645 



DRAMA; DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 



DRAMA; DRAMATIC LITERATURE. 



646 



pastoral dialogues, &c., that remain, are distinguished for natural grace 

 and liveliness ; and though these are all in prose, he wrote with equal 

 facility in verse. 



" In the time of this celebrated Spanish actor," says Cervantes 

 in the preface to his own published plays, " the whole wardrobe of an 

 a.tnr could be thrust into a bag : there were three or four close vests 

 of white skin trimmed with gilt leather, and the like number of beards, 

 wigs, and trunk hose. The plays were colloquies in the manner of 

 eclogues, between two or three shepherds and some shepherdess, and 

 were eked out with two or three interludes (entremeses) exhibiting 

 sometimes the character of a negress, sometimes of a bravo, sometimes 

 of a simpleton, sometimes of a Biscayan; for these characters and 

 many others Lope represented with the greatest truth and perfection 

 imaginable. At that time there were neither machinery, nor decora- 

 tions, nor combats between Moor and Christian, on foot or on horse- 

 back : there were no figures made to issue through the boards of the 

 stage as from the centre of the earth ; still less were any angels or souls 

 let down from heaven upon clouds. The stage consisted of four planks, 

 laid in a square form across four benches, which raised them four 

 bauds from the ground. The whole decoration consisted of an old 

 coverlet, which was drawn from one end to the other by two cords, to 

 make what was called the vattario, or dressing-room, and behind 

 which were the musicians, who sang, without the guitar, some ancient 

 romance." 



Shortly after, Juan de Malara, a celebrated professor of the hum- 

 caused a versified drama of his, entitled ' Locusta,' which he hail 

 written at first in Latin, to be acted at Salamanca. Then came an 

 actor of Toledo, named Navarro, who, Cervantes tells us, converted 

 the manager's clothes'-bag into the more important-looking form of 

 trunks and portmanteaus ; brought forth the music from behind the 

 hanging ; took the false beards from the chins of those whose parts 

 did not require them; invented machinery, clouda, thunder and 

 lightning, duels and battles. Moral development, too, accompanied 

 this material progress : the pieces now began to display something 

 like a plot, and some of the animation which arises from conflicting 

 interests and passions. The titles of a few of these may afford some 

 notion of this transitional, or, more properly, adolescent period of the 

 h theatre: there were, for instance, 'Dido and yEneas, or the 

 Pious Trojan,' ' The Grand Prior of Castile," ' Loyalty against One's 

 King,' ' The Sun at Midnight and the Stars at Noon,' ' The Taking 

 of Seville by St. Ferdinand,' and ' The Cortes of Death ; ' the costume 

 of which latter piece is so humorously described in a passage of the 

 second part of Don Quixote. 



About 1580 were established at Madrid the two theatres de la 

 Cruz and del Principe, which are still existing ; and now some superior 

 minds turned their efforts to dramatic composition, which had hitherto 

 been left entirely to the managers of strolling companies. Cervantes, 

 just returned from his eventful Algerine captivity, wag one of the 

 earliest adventurers in this career. " I was the first," he tells us, 

 " that exhibited the imaginings and hidden thoughts of the soul, by 

 bringing forward moral characters on the stage, which I did with 

 warm and general applause from the public. I wrote at that period 

 some twenty or thirty plays, which were all acted unsaluted by 

 cucumbers or any other matters convenient for pelting with ; they 

 ran their course free from hissing, shouting, or clamour." Cervantes, 

 I, advanced the Spanish drama most importantly, both as to 

 dramatic invention and moral dignity. Hi ' Numancia,' in particular, 

 one of the only two of these his earlier dramatic productions that 

 have found their way to the press, is very remarkable in the dramatic 

 history of Europe. [SAAVKDRA, in Bioo. Drv.] 



Cervantes wrote at Madrid ; and at the same time Juan de la 

 Cueva produced some dramas on the stage of Seville, reducing to four 

 the number of jornadas, or acts, which had hitherto been five or six. 

 The day's performance then consisted, besides the principal piece, of 

 three entremaet, or interludes, played between the acts, and a little 

 ballet. Valencia, too, which had always, in arts and letters, its rival 

 school to that of Seville, made some advances in the dramatic career. 

 It was a Valcncian poet, Cristobal de Virues, who further reduced 

 the number of act* from four to three, which latter number was 

 thenceforward adhered to by all Spanish writers. " Until then," 

 according to the ludicrous conceit of Lope de Vega, " the Spanish 

 drama had yone <m all fourt, like a child, because it wan yet in its 

 infancy." 



The scenic pomp of the Spanish theatre had already made great 

 progress. The same writer, Rojas, who said that in the days of Lope 

 de Kueda an nvtor and his company might have deposited their bundle 

 /ifiiieit upon a spider's back, relates that in the time of Cueva and 

 Virueg, women played their parts in dresses of silk and velvet, with 

 chains of gold and pearls ; that, in the interludes, airs were executed 

 1 iy three or four voices ; and that even horses were introduced in the 

 warlike plays to complete the illusion. 



