santamaria argues
that “archivists should strive to do just enough to create finding aids or other](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-52-320.jpg)
![The Romanceros
keeps the voice of the speaker in a chanted recitative. It is more
akin to numbered prose than to verse.
However incomplete the romance may seem to us, to the Spaniard it
is dear. When romances were not being well written in Spain, it was
because nothing was being written well. The metre not only held its
ground against the court poetry of the fifteenth century, but
prevailed against the new Italian influence. Here as in other fields
the Spaniard was very tenacious of the things of Spain. To find a
parallel to what happened in Spain we must do more than suppose
that the Pléiade in France, or Spenser and his successors in England,
had failed to overcome the already existing literary schools. It was
as if the ballad metres had won a place even on the stage. No
Spanish Sir Philip Sidney need have apologised for feeling his heart
stirred by those ballads of the Cid, or of the Infantes de Lara, which
answer to our Chevy Chase. They were strenuously collected, and
constantly imitated, all through the sixteenth and well into the
seventeenth century. So far were they from falling
into neglect, that they were first able to shake the
slowly withering poetry of the troubadour school,
and then to fill a long series of collections, known, in the beginning,
as Cancioneros, or Libros, or Sylvas de Romances, but finally as
Romanceros. Much bibliographical learning and controversy has
collected about these early editions. Even if I could profess to be
competent to speak on such matters, they would have no proper
place here. From the point of view of the literary historian, the
interesting fact is that at a time when classic, or at least new
influences, born of the Renaissance, were carrying all before them in
France and England, and in Italy had long ago definitively
conquered, the Spaniards did not wholly part with their inheritance
from the Middle Ages.
The few ballads, and fragments of ballads, printed by Hernan del
Castillo in 1511, proved so popular that an editor was tempted to
form a special collection. The place and date of this first ballad-book
proper are both significant.[1] It appeared at Antwerp in or about](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-58-320.jpg)
![The Spanish
tongue.
The Diálogo de la
Lengua.
maturity, and was in fact full grown at the beginning of the sixteenth
century. This speedy maturity, though perhaps not for the good of
the language in the end, was natural. Castilian, in spite of a large
admixture of Arabic words, is so thoroughly Latin that little was
needed to fit it for literary purposes when once the study of classical
models was seriously begun—much as the art of printing came
quickly to perfection because the early typographers had beautifully
executed manuscripts before them as models.
The early sixteenth century in Spain was not barren in prose-writers,
mostly didactic, and also for the most part imitators of the Italians.
Francisco de Villalobos, of whom little is known except that he was
doctor to Ferdinand the Catholic and the Emperor Charles V., and
Fernan Perez de Oliva of Córdova (1492-1530), are the best
remembered of the class. But the Problems of the first, and the
treatise on the Dignity of Man of the second, are mainly notable as
examples of the growing wish to write Castilian for serious purposes.
[2]
But a more interesting proof of the care the
Spaniards were giving to their language is to be
found in the Diálogo de la Lengua[3]—Talk about
our Language, as it may be freely but not inaccurately translated.
This little book appears to have been written
about, and perhaps a little after, 1530, but was
not printed till Mayans included it in his Origenes
de la Lengua Castillana in the last century. There is strong internal
evidence to show that it was the work of one Juan de Váldes, a
Spaniard belonging to the colony settled in Naples, a Castilian by
birth, and a member of the doubtfully orthodox society collected
round Vittoria Colonna. Juan de Váldes himself is included in the
short list of Spanish Protestants, and his heterodoxy accounts for the
length of time during which his work remained in manuscript. He
smelt of the fagot, as the French phrase has it. All who possess even
a slight acquaintance with the literary habits of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are aware that we must not draw from the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-64-320.jpg)
![The influence of the
Inquisition.
1545), who is best known to us as the author of the once famous
Golden Epistles, if only for the sake of the influence he may have
had on Lyly.[4] Guevara wants, indeed, the quaint graceful fancy, and
also the oddity of the English writer; but it is possible that his
sententious antithetical style had some share in producing
euphuism. Guevara is also worth notice as an early, though not the
earliest, example of the pretentiousness and the tendency to wordy
platitude which have been so fatal in Spanish literature. He had
knowledge both of books and the world, and some command of
sarcasm. These qualities were, however, swamped in the “flowing
and watery vein” of his prose style. No writer ever carried the
seesaw antithetical manner to a more provoking extent. To make
one phrase balance another appears to have been his chief aim, and
in order to achieve this end he repeated and amplified. In his own
time, when whatever was at once sound as moralising, learned, and
professedly too good for the vulgar was received with respect,
Guevara had a wide popularity both in Spain and abroad. To-day he
is almost unreadable, and for a reason which it is easy to make clear.
It is known that La Fontaine took the subject of the Paysan du
Danube from the Golden Epistles indirectly if not directly. Spaniards
may be found to boast that there is nothing in the fable which is not
in their countrymen. This is partly true, but it is stated in the wrong
way. The accurate version is that there is nothing in Guevara’s prose
which is not in La Fontaine’s verse, but that it is said in several
hundred times as many words, and that the meaning (not in itself
considerable) is smothered in tiresome digressions and
amplifications.
A few words, and they need be very few, on the
influence of the Inquisition seem not out of place
in a history of any part of Spanish life in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They are even to be justified
by the fact that its oppressive influence has been called on to
account for the withering of the national will and intelligence, which
dried up the very sources of literature. The prevalence of the
destructive affectation called Góngorism has been excused by Mr](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-67-320.jpg)
![The starting-point
of the classic
school.
CHAPTER II.
THE SPANISH LEARNED POETS.
THE STARTING-POINT OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL—THE NATURAL
INFLUENCE OF ITALY—PREVALENCE OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL—
ITS ARISTOCRATIC SPIRIT—WHAT WAS IMITATED FROM THE
ITALIANS—ITS TECHNIQUE AND MATTER—ARTIFICIALITY OF
THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL—BOSCAN—GARCILASO—THEIR
IMMEDIATE FOLLOWERS—THE SCHOOLS OF SALAMANCA AND
SEVILLE—GÓNGORA AND GÓNGORISM—THE EPICS—THE
‘ARAUCANA’—THE ‘LUSIADS.’
Mr Ticknor has made the very just remark, that
the manner of the introduction of the later Italian
influence into Spanish poetry enables us to see for
once in a way exactly, when and at whose
instigation a literary revolution was begun. The story is told by the
best possible authority, by Juan Boscan, who was one of the leaders
of the movement, in the long letter to the Duchess of Soma, which is
printed as a preface to the second book of the collected works of
himself and his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, published at Barcelona in
1543.[5] En (to give him his native title) Juan Boscan Almogaver was
a Catalan of a noble family and of good estate. The date of his birth
is uncertain, but it probably fell in the last years of the fifteenth
century. He died in 1540 at Perpignan, where he had gone in
discharge of his duty as ayo, or tutor, to that formidable person the
great Duke of Alva. The story has been often told, but must needs
be repeated in every history of Spanish literature. Boscan, who had
already written verse in the old forms of the previous century, was a
cultivated gentleman who had served in Italy, and had there
acquired a good knowledge of the language. This he afterwards
turned to account in a translation of Castiglione’s Courtier, which](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-71-320.jpg)
![The natural
influence of Italy.
was considered by the Spaniards as not inferior to the original, and
had great popularity. In 1526 he attended the Court at Granada, and
there met Andrea Navagiero the Venetian ambassador. Navagiero
urged him to write “in the Italian manner.” Boscan turned the advice
over in his mind during his long ride back to Barcelona, and finally
decided to act on it, though not without doubts, and not until he had
been encouraged by a friend. This was the far more famous Garcia
Laso de la Vega, whose names, according to a not uncommon
custom, were combined into Garcilaso.[6] He was born in 1503 of a
very ancient house of nobles of Toledo, and was killed by being
hurled from a ladder while leading a storming-party at Frèjus in
1536. Little is known of their friendship, and indeed it would seem
that they cannot have seen much of one another, for Boscan spent
most of his life on his estate or at Court, whereas Garcilaso, who
was first a page and then soldier to Charles V., lived, in common with
all who followed “the conquering banners” of the emperor, on the
march or on shipboard, from the Danube to Tunis.
It would unquestionably be an error to conclude
from the exact manner of its beginning that there
would have been no Spanish imitation of Italian
models if Boscan had not met Navagiero at Granada in 1526.
Garcilaso, Diego de Mendoza, Gutierre de Cetina, and others, would
no doubt have begun to write pastorals, epistles, and canzones “in
the Italian manner” in any case. Allowing for the strength of the
Italian influence of the day, the close kinship of the two languages,
the frequent intercourse between the peoples, the ease with which
Castilian could be run into a Tuscan mould, this was inevitable. Yet
the story not only gives a curious incident in literary history, but it is
characteristic of the classic poetry of Spain. Boscan we see took to
playing with the foreign metres as a mere exercise of ingenuity, and
as an amusement for his leisure. He implies that Garcilaso acted on
the same motives as himself. With such a beginning there was an
obvious danger that the Spaniards would work as mere pupils and
produce only school exercises.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-72-320.jpg)
![Its technique and
matter.
Spaniards allowed to be the original of their own line of eleven
syllables, and of the line of ten with an accent on the final syllable,
had become very monotonous in their hands. The cæsura fell with
unvarying regularity after the fourth syllable. The innovators learnt
to vary the pause, and thereby to give a new melody to the verse. It
remained to them also to be more slavish in imitation than their
predecessors had been. This slavishness was
shown by the establishment of the endecasílabo
piano, with the unaccented vowel termination as
alone legitimate. Castilian abounds in vocablos agudos, in masculine
rhymes, and was not under the same necessity as Italian to prefer
the softer form. The Spanish poets were, we may suppose,
influenced by the fact that the accented ending had become
associated with comic verse among the Italians, and yet by
submitting to a limitation which was not justified by the genius of
their language, they began by impoverishing their poetic vocabulary,
and they did it in pure unintelligent imitation. The restriction was not
accepted without reluctance. Rengifo, who is the Spanish
Puttenham[7]—the author, that is to say, of the standard work on the
mechanism of verse written in Spain in the close of the sixteenth
century—even puts in a plea for the verso agudo. He had good
authorities to support him, for Garcilaso had dared to end a line with
the word vestí. Boscan, who, however, is not accepted by the
Spaniards as of unimpeachable authority, had been so left to himself
as to end on nació, while Diego de Mendoza had done the evil thing
“a thousand times.” According to the stop-watch of the new school
this was wrong, and all three were duly pilloried for their offences in
the Egemplar Poético—i.e., Ars Poetica—of Juan de la Cueva.[8]
Yet Juan de la Cueba or Cueva (the b and v, being very similar in
Spanish pronunciation, were constantly written for one another
before the spelling was fixed) was a man not unworthy of attention.
His life is covered by the obscurity common to the men of letters of
the time, and on the whole more dense in Spain than elsewhere. But
we know that he lived in Seville during the latter half of the
sixteenth century. His Egemplar Poético, though not considered as](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-75-320.jpg)
![Boscan.
Garcilaso.
follies. One does not recognise the truth of this judgment in the case
of France and England, but it has force as applied to Spain.
A general estimate of a school must always be difficult to justify
except by a profusion of quotation, which is impossible here. We can
do no more than leave it to be accepted or rejected by those who
can control it by a knowledge of the original, and proceed to give
such a sketch of the history of Spanish classic poetry as our limits
allow.[9] It falls naturally under two heads—the Lyric and the Epic—
and in both the presence of the Italian model is constant. The
leading form in lyric poetry is the cancion in hendecasyllables with
quebrados—that is, broken lines of seven syllables. But the Epístola
in tercets, imitated from the capitolo of the Italians, is very common.
The song proper is wholly absent. There is no “Come unto these
yellow sands,” no voice of Ariel in Spanish poetry. The Spaniard does
not sing; he chants.
Of the two chiefs of the school, Boscan ranks
mainly by virtue of the example he set. He was
somewhat harshly condemned by his follower,
Herrera, for hanging jewels robbed from the classics and Italians on
his own robe of frieze. The charge of plagiarism is not easily
rebutted, for Boscan certainly took his goods where he found them
in Virgil or Horace. As for the quality of his robe, it is undoubtedly of
the nature of frieze. What strikes the reader most in Boscan is a
certain worldly good sense, more like our own Queen Anne men
than the poetry of a sixteenth-century school at its beginning. His
most quoted piece, an Epístola addressed to Diego de Mendoza, is
eminently rational prose disguised in verse, avowing a most
heterodox affection for his wife (his whole tone to women is
thoroughly modern), and a quite unpoetic liking for a good supper
by a blazing fire of logs at the end of a day in the open air. But we
note also the maturity of the language, in spite of a certain
awkwardness due to the writer’s want of skill. This
same premature and fatal maturity is even more
conspicuous in Garcilaso, who was more master of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-78-320.jpg)
![Their immediate
followers.
Only a very full history of Spanish literature could
afford to dwell on Ferdinand de Acuña (Ferdinand,
Fernando, Fernan, and Hernan are all forms of the
same name, employed according to taste or local usage), who was a
Portuguese noble in the service of Charles V., a soldier of distinction,
a writer of Castilian verse, and a copious translator from the classics;
or Gutierre de Cetina, a soldier best known by a graceful madrigal;
[10] or many others whom it would be a barren display to name; but
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza is too strong a man to be passed in a
crowd. He is chiefly famous as a man of action—as a soldier who
governed Siena for Charles V., and a diplomatist who represented
the emperor in a very military fashion at the Council of Trent. In
literature he ranks chiefly as the undoubted author of a history of
the revolt of the Moriscoes, and as the possible, though doubtful,
author of the Lazarillo de Tormes. Diego de Mendoza (1503-1575)
was a younger son of the Count of Tendilla, head of one of the many
titled branches of his famous house—the Douglases of Spain. He
was the direct descendant of the Marquess of Santillana, and
through him of that Lord of Butrago who sacrificed his life for the
king at the battle of Aljubarrota.[11] His poetry was the relaxation of
a great noble who broke through the rules in a fashion well
calculated to horrify such critics as Juan de la Cueva. But Don Diego
had fire enough in him to burn up a wilderness of correct poets of
that order. Sometimes it flamed out with little regard to decency. But
in happier moments—as, for instance, in the ode to Cardinal
Espinosa—he could strike that note of a haughty, or even arrogant
patriotism, which is the finest in Spanish poetry. Even in his case we
have examples of the same premature maturity noted in Boscan.
One of his epistles addressed to this very writer begins by the
Horatian “Nil admirari”—an excellent maxim, perhaps, but chilling in
the first youth of a poetry. Mendoza wrote not only in the Tuscan,
but the native metres, couplets, and glosas. The glosa is a favourite
exercise of verse-making ingenuity with the Spaniard. It consists in
taking any stanza of whatever number of lines, and building on it a
poem of the same number of stanzas as there are lines. Each must](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-80-320.jpg)
![The two schools of
Salamanca and
Seville.
end in one of the lines of the foundation stanza taken in their order.
They must be brought in without violence, and the whole must be a
variation on the theme of the stanza quoted. Diego de Mendoza
outlived Charles V., and spent his last years in exile at Granada,
incurred by a too great promptitude in resenting impertinence within
the precincts of the Court.
It has been the custom to divide the poets of
Spain into the Castilian and the Andalusian, or
those of Salamanca and those of Seville. The
division is somewhat arbitrary, and corresponds to
very little distinction in tone, method, or language among the
writers, or at least so it seems to a foreigner who compares Luis de
Leon with Hernan de Herrera, though the first is counted as the chief
of the school of Salamanca, and the second as the chief of the
school of Seville. Both wrote the same fine Castilian, both were good
scholars, and there was the same intense religious feeling, the same
high patriotism, in both. Luis Ponce de Leon (1528-1591), as if to
show how artificial this distinction is, was born at Granada, which is
one of the sub-kingdoms of Andalusia.[12] He was an Augustine friar,
and occupied two important chairs in succession at Salamanca.
Between 1572 and 1576 he was imprisoned by the Inquisition. The
charge made against him was that he had translated the Song of
Solomon, which, at a time when the Reformers were making an
active use of the Bible in the vernacular tongues against the Church,
was a serious offence. The leader of the attack on him was the
Dominican Melchior Cano, of whose De Locis Theologicis Dr Johnson
wrote, “Nec admiror, nec multum laudo.” It is a well-known story of
Luis de Leon that when the verdict of the Holy Office was given in
his favour, and he was allowed to resume his lectures, he began
where he had left off, and with the words, “As we were saying
yesterday, gentlemen.” His poetry may be divided into that part
which is inspired by Horace, and that which is inspired by the Bible.
It is perhaps only natural that he should appear to more advantage
when he is paraphrasing the description of a perfect wife from the
Proverbs of Solomon than when he is endeavouring to adapt the lira](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-81-320.jpg)
![of Garcilaso to some theme obviously taken because it bore a certain
resemblance to the subject of one of the odes of Horace. These
imitations of the classic models were not confined to the graver and
more reflective parts of his originals. Luis de Leon, though a
churchman of undoubted piety, wrote amatory poems. The coplas in
the old Spanish metres called A una Desdeñosa—to a scornful lady—
are on exactly the same subject as the already named Flor de Gnido
of Garcilaso. Whether he was following the classics and learned
poets of his own country, or paraphrasing the Psalms, Luis de Leon
was always a master of the very purest Castilian; while his reflective
poems—the Noche Serena, for instance, or the ode which imitates
the Beatus Ille of Horace—are something more than mere exercises
of ingenuity. It was his reputation as a stylist which secured the
publication of his poems forty years after his death. Luis de Leon
himself seems to have considered them only as amusements for his
leisure. But in 1631 Quevedo brought out the first edition, in order
to counteract the growing taste for Góngorism.
