Lope de Vega and The Spanish Drama

PQ
r LOPE
DE VEGA
AND THE
SPANISH
DRAMA
BEING THE
TAYLOR! AN LECTURE
BY
(1902)
JAMES FITZMAURICE-KEEfL%
GLASGOW: GOWANS & GRAY
LONDON:
R.
BRIMLEY JOHNSON
1902
1/-
Net.
LOPE DE VEGA
AND THE
SPANISH
DRAMA
BEING THE
TAYLORIAN LECTURE
BY
(1902)
JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY
GLASGOW: GOWANS & GRAY
LONDON:
R.
BRIMLEY JOHNSON
1902

. ; f "
1
TT
^
would be an overstatement
to assert, in
general terms, that the modern drama
derives solely from the ecclesiastical miracle-
plays
but
it is
certain that in Spain, as in

countries,
other
European
the
connection
between church and stage was originally
^^^^ Qr
less
clo se.
Though
it
is
ancient ver-
nacular examples of the hieratic drama do
not abound in Spain,

that
beyond doubt
the
far
popularity
of ecclesiastical plays
as
it
dates
back
and,
happens,
the
earliest
specime n of the S panish _drama

is
which
Reyes
also
among
This
the oldest
is
monuments
los
of Spanish literature
the Misterio de
piece,
Magos,
a
liturgical
ot;
which only
duced
the
fragment survives, was pro-;
in the Cathedral of
Toledo towards
cent ury.
beginning of the thirteenth

feast
The
of Corpus Christi, instituted by

in
Urban IV.
1264, was
celebrated
with
special magnificence at Gerona, and extant
387213
documents show that the expenses of staging

such mysteries
as
El
Sacrificio de Isaac
and
La
venta
sueno del patriarca Jose
were paid
in 13 14.
byBerenger de Palaciolo, who died
A Kepresentacid de la asumpcio
Maria^
is
de
madona Santa
Pie,
lately '3iscovered
by Father Joan
;
ascribed to the fo iixteenth century
and
is
the celebrated Mtsterio de Elche^ which

still
given annually on the fourteenth and
fifteenth
of August, cannot well be dated

the
fifteenth
^ later
tha n
century.
at
It
is
reasonable to
suppose
that some,
least,
of these primitive pieces are results of French

influence propagated
throughout Spain by
it
the
Cluny monks, and indeed
can
los
be
demonstrated that the Misterio de
Reyes
Magos follows the Orleans

such subjects
corps
rite.
Possibly
as the Dispute entre

"^
fame
were
et le
and the Danse Macabre
also
utilized,
though
less
frequently in Castile
than in the other kingdoms of the peninsula.
This would denote
a slight infiltration of the
profane element into the sanctuary.

* For the etymology of Macabre, see
in
M. Gaston
Paris's note
Roma?tia (Paris, 1895),
vol. xxiv., p. 129.
The
with
developed side by side > the liturgical drama. Though its

t heatre
lay
earliest
forms have perished, there

its
is
evidate.
dence of
existence
at
as
remote
Spanish historians, such
Lucas de Tuy,
mention Albigensian refugees
who
acted in
the public squares,
and
who
held up the
shortcomings of the clergy to the rabble's

derision.
passage in the
Siete
Partidas of ^
Alfonso the Learned implies that some un-
seemly pieces
-juegos
de escarnio-wtvQ. even
given in churches.
referred to a
I
These may be
origin.
safely
French
A more national
writers
as
tradition, inspired
by the Spaniard Seneca,

such
Catalan
was revived
)
by
Antonio Vilaregut and Domingo Masco, the

latter
of
whom
wrote a tragedy entitled

fembra
satisfeta^
Vhom
enamorat
e la
which
though
was performed before Juan L

in April
this
at
Valencia
1394.
It
would seem
as
example was not widely followed in ^ The passages of dialogue which Castile.
are
found in Berceo, in the Archpriest of
Hita,
and in that spirited

as
political
satire
known
the Coplas de Mingo Revulgo are
interesting
^
but they are dramatic neitlier

is
in intention nor effect. It
otherwise with
the celebrated
Viejo\
still
it
Didlogo entre el
Amor y un
does
not
appear that this
production by the converted Toledan Jew,
Rodrigo
actually
Cota
played.
de
Maguaque,
Nevertheless,
was
ever
we know
that public representations
must have been
common
and momos
till
before Cota's tijme, for chroniclers
of the fifteenth century speak of entremeses

at
high
festivals.
However, not
well advanced
this fifteenth
century
is
we meet with the first Castilian dramatist whose name has reached us. Longfellow
do
has enabled readers unfamiliar with Spanish
to gather
some impression of the plangent
music which characterizes Jorge Manrique's

dirge
y
barely
memory of know the name

in
his
father.
They
of his uncle,
Gomez
Manrique, the
pieces
author
of two
liturgical
one on the the other on the Nativity each of them distinguished dePassion,
for
votional simplicity and charm.
Tq Gomez
Manrique we
also
owe
play in which
the Infanta Isabel acted as one of the Muses,
and thus
represent
this courtly
s oldier
is
the
first
to
both the religious

