422 DRAM A [SPANISH. Moron. nfem- aries of Ideron. vreto fl 11 1C nedia de u ron. of strictly classical tastes protested in essays in prose and verse against the ascendency of the popular drama ; the prohibition of Philip II. had been recalled two years after his death and was never renewed ; and the activity of the theatre spread through the towns and villages of the land, everywhere under the controlling influence of the school of writers who had established so complete a harmony between the drama and the tastes and tendencies of the people. The glories of Spanish dramatic literature reached their height in P. Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), though in the history of the Spanish theatre he holds only the second place. He elaborated some of the forms of the national drama, but brought about no changes of moment in any of them. Even the brilliancy of his style, glittering with a constant reproduction of the same family of tropes, and the variety of his melodious versification, are mere in tensifications of the poetic qualities of Lope, while in their moral and religious sentiments, and their general views of history and society, there is no difference between the two. Like Lope, Calderon was a soldier in his youth and an ecclesiastic in his later years ; like him he suited himself to the tastes of both court and people, and applied his genius with equal facility to the treatment of religious and of secular themes. In fertility he was inferior to Lope (for he wrote not many more than 100 plays) ; but he surpasses the elder poet in richness of style, and more especially in fire of imagination. In his autos (of which he is said to have left not less than 73), Calderon probably attained to his most distinctive excellence ; some of these appear to take a wide range of allegorical invention, 1 while they uniformly possess great beauty of poetical detail. Other of his most famous or interesting pieces are comcdias de santos. 2 In his secular plays Calderon treats as wide a variety of subjects as Lope, but it is not a dissimilar variety ; nor would it be easy to decide whether a poet so uniformly admirable within his limits has achieved greater success in romantic historical tragedy, 3 in the comedy of amorous intrigue, 4 or in a dramatic work combining fancy and artificiality in such a degree that it has been diversely described as a romantic caprice and as a philosophical poem. 5 During the life of the second great master of the Spanish drama there was little apparent abatement in the productivity of its literature ; while the autos continued to nourish in Madrid and elsewhere, till in 17G5 (shortly before the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain) tlieir public representation was prohibited by royal decree. In the world of fashion, the opera had reached Spain already during Calderon s lifetime, together with other French influences, and the great dramatist had himself written one or two of his plays for performance with music. But the regular national drama continued to command popular favour ; and with A. Moreto (1618-1669) may be said to have even taken a fresh step. While he wrote in all the forms established by Lope and cultivated by Calderon, his manner seems most nearly to approach the master-pieces of French and later English comedy of character ; he was the earliest writer of the comedias de figuron, in which the most prominent personage is (in Congreve s phrase) " a character of affectation," in other words, the Spanish fop of real life. 6 His master-piece, a favourite of many stages, is one of the most graceful and pleasing of modern comedies simple but interesting in plot, and true to nature, with something like Shakespearean truth. 7 Other writers trod 1 El Divino Orfeo, &c. 2 El Magico Prodigiosi; El Pur gator io de San Patricia; La Devo- clon de la Cruz. 3 El Principe Constante (Don Ferdinand of Portugal). 4 La Dama Duende (The Fairy Lady). 6 Villa cs Surno (Life is a Dream). 6 El Lindo Don Diego (Pretty Don Diego.) 7 Desden con el Desden (Disdain against Disdain). more closely in the footsteps of the masters without effect ing any noticeable changes in the form of the Spanish drama ; even the say net e (tit-bit), which owes its name to Benavente (fl. 1645), was only a kind of entrcmes. The Spanish drama in all its forms retained its command over the nation, because they were alike popular in origin and character ; nor is there any other example of so complete an adaptation of a national art to the national taste and sentiment in its ethics and aesthetics, in the nature of the plots of the plays (whatever their origin), in the motives of their actions, in the conduct and tone and in the very costume of their characters. National as it was, and because of this very quality, the Spanish drama was fated to share the lot of the people it so fully represented. At the end of the 17th century, when the Spanish throne at last became the declared apple of discord among the Governments of Europe, the Spanish people lay, in the words of a historian of its later days, " like a corpse, incapable of feeling its own impotence." That national art to which it had so faithfully clung had fallen into decline and decay with the spirit of Spain itself. By the time of the close of the great war, the theatre had sunk into a mere amusement of the populace, which during the greater part of the 18th century, while allowing the old masters the measure of favour which accords with traditional esteem, continued to uphold the representa tives of the old drama in its degeneracy authors on the level of their audiences. But the Spanish court was now French, and France in the drama, even more than in any other form of art, was the arbiter of taste in Europe. With the restoration of peace accordingly began isolated attempts to impose the French canons of dramatic theory, and to follow the example of French dramatic practice ; and in the middle of the century these endeavours assumed more definite form. Montiano s bloodless tragedy of Virginia (1750), which was never acted, was accompanied by a dis course endeavouring to reconcile the doctrines of the author with the practice of the old Spanish dramatists ; the play itself was in bL.nk verse (a metre never used by Calderon, though jccasionally by Lope), instead of the old national ballad-measures (the romance-measure with assurance and the rhymed redondilla quatrain) preferred by the old masters among the variety of metres employed by them. The earliest Spanish comedy in the French form (a translation only, though written in the national metre) 8 (1751), and the first original Spanish comedy on the same model, NorsLtirisPdimetra (Petite-Maitresse), printed in 1726 with a critical dissertation, likewise remained unacted. In 1770, however, the same author s Hormesinda, an historic drama on a national theme and in the national metre, but adhering to the French rules, appeared on the stage ; and similar attempts followed in tragedy by the same writer and others (including Ayala, who ventured in 1775 to compete with Cervantes on the theme of Numantia), and in comedy by Yriarte and Jovellanos (afterwards minister under Godoy), who produced a sentimental comedy in Diderot s manner. But these endeavours failed to effect any change in the popular theatre, which was with more success raised from its deepest degradation by Pi. de la Cruz (b. 1731), a fertile author of light pieces of genuine humour, especially saynetes, depicting the manners of the middle and lower classes. In literary circles La Huerta s voluminous collection of the old plays (1785) gave a new impulse to dramatic productivity, and the conflict continued between representatives of the old school, such as Cornelia (fl. 1780) and of the new, such as the younger Moratin (1760-182S), whose comedies of which the last 8 Luzan, LaRazmiccmtralaMode(AC^.Kf:(;c,Lcrrejuged laMode-), 9 II Delinquent JTonrado (The Honoured Decay c the nation. i Spanish drama. The French school c the IStl centurv Other later
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