The poet who has the honour to rank as a stylist among the
Spaniards, next to, if not on an equality with Garcilaso, is Hernan de
Herrera of Seville (1534-1597), a churchman of whose life almost
nothing is known with certainty.[13] As usual, he published little
during his life, and much of his manuscript was lost by an accident
after his death. The remainder was published by his friend the
painter Pacheco in 1619. Spaniards, if asked to name the pieces of
verse in their language which display the greatest measure of force
and dignity, would certainly quote the famous odes on the battles of
Lepanto and Alcázar el-Quebir, together with the sonnet in honour of
Don John of Austria. The vigour of these verses is unquestionable,
and if it cannot be claimed for them that they display any great
originality of form, they are animated by a fine spirit of patriotism.
Herrera, too, had a sense of the merits of compression, which is not
common with his countrymen. He worked at the language in an
artistic spirit.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-82-320.jpg)
![Góngora and
Góngorism.
Once more, as in the case of the immediate followers of Garcilaso,
we must pass over the names of all but the chiefs very lightly.[14]
The Aragonese brothers Lupercio and Bartolomé de Argensola, who
may be classed among the poets of Castile; Francisco de Figueroa,
who spent nearly all his life in Italy; Rioja, the poet of flowers, and
the author of a moral poem on the Ruins of Italica (a Roman colony
near Seville), inspired by Joachim du Bellay; Arguijo, and many
others, must be passed over in silence. It is proper to note, however,
that whatever anybody else was doing at this time, Lope de Vega did
in as great quantities as men who did nothing else. But there will be
occasion to speak of Lope elsewhere. For the present he must make
room for the writer whom some have claimed as the most genuine
lyric poet of Spain, and who bears the discredit of having flooded the
literature of his country with a ruinous affectation.
Don Luis de Argote y Góngora, who habitually
used the second of these names, which was his
mother’s, was a Cordovese, born in 1561.[15] He
was educated at Salamanca, followed the Court for some years, and
was attached to the Duke of Lerma. He took orders, and received a
benefice when advanced in life, and died in his native city in 1627.
His evil fame, based on the invention of the particular form of bad
literature called after him Góngorism, is greater than his good, which
yet has some foundation. His romances on stories of captives among
Barbary pirates, and of wars on the frontiers, are among the best of
their kind. Among his earlier poems on the Tuscan models there are
some which possess the lyric cry with a degree of intensity very rare
among the Spaniards. The third cancion, for instance, contains a
singularly passionate and admirably worded variation, on the theme
of Shakespeare’s forty-fourth sonnet, “If the dull substance of my
flesh were thought.” But it was not for this, the work of his earlier
years, that the reputation of Góngora has been spread over the
world, but because he, to steal an image from Carlyle, swings in
chains on the side of Parnassus, as the inventor of “El Culteranismo”
or “Góngorism.” At some period in his life he began to write in this
style. Hostile critics say he did so because he could not attract](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-83-320.jpg)
![Piramo fueron y Tisbe,
Pyramus they were and Tisbe,
Los que en verso hizo culto
Those who in verse made[16] polished
El Licenciado Nason
The Licentiate Naso
Bien romo ó bien narigudo
Maybe snub, maybe beak
Dejar el dulce candor
To leave the sweet white
Lastimosamente obscuro
Lamentably dark
Al que, túmulo de seda,
Of that which, tomb of silk,
Fue de los dos casquilucios
Was of the two feather-heads
Moral que los hospedó
Mulberry which gave them shelter
Y fue condenando al punto
And was condemned at once
Si del Tigris no en raizes
If by the Tigris not in root
De los amantes en frutos.
By the lovers in fruit.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-85-320.jpg)
![Don Cristobal de Salazar Mardones explains in prose, and with
copious references to Ovid, Meta., lib. iv., that what this means is
that the mulberry-tree was not torn up by the roots as a punishment
by the Tigris, but was coloured by the blood of the lovers. The
reader will see at once that this is puerile nonsense, and that it is a
mere trick. It is also a very old trick. When Thiodolf of Hvin, whose
verse riddles adorn the Heimskringla, wrote of a certain king—
“Now hath befallen
In Frodi’s house
The word of fate
To fall on Fiolnir;
That the windless wave
Of the wild bull’s spears
That lord should do
To death by drowning,”—
he was writing in “góngorina especie”—that is, in what was to be the
manner of Góngora. The whole secret lay, as Lope de Vega, indeed,
pointed out, in never calling anything by its right name, and in
transposing words violently. Given a great deal of bad taste, and a
puerile mania for making people stare, and the thing is easily
accounted for. In such conditions it may be thought clever to call
mead which men drink out of horns “the windless wave of the wild
bull’s spear,” or to describe a mulberry-tree as a tumulus of silk,
though the mistake was incomparably more excusable in Thiodolf of
Hvin than in Góngora, and the Norseman seems on the whole to
have been the least silly of the two. The comparison which has been
made between Góngorism and our own metaphysical school is too
favourable to the Spaniards, in whom there was absolutely nothing
but juggling with words.
This folly spread as rapidly as the imitation of Italian models had
done. It was in vain that Lope argued against it for common-sense.
He was himself conquered. Quevedo,[17] who attacked it, was driven](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-86-320.jpg)
![The Epics.
to worse straits, for he endeavoured to resist it by means of another
affectation, the conceptista, or conceited style, which is more like
our “metaphysical” manner, but never had the popularity of
Góngorism. The founder of this school of affectation was Alonso de
Ledesma of Segovia (1552-1623). The poems which Quevedo
published under the name of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre were
meant to reinforce Luis de Leon, and were free from either kind of
fault; but the learned poetry of Spain had not vitality enough to
throw off the disease. Góngorism became the literary taste of the
day, and was soon traceable everywhere.
The great mass of epics, or so-called epics,[18]
which form the non-lyric side of the learned poetry
of Spain, belong with rare exceptions, if not with only one exception,
to the domains of bibliography and curiosity. I have to confess that I
do not speak with any personal knowledge of the Carolea of
Hierónimo Sempere, published in 1560, or many others, and with
only a slight acquaintance with the Carlo Famoso of Don Luis de
Zapata. This second poem, published in 1565, is in 50 cantos, and
contains 40,000 verses. The subject is the history of the Emperor
Charles V., and it may stand here as a specimen of the whole class
to which it belongs. The Carlo Famoso is essentially prose, disguised
in such ottava rima stanzas as any one who had once acquired the
trick could probably write as easily as prose pure and simple. If Don
Luis de Zapata, who had served the emperor, had been content to
tell us of what he saw in prose, he would probably have left a
readable, and perhaps a valuable, book. But, unfortunately, he felt
called upon to build the lofty rhyme, in imitation of Ariosto, and this
brought with it the necessity for supernatural machinery, which the
Don Luis de Zapatas of all countries are very ill qualified to handle.
The ease with which verses of a kind are written in Spanish, the
influence of a fashionable model, and the prestige attaching to the
writing of verse, led to the production of innumerable volumes on
historical subjects of what would fain have been poetry if it could.
Some of this mass of writing is not without merit, the Elegies of
Famous Men of the Indies—Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias—of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-87-320.jpg)
![The Araucana.
Juan de Castellanos[19] is readable enough, and has some historical
value. Juan de Castellanos, whose dates of birth and death are
unknown, was an old soldier turned priest, who in common with
many others could in a fashion write ottava rima stanza. He seems
to have thought that “Elegy” meant much the same thing as
“Eulogy,” and his Elegias are, in fact, a history of the conquest of
America by the Spaniards, carried down to 1588. It is only a
fragment, but even so, it fills a crown octavo volume of 563 pages in
double columns. Of course there are by the side of work of this kind
imitations of the Italian epic serious or humorous, which have no
pretensions to a historical character. Here it was only to be expected
that Lope de Vega would be among the most fluent and the most
conspicuous, for it may be repeated that he tried his hand at
whatever others were doing. The epics in the Italian form being
popular, he wrote several; and as he had an unparallelled command
of facile verse which always stopped short of becoming bad, he is
never unreadable, though, as he was also only a very superior
improvisatore, his poems never quite compel reading. The subject of
the Dragontea—the last cruise and death of Sir Francis Drake in
1594—is so much more attractive to an Englishman than the
Angelicas and Jerusalem Conquistadas, taken from Ariosto and
Tasso, that one is perhaps prejudiced in its favour. And yet it seems
to me to have a certain vitality not present in the rest, and to be by
no means inferior to them in other respects.[20]
The partiality of his countrymen and the too good-
natured acquiescence of foreigners have given the
name of epic to the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla.
[21] The author was a very typical Spaniard of his century. He was
born in 1533, and came to England as page to Philip of Spain at the
time of his marriage with Mary Tudor. It was from England that he
sailed to Chili for the purpose of helping in the suppression of the
revolt of the Araucans, which, became the subject of his poem.
While on service he was condemned to death for drawing his sword
on a brother officer. The sentence was remitted, but Ercilla resented](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/28706651-250518165126-9025cedc/85/The-Digital-Archives-Handbook-A-Guide-To-Creation-Management-And-Preservation-Aaron-D-Purcell-88-320.jpg)
The Digital Archives Handbook A Guide To Creation Management And Preservation Aaron D Purcell
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- 7. The Digital Archives Handbook
- 9. The Digital Archives Handbook A Guide to Creation, Management, and Preservation Edited by Aaron D. Purcell ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
- 10. Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Purcell, Aaron D., 1972– editor. Title: The digital archives handbook : a guide to creation, management, and preservation / Aaron D. Purcell [editor]. Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018041539 (print) | LCCN 2018047935 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538122396 (Elec- tronic) | ISBN 9781538122372 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781538122389 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Electronic records—Management—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Digital preserva- tion—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Archives—Collection management—Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Archives—Access control—Handbooks, manuals, etc. Classification: LCC CD974.4 (ebook) | LCC CD974.4 .D538 2019 (print) | DDC 070.5/797—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041539 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America
- 11. For Clio
- 13. vii Contents List of Figures and Tables ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv Aaron D. Purcell I: Processes and Practices 1 1 Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 3 Lisa Calahan 2 Description and Delivery 19 Dorothy Waugh 3 Digital Preservation 45 Bertram Lyons 4 Digital Forensics and Curation 73 Martin Gengenbach 5 Contracts, Intellectual Property, and Privacy 95 Heather Briston II: Collections and Environments 121 6 Performing Arts Collections 123 Vincent J. Novara
- 14. Contents viii 7 Oral History Collections 143 Douglas A. Boyd 8 Architectural and Design Collections 165 Aliza Leventhal 9 Congressional Collections 195 Danielle Emerling 10 Email 215 Matthew Farrell Index 231 Contributors 241
- 15. ix List of Figures and Tables Figure 3.1 Counting to ten in binary 47 Figure 3.2 Bytes in a file 48 Figure 3.3 Actual contents of the file in figure 3.2 49 Figure 3.4 Excerpt of BMP file 50 Figure 3.5 OAIS reference model 57 Figure 3.6 Preservation repository ecosystem 59 Figure 3.7 NDSA levels of digital preservation 60 Figure 3.8 A checksum and its associated file 62 Figure 8.1 What software does your firm currently support and/or use? 173 Figure 8.2 What files formats do you have in your holdings? 174 Figure 8.3 Using Rhino and Grasshopper to adjust files 177 Figure 8.4 SketchUp 178 Figure 8.5 Grasshopper 179 Figure 8.6 Levels of details for renderings 181 Figure 8.7 A convoluted folder structure 189 Figure 8.8 A tightly organized folder hierarchy 190 Table 8.1 Files and formats in architectural and design records 166
- 16. List of Figures and Tables x Table 8.2 Categories of digital materials for architectural and design records 175 Table 8.3 Software used in the production of project records 187
- 17. xi Preface An email from a records officer about a transfer of electronic files, a hard drive from a prize-winning journalist, or a mystery box of floppy disks found in a backlog collection is an everyday challenge for today’s archivists. Pro- fessional archivists in a variety of archives programs face daily challenges related to digital materials maintained by their programs or destined to be part of their digital collections. The reality of managing digital archives is not a new concept for archivists, but the deluge of electronic information and rapid changes in technology have intensified challenges that previous genera- tions of archivists did not face. But where can archivists look for advice on managing digital archives? Many sources on managing digital materials focus on electronic records that denote government or official archival materials. This rigid term ignores a wide variety of digital material being created by other types of donors far outside of official records schedules, public laws, and institutional legal re- quirements. Sources on the challenges of legacy media and digital curation are either far too technical or consist of overly specific case studies. As a remedy to this literature gap, The Digital Archives Handbook: A Guide to Creation, Management, and Preservation explores the challenges of managing digital archives. This handbook is written by archivists who have developed methods to provide access to a diverse range of digital mate- rials found in government, private, and academic archives. The chapters discuss the core components of digital archives:
- 18. Preface xii • the technological infrastructure that provides storage, access, and long- term preservation • the people or organizations that create or donate digital material to archives programs and the researchers who use the collections • the digital collections themselves, full of significant research content in a variety of formats representing a range of genres with a multitude of research purposes A common theme throughout the book is that the people and the collec- tions that make up digital archives are just as important as the technology. Further, this book emphasizes the importance of donors and creators of digi- tal archives. Building digital archives parallels the cycle of donor work— planning, cultivation, and stewardship. During each stage, archivists work with donors to ensure that the digital collections will be arranged, described, preserved, and made accessible for years to come. The chapters provide both general and format-specific advice for archi- vists. Following a brief introduction, the first section reviews processes and practices. In includes chapters on acquisitions, appraisal, arrangement, de- scription, delivery, preservation, forensics, curation, and intellectual proper- ty. The second section is focused on digital collections and specific environ- ments in which archivists are managing digital archives. These chapters re- view digital collections in categories including performing arts, oral history, architectural and design records, congressional collections, and email. Archivists must take proactive and informed actions to build valuable digital collections. Knowing where digital materials come from, how those materials were created, what materials are important, what formats or topical areas are included, and how to serve those collections to researchers in the long term is central to archival work. The Digital Archives Handbook: A Guide to Creation, Management, and Preservation is designed to generate new discussions about how archival leaders of the twenty-first century can overcome current challenges and chart paths that anticipate, rather than merely react to, future donations of digital archives.
- 19. xiii Acknowledgments All writing projects represent a journey. An idea sparked at a conference or during the early morning commute may take a dozen years before the words hit the page. During the journey there are intermittent periods of waiting, long hours searching for the right words, a variety of supporters cheering from the sidelines, and an array of unexpected challenges. For edited books, there are other twists and turns. The purpose of an edited volume is to bring a group of strong voices to shared pages in some sort of coherent and consis- tent way. Each contributor brings his or her own style, strengths, and sched- ules to such a project. That variety strengthens the finished product even if the voices are not always in stereo or the voices take a long time to say what they need to say. The origins of this book began in 2015. It took another full year before the contents, purpose, and contributors took shape. Then it took another two years of drafts and editing to bring the completed chapters to the end of the journey. The ten authors who followed me were patient, gracious, and will- ing to let me edit their work. My goal was to enhance their words, when I could, and to shape each puzzle piece to create a larger picture. I thank them for letting me lead this journey and for articulating so well the challenges and approaches to digital archives. Many thanks go to Charles Harmon at Rowman & Littlefield. He sup- ported this project from the very beginning and gave me the time I needed to complete the work. I must also thank colleagues for listening to my thoughts on donors over the past few years and for their willingness to read outlines and drafts of this manuscript. Steve Tatum once again did a fantastic job with
- 20. Acknowledgments xiv the cover image. I deeply appreciate the enthusiasm of the eight students in my archives class who shared their hands with the world. Those students include: Liz, L.T., Marlee, Drew, Emily, Kathryn, Jeff, and Kelly. My fellow archivists at Virginia Tech also deserve acknowledgment for their support and for not questioning the many blocks of editing time on my calendar. Finally, my family deserves praise for pushing me to be professionally alive. I dedicate this book to Clio, our family’s muse who brought light to all our days.