^
and
secular
dram a
in Sp ain.
Passing by the vivacious Fray Inigo dc
Mendoza, whose
to the
Auto del nacimiento was
perhaps played on a profane stage,
we come
anon ymo us Comedia de
Calisto y Melib ea^
published about the end of the fifteenth century, and best

is
known
as
the Celestina,
:
This
un-
recognized masterpiece
but
its
manageable length
sixteen acts, afterwards
amplified to twenty-two, and in some editions

to twenty-three
ties.
nullified
its
theatrical quali-
contemporary of the Jew Fernando \
de Rojas (to
whom
the Celestina
is
most
frequently attributed, though
M.
a
Foulche-
Delbosc
dissents)
was the patriarch of th e

Encina,
zarzuela, Juan
del
sweet
and
are
copious
instinct
lyrical
poet,
wTToiiT" eclogues
spirit,
with the dramatic

del
and whose
later
Aucto
Repolon
suggests
those
entremeses
brilliant
which
farces
are best represented
by the
'
of Cervantes and Quinones
de Benavente.
further step in dramatic
evolution has been noted in the Auto de la
Pksion
of Lucas Fernan dez

slight.
the progress
is,
however,
The
:
next genuine impulse
comes from without
from Bartolome de
a roving Spanish
Tor res Naharro, app arently

soldier
of fortune,
corsairs,
who was
in
5
captured
by
Barbary
and
finally settled at
1 1
Rome,
where he took orders
3 or thereabouts.
Occasionally, as in his Didlogo del Nascimiento^
Torres Naharro
is
mere imiigtorôf Encina.
/But, as a whole, the
volume of plays which

is
he chose
its
to call Fropalladia
remarkable for
rare initiative
and
force.
Here he
gives
us
examples in both the

:
realistic
and the
and
and
romantic drama
the comedia a
noticia
the comedia a fantasia

Tinelaria
the
Soldadesca
on the one hand, the Serajina^

In
Himenea^ and Aquilana on the other.
each vein Torres Naharro excels by virtue of

his craftmanship
his solid construction, his
appropriate, lively dialogue, his gift of persuasive presentation.

^ his period
No
Spanish writer of
matches him in dramatic power.

high degree, the characterYet, beyond the
He has,
istics
in a very
of a great leader.
fact that
he helped to draw the attention of
Spaniards to the Italian theatre

case of Alonso de la Vega,
as in
the
whose Comedia
prodiga
owes
as
much
to
Italy as does the

traces ôf^Xoxres
Comedia de Sepuheda
the
came
Naharro's influence are

should expect.
much
fainter than
this to
we
?
How
be so
Not,
as has
been assumed hitherto, because
Spanish editions of the Propalladia were few;

the
work was
reprinted at least five times in
eighteen
years
an
exceptional success, in
first
that age, for a
book
issued abroad.
We
t
can but conjecture thatTorre^s Naharro was too

far in
advance of his time, or (more likely)
that his ingenuity overtaxed the limited

m mm K
i
i
meI
III
chanical resources of the Spanish stage.

as
Still/
we
find one of his metrical experiments
the combination of the hemistich with the

twelve-syllabled versos de arte mayor
in the
adopted
Auto da Feira of the graceful Portu-
guese dramatist Gil Vicente (who often takes

Spanish for his vehicle),
it
may
prove that
Torres Naharro found followers among the

interminable
file
of playwrights recorded by
Canete, Aureliano Fernandez-Guerra y Orbc,
and
Sr.
Cotarelo y Mori.
Thanks
to these
lO
eminent native scholars
and
of
to
Rouanet
the
manuscripts
M. Leo those who

early-
wrote for the Spanish stage during the
sixteenth century are at last slowly struggling

into print.
But, as yet, to most of us these

little
innumerable authors are

names.
more than
We
we
must await with patience the

satisfied to
results
of research, and be
actually
speak of what
know.
After Torres Naharro,

in th e histo ry
is
^the next promirf^nt figur e
of
Spanish
dramatic
literature
Lope d e
Rueda,
whom
a constant tradition, sanctioned
by the greatest of Spanish authors, regards

as the
founder of the popular theatre
on
at
this point Cervantes
and Lope de Vega are
one.
Rueda, once
a silver-beater in Seville,
took to
mumming,
rose to be an autor
as
an
in
in
impresario as well
an author
and
led his
company over the length and breadth of

