SILVA, serva, Josh Asunci6n, Colombian poet: b. 1860; d. 1896. Though apparently very much of a pessimist, his poems abound in evi dence that his pessimism was to a great extent accidental and unnatural to the poet. He dis plays a deep love of nature, of the beauty of the musical sound of words, and, at times, of the mere joy of living. His nature was deeply poetical, and .he suffered from an over-sensi tiveness which helped to embitter his life. This bitterness, which constantly creeps out accen tuates and gives peculiar vivacity to his pes simism. Silva, who was of an old, wealthy and aristocratic Colombian family, found himself reduced, through the fortunes of revolution, to poverty. As his father had already died, he was forced to support the family. He struggled on against adverse fortune, writing because he needs must write to give expression to his burn ing soul, but unable to find a publisher for his work, and too poor to issue it at his own expense. At the same time he waged an unsuc cessful fight for the recovery of his father's property. Finally he found a publisher in France, and for a time hope ran high, but the vessel bearing the manuscript to Europe was lost at sea. In his later days he became a literary figure in Latin America through his contribu tions to the press; but it was not until after his death that his poems were issued in book-form. Some of his poems like the 'CrepUsculo,"Ante la Estatua' (of Bolivar), 'El Dia de Difuntos> and 'Los Nocturnos) are known wherever the Spanish language is spoken. There are few Latin American writers whose work is so hard to translate into a foreign tongue as that of Silva. He has a strange power over the melody
of words and a deep and fanciful imagination of a distinctly poetical caste. About his work there is a haunting sense of melody that recalls the best of Poe's poetry; though Silva never displays the weird fancy of the latter's tales. He was original in many ways; his lines are often as musical as the best in the Spanish tongue. He invented new rhymes, reformed and reshaped old ones, introduced still others from foreign languages and successfully adapted them to the Spanish tongue. His inno vations and his mannerisms were widely imi tated and had their influence upon the younger generation of Latin-American poets, of which the leaders were Ruben Dario (q.v.) and Jose Santos Chocano. Owing, however, to the peculiarity of his style and his unnatural pes simism, the poetry produced by his imitators has been, for the most part, of rather indifferent quality. But his influence has been decidedly beneficial in leading Latin-American poets to attempt to fit the music of words to the beauty and harmony of poetic thought, and to seek more freedom and flexibility in the use of poetic forms. Consult Blanco Fombona, Jose, 'Letras y Letrados de Hispano America); Coester, A., 'Literary History of Spanish America' (New York 1917); La Habana, 'Arpas Cubanas> (1904) ; Mityans, A., sabre el movimiento cientifico y literario de Cuba) (Habana 1890).