SOURCE: “The Real and the Imagined in Bécquer's Leyendas,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1966, pp. 25-31.

In the following essay, Inglis examines the theme of ineffability in Bécquer's Leyendas.

The question of Bécquer's treatment of ‘lo inefable’ in his Leyendas has recently been raised again, in an article¹ in which special attention is paid to ‘la mujer inalcanzable’ as a theme used in this connexion. The ineffable is important also in other ways, and helps to explain certain variations in quality to be found within the Leyendas. To show how this is so will be the main aim of the present article.

The theme of the ineffable or unattainable corresponds to tendencies which are already to be observed in Bécquer during his youth in Seville, and which are epitomized, then and later, in the Historia de los templos de España project...