Spain
from about
or
1554
till
his death
1565
ij_67,
talents,
as
1566.
His
as
pieces,
printed
reveal
as
him
man
of
the
his
of
many
pre-
an
imitator
satirist
Italians,
shrewd
of
poor
II
decessor
Bartolome
life,
Palau,
as
keen
observer of
as
master of boisterous
of the bustling
humour, and
farces
as the inventor
known
asâsos,^
Thtst pasos, repre-
sented in open ^spaces of the
town by an
be an accom-
author
Who
also
happened
to
plished actor, raised the play to the dignity
of a robust national institution.
No
such^
popular success
was attained by Lope de
Rueda's publisher and friend, the Valencian
Juan de Timoneda,
who
has found a place in
the history of literature on the supposition

that he
was among the
first
to
Sr.
essay the
dramatic form of the
aufo.
Cotarelo y
Mori
has
shewn,
however, that
Hernan
Lopez de Yanguas anticipated Timoneda by

almost half a century, and probably Yanguas
had predecessors
the
as
yet
unknown
to
to us.
In ^
next
generation
Lope de
Rueda
nothing
Cervantes praises Naharro, of
whom
remains beyond a
late edition
of his Griselda^
which
exists in
unique copy.
* See the most interesting introduction to M. Lô Rouanet's

Intermides espagnols du xvii* sikle (Paris, 1897), for the history of the pasos^ or entremeses^ as they were called later.
12
^
better fortune awaitedjuan de la Cueva,
P^
a courageous innovator in jthe romantic drama.

It
would be
difficult
to
overrate
Cuevas
is
historic importance.
None
of his wôrk
;
perfec t, none ap proaches perfection
but his
explorations in the
national
history,
his
p icturesque d omain of
w^holesjorne
contempt
for the conventional unities, his intelligent
courage in experimenting, his suggestion of

the capa y espada varie ty, his
amalgam of
com-
the lyrical with th e dramatic e lement

N
bine to place
him
in the foremost line.
He
Isla
and Miguel Sanchez, the author of La

bdrbara and
La
all
G'uarda cuidadosa^ are the
pioneers of those
new methods, which were

than
the
soon to carry
before them; and, insomuch,
they have a surer hold upon us
younger Argensola, than the two

soldiers
literary
Andres Rey de Artieda and Cristobal
de Virues, or even than Cervantes, whose immortality was

ture.
won in
another sphere of litera-
The
essays of these dramatists

it is
have a
to
value of their own, and

say that
not too
much
some of Cervantes's entremeses

it
in prose
(written, as
happens, at a
much
later date)
^3
are
a
match
for the FalstafF scenes in The

of
Merry Wives
all
Windsor
but, in the main,*^
four accepted an exhausted convention,

all
and, as
four opposed the developments with

shortly to be enriched, they
as
which Spain was
must be regarded
national
open enemies of the

So
far
as
as
dramatic system.
fabric
this
massive
can
be
it
is
considered
the
the
work of one man,
work of him
whom
calls
Cervantes, using a well-worn phrase,
the monstruo de naturalezath^ portent
of nature.
It
This marvel
w as
Lope de Vega.
it
would be
a very serious matter if
were
true, as has
been alleged, that no one out of

titles
Spain remembers even the

Lope's plays.
aggerated; but
of six of
The reproach is surely exit may be admitted that in

is
England, unfortunately, there
no wide
knowledge of the man or of
his wonderful
is
achievement, and this fact alone

for
an excuse
life
reviewing the
chief events of his
^ Lope
plays.
a life rich in episodes as
one of his
own
at
Felix de
Vega Carpio was born
Madrid on November
25, 1562. Biographers
14
declare that he was of noble descent.
It
may
to
be
so,
but the great
man
himself loves
and,
dwell upon his small
beginnings,
it
from
a passage in his writings,
has been
inferred that his father, Felix de Vega,
was
a simple basket-maker,
who
emigrated from
the valley of Carriedo to Madrid.

rate, the father's position in life
At any
of
was humble.
details
We
cannot
take
on
trust
the
Lope's youth as recorded by his disciple

su alumno
y servidor Juan Perez de Montalban, whose account is often inaccurate, and

Still,
sometimes intentionally misleading.

it
is
easy to believe that Lope's precocity

:
was miraculous
that
he composed verses
before he could write, and that he bribed

older boys with a share of his breakfast to
take
down
the lines which he dictated.
We
have Lope's assurance that he was sent to the

Colegio de
los Teatinos, a
much
less fashion-
able scTiool than the Jesuit Colegio Imperial
where, according to his biographer, he was
brought up.
Perhaps there
may
be some
foundation for Montalban's story that Lope
ran away from school with a friend, that the
15
couple were arrested
at
Segovia, and taken
back to Madrid by the police.

learn of Lope, the
All that
we
^
man, makes
it
probable that
It
Lope, the boy, was a scapegrace.

his talent
seems that
was recognized by the Bishop of

sent
Avila,
who
him
to
the University of
Alcala de Henares, and the bishop's kindness

is
commemorated
in the Dragontea,
There
is
no sign of Lope's name

'
in the
University
calendars, and
at
we
can only guess that he was
Alcala between 1576 and 1581.
While
(^
there he
Filis
met the heroineof
his Dorotea^ the
of his early ballads.
Her
:
personality
had hitherto been a puzzle
her mask has
now
dropped, and she
is
revealed to us as
Elena Osorio, daughter of the impresario X
Jeronimo Velazquez.
Lope's
first
This was apparently

>
direct introduction to the stage.
In 1582 he served at the Azores under the
Marques de Santa Cruz, and in 1583 he became secretary to the Marques de las Navas, with whom he remained some
celebrated
four years.
In 1585 he
is
praised in the
Galatea of Cervantes, with

in
whom he is found
1585 and 1586 writing complimentary
i6
verses
for
Pedro
de
Padilla
and
Lopez
Maldonado
respectively.
is
At
its
worst, sonneteering
it
a harmless
for
at
pastime, but
It
did
not
sufBce
Lope.
this
has
long
of
his
been
life
known
he
that
period
serious
was
involved
to
in
difficulties.
According
Montalban,
the
pious
and
crafty
Lope was
concerned in a public brawl with a shady
gentleman
un
and
hidalgo
his
entre
dos
luces
and, having
wounded
opponent, he was
exiled from the capital.