- 21. xv Introduction Aaron D. Purcell Digital collections are everywhere. Each day we leave behind our digital footprints when we send an email, upload and share photos through social media, read an online article, purchase airline tickets, or check the balance of our banking account. In our professional lives, the digital footprint is larger and more complex. Organizations (whether private, government, public, aca- demic, nonprofit, for-profit, or a family business) create a massive amount of digital material. The use of cloud-based storage systems rather than in-house servers has accelerated the trend for employees, business owners, and institu- tions to have a “keep everything” policy. The sheer volume of digital materi- als is frightening. It is too common and too easy to keep thousands of emails in an inbox believing that “someday I will sort through them all.” That day is always tomorrow. Of course, the bulk of digital content created by individuals or organiza- tions has limited long-term value. A paid invoice from ten years ago, a personal email about picking up groceries after work, or a preliminary draft of a quarterly report does not age well. For a moment, these digital materials are important, but quickly the information loses its value. Rather than send these digital files to the “recycle bin” as a regular practice, we move on to creating new digital files to meet the next round of personal and professional demands. In fact, Amazon.com, Google.com, and other large companies en- courage this behavior so they can mine our undeleted content. We are great at creating digital content but lousy at managing it. Our digital footprints also contain a small portion of files that age well. These materials are what make up digital archives. Annual reports, email
- 22. Aaron D. Purcell xvi correspondence during or about a significant historical event, final structural plans for a building, high-quality recordings of theatrical performances, data sets, and social media reactions to important cultural events are some of the types of digital collections with potentially long-term value for researchers and others. Identifying the important files out of the hundreds if not thou- sands of unimportant ones is challenging. Often these materials have unintel- ligible file names that only make sense to the person who created them. An awareness of the important and unimportant, especially when we depend on institutional or individual memory for answers. Further, rapid technological change and software obsolescence result in the inability to access older files without significant intervention and technical expertise. Each day the digital footprints of individuals and organizations grow larger and larger with no end in sight. Very few individuals and organizations place value on organizing, selecting, deleting, and thinking long term about their digital files. Even the IT experts who upgrade systems and build secure technical infrastructure have little interest in considering existing content and how today’s digital files will be used in another six months. Somehow peo- ple, including many archivists, are more concerned about a room full of filing cabinets stuffed with paper files than multiple terabytes of data on hard drives, servers, or in cloud storage. The unseen nature of digital material makes it easier to ignore the long-term technical challenges that await us. Archivists are one of the few professional groups dedicated to collecting, selecting, managing, preserving, and providing long-term access to digital archives. Approaches to building digital archives are still quite new. The digital environment is tremendously different from a paper-based world, and adapting analog practices for digital material is not often possible or advis- able. Despite the challenges, archivists build digital archives from a variety of sources. As part of that process, archivists educate the creators of digital materials on the importance of long-term access. Closer work with donors and a proactive approach to collecting digital material results in collections that have significant research value and often supplement existing analog collections in archives programs. Archivists recognized the challenges of digital archives several genera- tions ago. The late 1970s and early 1980s were an important period for archival theory and practice. In a post-American-bicentennial glow, archi- vists established new archival programs, offered different types of training, and embraced the idea of active documentation strategies for multiple layers of the nation’s history. The archival literature of this time was extraordinarily
- 23. Introduction xvii rich. It was during this period that Gerald Ham introduced the concept of a postcustodial era for archivists and pushed the profession to document a more diverse patchwork of American society.1 Archival educators and prac- titioners, including Trudy Huskamp Peterson, Frank Burke, and Frank Boles, wrote and presented on new trends, practices, and theories in archives. Their articles and books continue as required readings for any aspiring or seasoned archivist. Collectively, these scholars recognized a changing role of archi- vists in society, which would be shaped by technology and an abundance of information.2 One of the best snapshots of this pivotal period came from Edward Wel- don. His presidential address at the 1982 Society of American Archivists meeting, published the following year in the American Archivist as “Archives and the Challenges of Change,” focused on three observations that are still prevalent in the work of today’s archivists. First, Weldon discussed the significance of the baby boomer generation in reshaping American soci- ety and approaches to documenting those cultural shifts. Today, the baby boomers retain influence over all walks of American life and have key lead- ership positions in the archival community. Second, he pointed to a prolifera- tion of new organizations and government agencies that were producing records at an alarming pace. To tame the records monster, he suggested a broader and more grassroots approach to archival work and an abandonment of practices that overdocument the highest levels of society. Weldon’s third and most significant observation was that the postindustrial information rev- olution would change society and the archival profession in untold ways. As the instrument of change, the computer would alter how information is creat- ed, stored, and shared. Weldon made the wise choice not to predict exactly how affordable digital technology would cause gray hair and sleep loss for archivists. He did, however, suggest that to overcome challenges in the infor- mation era, archivists must partner with librarians, records managers, and technical experts rather than charting a separate set of solutions.3 Weldon’s observations from over thirty-five years ago serve as an excel- lent reminder that several generations of archivists have faced the deluge of electronic information and new technology. Perhaps the biggest obstacle, which Weldon discussed at length, was individual and institutional resistance to change. As technological change marches forward at its own rapid pace, archivists and especially their institutions are slow to adapt. As a corollary effect, the volume of the fire hose of digital information increases daily. Government officials, scholars, students, leaders of organizations, bloggers,
- 24. Aaron D. Purcell xviii community activists, and basically anyone with a cell phone or access to an internet connection creates more digital files each year than he or she did the year before. Identifying who and what is important has become even more muddled than when Weldon and his generation of archivists stared into the archival black box at the beginning of the electronic age. Just as important and complicated is how archivists collect, preserve, and provide access to digital materials. In the years and decades that followed Weldon’s heyday, archivists en- countered a range of digital challenges. At the same time, the volume of analog materials also increased at an unprecedented rate. More simply, the paperless society of the new century that many dreamed of did not occur when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2000. Instead, many of today’s archivists are still overwhelmed by paper-based collections and wade into electronic records issues only when faced by a crisis. As further evi- dence of this reality, the most significant and still highly debated archival theory and practice of recent times is minimal processing of large paper- based collections.4 There have been many successes with electronic records projects, technical training, shared standards, and digital access tools that archivists should be proud of. But after nearly two decades into the new century, the profession is still struggling to keep up with technology, to work with records creators, and to consider how, if at all, paper-based archival theories work in a digital environment. It is also clear that archivists have not built enough bridges to the related fields of libraries, records management, and information technology, as Weldon suggested. The good news is that whether archival materials are in analog or digital format, archivists ask three simple questions. First, who is donating the mate- rial? Second, what material is being donated or transferred? Finally, how has and how should the material be managed and preserved? In other words, who is the donor, what kind of “stuff” do they have, and how will archivists deal with the material in the long term? The “who, what, and how” questions encompass the full range of archival work and the answers simplify many of the challenges of creating, managing, and preserving digital archives. I found the simple “who, what, and how” questions helpful for organizing Donors and Archives: A Guidebook for Successful Programs (2015).5 The book contains some discussion of digital donations, but the focus is on donor relations and building a strong donor program. Just after the book was pub- lished, I took the stage as a panelist at a Midwest Archives Conference meeting to talk about the challenges of working with one of my donor com-
- 25. Introduction xix munities that are creating large amounts of digital content. My co-presenters discussed their issues with electronic records creators, how to best store and curate the digital files, and approaches to recovering lost data from obsolete media. Clearly, there was much more to say on donations of digital content, but I knew that multiple voices needed to tell that important story. After the conference, I organized a group of archival practitioners and experts to write a handbook on digital archives. They represented different types of archival programs but shared many of the same digital challenges. I asked them to write about their experiences with digital materials, the prac- tices they follow, what resources they use, where their collections come from, how researchers use their collections, and finally, what they think about the near future of their area of expertise. As I worked with each of them in the following months, the core components of digital archives be- came clear—the technological infrastructure that provides storage, access, and long-term preservation; the people or organizations that create or donate digital material to archives programs and the researchers who use the collec- tions; and the digital collections themselves, full of significant research con- tent in a variety of formats representing a range of genres with a multitude of research possibilities. As the chapters took shape, the book emphasized that the people and the collections that make up digital archives are just as impor- tant as the technology. The result is a detailed practical guide to digital archives that fills in a significant gap in the professional literature. The archival literature on managing digital materials is uneven. Overview archival sources provide a laundry list of options for managing electronic materials in archives with a strong focus on the technological needs. These sources, however, provide little information about implementation and main- tenance. At the other end of the spectrum, there are case studies and books on archival trends that describe how archives programs within a very specific context overcame their digital challenges and which choices were made. The “we done good” or “lessons learned” sources have merit, but such contribu- tions are so specific to an organizational context that they cannot be duplicat- ed with success elsewhere.6 Other sources provide advice about managing personal or individual collections of digital content. These sources focus on a particular type of creator, format, or technology, which limits the extent of their reach.7 A major shortcoming of the archival literature on digital materials is the emphasis on official electronic records only. Archivists working in a variety of settings must manage official materials as mandated by law, retention
- 26. Aaron D. Purcell xx schedules, or organizational policies; however, there is a much wider range of important digital materials that are not the traditional official records. Each day, archivists in government, higher education, and private archives programs work with digital materials that are “official” and “unofficial” records of documentary evidence. No longer can archivists compartmentalize their digital efforts to one type of record, format, or institution. A more holistic approach to building and managing digital archives is required. Approaches to building digital archives are still quite new. It is only in the past two decades that archivists have developed replicable practices for man- aging digital archives. The digital environment is tremendously different from the paper-based world. Archivists created standards and developed best practices for paper records, but to simply adapt those approaches in the digital realm is often not possible. As a related challenge, the differences in archives programs (e.g., purposes, funding, staffing, resources) make it diffi- cult to create a one-size-fits-all approach for managing digital material. The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to current approaches to building digital archives, review common technical challenges for all archives pro- grams, and highlight the most frequent types of digital collections and where they come from. The Digital Archives Handbook: A Guide to Creation, Management, and Preservation is focused on the “who, what, and how” of digital archives. The chapters review the processes and practices of building digital collections while also providing insights into how archivists and archives programs work with specific types of digital materials. Chapters are written by archivists who are experts in their field and have direct experience with acquiring, managing, and providing access to digital archives. The first section of the book targets general processes and practices. Lisa Calahan begins the journey with an exploration of the acquisition and apprai- sal of incoming digital collections. She describes experiences with the receipt and ingest of digital content at the University of Minnesota Libraries and how those processes are replicable for other archives programs. The second chapter, by Dorothy Waugh, focuses on the complexities of describing and delivering digital content for researchers. She uses examples from the Rose Library at Emory University, which boasts a digital archives unit and signifi- cant digital collections. In the following chapter on preservation of data, Bertram Lyons, who works for AVPreserve, describes the basics of the digi- tal environment and how to begin a digital preservation program. Like other authors, he emphasizes the importance of preservation planning with donors
- 27. Introduction xxi before content is even created. Martin Gengenbach, an archivist at the Gates Archive, follows this discussion with more long-term strategies for the re- covery and curation of digital content. His chapter reviews emerging digital forensics practices and the role that archivists must play in creating informa- tion systems that have a long-term component. The section concludes with an in-depth discussion of ownership, contracts, rights, and privacy concerns when providing access to digital archives. Heather Briston, university archi- vist at UCLA, reviews best practices and shares experiences of balancing access and privacy with digital materials. The second section of the book targets specific types of digital collections and how archives programs manage these electronic materials. The first chapter in this section reviews performing arts collections. Vin Novara uses examples from the Smith Performing Arts Library at the University of Mary- land to review the complexity of digital content created by artists and per- formers. The next chapter comes from Doug Boyd, who manages the Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. He not only describes the challenges of creating and curating oral history collections but also points to innovative tools and resources to help manage oral history initiatives. In the next chapter, Aliza Leventhal, an archivist for Sasaki Associates, ex- plains how architects and designers have been using complex software for decades. She describes the numerous challenges of recovering and providing access to architectural and design records in the long term. Many archives programs collect political collections, which are often voluminous and carry special conditions of use. Danielle Emerling reviews common strategies for working with digital content from congressional collections, with examples from the University of West Virginia. Finally, Matthew Farrell from Duke University reviews one of the most ubiquitous digital formats of our daily lives—email. He includes different approaches to collecting email and how to provide access to researchers. These ten chapters offer practical advice for managing digital archives. They carry similar themes that apply to all archives programs and include a few ponderings about the near future. First, the authors place great impor- tance on the donor or creator of the material. Archivists must work with their donors early and often, planning for the acquisition of digital content even before that material has been created. Discussions with donors must be trans- parent. Archivists should inform donors what is possible or not possible, even if that information affects the terms and outcome of the donation. Do- nors serve as an important link in the chain of custody for digital archives.
- 28. Aaron D. Purcell xxii The donors and creators continue as partners long after their digital material is available; archivists would do well to rely on them as long-term partners and collaborators. Second, not all challenges of digital archives are technical or have a technical solution. The authors are at different points in their careers and play unique roles for their institutions. No matter where they are located on an organizational chart, the authors represent leaders for their archives programs and the profession. Further, the authors are well-trained archivists with spe- cialized content knowledge. They know more than just how to build digital systems and arrange and describe a collection; they also know a great deal about the content itself. A solid understanding of the research value of in- coming digital content and knowledge of the context in which that material was created (e.g., the details behind the creation of a special university task force on diversity adds contextual information to the final PDF report in the collection) are invaluable skills during all phases of managing digital archives. Sharing this knowledge with others in the program and the profes- sion is crucial for overcoming the many challenges of maintaining digital archives. Building a team of archivists with content knowledge is just as important as having a group with strong technological skills. Such teams often start on short-term projects, with the expectation to make those posi- tions and their associated skills become a central and programmatic part of the archives program. Third, it is important for archivists to be current on technology and to be part of conversations with IT professionals in their institutions. Archivists do not need to be leading their organizations’ IT programs, but they should at least be part of the discussions when larger decisions are being made. Archi- vists must not let the technology dictate what is possible for building digital archives. Too often, the limits of software or the IT budget confines the ability of archivists to be effective managers of their digital collections. It is true that resources must be allocated for software, hardware, server space, and technological development, but those choices must not limit which col- lections can be acquired or the how content can be accessed. Archivists are developing a variety of free open-source tools and software, which in the coming years will create new options and opportunities. Next, the amount of incoming digital content will only increase as new technologies emerge. Individuals and organizations will produce more com- plex digital content in new formats at a much faster pace. A culture of “big data,” and relying on data for decision making, such as solutions to global
- 29. Introduction xxiii problems, will also mean that preservation, curation, and forensic recovery services will become more mainstream. Archivists and librarians have an important opportunity to play a significant role in developing those digital services and bringing digital education to a much larger audience. Technolo- gy will always be changing. Archivists must be current on these changes but not so fixated on bleeding-edge directions that they lose sight of the chal- lenges of digital archives already under their care. Another theme of this book revolves around the importance of use and the researcher. The use of digital archives by researchers is the main reason why archivists create, manage, and preserve digital archives. Just like analog col- lections, digital materials are intended to be used and not simply stored away for safekeeping. If collections are inaccessible, they serve little purpose and often become a burden on archives programs. Similarly, available digital archives are only useful if researchers are actually using them or have the correct tools to access them. Research using archival material is still at its core a tedious process, so technology does not necessarily make research easy, but it does make research possible for many digital collections. The needs of the researcher are central to the entire process of acquiring, manag- ing, and providing access to digital archives. Often archivists are so con- sumed with designing the perfect system to access or store digital archives that they create systems and build content that only archivists would under- stand. Archivists must think like researchers if they want their digital collec- tions to be used by researchers. Finally, and in Weldon’s footsteps, archivists must capitalize on develop- ments in other fields and partner with experts from other professions. Archi- vists are not well equipped to change public perceptions about digital preser- vation unless they work in tandem with other professional groups, speaking the same language and the same message. Such partnerships will allow archi- vists to focus on more specific challenges, such as the changing nature of rights, creating better digital appraisal practices, developing more effective discovery tools, and promoting sustainable open formats for digital preserva- tion. Through archival and nonarchival networks, archivists must share their approaches to these specific challenges. These and other areas offer the next generation of archivists the ability to further define the field of digital archives. The success of today’s archives programs is measured not by linear feet or terabytes of files but by how digital archives are acquired, accessed, and preserved. The chapters in this book provide readers with both theoretical
- 30. Aaron D. Purcell xxiv and practical approaches to creating and caring for digital archives. They place emphasis on working with donors early and often. Building digital archives parallels the cycle of donor work—planning, cultivation, and ste- wardship. During each stage, archivists work with donors to ensure that the digital collections will be arranged, described, preserved, and made access- ible for years to come. Indeed, digital collections are everywhere. Archivists must take proactive and informed actions to keep valuable digital collections from becoming lost in the digital deluge. Knowing where digital materials come from, how those materials were created, what materials are important, what formats or topical areas are included, and how to serve those collections to researchers in the long term is central to archival work. This handbook is intended to generate new discussions about how archival leaders of the twenty-first century can overcome current challenges and chart paths that anticipate, rather than merely react to, future donations of digital archives. NOTES 1. F. Gerald Ham, “Archival Strategies for the Post-Custodial Era,” American Archivist 44 (Summer 1981): 207–16; F. Gerald Ham, “The Archival Edge,” American Archivist 38 (Janu- ary 1975): 5–13. 2. Trudy Huskamp Peterson, “Counting and Accounting: A Speculation on Change in Recordkeeping Practices,” American Archivist 45 (Spring 1982): 131–34; Frank G. Burke, “The Future Course of Archival Theory in the United States,” American Archivist 44 (Winter 1981): 40–46; Frank Boles, “Disrespecting Original Order,” American Archivist 45 (Winter 1982): 26–32; Edward Weldon, “Archives and the Challenges of Change,” American Archivist 46 (Spring 1983): 133. 3. Weldon, “Archives and the Challenges of Change,” 125–26, 130–32. 4. Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner, “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Tradition- al Archival Processing,” American Archivist 68 (2005): 208–63. 5. Aaron D. Purcell, Donors and Archives: A Guidebook for Successful Programs (Lan- ham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 6. The most recent and similar sources on management of digital archives include the Society of American Archivist’s Trends in Archives series. The modules are intended to be brief treatments with eventual updates as new practices emerge. These sources provide pre- scriptive advice and are loosely connected by themes. Some of these modules examine compo- nents of managing and preserving donated digital content. Michael J. Shallcross and Christo- pher J. Prom, eds., Appraisal and Acquisition Strategies (Chicago: Society of American Archi- vists, 2016); Christopher J. Prom, ed., Digital Preservation Essentials (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2016). 7. Sources that focus on managing and organizing personal collections of digital content include Gabriela Redwine, Megan Barnard, Kate Donovan, Erika Farr, Michael Forstrom, Will Hansen, Jeremy Leighton John, Nancy Kuhl, Seth Shaw, and Susan Thomas, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories (Washington, DC: Council on Li-
- 31. Introduction xxv brary and Information Resources, 2013), https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/ pub159.pdf; Christopher A. Lee, I, Digital: Personal Collections in the Digital Era (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2011); Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker, The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017).