Ft is well worthy of remark that already, in the 16th century, we 



find in Spain the contest fully and warmly engaged between the 



claims'of the dramatic writers to an absolute independence of the 



classic rules, and the critics demanding a rigid adherence to the 



its of Aristotle. Thus while the rhetorician Pinciano was 



^ly conjuring the theatrical writers to respect the unities, for 



which they showed little regard, one of them, Juan de la Cueva, 



openly undertook, in his 'Exemplar Poetico,' the defence of the 

 dramatic liberties. He claimed them as the offspring of that succes- 

 sion of agea which had abolished all antique laws, as more favourable 

 to the boldest nights of imagination, and in fine, as better adapted to 

 please the public. But, while delivering tbis judicious opinion, he 

 lays down such maxims for the regulation of this dramatic freedom aa 

 good sense and good taste must ever dictate, though his countrymen, 

 in their fiery impatience of any such restriction, have not paid them 

 sufficient attention. 



The Spaniards had conquered the Moors, they had subdued South 

 America, but they had lost the more important part of then- liberties, 

 and they had become the willing slaves of their church. They had 

 glorious recollections, with an indomitable personal pride, and they 

 still retained a varnish of their old manners and feelings. It has been 

 well observed by Mr. H. Chorley, in some ingenious papers on the 

 Spanish drama in 'Eraser's Magazine,' for 1859, that there is no 

 understanding the Spanish drama after the time of Lope de Vega, 

 without a thorough understanding of the national character. The 

 English reader who meets with heroes who lie, seduce their friends, 

 wives or sisters, and murder those who even seek interviews with 

 their own ; who possess few or no estimable qualities, but a frantic 

 bravery and readiness by fighting to wash out in the blood of their 

 adversary any spot on their honour that has been brought to light, 

 cannot but consider them as unnatural, unless they recollect that 

 these crimes were held to be venial if accompanied by an unswerving 

 faith in the power of the church to pardon them, and a belief in the 

 might of a miraculous interposition of their adopted saints. 



The Spanish drama attained its greatest excellence about the same 

 time that it flourished in England ; and by some an affinity has been 

 claimed. There is, in fact, but little resemblance except in the 

 freedom of both from the conventional classical rules. A most essential 

 difference is pointed out by Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his ' Spanish Drama ' 

 (Knight's 'Weekly Volumes,' 1846), in the one being an evolution of 

 plot, the other an evolution of character and passion ; that the one, so 

 far resembling the drama of other southern nations, is objective, the 

 other, like most of the northern nations, subjective. He says, " Calderon 

 and Shakspere are the opposite poles of intellectual action. The ten- 

 dency of the Spaniard is to transform all thoughts into sensations ; 

 that of the Englishman to transform all sensations into tho\ights." 

 The Spanish drama depicts personifications or actions, but developea 

 none of the subtler traits of character. The Spanish people admired 

 a devoted loyalty to their monarch, a blind faith in their religion, and 

 unquailing courage. These constituted a hero. In a somewhat milder 

 form these requisites were also necessary to their heroines. 



Such was the public mind upon which Lope de Vega arose to 

 exercise his marvellous fertility of dramatic invention and facility of 

 metrical composition. He had the first great requisite for success in 

 this career, a most thorough knowledge of the tastes and passions of 

 the people for whom he wrote ; but that further and nobler merit, an 

 elevated view of his art and deep devotion to it for its own sake, he 

 never evinced. [VEdA, LOPE DE, in Btoo. Div.] Contemporary, or 

 nearly so, with Vega, there were many imitators of him, but none who 

 approached him in excellence. But near the close of his life arose 

 CALDEBON DE LA BUREA [Bioo. Div.], who w.is destined to super- 

 sede him, or nearly so, in the estimation of his countrymen. To 

 him succeeded Moreto, who, with less of the national fire, paid 

 somewhat more attention to the development of character in hi-j 

 plays; and Gabriel Tellcz, who wrote under the assumed name of 

 Tirso de Molina, whose plays are chiefly remarkable for their want 

 of gaiety, and a frequent disregard of probability. [TELLKZ, in Bioo. 

 Drv.] 



It is remarkable that during this, the most brilliant period of the 

 Spanish stage, the council of Castile ventured to propose, as a condition 

 of the re-opening of the theatres, which, on account of court mournings, 

 had remained shut from 1644 to 1649, that the plays to be performed 

 should be confined to subjects of good example taken from edifying 

 lives and deaths, without any mixture of love ; that consequently, 

 nearly all those which had theretofore been acted should be prohibited, 

 especially the works of Lope de Vega, which had been so prejudicial to 

 good morals. But fortunately, the taste of the monarch, in accordance 

 with that of the public, made him reject the proposal of his austere 

 advisers. 



The patronage of the monarch, the court, and the nation, had thrown 

 a multitude of literary men into that career, then the most honoured 

 and the most lucrative. Thus, besides Moreto, who has been cousiilrrwl 

 as one of the models of Moliere, there were a host of dramatists of the 

 second order, at the head of whom must be ranked Francisco de Rojas, 

 who had all the qualifications' of Moreto, but exceeded him in Inn 

 defects. Then follow Guillen de Castro, Ruis de Alarcon, La Host, 

 Diamante, Mendoza, Belmonte, the brothers Figueroas (who wrote con- 

 jointly, like the French vaudevillists of the present dny), Cancer, 

 Knciso, Salazar, and Dances Cnndamo, each of whom, though estab- 

 lishing no school, produced at lenst some important composition. 



The disasters that befel the Spanish monarchy hi the latter years of 

 the reign of Philip IV., together with a succession of court mournings 

 which closed the theatres for a considerable time, gave tho first Mow 

 to the dramatic art in Spain. In 1665, the death of that prince, who 

 had been its most zealous protector, gave the signal for its rapid and 