^
This
tale
has not
been
veriffeS,'"
it
may have been

discreditable,
forged
by Montalban
real facts.
to divert attention
from the
to
These
are
say
the
least.
When
not studying philosophy

to
at
and mathematics Lope was usually

found
at
be
the
the theatre,
and
it
was
theatre that he was publicly arrested in the
afternoon of
December
29, 1587,
on
charge
of uttering criminal libels against his Filis
(Elena Osorio)
Velazquez.
and her
is
father,
Jeronimo
This
not the place to enter

recently
say that
upon the
disclosed
details
which have been

It
is
to us.
enough
to
I?
Lope was brought

sentenced,
to trial,
found guilty, and

1588, to exile
on February
7,
from Madrid (and

for eight years, to for
if
a circuit of five leagues)
banishment from Castile
two
years.
It
was further ordered that

as
he infringed the decree
regards Madrid,
his time
it
he should work out the remainder of

at the galleys
;
and that
if
he infringed
as
regards Castile he should suffer death.

severity
This
might have cowed many men. Lope

tlie
treated
court
with the most flagran t
contempt, bore himself like a typical cloak-
and-sword hero.
He
a
condescended to withflourishing
draw
centre,
to _ Valencia,
dramatic
useful
where he wrote plays and made

but
his
acquaintances;
brief.
absence was very

risked his head
off^the
Within two months he

to
by returning
Madrid, and carrying
daughter of Philip IL's Royal King-at-Arms.
warrant for his arrest was instantly issued,
and a company oi alguaciles started in search

of him.
Finding the chase too hot he
released Isabel de
Urbina y Cortinas (whom
he married by proxy on
May
10, 1588), out-
stripped his pursuers, and, by
May
29^ was
i8
safe
on board the San Juan^ which formed

of the
Invincible
if
part
Armada.
Sceptics
have doubted
he ever shared
is
in this historic
expedition, but there
no reason
for reject-
ing his explicit statements on this head in the

Filomena and the Corona tragica.
Sailing
up
the Channel he used his manuscript verses

in
honour of Elena Osorio
as
gunwads, fought
against the dragon Drake, lost his brother

(so
it is
said) in action,
and landed
at
Cadiz
de
with
the
best
part
of
La Hermosura
Angelica^ a
huge epic which he had written
on board.
Shortly afterwards he returned to Valencia,
whence he passed
fifth
to enter the service of the
Duque de Alba, of whose household he was still a member as late as April, 1595. Subsequently we find him attached as secre-
tary to other great nobles
the
as
Marques de
Sarria,
Malpica, the
lettered
Marques de
who
title
is
best
known
(under his subsequent

the patron
of the Conde de Lemos)
of Cervantes. Lope's first youth was

but the profligacy of his private
life
now over,
as
it
continued.
In 1596 his wife died, and next year,
19
seems, he met the Camila Lucinda, to
whom
There
many of his
need
sonnets are dedicated.
Hitherto
Lucinda's identity has been a mystery.
now
be no hesitation in accepting the
conjecture
other,
made,
independently
of
each
by Dr. Perez Pastor and Professor

:
Rennert
that
she was Marcela de Luian,

gifted,
mother of that
wayward boy. Lope

her father dedi-
Felix del Carpio y Lnjan, and of Marcela, a
charming
cated
poetess, to
whom
remedio en la desdicha just before her

as
profession
Barefooted Trinitarian
in
1621.
In 1598 Lope de Vega married Juana
\/\j
de Guardo, and the factTKaFfhe lady^ fbftuhe
or, rather,
her father's
is
had been made by

saturnine
is
selling
pork
recorded by the
Gongora
in a sonnet
which
compact of
it
malignity and contempt.
But
is
fair
to
say that none of Lope's countless enemies

seriously believed
him
to
be a fortune-hunter,
and
in truth his father-in-law
was the
sorriest
of misers.
with that
made acquaintance young Duque de Sessa, to whom,

In 1605 Lope
so
during a friendship which lasted for thirty

years,
he addressed
many
of the mis-
20
chievous,
unedifying
letters
which
have
all his
amused and
startled posterity.
follies,
With
outrageous
we must
suppose
the
disorderly genius to have
had glimpses of
better things, and at whiles his aspiration for
improvement expresses
In 1609, though
still
itself in
odd forms.
he became a
but he
a layman,
Familiarof the Holj^^^L^

evidently failed to conciliate
in
all
his foes, for
the
December of
61
an attempt was
made on
In
161 2
his life in the streets of
Madrid.
he joined a quarrelsome literary
society called the

his glasses at
Academia
Selvaje, forgot
one of the
sittings,
and borrowed
describes as
Cervantes's spectacles,
which he
being " like badly poached eggs."