- 35. 3 Chapter One Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement Lisa Calahan Receiving digital archives is not an unusual challenge for archivists. In fact, digital materials are quickly becoming the most common type of donation to archival repositories. Yet standards and best practices for managing these donations are still in their infancy. Unfortunately, the easiest decision to make about incoming digital materials is to not make any decision at all. But, expecting the next generation of archivists to manage digital donations of the past is no longer a legitimate strategy. A more proactive approach to acquire, appraise, and arrange incoming digital materials minimizes later challenges and results in quicker access to electronic research materials. As with all archival donations, the acquisition of digital material may be unexpected or anticipated. Archivists have traditionally used paper-based strategies for acquiring, appraising, and arranging digital materials. As a result, when digital materials are one component of an analog collection, it is common for archivists to focus first on paper records. At some point in the future, however, archivists must return to the challenges of the electronic files or media. Many times, digital materials, especially those contained on hard drives or disks, are separated from analog materials and become part of series related to electronic media (usually one of the last series listed in the collection’s finding aid). Alternatively, digital files are stored on a server awaiting the careful review of an archivist. Professional literature in the last twenty years suggested high-level best practices, stressed the time sensitivity of digital records, and encouraged
- 36. Lisa Calahan 4 archivists to act quickly. The message was not lost on archivists. The dooms- day literature warned archivists of the dangers of inaction or moving ahead haphazardly. However, the hard-line approach often has the opposite effect, and archivists may not act at all out of fear or lack of resources. Based on the guidelines supported by the literature, archivists follow a general set of protocols to successfully manage digital archives including the following: 1. Have policies and strategies approved by stakeholders 2. Have workflows and processes in place for management 3. Act quickly; time is of the essence 4. Have standardized processing activities and metadata creation policies 5. Bit-level capture or disk imaging is the professional standard 6. Provide a digital repository for management 7. Prove the authenticity and maintain the integrity of material 8. Leverage expertise in the larger local and professional communities 9. Create and maintain clearly defined submission information packages (SIPs), archival information packages (AIPs), and dissemination infor- mation packages (DIPs) 10. Provide resources and maintain a designated “clean” workstation 11. Check all accessions for viruses 12. Photograph all media 13. Regularly backup SIPs, AIPs, and DIPs 14. Create inventories for individual media1 Following this list of procedures and policies before the acquisition of digital archives is necessary but often not an option for many repositories. Archives programs without resources to foster a sense of digital awareness and prepar- edness create an environment in which their archivists become frightened by the prospect of acquiring and managing electronic records. This common scenario leads to the very inaction cautioned by well-meaning authors. The most important takeaway is that doing something is better than doing noth- ing. Working with digital donations often requires a unique process, which is sometimes drastically different from accessioning and processing analog ma- terial. However, acquisition and appraisal best practices and ongoing ethical obligations for analog material should be followed for digital content. Devel- oping new practices and internal methods to manage digital records repre- sents an important moment to consider the realities of appraisal. Collecting
- 37. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 5 decisions are based on an individual archivist’s lived experience, and in the words of Verne Harris, “Every act is implicated in acts of constructing, representing, accessing, and disseminating what is held in custody. Every act of custodianship assumes an exercise of power.”2 The archivist’s role in deciding what is kept as part of the historical record for society is more crucial with the accrual of digital records, and it is important to be aware of the implication of making acquisition and appraisal decisions in a profession that is predominately white, in which decision makers are in positions of political, social, and economic power.3 As Mario Ramirez succinctly states, “Being an archivist does not somehow absolve them of also being a product of society and therefore subject to its prejudices and assumptions.”4 With that in mind, archival strategies for receiving, appraising, and orga- nizing digital materials will vary by institution, but there are some common steps for archivists to take and plenty of pitfalls to avoid. This chapter fo- cuses on some of the common challenges of acquiring, appraising, and ar- ranging digital donations. It discusses common approaches to these chal- lenges and how one institution adapted those best practices to fit its needs and available resources. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT Like most repositories, the Archives and Special Collections (ASC) at the University of Minnesota (UMN) Libraries has acquired digital files since the time when there were disks to put in boxes. The disks stayed dutifully in their folders and boxes, where they continue to reside until funding makes it possible to manage the legacy material. The same active ignorance cannot be prescribed with digital records today. Although ASC still receives the disks in a box, the department is much more proactive in addressing new digital acquisitions. Archivists must accept and plan to preserve history that is not created analogously—our world is a digital one. For ASC, appraising, accessioning, and arranging digital donations re- quired a team effort and consensus. The initiative began as a larger effort within the University of Minnesota Libraries of which ASC is a department . ASC is an academic archives program consisting of fifteen individual col- lecting units, each focusing on material from diverse communities. The units collect and preserve a wide range of materials to support interdisciplinary research for the university and surrounding communities. The department has approximately twenty-four full-time positions in addition to project staff,
- 38. Lisa Calahan 6 students, volunteers, and interns, who are integral to the work conducted by the department.5 Like many archives programs, the collecting units have a history of work- ing independently with their own staff and unique collection development policies and internal standards for appraisal, acquisition, and processing. In fact, it was not until 2000 that the archival units were combined into one department and not until 2018 that all collecting units were housed in the same building. To better streamline and standardize internal processes, in 2007, UMN leaders created a central processing unit to help oversee the work of acquisitions and processing for the various collecting units. The decision to centrally manage acquisitions had several advantages for analog collections, but at that time, there were no guidelines in place for born-digital collections. The department still needed guidance to streamline and integrate digital collections into a uniform plan that would mirror department protocol for the central management of all acquisitions. Further, department leader- ship wanted to ensure that collecting units could focus on procuring digital donations, rather than creating their own internal procedures for managing them that did not match internal best practices or stewardship requirements. In 2014, the libraries approved the creation of an Electronic Records Task Force (ERTF) to make institutional decisions about electronic acquisitions and management. The ERTF represented a centralized approach to manage the challenges of digital donations. The libraries charged the ERTF to review professional best practices, create and bolster university protocol and best practices, and create guidelines for preserving, ingesting, processing, and providing access to electronic records. Started in March 2014 and extended the following year, the ERTF included different stakeholders in managing digital content. The group included staff from several library departments responsible for the creation, storage, preservation, and access to digital mate- rial. After recognition by the University of Minnesota’s University Council, the ERTF first worked on the creation and implementation of methods for acquiring, ingesting, and processing digital donations. Although originally chartered as a task force to represent all of the libraries’ digital assets, it quickly became clear that the focus of the task force was better suited to address archival material. The work of the ERTF began with conversations and meetings with archi- val staff and curators. The group determined that staff through the units of the UMN needed significant training on best practices for digital acquisitions and how to work more closely with donors of digital content. Through share-
- 39. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 7 able documents, the ERTF promoted open conversations about the nature of electronic records and shared reasonable expectations of managing and pre- serving digital records. The group created staff guidelines in an easily digest- ible format to review the expectations of donors and the reality of what could be provided. The ERTF mediates the various steps in a digital donation. With input from ASC staff and many UMN departments, the task force created docu- mentation to help guide unit staff through conversations with donors about potential acquisitions, donation and acquisition strategies, preferred and pres- ervation formats, and other considerations. ERTF members work with unit staff to better understand the source of the acquisition and what the priorities for the collection are. Once the ASC receives an acquisition, ASC staff adds the information to an electronic records accession log and the ERTF takes over. ERTF members are solely responsible for transferring the digital dona- tion from the original or transitional media and performing ingest and acces- sion procedures. The experiences of managing born-digital records will be unique at every repository, but the task force model at the University of Minnesota Libraries offers a scalable approach for other institutions. By pooling available re- sources and bringing stakeholders together to make decisions, staff were able to create strategies for stewardship that met available staff and financial resources. Drafting best practices based on trial and error during the apprai- sal, acquisition, and arrangement processes allowed the task force to fully grasp the context of managing digital donations in a real environment.6 APPRAISAL AND ACQUISITION The professional literature on appraisal and acquisition is often a separate discussion, but it is increasingly difficult in the twenty-first century to keep the conversation compartmentalized. Professional standards increasingly rec- ognize and respect the ongoing role and influences of creators in addition to stronger documentation practices for archivists making acquisition and ap- praisal decisions. While the literature discusses the merits and shortcomings of archival appraisal, it is important to reiterate the insight of authors who challenge the status quo. Especially when managing digital donations, archi- vists must be aware that decision-making practices include inherent biases, particularly when it comes to appraisal strategies for preserving the histories of marginalized communities—who are often times doubly marginalized be-
- 40. Lisa Calahan 8 cause of unequal and limited access to digital technology and content.7 This is a key consideration when examining the appraisal and acquisition of records of marginalized communities and understanding the importance of recognizing erasure or the whitewashing of digital records. When considering the influence of archivists on the preservation of cultu- ral heritage, Kit Hughes argues that archivists must understand that their role in the creation process of records is more critical than fully realized. Hughes explains that archivists who are responsible for records management func- tions influence what records are created and kept, and Hughes believes archi- val appraisal serves as a key cultural function. She also states that “as con- temporary recordkeeping moves further into digital realms and it becomes apparent that early intervention in the records-creation process is imperative if archives want to save any records whatsoever, the question of archivist involvement in the creation of the documentary record resolves itself—it is unavoidable.”8 It is the urgency for intervention and action to preserve digital records that can be overwhelming. Unlike analog records, we know that bits can easily slip through our hands like grains of sand—preserving context and authenticity is not easily accomplished. Often, the urgency with which archi- vists must acquire and preserve digital records is not met with the additional resources to address digital records with realistic ambition. Likewise, Angeli- ka Menne-Haritz explains that beyond the many questions regarding apprai- sal strategies, “the underlying premises of all of them is that archives aim at shaping as true as possible an image of society. But the raw material that we must work with does not conform to those ambitions.”9 Because of the dichotomy between the ambition of best practices and reality, the application of theoretical archival appraisal standards for digital donations nosedives when practitioners attempt to match best practices to practical available resources. The massive quantities of digital material pro- duced by creators are often too overwhelming for archives programs to man- age, which makes it difficult for archivists to devote the bit-by-bit attention that professional standards outline. As Richard Brown and Daniel Caron explain in their 2013 article in the American Archivist, only a small fraction of the enormous quantity of digital content has historical or intellectual val- ue, and they point to macro-appraisal as a potential adoption method for digital appraisal. Separating the chaff from the wheat is impossible given the vast amount of content. Their article stresses that appraisal should move toward the preservation of context of the record creator rather than the con-
- 41. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 9 tent of the records. They also emphasize the unsustainability of the practi- tioner’s “blind faith” by relying on technological recall and the hope that the strengths of information technology will render appraisal unnecessary.10 Fur- ther, Brown and Caron explain: Of the various elements contributing to the information management crisis, surely one of the most significant has been the “blind faith” . . . in the capacity of information technology to both handle the volumetrics of current informa- tion production and support the “precision of recall” necessary for effective public administration on a continuing basis. The operational manifestation of this information technology mythology—and it is truly mythology—is that it is unnecessary to consider the value of information resources from any lens or frame of perspectives . . . since the [practitioner] . . . has the storage capacity to keep everything and the computing power to render the “everything” instantly and precisely accessible through software search tools and applications.11 Inversely, the seminal writings of Ricky Erway for OCLC indicate that best practices should focus on item-level management of digital material. Erway’s work concentrates on the creation of disk imaging to preserve at the bit level as well as photographing and inventorying individual digital me- dia.12 Likewise, the AIMS Project outlines workflows and processes and is caveated as a “framework,” with the understanding that following the model is not an attainable venture.13 In their 2011 essay on the case study of the Salman Rushdie digital archive, Laura Carroll, Erika Farr, Peter Hornsby, and Ben Ranker focus on the intense amount of attention that the collection required. As one of the first case studies on working with hybrid collections, archivists have held this as a gold-standard example (as they should). Yet, many archivists work in archives programs that are unable to devote signifi- cant resources to this level of digital archives management.14 Authors, including Brown and Caron, have emphasized the differences between what is realistically possible with available resources and profes- sional best practices and what are the expectations. This disconnect feeds inaction and archival paralysis when making appraisal and acquisition deci- sions. Robert Sink argues that the archival profession does not benefit from “a single appraisal theory to guide archivists in making acquisition and dis- position decisions.”15 Because of overly detailed best practices, urging archi- vists to preserve every bit, and overarching and overly broad appraisal theo- ry, archivists are left with little guidance on appraisal practices for digital records.
- 42. Lisa Calahan 10 The prescription that only bit preservation and retention of inaccessible proprietary and obsolete formats should be preserved continues to be a major stumbling block for many repositories interested in preserving and providing access to digital records. The preservation and management of digital records is much more intensive than their analog counterparts, but the mandate that all digital files should be managed and preserved equally represents an early misunderstanding by archivists of how donors create and manage digital records. More recent publications and conversations regarding the appraisal of digital records to fit the repositories’ capabilities and internal strategies is a more realistic and iterative approach.16 Having a firm grasp of the professional literature on appraisal of digital records is an important and ongoing first step to implementing individual best practices and practical workflows. It is arguable, however, that it is more important to understand that appraisal literature will not reflect the reader’s real-world management of digital collections. The bigger challenge is that available resources (i.e., staffing and technological infrastructure) at each institution often make professional recommendations unrealistic if not im- possible. By following recommended best practices without the necessary support in place, archives programs become poor stewards of digital collec- tions. As the UMN experience demonstrates, sometimes being good stewards is more important than following professional standards. The importance of being a steward is often defined by the available resources the archives program has access to and the ability to say “no” when stewardship cannot meet a collection’s preservation or management needs. This practical ap- proach conflicts with the advice from the authors of Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories, who argue that making ap- praisal decisions based on real resources, or working with donors to manipu- late and organize files, is negligence. This important source suggests that all digital content be preserved in the short term for analysis in the long term. They recommend that archives programs preserve, bit by bit, every inaccess- ible file that may or may not have historic value.17 For UMN, investment of scarce resources into an uncertain future is not a sustainable approach for accepting digital donations. Instead, all incoming donations receive some level of appraisal, and those decisions are well documented. At UMN, appraisal is tied to acquisition and ingestion of content. Work- ing with donors before the material arrives is crucial. Those conversations affect the level of appraisal necessary once the donation is complete. Build-
- 43. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 11 ing a close relationship with donors allows for candid conversations about the program’s capacity and what types of materials are wanted and can be supported. Appraising the files before they arrive provides archivists with a better understanding of what type of intervention the collection will require. Having clear guidelines of the types of formats that are acceptable and sup- ported makes appraisal decisions easier. One of the pitfalls of actively collecting digital files and appraising post- donation is underestimating the quantity of digital materials that are created, duplicated, and shared. Brown and Caron question the archival value of the bulk of digital content being created. The authors also describe the logistical challenges of digital appraisal, especially the endless variety of programmat- ic and proprietary software needed to use, view, and manipulate records.18 At UMN, archivists minimize these challenges by early engagement with do- nors when possible. These conversations promote a better understanding of types of material and records that have historical and archival value. Archi- vists must emphasize to donors which types of file formats the archives programs can realistically support. It is unwise for archivists to promise or allude to a promise of keeping certain file types and formats in the hopes of future technological developments that might make the content accessible. Even with structured and intensive appraisal practices that include active donor participation before acquisition, it can be difficult to assess the com- plexities of the collection until after acquisition. The actual review of digital material and discussions with donors occur in many settings, including at the donor’s home, at the repository, or virtually through file-sharing software. But, it is not until the ingest process that staff are able to obtain a deeper understanding of the complexities of digital collections. At UMN, collection review is built in as part of the ingest process. Archivists review file formats, check for duplicative material, and screen for personally identifiable infor- mation (PII). This process helps assess the condition and uniqueness of the files, and internal appraisal decisions are based on a series of questions and considerations. Archivists consider the ability to preserve and provide access to files, the volume of the donation, the relationship between digital and paper materials within a hybrid collection, the available information about the context and content, the ability to realistically transfer the files, and an understanding of potential preservation challenges. This review identifies files that were created by and stored within proprietary software, the level of organization, and any type of image identifier.
- 44. Lisa Calahan 12 As an example of digital appraisal at UMN, archivists worked with a professional photographer to acquire a large collection of digital photo- graphs. Typical for digital photograph collections, none of the files were organized, and the file names were the image identifiers assigned by the digital camera (i.e., dmg0001). Members of the ERTF used documented workflows and best practices to make definitive appraisal decisions. During the examination, even though conversations with the donor about file formats had already occurred, archivists discovered that all image files were kept in a proprietary editing database that could not be supported. That reality meant that archivists needed to work closely with the donor to convert the image files to TIFF files before the donation. Fortunately, the donor was amenable to spending countless hours of personal time to export the files out of the proprietary software and save them as TIFFs. The donor exported over 18,000 files (approximately 473 GB), organized the files, and saved them to a hard drive. Archivists still faced the challenge of naming and organizing the material, but the quality of the content justified the appraisal decision. As a second example of appraisal, a nonlocal film production company wanted to donate a collection of digital audio and visual material. Archivists shared technical requirements with the company and requested more infor- mation on the size and file types of the potential donation. From the first conversations, archivists explained to the donors that staff would not be able to preserve any files that required proprietary software. Further, archivists recommended that the company convert the in-house production and proprie- tary files to MP4 so that staff could be confident that they could support and preserve the files. Even though this request slowed the donation by about nine months, the files arrived as a usable and accessible research collection. The cost benefit and immediate value to researchers was immeasurable. These examples support Robert Sink’s argument that “appraisal is not a single action to be applied to a group of records at a single point of time. The appraisal process is progressive. It takes place throughout our custody of records, and we ask different questions at different times in the process.”19 This is especially true as archivists making appraisal decisions based on the cultural heritage value, stewardship considerations, access points, and avail- able resources. Just as the range of collecting scope varies for each archives program, the types of digital records acquired are also vastly different. Each new accession brings its own issues and challenges, which means that best practices need to be flexible to suit the constant fluctuation of collection demands. The Uni-
- 45. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 13 versity of Minnesota Libraries developed its standards through a centralized committee (ERTF), which had input from multiple departments and from staff with different roles in the process. This collaborative approach is scal- able for all types and sizes of archives programs. The ERTF outlined issues to be aware of, from appraising material for content to limits on the ability to preserve and/or view all file types. The group also created a similar guide for staff to share with donors as a starting point for a conversation on what a digital donation might include, types of formats that could be accepted, and access expectations. In addition, the ERTF produced a brief survey for staff to share with donors to gain more information about their potential donation. Donors were asked to estimate the potential donation size, list types of formats, identify proprietary software, describe types of material found in the records, address any type of personal information, and list any requested restrictions on the material. To supplement the work of the ERTF, leaders of ASC reinstituted an acquisition committee. The committee, which included staff with broad re- sponsibilities for collection development, reviewed potential, large digital donations in keeping with ASC policies. In collaboration with the head of archival processing, the acquisition committee drafted a centralized acces- sioning protocol. This protocol required that all accessions—analog, born- digital, and hybrid—be reported on a centralized accession log, on which the collection could be tracked. Once an accession log for the donation is completed, the collection is added to an ingest queue to be accessioned by either specific archival or unit staff or a member of the ERTF; the person assigned to ingest the collection often depends on available staff resources and the immediacy of the collec- tion needs. As part of the ingest process, staff remove the files from original hardware devices. They load the files onto a “clean” hard drive, where they can be examined according to internal protocols. Preservation of digital con- tent begins at this early stage. Archivists complete checksum reports on the files and conduct a series of reports to check for personal or private informa- tion, potential duplication, content not originally identified as topically rele- vant, and other common issues. Many times, archivists identify errors and issues that need to be discussed with the donor before further action can be taken. The ERTF shares this information with the unit responsible for the donation. It is then up to the unit to provide the resources to make processing decisions based on the recommendations of the ERTF.
