' Lastly may be mentioned the Portuguese _Primavera_ of Francisco
Rodrigues de Lobo, which appeared in three long parts between 1601 and
1614, and is pronounced by Ticknor to be 'among the best full-length
pastoral romances extant.'
All these works resemble one another in their general features. The
characteristics of the _genre_ as found in Spain, in spite of a real
feeling for rural life traceable in the national character, are the
elements it borrows from the older chivalric tradition, combined with an
adherence to the circumstances of actual existence even closer than was
the case in Italy. Sannazzaro was content to transfer certain personages
from real life into his imaginary Arcadia, while in the Spanish romances
the whole _mise en scene_ consists of the actual surroundings of the
author disguised but little under the veil of pastoralism. Thus the ideal
element, the desire to escape from the world, is no less absent from these
works than from the Latin eclogues of the renaissance, and the chivalric
pastoral in Spain advances far along the road towards the fashionable
pastoral of France. Not only are knightly adventures freely introduced,
and the devices of disguise and recognition employed, but the hint of
magic in Sannazzaro is developed and made to play a prominent part in the
tales, while the nymphs and shepherds display throughout an alarming
knowledge of literature, metaphysics, and theology.
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