1
In August,
and, in the
61
3,
Juana de Guardo
died,
following year, the widower was ordained
p riest.
It
might well be thought

that
(as
TicTcnor
thought)
time
and many and that

so
:
trials
had
he
tamed
his restless spirit,
at last
had found peace.

his abjections
Not
his repentances,
It
were passing moods.
would shame
serve
no good purpose
to particularize the
gross irregularities
which brought
21
upon
his grey hairs

that,
and his cassock.

a short
Every-
one knows
after
experience,
invitation
for
Samuel Johnson declined Garrick's

to
go behind the
scenes.
Unhappily
Lope, his existence was passed in the green-
room, and he had not a spark of Johnson's
dogged
theatr e
virtue.
We
life:
can never forget
it,
the
was h is
when
not writing for
the stage he was acting a part.
He
flouts
must
have suffered
bitterly, the
dishonoured man,
under the tempest of epigrams,

jeers
and
with which the

him.
tribe of jealous, lesser
wits beset
Even the good-natured
Cervantes joined in the outcry against the
shameful specta,cle of this elderly gallant in

a
gown.
It
is
indescribably
pathetic
to
watch the poor,

himself
fallen priest's efforts to save
from
perdition.
Soon
after
his
ordination he revolts at writing Sessa's loveletters,
implores his patron for the love of /^^
God not to make him jeopardize his soul. And he stands his ground under circumstances of great difficulty.
But not
for long.
The
year 1616 was calamitous for Lope.

so
His son and namesake proved
uncon-
22
trollable that the distressed father
was com-
pelled to place
him
in a sch ool of co rrection
or jreformatory.
In this sam:e year befell
the
fatal
meeting with Marta de Nevares
Santoyo.
ture fed
The
the
cynical story of this adven-
gossips
of the
town.
as
The
as his
vigilant, virtuous
Gongora (who,
the chief
r^
of the
cultos^
naturally looked on
Lope
a
most dangerous opponent) was forthcoming

with a lampoon that
scurrility, irony,
is
still
model of
hurricane
and disdain.
The
of opprobrium, the shame of exposure would
have overwhelmed any other man.
Even
Lope staggered under
it.
Yet he lived the

into
his
hubbub
again
down,
and
respect,
came
own
It
repute,
and admiration.
seems a mockery that iniquity should so
triumph.
But Nemesis can wait patiently.

a short
Within
while Marta
;
lost
her sight
and became insane
and years afterwards the
child of this sacrilegious union was destined

to
destroy Lope.
But
last
it
would be odious
to dwell
on
this
the
of the
many scandals
and that
that degraded
still
him while
his
living,
tarnish
splendid
name.
Hence-
23
forward
years,
we
see
him,
for
a long
term of
reigning as the autocrat of Spanish ^
literature,
throwing off one masterpiece

all
after
anotHer,'"aazzling
Spain with his creative

his imagination,
power, the radiance of
and
the inexhaustible ingenuity of his wit.

at least a
For
quarter of a century he had such a
succession
of triumphs
as
no
other
man
of
letters has ever tasted.
He
defied public ^
opinion by dedicating
La
Viuda valenciana to
Dona Marta
fashionable
in
1620:
he opposed
the
all
i
mode of
culteranismor
But
things were forgiven to
him
The
gibes of
effect.
Gongora and Villamediana had no

It
was in vain that an envious man of genius
like
Ruiz de Alarcon, or
a peevish pedant
like Torres
Ramila, vented their spite and

their teeth
rage.
They broke
upon the
file
they were repaid in kind.

a
There was never

:
more human genius than Lope

And, perhaps, because
one more
loyal to his friends, one readier to face his

foes.
ot this lavish
generosity and bravery,

like his contemporaries
we
to
are all prone
sympathize with
least
him,
to
pardon him, even when he
24
deserves
it.
No
known
assault
could shake him.

testifies
All that
to his
is
of his later years
unique position.
at
We
meet him
in
1620-22 presiding
St. Isidore's
the feasts in honour of
canonization, conferring a prize
on the boy Lope in
whom
he took
so justifi-
able a pride, and introducing his successor
Calderon to public notice with words

enthusiastic praise.
of
at
In 1624
we
find
him
an auto defe^ where a wretched, crazy Catalan
Franciscan was burned for heresy
and that
Lope's heart was not in this horrible business

appears from his flippant remark to Sessa
that the victim
is
was
''
low
fellow, for this
the kind they burn."
Perhaps no o ther
to crack
living Spaniard
would have dared
these jests
in
Madrid
at
the expense
of
the
I nquisition
to
which
he
that
himself
belonged.
It is a
commonplace
no man
he can
really believes in his religion until

afixDrd
test,
to joke about
it.
If this be a true
then there can be no doubt that Lope
de Vega's belief was sincere and profound;
but there are other and better grounds for

thinking
so.
In 1625 he joined the Congre-
25
gation of
St.
Peter,
to
;
which he became
and, in this post as
to perfection,
chaplain three years later

in all others,
he played his part
edifying
all
beholders by his pious works, his

life.
exemplary
act, it is
And from now

own
till
the last
one unbroken crescendo of applause.