- 46. Lisa Calahan 14 ARRANGEMENT The arrangement of digital collections represents the practical application of archival theory. At the same time, arrangement is the most nebulous and intangible process in managing digital records. Existing literature on process- ing digital records has focused primarily on preservation and access to con- tent while largely ignoring the challenges of arranging digital files. Unlike analog material, digital files cannot be holistically reviewed. The principle of “original order,” used for arranging paper records, does not fit well with the structure of digital files. Further, many digital collections have nested file structures, which make it difficult if not impossible to identify clear arrange- ment paths. The question of arrangement and integration of minimal processing tech- niques with digital records is an ongoing professional conversation. The minimal approach to processing has become a common method for archives programs to quickly arrange large analog collections. Similar to the discon- nect between high-level appraisal best practices for digital records, the appli- cation of minimal processing at first response seems to clash with item-level/ bit-level management of digital records. In a 2010 article, Mark Greene states that professional literature on electronic records focuses so heavily “on theo- ry and definition rather than on method and practice” that there is consider- able confusion on what are acceptable practices for arrangement. Greene argues that, just as with analog records, minimally processing material and providing collection-level description is better than inaction, which, in prin- ciple, is the same argument made for minimally processing digital records.20 In an article from 2014, Cyndi Shein provides a case study of successful use of minimal processing on the Getty Research Institute’s digital records. She astutely points out that DAS workshops and electronic-records-specific edu- cation are “still fundamentally built upon existing workflows for physical archives.”21 Shein argues that “accepting ‘minimal processing’ and/or ‘ac- cessioning as processing’ as viable options in the handling of born-digital materials meets a documented need for flexible and scalable workflows” that are based in a foundation of archival best practices and accepted principles.22 Initially, ASC archivists attempted to process all new acquisitions at the item level, believing that by doing so we were following recommended best practices. However, it did not take long for staff to realize that doing so was completely unsustainable and not the best use of staff resources. Instead, the ERTF recommended a tiered approach to processing digital material based
- 47. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 15 on three levels to account for the different tasks and requirements for pro- cessing digital records. This tiered processing approach created levels of priority and arrangement recommendations for each collection. Arrangement decisions were based on the complexity of the records, the identified original order, the perceived research value, and available financial and staff re- sources. At ASC, the tiered approach for processing analog and digital collections includes three levels. The first level is “minimal.” A minimally processed digital collection receives a collection-level finding aid with minimal preser- vation steps taken—at most, the collection SIP is created, and no action is taken on removing duplicates or PII identified during ingest. No arrangement is recommended for collections at this level, unless the donor supplied an inventory, or it was created by an archivist at the time of accessioning. The second level is “intermediate.” These collections may have top-level folder arrangement and renaming conducted as needed, and duplicates are weeded and PII redacted where necessary. It is expected that the description will meet DACS requirements for a multilevel description with high research value series denoted with scope and content notes. The third level is “full.” These collections will have top-level folders arranged and renamed as needed, and subsequent folders or files may be arranged or renamed to aid access with all duplicates removed and all PII redacted. Each of these levels include room for interpretation, flexibility, and modularity depending on the collection and its contents. At ASC, this tiered approach to arrangement has worked well for digital donations. Although preservation has different meanings and implications for analog and digital materials, some of the more routine preservation steps are built into the ingesting/accessioning process. In addition, having clear guidelines on what are acceptable minimal practices relieves the processing archivist of the burden of doing more than his or her internal resources can realistically support. Since recommended best practices do not meet the realities of most archi- val programs, having clear processing levels helps remove internal road- blocks and reframes the focus of processing on accessibility and stewardship. The preservation needs of digital collections must be assessed early in the process of a donation and those needs are an ongoing commitment of re- sources, technology, and access tools. Archivists must understand that these high-level decisions affect the tasks of arranging and processing a digital collection.
- 48. Lisa Calahan 16 At ASC, the arrangement function for digital donations is focused on ingest and making sure the files are preservation ready. The ERTF completes this preliminary work and leaves further processing up to the individual unit responsible for managing the collection. In most cases, ASC archivists do not complete further arrangement because the collections are enormous, the files are deeply nested, and resources are limited. In addition, internal data on researchers accessing digital collections does not support the need for further arrangement of the material. Another perspective on applying analog arrangement patterns to digital collections is that the virtual retrieval of these files is far different from physically pulling folders of analog materials. When a researcher requests use of a portion of a large collection (e.g., five boxes from a five-hundred- box collection), archivists retrieve the specific boxes rather than the entirety of the collection. When a researcher wants to access a large digital collection (e.g., five individual files from five hundred nested folders), however, there is no reason for archivists to pull out the specific files. Rather, the archivists would provide researchers access to the entire digital collection to promote discovery of content by the researcher, an underlying principle of MPLP. This shift in thinking about access and retrieval decreases access barriers for researches and allows archivists to focus on other challenges of digital archives. The experiences at UMN demonstrate that the arrangement of digital collections represents a process that is not so different from principles of minimal arrangement of analog materials. Most often, if arrangement occurs, it happens earlier in the donation process. The ERTF either identifies or completes a number of simple arrangement tasks that could be completed— identifying and removing duplicates when easy disposition decisions are clear, identifying and possibly removing personal and private information, simplifying overly nested folders, shortening folder titles, re-titling files and folders with special characters, and grouping arbitrarily named image files— during the accessioning process. NEXT STEPS The development of processes to manage incoming digital donations is still emerging across the profession. At the University of Minnesota Libraries, archivists took a centralized and committee-based approach to the many challenges of acquisition, appraisal, and arrangement. The Electronic Record
- 49. Acquisitions, Appraisal, and Arrangement 17 Task Force coordinated the crucial responsibilities involved in receiving and preparing digital collections for the multiple archival units and the creation of internal best practices based on realistic resources. These experiences demonstrate that working with donors early in the process resulted in faster and better access for researchers. That early involvement also included dis- cussions about long-term preservation of data. The variety of archives programs mirrors the uniqueness of each collec- tion that they hold. Despite the wide range of institutional and technological environments, archivists are forging new standards for the work of digital donations. In just two years, the ERTF at the University of Minnesota regis- tered significant progress in documenting workflows and best practices. These standards are applicable to other archives programs facing similar digital challenges with the understanding that use of these practices will depend on available resources and the level of institutional support. In the coming decade, archivists must be better prepared for receiving more digital than analog content. This means that archivists must play a leading role in making institutional decisions about information architecture, educating records creators about archives, disseminating the lessons of their successes and failures to other archivists, and challenging appraisal and ac- quisition decisions based on white privilege. These types of activities em- power other archivists to develop their own solutions to the multiple chal- lenges of acquiring, appraising, and arranging digital donations. Responses to those challenges are important for the description stage, which is covered in the next chapter. NOTES 1. These points are common themes in literature on the management of digital archives. AIMS Work Group AIMS Born-Digital Collections: An Inter-institutional Model for Steward- ship (University of Virginia Libraries, January 2012): 85, https://dcs.library.virginia.edu/files/ 2013/02/AIMS_final_text.pdf; Lorraine L. Richards, “Teaching Data Creators How to Develop an OAIS-Compliant Digital Curation System: Colearning and Breakdowns in Support of Re- quirements Analysis,” American Archivist 79 (Fall/Winter 2016): 371–91; Ricky Erway, You’ve Got to Walk before You Can Run: First Steps for Managing Born-Digital Content Received on Physical Media (Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2012), https://www.oclc.org/ content/dam/research/publications/library/2012/2012-06.pdf; Ricky Erway, Walk This Way: Detailed Steps for Transferring Born-Digital Content from Media You Can Read In-House (Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, 2013), https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/ library/2013/2013-02.pdf. 2. Verne Harris, “Jacque Derrida Meets Nelson Mandela: Archival Ethics at the End- game,” Archival Science 1, nos. 1–2 (2011): 9.
- 50. Lisa Calahan 18 3. Mario H. Ramirez, “Being Assumed Not to Be: A Critique of Whiteness as an Archival Imperative,” American Archivist 78 (Fall/Winter 2015): 348. Updated SAA membership statis- tics are also available through The 2017 WArS/SAA Salary Survey, available at: https://www2. archivists.org/sites/all/files/WArS-SAA-Salary-Survey-Report.pdf. 4. Ramirez, “Being Assumed Not to Be,” 351. 5. “Archives and Special Collections,” University of Minnesota, https://www.lib.umn.edu/ special. 6. The Electronic Records Task Force phase 1 and 2 resulted in the publication of two final reports that include more detailed information about the task force and outcomes. Carol Kuss- mann and R. Arvid Nelsen, Electronic Records Task Force Final Report (University of Minne- sota, September 2015), http://hdl.handle.net/11299/174097; Lisa Calahan and Carol Kussmann, Electronic Records Task Force Phase 2 Final Report (University of Minnesota, August 2017), http://hdl.handle.net/11299/189543. 7. Marc Hudson, “Detroit’s Broadband Infrastructure, Connectivity and Adoption Issues” (PowerPoint presentation, FCC, 2015), http://transition.fcc.gov/c2h/10282015/marc-hudson- presentation-10282015.pdf ; Karl Vick, “The Digital Divide: A Quarter of the Nation Is with- out Broadband,” Time, March 30, 2017, http://time.com/4718032/the-digital-divide/. 8. Kit Hughes, “Appraisal as Cartography: Cultural Studies in the Archives” American Archivist 77 (Spring/Summer 2014): 290. 9. Angelika Menne-Haritz, “Appraisal or Documentation: Can We Appraise Archives by Selecting Content?” American Archivist 57 (Summer 1994): 541. 10. Richard Brown and Daniel Caron, “Appraising Content for Value in the New World: Establishing Expedient Documentary Presence,” American Archivist 76 (Spring/Summer 2013): 138, 149. 11. Ibid., 154. 12. Erway, “Walk before You Can Run”; Erway, “Walk This Way.” 13. AIMS, AIMS Born-Digital Collections. 14. Laura Carroll, Erika Farr, Peter Hornsby, and Ben Ranker, “A Comprehensive Approach to Born-Digital Archives,” Archivaria 72 (Fall 2011): 61–92. 15. Robert Sink, “Appraisal: The Process of Choice,” American Archivist 53 (Summer, 1990): 452. 16. Geof Huth, “Appraising Digital Records,” in Appraisal and Acquisition Strategies, eds. Michael J. Shallcross and Christopher J. Prom (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2016), 10–66. 17. Gabriela Redwine, Megan Barnard, Kate Donovan, Erika Farr, Michael Forstrom, Will Hansen, Jeremy Leighton John, Nancy Kuhl, Seth Shaw, and Susan Thomas, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories (Washington, DC: Council on Li- brary and Information Resources, 2013): 17, https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/ pub159.pdf. 18. Brown and Caron, “Appraising Content for Value in the New World.” 19. Sink, “Appraisal,” 456. 20. Mark A. Greene, “MPLP: It’s Not Just for Processing Anymore,” American Archivist 73 (Spring/Summer 2010): 175–203. 21. Cyndi Shein, “From Accession to Access: A Born-Digital Materials Case Study,” Jour- nal of Western Archives 5 (2014): 4. 22. Ibid., 5.
- 51. 19 Chapter Two Description and Delivery Dorothy Waugh As archives acquire increasing numbers of born-digital materials, the need for responsive access strategies becomes more urgent. This chapter examines the challenges involved in describing and delivering born-digital content and takes as its basis the core archival principle that archives be used. Many of the experiences described are from the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (Rose Li- brary). In 1956, T. R. Schellenberg declared that “the end of all archival effort is to preserve valuable records and make them available for use.”1 Given the many complexities of born-digital materials, Schellenberg’s emphasis on use serves as a valuable end goal. This goal of use guides archivists as they devise strategies for managing and, in particular, facilitating access to born- digital materials. That archival materials should be used may seem like a rather obvious point to make in a chapter focused on description and access, but a focus on this end goal helps archivists simplify the overwhelming challenges associat- ed with born-digital materials. A lack of IT support and infrastructure, limit- ed staffing and time, gaps in the tools required to perform essential tasks (such as descriptive metadata extraction or the redaction of confidential in- formation), and a need for best practices concerning policy and workflow are some of the major obstacles hindering the provision of access to born-digital material.2 Archivists have been slow to address these challenges, focusing more on the tasks related to the acquisition and preservation of born-digital archival materials. These are important topics, but their prioritization has left
- 52. Dorothy Waugh 20 something of a gap in the literature on description and delivery of electronic material. This has begun to be remedied in recent years, as a number of case studies, reports, and presentations at professional conferences have focused on describing and accessing digital materials.3 Even so, addressing the description and delivery of born-digital archival materials can seem daunting. Efforts aimed at devising strategies raise a series of questions. First, how can archival programs adapt existing descrip- tive principles and practice to meet the needs of digital objects? Next, where can archives make access available? Finally, what sorts of delivery methods are possible within the constraints of the archives’ time, funding, and techni- cal infrastructure? Answers to these questions provide a starting point for delivering access to electronic material found in existing and incoming dona- tions to archives. To remember Schellenberg is perhaps the best advice for archivists navigating these questions and to focus on the importance of use and the experiences of other archives programs. As Cyndi Shein, assistant archivist at the J. Paul Getty Trust Institutional Records and Archives, ad- vises, “We needed to think big (consider scalable, extensible models for the future), but start small (do something now).”4 HOW DO WE FACILITATE USE? Meaningful description is crucial for materials residing in special collections libraries and archives where access is frequently restricted and typically must occur on site. As a result, descriptive records are often the first point of contact for researchers wanting to know whether the material is relevant to their work. Traditionally, the finding aid has performed this role. Collections are described at the aggregate level based on provenance, with description moving from the general to the specific depending on what level of detail resources allow. The More Product, Less Process (MPLP) method, intro- duced by Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner in 2005, encourages archivists to reduce backlog by “creat[ing] a baseline level of access to all collection material.”5 Such a task demands that description is limited to only what is necessary. Daniel Santamaria at Princeton University refers to the functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR) developed by the Internation- al Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to define what this might include. Description, according to FRBR, should enable research- ers to find, identify, select, and obtain relevant material. Santamaria argues that “archivists should strive to do just enough to create finding aids or other
- 53. Description and Delivery 21 descriptive records and systems that allow users to perform each of these tasks.”6 Faced with limited resources, such an approach certainly prioritizes use, but to what extent can it be applied to born-digital materials? The MPLP model argues that the creation of description should be an iterative process beginning at least as early as appraisal. However, this can be challenging when dealing with born-digital materials that require intermediary technolo- gies in order to be rendered and viewed. At the Rose Library, it has often regrettably been the case that digital media arrives with little information about its content (and there is often very little can be gleaned from even the most thorough examination of the case of a disk or drive). In such situations, archivists at the Rose Library were hard pressed to provide useful description without first doing some additional processing work (e.g., capturing and mounting a disk image). This highlights the importance of early intervention with donors and ensuring that this scenario occurs less frequently. When possible, speaking with donors at the acquisition stage provides an opportu- nity to gather at least summary information about digital content, which can be repurposed as high-level description preprocessing. At the Rose Library, where baseline finding aids are created for unpro- cessed collections during accessioning, researchers are often given access to boxes of papers organized just as they were received. For born-digital materi- als, however, description does not necessarily equate access. Some level of processing is required to make material, often stored on obsolete media using obsolete file formats, accessible. To date, the interpretation of MPLP for born-digital materials at the Rose Library has involved a brief description of what is included at the collection level alongside language that instructs interested researchers to contact an archivist if they wish to view the materi- als. These instructions include the proviso that some processing will be re- quired before allowing access, so researchers should not expect materials to be available immediately. Archivists at the Rose Library also advise that, in some cases, collection restrictions, copyright limitations, personal or private content, or technical complications might prevent access altogether. This processing-on-demand model is not ideal. To date, collection-level description has been limited to physical description of the media, and this lack of information might make potential researchers reluctant to contact archivists at the Rose Library, especially if they do not have experience working with born-digital (or simply archival) material. Nevertheless, collec- tion-level description establishes a baseline level of access.