apotheosis.
Lope
witnessed, so to say, his
He
was one of the
sights of
Madrid.
As
he returned from the hospital, where he

attended the sick and dying,
look
at
him
in the street;
men turned to women and children

kiss
clustered round
him
to
his hand, to
as
crave his blessing.

a royal procession
:
His daily walk was

his portrait
hung on the
So contem-
walls of palaces
poraries
tell
and cabins. and so

old
us,
we
love to picture
him
in
his
all
august
the
age
the
living
symbol of
might,
and pride, and
glory of heroic Spain.
The
last
months of
his
existence were
trials,
troubled by two grievous
to
which
Montalban
reticence.
alludes with an air of provoking
We
know
at
last
what the
trials
were which struck Lope down
in the pleni-
tude of his fame and his happiness.
His
son.
26
Lope
Felix,
was drowned
at sea;
his
youngest
fled
and favourite daughter, Antonia Clara,
from home
in circumstances to
which bespeak
the
illustrious
the blackest ingratitude

father
for
who
doted on her.
sins
This retribution
Lope's
heart.
his
far-off
broke
Brooding sullenly upon

into
alternations
his sorrows,
he sank
of lethargy
and despair,
redoubled his pious practices, lashed himself
with
his discipline
till
the walls of his
room
were bespattered with blood, and awaited the

end with morose impatience.
23, 1635, he wrote his last
On
August
poems
a sonnet,
and El
Siglo de oro
laid aside his pen,
was
chilled, anS'took to his bed.

after
Four days
it is
later,
observing to Montalban that
nobler
to be
good than
sleep.
as
great,
he
fell
into the ever-
lasting
He
a
was buried with such

Caesar,
pomp
befits
the funeral train
turning aside from the direct path to defile

before the convent
which
his daughter, Sor
Marcela de Felix, had entered fourteen years

before.
By
his
open grave the murmur of

silence.
envy sank into abashed

felt
All
out.
men
His
that a great light
had gone
27
remains were laid in the vault beneath the
high
altar
of $t. Sebastian
Church
in the
till
Calle de Atocha, and there they rested

early in the last century.
During one of the

was found imposHence, the precise
usual cleanings of the church the coffin was

carelessly
removed, and
it later.
it
sible to identify
spot
where
JLope's ashes
now
lie is
unknown.
His
celebrity,
we have
lifetime.
us,
seen,
was unparal-
leled in his
as
own
tells
The word Lope,

a
Quevedo
kind
became
synonym
All
that
for
his
every
of
excellence.
enemies
could
do was
to
make
the worst
lost
of his open
dissipations.
They
no
opportunity, and they so far succeeded that,

in an age
when
decorations were prodigally
bestowed, they prevented his receiving the

insignificant
marks of
official
distinction
even the livings to which he was presented
were
paltry.
It
was better
,
so.
His genius
was pure ly popular and he could never have

submitted gracefully to the restraints which
bind a Court singer.
He made
Sessa,
moderate
fortune by his plays: he received^princely
sums
not only from
but
from other
28
admiring patrons.
However, though
his
household was on a modest footing, he was
alway s presse d for money.

stint
He
gave-without
in
charity,
and he died poor.

crush
life,
He
work
doubt
had many
afflictions to
him
yet he
lived every day
of his
did the
of
that
twenty
men,
and
we
one.
cannot
on
the whole
his long,
tumultuous
see
existence was a
in
happy
of
We
him
and
the
ardour
still
aggressive
youth,
watch him,
his
battling, in the zenith of
renown.
But we
like best to think of
him under another

decade of his
career
aspect during the last

:
composing master-
pieces as easily as he breathed, and conscious

that, after countless combats, the victory
his.
is
We
perceive
him
rejoicing
his
in
the
calm autumnal splendour of

never more content than
fame, but
when
in
playing with
his children in the garden.
It is a
charming
Calle de
picture
the
tiny house
its
the
Francos, with
motto
Parva propria, magna.
Magna
and the
little
aliena, parva.
garden with (as he smilingly
29
informs us)
its its
fountain and
ten
flowers,
its
nightingale,
vines,
two
trees,
two
an
orange-plant, and a musk-rose.
His
di gious.
fertility
and
constancy
were pro-\
He
wrote
epics, novels, eclogues,

;
epistles, sonnets, occasional verses, parodies
poems
parrative and devout and
historic
pastorals lay and sacred.
He
is
the author
of numerous ballads,
w hich
are
among
the
richest treasures of the romanceros^
and which
would
lesser
suffice to
make
the reputation of any
man.
Scarron
is
remembered not
:
least
its
for
three
tale
celebrated sonnets
that
all
it
tells
own
three should be
literal
translations
from Lope
and
that
Lope can
was the
afford not to claim them.

as
His ambition was
boundless
in
as his versatility.
He
first
Europe
to write an operatic libretto,"
longed to win a name inKistory, and sought

to
be
appointed
official
chronicler.
epics,
He
piqued himself on
* (a) Superbes
his
and looked
monuments de Porgueil des humains; (b) Un
mont
in the
5,
tout h^risse de rockers et de pins; (c)

le
l'
ombre
dun
rocker sur
bord
dun
1634 edition of
36>
The originals will be found Lope's Rimas kumanas y divinas^ pp. 28,
ruisseau.
and
30
down upon
his
dramas
as
trifles
cosas
de
entretenimiento.
He
him
to
lived
to
know
better,
and we cannot be too grateful that circumstances drove

cultivate unceasingly
the art in which he had no equal.
Yet the
very volume of his production has terrified

posterity.
Fox was
most courageous
reader,
but
even he blenched and began

his
to
make excuse when

talked
nephew, Lord
Holland,
Lope's
\
of
introducing
three
him
to
twenty-one million
lines.
:
hundred
thousand
testily
remarks
"
Hazlitt, in his Table-Talk^

I
hate
all
those nonhis
sensical stories about
Lope de Vega and

do
writing a play in the morning before breakfast.
He
had time enough

?
to
it
after.'*
But had he
This depends on the laws of

like
demand and supply which Lope,

rest
the
of the world, was forced to obey.

fact,
As
matter of
that
fast
;
there
is
no reason
to
suppose
break-
Lope ever did write

but there
is
a play before
solid
ground
for thinking
that not once or twice, but oftener, he
com-
posed a play within twenty-four hours.

plainly
tells
us so in the Egloga a Claudio,
He He
31
reports
as the
it,
in
no
spirit
of arrogant boasting,
humble
the fact
he simply accepted " that long runs " were almost untruth
;
known
As
and
in Spain,
and he was
easily equal to
any conditions.
to the
number of
his dramas,
we
like-
wise have Lope's

this
is
own
account of the matter,
should be
final.
However, though
thinking that his
exaggerated,
skill in figures.
it is
there
report
no warrant
is
for
deliberately
evident that he had no
In
the Peregrino en su patria he supplies us with

a
list
1
of his plays up
603.
to
the
end of the
total
is
year
By
his
reckoning the
it is
230
by ordinary counting
219.
In the Arte of 1609
nuevo de hacer comedias en
este tiempo
he mentions that he had then written 483

plays.
In the Oncena Parte of his theatre,

8,
published in 161
he speaks of 800
as
it
plays.
This
it
is
clear
enough
that,
stands.
But
so
happens
during the same year.

list
Lope
issued a revised
of his pieces in the
sixth edition of the Peregrino^ and there he

states that
this corrected catalogue contains
the
titles
of 462 plays.
His arithmetic
is
32 once more
at fault
his
list
contains only
333
titles.
Assuming, however, that the

really
number was
up the
Parte ?
total
462,
how came he
to
to
omit the other 338 plays required
make
it
of 800 given in the Oncena

discrepancy
is
The
this
so great that
can scarcely be due to a mere
oversight.
However
higher
may
be,
all
Lope's
subse-
quent declarations support the view that the
number
was
correct.
In
Parte
Quincena of his theatre he asserts that he had

written
900 plays
up
to
1620
in
the
Vigesima Parte of 1625 the
number
rises to
1070
and
in the Egloga a Claudia of 1632,
which contains the

subject,
total
is
author's last
is
word on the
1500.
the total
given
as
This
corroborated by Montalbaii in Para
Todos^
which
also
appeared in 1632
and
four years later, in the

talban alleges that
Fama
It
pdstuma^
Monplays
Lope wrote 1800
and over 400

all this
autos.
would follow from
that
between 1625 and 1632, when

sixty years of age, he pro-
Lope was over
duced more than sixty plays a year;

that
and
between 1632 and 1635, when he was
33
over seventy years of age, broken in health
and worn out with private sorrows, he wrote

at
the rate of a hundred plays a year.

are
These
that
figures
bewildering.
It
is
true
Montalban died insane within two years of

publishing the
possible,
as
Fama postuma^ and

been
suggested,
it is
quite
his
has
that
mind was
surprising
assertion
already affected
statements.
tallies
when he made
But
his
his
previous
with Lope's, and nobody
pretends
that
Lope was out of

is little
his
wits.
Perhaps there
that a
difficulty in believing
man who
could write sixty plays a
year might spur himself to write a hundred

in the
same space of time.
We
need not
presume
lations.
to understand these difficult calcu-
We are
solely concerned
with what
has
come down
to us,
and
this
is
more than
It
enough
that
for the hardiest student.

exist
may
be
some of Lope's plays

can spare them.
with the
to
names of other dramatists attached
them.
the
He
As
it
is,
we know
titles
of more than 600 plays by Lope, but
of these
178
are
titles
and nothing
else.
The
existing
remnant
consists of
430 plays
34
and some^fty
autos.
Among
these are such
early pieces as Los hechos de Garcilaso de la
Vega^ and
/ verdadero amante (written when

examples
of
various
the author was twelve, but re-touched later);

''
and
there
at
are
his
manners
every stage.
plays
It is
possible that
;
some of
his best
are
lost
yet
we
cannot conceive that only the worst have
been preserved, and
at least
we have enough
material to enable us to judge the range of

.
his singular talent.