- 54. Dorothy Waugh 22 AGGREGATE-LEVEL VERSUS ITEM-LEVEL DESCRIPTION Archivists at both the Rose Library and elsewhere have struggled with ques- tions about balancing limited resources with the need for adequate descrip- tion of digital collections. Some have suggested focusing more on the meta- data associated with born-digital objects. From a preservation and technical perspective, the capture of metadata relating to both the digital object and the environment in which it was created and stored is essential. John Langdon, who notes that existing archival standards cannot accommodate all of this required metadata, suggests that alternative standards (e.g., PREMIS and METS) might supersede traditional description.7 Digital management tools, such as DSpace or CONTENTdm, are typical- ly designed to accommodate item-level description that facilitates granular search and discovery for researchers. In this model, there is a one-to-one relationship between each digital object and corresponding metadata record. It is still unclear how this model corresponds with traditional archival de- scription, which describes collections at the aggregate level and prioritizes contextualization.8 The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) addresses this question in a 2016 report. The report acknowledges that institutions are looking for ways in which to “translate their archival description practice into the world of digital repositories.”9 The authors propose an initial solu- tion whereby records contain enhanced collection information and finding aids can be accessed from the DPLA interface in order to better expose contextual information.10 Jane Zhang and Dayne Mauney define DPLA’s approach as a segregated model of representation in which emphasis is placed on the discovery of digital objects through item-level metadata with links directing researchers to additional contextual information as needed. The danger of this approach, they argue, is that such contextual information may be lost or ignored.11 Alternatively, many institutions currently making born-digital material avail- able online do so using what Zhang and Mauney call an “embedded model” of representation, whereby researchers access digital objects through links embedded in the finding aid.12 Unlike the segregated model, this approach foregrounds context, although possibly at the expense of online search and discovery.13 Zhang and Mauney also define a third model of representation, the paral- lel model, which attempts to unite a context-based and item-centric approach to description without favoring either. They cite the Washington State Digital
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- 56. The romances. than nine times between 1511 and 1573. The extreme rarity of copies of these numerous editions proves that they must have been well thumbed to pieces by admiring readers. Yet they constitute no inconsiderable body of literature. The modern reprint issued (unfortunately only to its own members) by the Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles is in two weighty volumes. In this Cancionero there are two elements, destined to very different fates. Hernan del Castillo included eighteen romances in his collection, and they reappeared in subsequent editions. The importance of this word in Spanish literature seems to call for some definition of its scope. The word “romance” bore originally in Spanish exactly the same meaning as in other tongues descended from the Latin. It was the vernacular, and to write en romance was to write Castilian, Galician, or Catalan. “Ni romance ni romano”—neither Romance nor Roman— is a phrase bearing more or less the meaning of our “neither rhyme nor reason.” But little by little, by use and wont, it came about the end of the sixteenth century to be applied exclusively to the form of verse dearest and most native to the Spaniard, the already mentioned trochaic eight-syllable assonant metre. As the ancient ballads are mainly, though not exclusively, written in this form, they are called romances. Yet to write romances does not necessarily mean to write ballads, but only to write in that metre, whether in the dialogue of a play or in long narrative poems, or for any other purpose. The assonant metre, as is well known, is not peculiar to Spain. It may well have been imported into Castile from France by those churchmen to whom the country owes so much of its architecture, what learning it had, and its civilisation when it began to revive from the merely martial barbarism produced by the Moorish conquest. But if the Spaniard did indeed take the assonant metre from his French teachers, he soon subjected it to that process which all forms of verse are apt to undergo in his hands. He released it from shackles, and gave it a freedom amounting to licence. The romance is a loose- flowing rhythm, in which the rhyme is made by the last accented
- 57. vowel. Sometimes the same vowel is used line after line until it is exhausted. More commonly the assonant comes in alternate lines. As a rule there is no division into stanzas, but the verse runs on till the speech is ended, or the tale is told. To this there are, however, exceptions, and the romance is divided into redondillas—that is, roundels or staves of four lines, assonanced either alternately, or the first with the fourth and the second with the third, or into quintillas of five lines, with an assonant in three. The recalcitrance of the Spaniard to all limitations in verse-making has caused him to give a very wide range indeed to the assonant. The vowel u is allowed to rhyme with o, and i with e, though they have a very different sound and force. The Spaniard, again, allows a diphthong to be assonant to a vowel, although he pronounces both the vowels in his diphthongs. It will be seen that such verse as this can be written with extreme facility. Indeed it is a byword in Spain that nothing is easier than to write romances—badly. The difficulty, in fact, is to avoid writing them in prose; and it is no small one, when the ear of a people finds a rhyme in so faint a similarity of sound, and in a language in which the accent is at once so pronounced and as little varied. It is not, I trust, superfluous to add that in Castilian, which we call Spanish, there is a marked accent in the last syllable of words ending in a consonant, on the penult of words ending in a vowel, while a limited number of words are esdrujulo—that is, accented on the antepenult. The addition of a syllable to form the plural, or of the adverbial termination mente, does not alter the place of the accent. These rules, though nowise severe, are not rigidly followed. Not infrequently the assonant rhyme falls into the full or consonant rhyme, while the liesse or stave formed on one vowel, and its equivalents, is broken by a line corresponding to nothing. Even the rule requiring the use of eight syllables is applied with restrictions,— an accented syllable at the end counts as two, while two unaccented syllables rank only as one. It must be acknowledged that this metre is unsatisfactory to an ear attuned to the melody of English poetry. In our language it renders hardly a tinkle. When we have become accustomed to it in Castilian—and until we do it tantalises with a sense of something wanting—its highest virtue seems to be that it
- 58. The Romanceros keeps the voice of the speaker in a chanted recitative. It is more akin to numbered prose than to verse. However incomplete the romance may seem to us, to the Spaniard it is dear. When romances were not being well written in Spain, it was because nothing was being written well. The metre not only held its ground against the court poetry of the fifteenth century, but prevailed against the new Italian influence. Here as in other fields the Spaniard was very tenacious of the things of Spain. To find a parallel to what happened in Spain we must do more than suppose that the Pléiade in France, or Spenser and his successors in England, had failed to overcome the already existing literary schools. It was as if the ballad metres had won a place even on the stage. No Spanish Sir Philip Sidney need have apologised for feeling his heart stirred by those ballads of the Cid, or of the Infantes de Lara, which answer to our Chevy Chase. They were strenuously collected, and constantly imitated, all through the sixteenth and well into the seventeenth century. So far were they from falling into neglect, that they were first able to shake the slowly withering poetry of the troubadour school, and then to fill a long series of collections, known, in the beginning, as Cancioneros, or Libros, or Sylvas de Romances, but finally as Romanceros. Much bibliographical learning and controversy has collected about these early editions. Even if I could profess to be competent to speak on such matters, they would have no proper place here. From the point of view of the literary historian, the interesting fact is that at a time when classic, or at least new influences, born of the Renaissance, were carrying all before them in France and England, and in Italy had long ago definitively conquered, the Spaniards did not wholly part with their inheritance from the Middle Ages. The few ballads, and fragments of ballads, printed by Hernan del Castillo in 1511, proved so popular that an editor was tempted to form a special collection. The place and date of this first ballad-book proper are both significant.[1] It appeared at Antwerp in or about
- 59. The quality of this poetry. 1546—that is to say, three years or so after the first edition of the poems of Boscan and Garcilaso. The editor was one Martin Nucio. Antwerp, be it observed, was always a great publishing place for Spanish books, a fact which may be accounted for, not only by the political connection between Spain and the Low Countries, the number of Spaniards employed there in various capacities, as soldiers, officials, or traders, and the then extensive use of their language, but also by the superiority of the Flemish printers. That same carelessness of form which is found in the Spaniard’s literature followed him in lesser arts, where neatness of handling was more necessary than spirit and creative faculty. He was, at any rate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rarely a good engraver, and hardly ever a good printer. The Cancionero de Romances, brought out, it may be, primarily for the pleasure of the Spaniards scattered over Flanders and Germany, was soon reprinted in Spain, by one Estéban de Najera, at Saragossa. These contemporary collections are not quite identical, but essentially the same. This Cancionero, or Sylva, de Romances met with a reception which proved how strong a hold his indigenous verse had on the Spaniard. Three editions, with corrections and additions, appeared by 1555. The latest of these was not reprinted until well into the next century. In the meantime other editors had followed Nucio and Najera. A Romancero in nine parts appeared at places so far distant from one another as Valencia, Burgos, Toledo, Alcalá, and Madrid, between 1593 and 1597. This again grew into the great Romancero General of 1604-1614, wherein there are a thousand ballads. In so far as this great mass of verse is really an inheritance from the Middle Ages, it does not belong to the subject of this book. All that it is necessary to do here is to note the fact that it did survive, and did continue to exert an influence. But nothing is more doubtful than the antiquity of the vast majority of the romances. The best judges have given up the attempt to class them by age, and indeed that must needs be a hopeless task where poems have been preserved by oral tradition alone, and have therefore been subject to modification by
- 60. every succeeding generation. The presence of very ancient words is no proof of antiquity, since they may be put in by an imitator. Neither is the mention of comparatively recent events, or of such things as clocks or articles of commerce only known in later times, of itself proof that the framework of the ballad was not ancient when it took its final shape. The Romances were collected very much in the style of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and we all know with what facility remains of popular poetry are found when there is a demand for them, when no critical tests are applied, and when the searchers are endowed with a faculty for verse-writing. The Moorish ballads have been called old, and yet nothing is more certain than that they were the fruits of a literary fashion of the later sixteenth century. The Moor, like the Red Man, became a picturesque figure only when he ceased to be dangerous. Another class of the ballads, those called of chivalry, are full of references showing that the writers were acquainted with Ariosto, and cannot have been written before the middle of the century at the earliest. Where the romance is identical in subject with, and very similar in language to, a passage in the great chronicle of Alfonso the Wise, or other unquestionably mediæval work preserved in writing of known antiquity, it may be accepted as ancient. Where that test cannot be applied, it is safer not to think that the ballad is older than the sixteenth century. In some cases the inspiration can be shown to have been French. The subject of the Molinero de Arcos, a popular ballad existing in several versions, was taken from a well-known French farce, Le Meunier d’Arleux. It is very necessary, when judging this great body of verse, to stand on our guard against certain besetting fallacies. There is always a marked tendency in collectors to excuse what is grotesque on the ground that it is ancient, and to pardon what is bad on the ground that it is popular. The Spanish ballads have suffered from the too great zeal with which modern editors have reprinted what was accepted by the indiscriminate taste of first collectors. Many of the ballads belong to the class of romances de ciegos—i.e., “blindmen’s ballads”—which were doggerel at all times. Others are not above the
- 61. level of the poets’ corner of not over-exacting newspapers. Even in the best, the intention and the first inspiration are commonly far better than the expression. The Spaniard’s slovenliness of form is found here as elsewhere. Lockhart, in the preface to his adaptations, has rebuked the Spaniards for “neglecting old and simpler poets,” who wrote the romances, in favour of authors “who were at the best ingenious imitators of classical or Italian models.” He has himself, however, subjected those he selected for translation into English to a treatment which conveys a severe and a just critical judgment. A comparison between his ballads and the originals will show that he occasionally, though very rarely, weakened a forcible phrase. Now and again there are signs that his knowledge of Spanish was not deep. He writes, “So spake the brave Montanez,” as if that had been the name of the Lord of Butrago, whereas montanes (mountaineer) was a common old Spanish equivalent for noble, a custom due to the belief that the old Castilian aristocracy drew its “blue blood,” shown by its grey or blue eyes, from the Visigoths, who held the mountains of Asturias against the Moors. The Lord of Butrago was a historical personage, and the head of the house of Mendoza. But if a few faults of this kind can be found, there are to be set off against them a hundred passages in which he has suppressed a redundancy or replaced the purely prosaic original by poetry. A very good test case is to be found in the last verse of the Wandering Knight’s song —which stands thus in Lockhart:— “I ride from land to land, I sail from sea to sea; Some day more kind I fate may find, Some night kiss thee.” What can be more pretty or more fit? but it is not in the Cancionero de Romances, where the words stand:—
- 62. “Andando de Sierra en Sierra Por orillas de la mar, Por provar si en mi ventura Ay lugar donde avadar; Pero por vos, mi señora, Todo se ha de comportar.” “Wandering from hills to hills by the shore of the sea, to try whether my fortune will give me a ford; but for you, my lady, all things are to be endured,” is the bald literal meaning, which, though it is at least as old as 1555, and is simple enough, is also, unfortunately, bathos. And this is very far from being a solitary example. The result is, that Lockhart’s ballads give an unduly high estimate of the originals to those who only know the English rifacimento. A reader who refuses to be enslaved by authority will find that he is constantly compelled to make allowances for the faults which Lockhart was in the fortunate position of being able to correct—for redundancies, for lines of mere prose, for vulgarities, for flat, spiritless endings. He will often feel that he is reading mere repetitions in a popular form, written by painfully uninspired authors, whose too frequent use of stock literary phrases shows that they were far from the simplicity attributed to the ballad-maker. It is true that poetic feeling, and some poetic matter in the shape of traditional stories, is to be found in the romances, but, as it were, in solution. Nor is it to be denied that it is to the honour of a people when it clings to a national form of verse, and to its own traditions. Yet neither good poetic intention nor the most respectable patriotism will make inferior execution anything but inferior even in national ballads. It is unquestionably unjust to find fault with a body of professedly unlearned writers because they show the defects of men who have not a severe literary training. But the claim made for the Spanish romances is that they express the natural feelings of a poetic people with simplicity: it is quite fair to answer that the great mass of them belong to a time of high literary cultivation; that they show signs of being the work of
- 63. Spain and Italy. its inferior writers; that, even at their best, their loose metrical form —far looser as it is than our own ballad stanza—permitted them to be written by persons who could not have mastered even doggerel rhyme; and that they are too often wanting in the direct, simple, passionate expression by which the rudest genuine poet can force his way to the realm of poetry. It was a real, but in all probability an inevitable, misfortune that the best poetic faculty in Spain during the sixteenth century neglected the native metre, and turned for inspiration “to the sweet and stately measures of the Italian poesie.” An Italian influence, as has been already pointed out, was no new thing in Spain, and as the sixteenth century drew on it was sure to be felt again. Italy, indeed, was full of Spaniards. They were numerous at the papal Court, and the wars for Naples brought them in greatly increased numbers. Until the close of the fifteenth century those who settled in the southern kingdom were mainly drawn from Aragon. A great change came with the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic. He claimed Naples by right of his inherited crown of Aragon, but he fought for it with the forces, and the arms, of Castile. Isabel was tenacious of her rights as queen of the greater kingdom, but she was scrupulous in fulfilling her wifely duty to comfort her husband. She supported him with her own subjects. After her death he was regent, except for the short period during which he was displaced by his worthless son-in-law, Philip the Handsome. Thus the Castilians came more directly in contact with Italy and Italian civilisation than they had ever done before. They abounded as soldiers, as diplomatists, lay and ecclesiastical, and as administrators. Some among them were sure to feel the artistic and literary influences of that many-sided time. The way was prepared in Spain by the alliance between the crowns of Castile and Aragon, which could not give the country administrative unity, but did give an internal peace. It was a time of expansion and vigour. Isabel had favoured learning. Her favourite scholar, Antonio de Lebrija—better known by the Latinised form of his name as Nebrissensis—drew up a Castilian grammar and dictionary. The language came rapidly to
- 64. The Spanish tongue. The Diálogo de la Lengua. maturity, and was in fact full grown at the beginning of the sixteenth century. This speedy maturity, though perhaps not for the good of the language in the end, was natural. Castilian, in spite of a large admixture of Arabic words, is so thoroughly Latin that little was needed to fit it for literary purposes when once the study of classical models was seriously begun—much as the art of printing came quickly to perfection because the early typographers had beautifully executed manuscripts before them as models. The early sixteenth century in Spain was not barren in prose-writers, mostly didactic, and also for the most part imitators of the Italians. Francisco de Villalobos, of whom little is known except that he was doctor to Ferdinand the Catholic and the Emperor Charles V., and Fernan Perez de Oliva of Córdova (1492-1530), are the best remembered of the class. But the Problems of the first, and the treatise on the Dignity of Man of the second, are mainly notable as examples of the growing wish to write Castilian for serious purposes. [2] But a more interesting proof of the care the Spaniards were giving to their language is to be found in the Diálogo de la Lengua[3]—Talk about our Language, as it may be freely but not inaccurately translated. This little book appears to have been written about, and perhaps a little after, 1530, but was not printed till Mayans included it in his Origenes de la Lengua Castillana in the last century. There is strong internal evidence to show that it was the work of one Juan de Váldes, a Spaniard belonging to the colony settled in Naples, a Castilian by birth, and a member of the doubtfully orthodox society collected round Vittoria Colonna. Juan de Váldes himself is included in the short list of Spanish Protestants, and his heterodoxy accounts for the length of time during which his work remained in manuscript. He smelt of the fagot, as the French phrase has it. All who possess even a slight acquaintance with the literary habits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are aware that we must not draw from the
- 65. fact that work remained in manuscript the deduction that it was little known. The Diálogo de la Lengua was never quite forgotten. It is in itself somewhat disappointing, being altogether narrower in scope and less ambitious in aim than Joachim du Bellay’s Défense et Illustration de la Langue française, published in 1549. Much of it is devoted to nice points in the use of words, while the scholarly, perhaps also the patriotic, leanings of Váldes led him to assume the untenable position that the few Greek colonies on the Mediterranean coast of Spain had spread the use of their language all over the country before it was displaced by the Latin. But though the Diálogo is not, like the Défense, a great literary manifesto, and though its learning is at times fantastic, it has some intrinsic interest, and no small value as a piece of evidence. That exceedingly difficult literary form the dialogue is very fairly mastered. The four speakers—two Spaniards and two Italians—who take part in the conversation have a distinct dramatic reality, and the tone of talk, familiar, occasionally even witty in form, but serious in substance, is well maintained. The scheme is that three of a party of four gentlemen who are spending a day at a villa on the Bay of Naples join in a friendly conspiracy to draw the fourth, whose name, by the way, is Váldes, into expounding to them, before they take horse to return to the city, how a cultivated man ought to speak and write Castilian. The doctrine of Váldes differs significantly from the lesson enforced by Joachim du Bellay. He does not call upon his countrymen to go forth to the conquest of the haughty Greeks and Romans. On the contrary, it is his contention that although the vocabulary requires refining, and the grammar needs to be better fixed, the language is already as fit for every purpose of literature as the Italian, or even as the classic tongues. With the pride of a genuine Spaniard he seeks his examples in the refranes, the proverbs and proverbial phrases. He makes free use of the collection formed in the fifteenth century by the Marquess of Santillana, who gathered the traditional sayings “from the old women sitting round the hearth.” Váldes may be held to have given evidence in support of his own belief in the maturity of the language. The Castilian of the Diálogo has very little in it that is antiquated, and where it differs from the modern tongue
- 66. The prose of the early sixteenth century. it is in being more terse and manly. His literary doctrine, which is rather indicated than expounded, would have commended itself to our Queen Anne men. To be simple and direct, to avoid affectation, to prefer at all times the natural and straightforward way of saying what you have to say—that is the advice of Juan de Váldes. Withal, he has no squeamish dislike of the common, when, as in the case of his beloved proverbs, it is also pure Spanish. The principles of Váldes might have been fatal to a stately and embroidered eloquence (of which Castilian has in any case no great store), but they would preserve a literature from the affected folly of Góngorism on the one hand, and from the grey uniformity of general terms, which was the danger incident to the classic literature of the eighteenth century. Váldes, who cited Garcilaso with praise, would not have agreed in many things with Cristobal de Castillejo, but he would have applauded his saying that Castilian is friendly to a “cierta clara brevedad”—to a certain lucid brevity. We shall be better able to judge later whether the recognition of this truth does not lead directly to agreement with Mr Borrow, when he says that Spanish Literature is not wholly worthy of the language. Lucid brevity is certainly not the quality to be noted in Spanish prose-writers of what we may call the time of preparation—the earlier sixteenth century. The quality may indeed be found in an eminent degree in the writings of Spaniards who were not men of letters—in the despatches of Cortes, or in the numerous extant narratives of soldiers or priests who were eyewitnesses of the wars of Italy, of the sack of Rome, or of the conquest of America. It would be easy to make an excellent collection of stories of adventure from their letters, which would show the masculine force and the savoury quality of Castilian. But these were men of the sword, or churchmen as adventurous as they—not men of letters who knew by what devious paths the Muses should be approached. The prose-writers of this epoch as a class need not detain us in what must be a brief outline portrait of Spanish literature. There is, however, one exception in Antonio de Guevara, the Bishop of Mondoñedo (d.
- 67. The influence of the Inquisition. 1545), who is best known to us as the author of the once famous Golden Epistles, if only for the sake of the influence he may have had on Lyly.[4] Guevara wants, indeed, the quaint graceful fancy, and also the oddity of the English writer; but it is possible that his sententious antithetical style had some share in producing euphuism. Guevara is also worth notice as an early, though not the earliest, example of the pretentiousness and the tendency to wordy platitude which have been so fatal in Spanish literature. He had knowledge both of books and the world, and some command of sarcasm. These qualities were, however, swamped in the “flowing and watery vein” of his prose style. No writer ever carried the seesaw antithetical manner to a more provoking extent. To make one phrase balance another appears to have been his chief aim, and in order to achieve this end he repeated and amplified. In his own time, when whatever was at once sound as moralising, learned, and professedly too good for the vulgar was received with respect, Guevara had a wide popularity both in Spain and abroad. To-day he is almost unreadable, and for a reason which it is easy to make clear. It is known that La Fontaine took the subject of the Paysan du Danube from the Golden Epistles indirectly if not directly. Spaniards may be found to boast that there is nothing in the fable which is not in their countrymen. This is partly true, but it is stated in the wrong way. The accurate version is that there is nothing in Guevara’s prose which is not in La Fontaine’s verse, but that it is said in several hundred times as many words, and that the meaning (not in itself considerable) is smothered in tiresome digressions and amplifications. A few words, and they need be very few, on the influence of the Inquisition seem not out of place in a history of any part of Spanish life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They are even to be justified by the fact that its oppressive influence has been called on to account for the withering of the national will and intelligence, which dried up the very sources of literature. The prevalence of the destructive affectation called Góngorism has been excused by Mr
- 68. Ticknor on the ground that men were driven back on mere playing with words because the Inquisition made thinking dangerous. But we are met at once by the problem of the Sufi pipkin. It is hard to tell which is potter and which is pot. Did the Spanish intellect wither because the Inquisition wrapped it in over-tight swaddling-clothes? or did the Spaniard first create and then submit to this repressive institution because he had little tendency to speculation? To judge by what went before and by what has come after the Inquisition, the second reading of the riddle is at least as plausible as the first. However that may be, it is difficult to see how the Inquisition is to be made responsible for the carelessness of form and the loquacious commonplace, which are the main defects of Spanish prose and verse, while it may fairly claim to have helped to preserve Spanish literature from one grave fault so visible in parts of our own. The Holy Office, which allowed Lope de Vega to write La Esclava de su Galan, would not have punished him for writing an As You Like It. Since it suffered Cervantes to create Don Quixote, it would not have burnt the author of a Novela de Pícaros, who had made his hero as real as Gil Blas. The Inquisition was no more responsible for the hasty writing of Lope than for his undue complacence towards the vices of his patron the Duke of Sessa. A literature which could produce La Vida es Sueño, El Condenado por Desconfiado, and the Mágico Prodigioso, had all the freedom necessary to say the profoundest things on man’s passions and nature in the noblest style. It was his own too great readiness to say “This will do,” and not the Inquisition, which prevented Tirso de Molina from making La Venganza de Tamar as perfect in form all through as it is in one scene. The Church had no quarrel with perfection of form. It had, indeed, a quarrel with mere grossness of expression, and would certainly have frowned on many so-called comic scenes of our own Elizabethan plays. This was a commendable fastidiousness of taste not peculiar to the Spanish Church. The Spaniard may not be always moral, but he has seldom been foul-mouthed. In this, as in other respects, the Church spoke for the nation; but it was the effective administrative instrument which could coerce an offending minority into decency—and that we may surely count to it for righteousness.
- 71. The starting-point of the classic school. CHAPTER II. THE SPANISH LEARNED POETS. THE STARTING-POINT OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL—THE NATURAL INFLUENCE OF ITALY—PREVALENCE OF THE CLASSIC SCHOOL— ITS ARISTOCRATIC SPIRIT—WHAT WAS IMITATED FROM THE ITALIANS—ITS TECHNIQUE AND MATTER—ARTIFICIALITY OF THE WORK OF THE SCHOOL—BOSCAN—GARCILASO—THEIR IMMEDIATE FOLLOWERS—THE SCHOOLS OF SALAMANCA AND SEVILLE—GÓNGORA AND GÓNGORISM—THE EPICS—THE ‘ARAUCANA’—THE ‘LUSIADS.’ Mr Ticknor has made the very just remark, that the manner of the introduction of the later Italian influence into Spanish poetry enables us to see for once in a way exactly, when and at whose instigation a literary revolution was begun. The story is told by the best possible authority, by Juan Boscan, who was one of the leaders of the movement, in the long letter to the Duchess of Soma, which is printed as a preface to the second book of the collected works of himself and his friend Garcilaso de la Vega, published at Barcelona in 1543.[5] En (to give him his native title) Juan Boscan Almogaver was a Catalan of a noble family and of good estate. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it probably fell in the last years of the fifteenth century. He died in 1540 at Perpignan, where he had gone in discharge of his duty as ayo, or tutor, to that formidable person the great Duke of Alva. The story has been often told, but must needs be repeated in every history of Spanish literature. Boscan, who had already written verse in the old forms of the previous century, was a cultivated gentleman who had served in Italy, and had there acquired a good knowledge of the language. This he afterwards turned to account in a translation of Castiglione’s Courtier, which
- 72. The natural influence of Italy. was considered by the Spaniards as not inferior to the original, and had great popularity. In 1526 he attended the Court at Granada, and there met Andrea Navagiero the Venetian ambassador. Navagiero urged him to write “in the Italian manner.” Boscan turned the advice over in his mind during his long ride back to Barcelona, and finally decided to act on it, though not without doubts, and not until he had been encouraged by a friend. This was the far more famous Garcia Laso de la Vega, whose names, according to a not uncommon custom, were combined into Garcilaso.[6] He was born in 1503 of a very ancient house of nobles of Toledo, and was killed by being hurled from a ladder while leading a storming-party at Frèjus in 1536. Little is known of their friendship, and indeed it would seem that they cannot have seen much of one another, for Boscan spent most of his life on his estate or at Court, whereas Garcilaso, who was first a page and then soldier to Charles V., lived, in common with all who followed “the conquering banners” of the emperor, on the march or on shipboard, from the Danube to Tunis. It would unquestionably be an error to conclude from the exact manner of its beginning that there would have been no Spanish imitation of Italian models if Boscan had not met Navagiero at Granada in 1526. Garcilaso, Diego de Mendoza, Gutierre de Cetina, and others, would no doubt have begun to write pastorals, epistles, and canzones “in the Italian manner” in any case. Allowing for the strength of the Italian influence of the day, the close kinship of the two languages, the frequent intercourse between the peoples, the ease with which Castilian could be run into a Tuscan mould, this was inevitable. Yet the story not only gives a curious incident in literary history, but it is characteristic of the classic poetry of Spain. Boscan we see took to playing with the foreign metres as a mere exercise of ingenuity, and as an amusement for his leisure. He implies that Garcilaso acted on the same motives as himself. With such a beginning there was an obvious danger that the Spaniards would work as mere pupils and produce only school exercises.
- 73. Prevalence of the classic school. Its aristocratic spirit. The ample following found by these two is itself a proof that Navagiero’s advice and Boscan’s docility were hardly necessary. It needed only an accident to provoke the literary activity of the Italianate Spaniards gathered round the emperor, in the Court of Rome, at Naples, and at home, where the “learned” men were all readers of Italian and of Latin. Greek was never much read in Spain, though a few of her scholars were good Hellenists. The ambition of the poets of the school of Boscan and Garcilaso is shown by their favourite epithet of praise— the word docto. The literal sense is “learned,” but educated expresses its true meaning more accurately. It did not necessarily imply much more than this, that the poet was familiar with Horace as well as with Sannazzaro and Ariosto, which, at a time when Latin was the language of education and diplomacy, and Italian was the language of society, hardly amounted to learning, in the full sense of the word. The seed fell on well-prepared soil. A quick and copious harvest sprang up, which for a time overshadowed all other forms of literary growth. The second half of the sixteenth century was the time of the learned poets of Spain. The school lasted, indeed, into the seventeenth century, but it had produced its best work before 1600. The origin of this poetry would of itself lead us to expect to find it composed of imitators who produced more or less ingenious school exercises. Its works are extant to show that the expectation would be well founded. Again, we should expect to find that it was always much more of a society fashion than a manifestation of the real qualities of the Spaniard in literature, and here also experience will be found to confirm expectation. It was an aristocratic school, not perhaps quite so indifferent to appearing in print as some others have been, but still not uncommonly satisfied to leave its work in manuscript. These poets could afford to be indifferent to publication, since they did not thereby injure their fame in the only world to which they appealed. They were careless of the great unlearned public, whose tastes favoured the romances and the theatre. Manuscript copies sufficed
- 74. What was imitated from the Italian. for their own limited society. Luis de Leon, for instance, was the recognised chief of the Castilian learned poets in his lifetime, yet his works were not printed till they were brought out, forty years after his death, by Quevedo, in the idle hope of converting his countrymen from Góngorism by the sight of better examples, while Góngora was able to found a school of affectation by his influence, and yet his poems were not published during his lifetime. The learned poets did not expect to find readers among the vulgo, the common herd, of whose brutez, or bestial stupidity, they habitually spoke in a very high and mighty fashion. This attitude of superiority was not peculiar to the learned poets of Spain. It was habitual with the school of Ronsard, and indeed common to the whole Renaissance, which was emphatically scholarly and aristocratic. But though the pretensions of Spain’s learned poets were not different from those of the Italian, the Frenchman, or the Englishman, they were less fully justified. These very self-conscious “children of the Muses” were not so superior to the vulgar herd of writers of romances and coplas in poetic inspiration as to be entitled to look down upon them, on the strength of a certain mechanical dexterity acquired from foreigners by imitation. The question what exactly it was that the innovators of the sixteenth century took from their Italian masters is easier to put than to answer. The mere imitation of Italian models was in itself no novelty. Cristobal de Castillejo denied the claim of the new school to originality in the writing of hendecasyllabics. They had, he said, already been written by Juan de Mena. So they had, and by Ausias March and other poets of the Catalan school also. The Marquess of Santillana had written sonnets on the Petrarchian model; the ottava rima and tercets were not unknown to the Court school of Castile or to the Catalans. The canzone had been written in Spain by imitators of the earlier Italian poetry. What then remained for the innovators to take? If we look at the names only, and the bare skeleton of the verse, little indeed; but when the manner of the execution is considered, a great deal. The Italian hendecasyllable, which the
- 75. Its technique and matter. Spaniards allowed to be the original of their own line of eleven syllables, and of the line of ten with an accent on the final syllable, had become very monotonous in their hands. The cæsura fell with unvarying regularity after the fourth syllable. The innovators learnt to vary the pause, and thereby to give a new melody to the verse. It remained to them also to be more slavish in imitation than their predecessors had been. This slavishness was shown by the establishment of the endecasílabo piano, with the unaccented vowel termination as alone legitimate. Castilian abounds in vocablos agudos, in masculine rhymes, and was not under the same necessity as Italian to prefer the softer form. The Spanish poets were, we may suppose, influenced by the fact that the accented ending had become associated with comic verse among the Italians, and yet by submitting to a limitation which was not justified by the genius of their language, they began by impoverishing their poetic vocabulary, and they did it in pure unintelligent imitation. The restriction was not accepted without reluctance. Rengifo, who is the Spanish Puttenham[7]—the author, that is to say, of the standard work on the mechanism of verse written in Spain in the close of the sixteenth century—even puts in a plea for the verso agudo. He had good authorities to support him, for Garcilaso had dared to end a line with the word vestí. Boscan, who, however, is not accepted by the Spaniards as of unimpeachable authority, had been so left to himself as to end on nació, while Diego de Mendoza had done the evil thing “a thousand times.” According to the stop-watch of the new school this was wrong, and all three were duly pilloried for their offences in the Egemplar Poético—i.e., Ars Poetica—of Juan de la Cueva.[8] Yet Juan de la Cueba or Cueva (the b and v, being very similar in Spanish pronunciation, were constantly written for one another before the spelling was fixed) was a man not unworthy of attention. His life is covered by the obscurity common to the men of letters of the time, and on the whole more dense in Spain than elsewhere. But we know that he lived in Seville during the latter half of the sixteenth century. His Egemplar Poético, though not considered as
- 76. above reproach in form by Spanish critics, undoubtedly contains the orthodox poetic creed of the school, and is therefore of authority. Nothing is more striking or, when the future of poetry in the two countries is considered, more significant, than the contrast between the three verse epistles of Don Juan de la Cueva, and the Apologie for Poetrie of Sir Philip Sidney. The Egemplar is in tercets, and the Apologie in fresh youthful prose; but the work of the Englishman is all on fire with the very soul of poetic feeling, while the work of the Spaniard is a cold didactic treatise of the most mechanical kind. Sir Philip committed himself to the heresy that the essential of poetry is in the matter, the passion, and the intention, while the verse is an accident. Don Juan is spotlessly correct on the one point on which Sir Philip is heterodox. On the many on which our countryman goes to the root of the matter, the Sevillian is worse than wrong. He drops no single word to show that he thinks them worthy of consideration. A few general platitudes are to be found inculcating the wisdom of consulting your genius, the excellence of consistency and decency, the duty of despising the profanum vulgus, the folly of applying the metres and language proper to kings and great persons to the doings of common people. Then having cleared the way, he proceeds to the things really of necessity for a poet,—as that no cancion should contain more than fifteen stanzas; that a sestina is rhymed a b c, c b a, and that its lines ought to end in nouns and never in verbs; that three adjectives are more than enough for any substantive; that an agudo at the end of a hendecasyllable is the abomination of desolation; that the letter l is useful for sweetness; that r comes in with good effect “when violent Eurus opposes his rush with horrid fury to powerful Boreas”; and that s suits with soft sleep and savoury repose (“al blando sueño y al sabroso sosiego”), for he did not scorn alliteration’s artful aid. It would be trivial to insist on the Egemplar Poético if the author had been an insignificant man, or if the bulk of Spanish classic poetry showed that he spoke only for himself. But Juan de la Cueva has an honourable place in the history of Spanish dramatic literature among the forerunners of Lope de Vega. When he comes to write upon the
- 77. Artificiality of the work of the school. comedy he rises at once above the level of mechanism and commonplace. He ceases to be a mere schoolboy to the Italians, and roundly vindicates the right of his countrymen to reject the Senecan model, to be alive, Spanish, and original on the stage, in defiance of all the rules and all the doctors. The theatre was to imitate nature, and to please. Poetry was to imitate the Italians, and satisfy the orthodox but minute critic. That is the sum and substance of Juan de la Cueva’s teaching, and therein lies the explanation of the impassable gulf which separates the Spanish drama—a very genuine thing of its kind—from Spanish classic poetry—a school exercise, redeemed from time to time by a note of patriotism or of piety. When poetry is approached in this spirit its matter is likely to be as merely imitative as its form. Spanish classic poetry did not escape this fate, and there is only too much truth in the taunt of “sterile abundance” which has been thrown at it. We meet continually with the exasperating, nameless, characterless shadow of a lady whose “threads of gold” (which the rude vulgar call her hair) cruel hard tyrant Love has used to enchain the lamenting poet, whose sorrows just fill the correct number of stanzas. The pastoral raged. The same Tirsis and the same Chloe repeat many hundreds of times identical things in a landscape which has flowers but no flower, trees but no tree, and is withal most manifestly sham in arid, rocky Spain. Spanish critics have complained that their classic poets so seldom touched on the life of their time,—but that is a small matter. They have—piety and patriotism apart—little human reality of any kind. Love according to an Italian literary pattern, varied by platonism learnt from the Florentines, is the staple subject. Don Marcelino Menendez, the most learned of contemporary Spanish critics, has said, when controverting Ticknor’s theory that the Inquisition was accountable for the prevalence of Góngorism, that the real explanation of that disaster lies elsewhere. Europe, he says, was invaded in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by a sham middle age and a sham antiquity, which could end in nothing but verbal
- 78. Boscan. Garcilaso. follies. One does not recognise the truth of this judgment in the case of France and England, but it has force as applied to Spain. A general estimate of a school must always be difficult to justify except by a profusion of quotation, which is impossible here. We can do no more than leave it to be accepted or rejected by those who can control it by a knowledge of the original, and proceed to give such a sketch of the history of Spanish classic poetry as our limits allow.[9] It falls naturally under two heads—the Lyric and the Epic— and in both the presence of the Italian model is constant. The leading form in lyric poetry is the cancion in hendecasyllables with quebrados—that is, broken lines of seven syllables. But the Epístola in tercets, imitated from the capitolo of the Italians, is very common. The song proper is wholly absent. There is no “Come unto these yellow sands,” no voice of Ariel in Spanish poetry. The Spaniard does not sing; he chants. Of the two chiefs of the school, Boscan ranks mainly by virtue of the example he set. He was somewhat harshly condemned by his follower, Herrera, for hanging jewels robbed from the classics and Italians on his own robe of frieze. The charge of plagiarism is not easily rebutted, for Boscan certainly took his goods where he found them in Virgil or Horace. As for the quality of his robe, it is undoubtedly of the nature of frieze. What strikes the reader most in Boscan is a certain worldly good sense, more like our own Queen Anne men than the poetry of a sixteenth-century school at its beginning. His most quoted piece, an Epístola addressed to Diego de Mendoza, is eminently rational prose disguised in verse, avowing a most heterodox affection for his wife (his whole tone to women is thoroughly modern), and a quite unpoetic liking for a good supper by a blazing fire of logs at the end of a day in the open air. But we note also the maturity of the language, in spite of a certain awkwardness due to the writer’s want of skill. This same premature and fatal maturity is even more conspicuous in Garcilaso, who was more master of
- 79. his pen. In the small body of his verse, and the one fragment which remains of his prose—a letter to his friend’s wife praising her good taste for enjoying the Courtier of Castiglione—there is hardly a word or phrase which has become antiquated. This classic poetry was born with an old head on young shoulders, and had no youth. His finished form earned and kept for Garcilaso the rank of Prince of Castilian poets. In the latter part of the century he was twice edited —once at Salamanca in 1577 by the Humanist, Francisco Sanchez, called, from the name of his native town, Las Brozas, el Brocense, and best known as the author of the Minerva; and then at Seville by Hernan de Herrera. The edition of Herrera has a commentary on a large scale, and is of considerable value for the history of Spanish poetry; but it set an example which was followed to an excess of tiresome pedantry by the editors of Góngora and Camoens. It led to a famous and not unamusing literary quarrel. The Castilian critics, who were banded in support of their own man, Sanchez, fell on Herrera with some justice for his inappropriate display of scholastic pedantry, and most unjustly for ignorance of Castilian. No Castilian will ever readily allow that an Andalusian (which Herrera was) speaks the language quite correctly. Of the matter of Garcilaso’s verse it may be said that it is pastoral, or gentlemanlike, and melancholy. The Spaniard finds, no doubt, a charm in the mere language, which of itself is enough; but even to him there may be suspected to be some tedium in this obvious determination to get a stool to be melancholy on. It is not the melancholy of Jorge Manrique, who is saddened by those eternal sorrows, death of kin and friends and the burden of life, but the melancholy of a gentleman who is imitating a model to pass the time in winter quarters. But the so-called Lira or ode, in lines of seven syllables mixed with hendecasyllabics, addressed “To the flower of Gnidus” is elegant. It is in stanzas of five lines, rhyming the first with the third, the second, fourth, and fifth together, and enforces the well-known lesson, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” for the instruction of a young lady at Naples who had not favoured the suit of one of the poet’s friends.
- 80. Their immediate followers. Only a very full history of Spanish literature could afford to dwell on Ferdinand de Acuña (Ferdinand, Fernando, Fernan, and Hernan are all forms of the same name, employed according to taste or local usage), who was a Portuguese noble in the service of Charles V., a soldier of distinction, a writer of Castilian verse, and a copious translator from the classics; or Gutierre de Cetina, a soldier best known by a graceful madrigal; [10] or many others whom it would be a barren display to name; but Diego Hurtado de Mendoza is too strong a man to be passed in a crowd. He is chiefly famous as a man of action—as a soldier who governed Siena for Charles V., and a diplomatist who represented the emperor in a very military fashion at the Council of Trent. In literature he ranks chiefly as the undoubted author of a history of the revolt of the Moriscoes, and as the possible, though doubtful, author of the Lazarillo de Tormes. Diego de Mendoza (1503-1575) was a younger son of the Count of Tendilla, head of one of the many titled branches of his famous house—the Douglases of Spain. He was the direct descendant of the Marquess of Santillana, and through him of that Lord of Butrago who sacrificed his life for the king at the battle of Aljubarrota.[11] His poetry was the relaxation of a great noble who broke through the rules in a fashion well calculated to horrify such critics as Juan de la Cueva. But Don Diego had fire enough in him to burn up a wilderness of correct poets of that order. Sometimes it flamed out with little regard to decency. But in happier moments—as, for instance, in the ode to Cardinal Espinosa—he could strike that note of a haughty, or even arrogant patriotism, which is the finest in Spanish poetry. Even in his case we have examples of the same premature maturity noted in Boscan. One of his epistles addressed to this very writer begins by the Horatian “Nil admirari”—an excellent maxim, perhaps, but chilling in the first youth of a poetry. Mendoza wrote not only in the Tuscan, but the native metres, couplets, and glosas. The glosa is a favourite exercise of verse-making ingenuity with the Spaniard. It consists in taking any stanza of whatever number of lines, and building on it a poem of the same number of stanzas as there are lines. Each must
- 81. The two schools of Salamanca and Seville. end in one of the lines of the foundation stanza taken in their order. They must be brought in without violence, and the whole must be a variation on the theme of the stanza quoted. Diego de Mendoza outlived Charles V., and spent his last years in exile at Granada, incurred by a too great promptitude in resenting impertinence within the precincts of the Court. It has been the custom to divide the poets of Spain into the Castilian and the Andalusian, or those of Salamanca and those of Seville. The division is somewhat arbitrary, and corresponds to very little distinction in tone, method, or language among the writers, or at least so it seems to a foreigner who compares Luis de Leon with Hernan de Herrera, though the first is counted as the chief of the school of Salamanca, and the second as the chief of the school of Seville. Both wrote the same fine Castilian, both were good scholars, and there was the same intense religious feeling, the same high patriotism, in both. Luis Ponce de Leon (1528-1591), as if to show how artificial this distinction is, was born at Granada, which is one of the sub-kingdoms of Andalusia.[12] He was an Augustine friar, and occupied two important chairs in succession at Salamanca. Between 1572 and 1576 he was imprisoned by the Inquisition. The charge made against him was that he had translated the Song of Solomon, which, at a time when the Reformers were making an active use of the Bible in the vernacular tongues against the Church, was a serious offence. The leader of the attack on him was the Dominican Melchior Cano, of whose De Locis Theologicis Dr Johnson wrote, “Nec admiror, nec multum laudo.” It is a well-known story of Luis de Leon that when the verdict of the Holy Office was given in his favour, and he was allowed to resume his lectures, he began where he had left off, and with the words, “As we were saying yesterday, gentlemen.” His poetry may be divided into that part which is inspired by Horace, and that which is inspired by the Bible. It is perhaps only natural that he should appear to more advantage when he is paraphrasing the description of a perfect wife from the Proverbs of Solomon than when he is endeavouring to adapt the lira
- 82. of Garcilaso to some theme obviously taken because it bore a certain resemblance to the subject of one of the odes of Horace. These imitations of the classic models were not confined to the graver and more reflective parts of his originals. Luis de Leon, though a churchman of undoubted piety, wrote amatory poems. The coplas in the old Spanish metres called A una Desdeñosa—to a scornful lady— are on exactly the same subject as the already named Flor de Gnido of Garcilaso. Whether he was following the classics and learned poets of his own country, or paraphrasing the Psalms, Luis de Leon was always a master of the very purest Castilian; while his reflective poems—the Noche Serena, for instance, or the ode which imitates the Beatus Ille of Horace—are something more than mere exercises of ingenuity. It was his reputation as a stylist which secured the publication of his poems forty years after his death. Luis de Leon himself seems to have considered them only as amusements for his leisure. But in 1631 Quevedo brought out the first edition, in order to counteract the growing taste for Góngorism. The poet who has the honour to rank as a stylist among the Spaniards, next to, if not on an equality with Garcilaso, is Hernan de Herrera of Seville (1534-1597), a churchman of whose life almost nothing is known with certainty.[13] As usual, he published little during his life, and much of his manuscript was lost by an accident after his death. The remainder was published by his friend the painter Pacheco in 1619. Spaniards, if asked to name the pieces of verse in their language which display the greatest measure of force and dignity, would certainly quote the famous odes on the battles of Lepanto and Alcázar el-Quebir, together with the sonnet in honour of Don John of Austria. The vigour of these verses is unquestionable, and if it cannot be claimed for them that they display any great originality of form, they are animated by a fine spirit of patriotism. Herrera, too, had a sense of the merits of compression, which is not common with his countrymen. He worked at the language in an artistic spirit.
- 83. Góngora and Góngorism. Once more, as in the case of the immediate followers of Garcilaso, we must pass over the names of all but the chiefs very lightly.[14] The Aragonese brothers Lupercio and Bartolomé de Argensola, who may be classed among the poets of Castile; Francisco de Figueroa, who spent nearly all his life in Italy; Rioja, the poet of flowers, and the author of a moral poem on the Ruins of Italica (a Roman colony near Seville), inspired by Joachim du Bellay; Arguijo, and many others, must be passed over in silence. It is proper to note, however, that whatever anybody else was doing at this time, Lope de Vega did in as great quantities as men who did nothing else. But there will be occasion to speak of Lope elsewhere. For the present he must make room for the writer whom some have claimed as the most genuine lyric poet of Spain, and who bears the discredit of having flooded the literature of his country with a ruinous affectation. Don Luis de Argote y Góngora, who habitually used the second of these names, which was his mother’s, was a Cordovese, born in 1561.[15] He was educated at Salamanca, followed the Court for some years, and was attached to the Duke of Lerma. He took orders, and received a benefice when advanced in life, and died in his native city in 1627. His evil fame, based on the invention of the particular form of bad literature called after him Góngorism, is greater than his good, which yet has some foundation. His romances on stories of captives among Barbary pirates, and of wars on the frontiers, are among the best of their kind. Among his earlier poems on the Tuscan models there are some which possess the lyric cry with a degree of intensity very rare among the Spaniards. The third cancion, for instance, contains a singularly passionate and admirably worded variation, on the theme of Shakespeare’s forty-fourth sonnet, “If the dull substance of my flesh were thought.” But it was not for this, the work of his earlier years, that the reputation of Góngora has been spread over the world, but because he, to steal an image from Carlyle, swings in chains on the side of Parnassus, as the inventor of “El Culteranismo” or “Góngorism.” At some period in his life he began to write in this style. Hostile critics say he did so because he could not attract
- 84. sufficient attention by writing with sanity. Admirers have asserted that he had a literary ambition to improve the poetic language of Spain, to make it, in fact, more culto—more cultivated. The question what exactly Góngorism was, will be best answered by an example. Here, for instance, is a passage from the Pyramus and Thisbe, a short poem, published in 1636 by his admirer Cristobal de Salazar Mardones, with a wordy commentary of incredible pomposity, and futility. The English translation is put below the Spanish on the Hamiltonian system, and the reader is begged to observe that the inversions and transpositions are only a little more violent in English than in Spanish:—
- 85. Piramo fueron y Tisbe, Pyramus they were and Tisbe, Los que en verso hizo culto Those who in verse made[16] polished El Licenciado Nason The Licentiate Naso Bien romo ó bien narigudo Maybe snub, maybe beak Dejar el dulce candor To leave the sweet white Lastimosamente obscuro Lamentably dark Al que, túmulo de seda, Of that which, tomb of silk, Fue de los dos casquilucios Was of the two feather-heads Moral que los hospedó Mulberry which gave them shelter Y fue condenando al punto And was condemned at once Si del Tigris no en raizes If by the Tigris not in root De los amantes en frutos. By the lovers in fruit.
- 86. Don Cristobal de Salazar Mardones explains in prose, and with copious references to Ovid, Meta., lib. iv., that what this means is that the mulberry-tree was not torn up by the roots as a punishment by the Tigris, but was coloured by the blood of the lovers. The reader will see at once that this is puerile nonsense, and that it is a mere trick. It is also a very old trick. When Thiodolf of Hvin, whose verse riddles adorn the Heimskringla, wrote of a certain king— “Now hath befallen In Frodi’s house The word of fate To fall on Fiolnir; That the windless wave Of the wild bull’s spears That lord should do To death by drowning,”— he was writing in “góngorina especie”—that is, in what was to be the manner of Góngora. The whole secret lay, as Lope de Vega, indeed, pointed out, in never calling anything by its right name, and in transposing words violently. Given a great deal of bad taste, and a puerile mania for making people stare, and the thing is easily accounted for. In such conditions it may be thought clever to call mead which men drink out of horns “the windless wave of the wild bull’s spear,” or to describe a mulberry-tree as a tumulus of silk, though the mistake was incomparably more excusable in Thiodolf of Hvin than in Góngora, and the Norseman seems on the whole to have been the least silly of the two. The comparison which has been made between Góngorism and our own metaphysical school is too favourable to the Spaniards, in whom there was absolutely nothing but juggling with words. This folly spread as rapidly as the imitation of Italian models had done. It was in vain that Lope argued against it for common-sense. He was himself conquered. Quevedo,[17] who attacked it, was driven
- 87. The Epics. to worse straits, for he endeavoured to resist it by means of another affectation, the conceptista, or conceited style, which is more like our “metaphysical” manner, but never had the popularity of Góngorism. The founder of this school of affectation was Alonso de Ledesma of Segovia (1552-1623). The poems which Quevedo published under the name of the Bachiller Francisco de la Torre were meant to reinforce Luis de Leon, and were free from either kind of fault; but the learned poetry of Spain had not vitality enough to throw off the disease. Góngorism became the literary taste of the day, and was soon traceable everywhere. The great mass of epics, or so-called epics,[18] which form the non-lyric side of the learned poetry of Spain, belong with rare exceptions, if not with only one exception, to the domains of bibliography and curiosity. I have to confess that I do not speak with any personal knowledge of the Carolea of Hierónimo Sempere, published in 1560, or many others, and with only a slight acquaintance with the Carlo Famoso of Don Luis de Zapata. This second poem, published in 1565, is in 50 cantos, and contains 40,000 verses. The subject is the history of the Emperor Charles V., and it may stand here as a specimen of the whole class to which it belongs. The Carlo Famoso is essentially prose, disguised in such ottava rima stanzas as any one who had once acquired the trick could probably write as easily as prose pure and simple. If Don Luis de Zapata, who had served the emperor, had been content to tell us of what he saw in prose, he would probably have left a readable, and perhaps a valuable, book. But, unfortunately, he felt called upon to build the lofty rhyme, in imitation of Ariosto, and this brought with it the necessity for supernatural machinery, which the Don Luis de Zapatas of all countries are very ill qualified to handle. The ease with which verses of a kind are written in Spanish, the influence of a fashionable model, and the prestige attaching to the writing of verse, led to the production of innumerable volumes on historical subjects of what would fain have been poetry if it could. Some of this mass of writing is not without merit, the Elegies of Famous Men of the Indies—Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias—of
- 88. The Araucana. Juan de Castellanos[19] is readable enough, and has some historical value. Juan de Castellanos, whose dates of birth and death are unknown, was an old soldier turned priest, who in common with many others could in a fashion write ottava rima stanza. He seems to have thought that “Elegy” meant much the same thing as “Eulogy,” and his Elegias are, in fact, a history of the conquest of America by the Spaniards, carried down to 1588. It is only a fragment, but even so, it fills a crown octavo volume of 563 pages in double columns. Of course there are by the side of work of this kind imitations of the Italian epic serious or humorous, which have no pretensions to a historical character. Here it was only to be expected that Lope de Vega would be among the most fluent and the most conspicuous, for it may be repeated that he tried his hand at whatever others were doing. The epics in the Italian form being popular, he wrote several; and as he had an unparallelled command of facile verse which always stopped short of becoming bad, he is never unreadable, though, as he was also only a very superior improvisatore, his poems never quite compel reading. The subject of the Dragontea—the last cruise and death of Sir Francis Drake in 1594—is so much more attractive to an Englishman than the Angelicas and Jerusalem Conquistadas, taken from Ariosto and Tasso, that one is perhaps prejudiced in its favour. And yet it seems to me to have a certain vitality not present in the rest, and to be by no means inferior to them in other respects.[20] The partiality of his countrymen and the too good- natured acquiescence of foreigners have given the name of epic to the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla. [21] The author was a very typical Spaniard of his century. He was born in 1533, and came to England as page to Philip of Spain at the time of his marriage with Mary Tudor. It was from England that he sailed to Chili for the purpose of helping in the suppression of the revolt of the Araucans, which, became the subject of his poem. While on service he was condemned to death for drawing his sword on a brother officer. The sentence was remitted, but Ercilla resented
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