It
is
hard to say
first
when
Lope's dramatic
gift
was
recognised, but
we know on
the best authority that Cervantes abandoned
the stage in 1587, and that soon afterwards

luego
the
marvellous youth carried
all
before him.
his plays to
He began as an j.rnateur, giving

needy managers, and thinking
it
ungentlemanlike to be paid for them.

Byron, he revised his opinion.
Like
From 1590
;
he had no
rival
injhe theatre
but he con-
tinued to believe in his epics, and did not

trouble to collect his dramatic pieces.
These
were
(so
means of livelihood
they were not
he imagined
at this tirne} literature.
35
Perseguido was the
printed, and this
first
of Lope's plays to be
in
was published
1603 by
at
an enterprising,
Lisbon.
unscrupulous bookseller
to
Lope seems
have taken no special

first
interest in the issue of the
eight volumes
of his theatre
at
the most, his attitude was

neutrality.
one of benevolent
He
prepared
for publication the ninth
volume, which was

this
printed in 1617
still,
though by
time
less
he had realised that his plays were no
valuable than his " serious works," his inter-
vention was chiefly due to his desire to protect himself against pirates
who
printed his
dramas
in
editions
which
teemed
soon tired,
with
for,
absurd blunders.
And he
as
though he wrote
copiously as ever, he
himself printed no play after 1625.
At the
very end he seems to have repented of his

negligence
fill
:
he collected enough matter to

published
two volumes, which were
posthumously.
It
remains to examine the value of Lope's

is
contribution to the theatre in which he
the
greatest
as
figure.
He
is
commonly
described
the
founder of tHe national
36
drama^ and,
in a sense,
as
he description
hosts
is
just.
There were,
we know,
of play-
wrights in Spain before he was born, but

their efforts
were tentative
essays of great
It is
merit, and yet only essays.

that
not clear
Lope had any intimate acquaintance

his
with their work, and his allusions to

predecessors are mostly perfunctory.
ever, even if
still
How-
he had read them, he would

title
deserve the
which has been conBuilding
;=
ferred on
him
its
for
he cr eated the S panish

perfect form.
theatre in
final
by
inspiration,
he builded better than he

the greatest practitioners in
theorist in the world.
este
knew.
art,
I
One of
he was the poorest
In his Arte nuevo de^jDaxer_comsdias en

tiempo^ he presents a poetic
doctrine.
summary of
a
his
Montalban, writing
in 1632, says
that the master

treatise
as this
had compiled
to
more
elaborate
;
which was
appear shortly
but,
has vanished,
we must
rely
on the
curt exposition published twenty-three years
An
iii.,
admirable edition of the Arte nuevo

pp. 365-405.
is
given by
M.
Alfred Morel-Fatio in the Bulletin hispanique (Bordeaux, 1901),

vol.
37
earlier.
Lope makes
but
all
show of quoting
is
Aristotle,
his
learning
derived
from Donatus and from Robertello d'Udine,

the
latter
of
It
whom
was studied
later
by
yCorneille.
/ fessed
\
soon appears that Lope's proclassic doctrine

is
admiration for
con-
fined to words.
that,
He
avows with effrontery

he locks u p
disap-
\ /
when
it
comes
to writing,
u
'
Plautus and Terence
not because he
follow
proves of either, but because the public will
have
it
so.
He
cannot
Lope de
RuecTa"";
for,
though Rueda observed the
rules of art,
he brought low characters upon
the scene, and so
made broad
high
:
farce of
what
should
have
been
comedy.
as
Lope
unity of
advocates unity of action
to
time he enters the plea that, when Spaniards
go
the
to the play, they
wish the panorama of

before
world
to
pass
them
Genesis to Judgment Day.
He
is
dramas were formerly

on
all
in four acts
from notes " went

that
:
fours like children,"
his phrase
he
counsels condensation into three acts.

Virgil,
Like
Ben Jonson, QuTntana, Coleridge, and Mr. Yeats, he would have the maker write
38
*
his
first
dcaftîn ptQSe* and he emphatically
recommends
that the interest be kept alive
by withholding the solution ^till

'
the
a
last
possible
moment.
:
To
this
he adds
word
concerning form
plaints
;
decimas shou l d be used for

serves
to
i
the
;
_sonnet
ndicate
suspense
the
romance
suits
narrative
which may
also (and
perhaps more happily)

;
be moulded into octaves
tercets are
adapted
for graver episodes, while nothing
becomes
a love-passage like the redondilla.
He
all
closes
with the confession
that, of the
483 plays
but six
;
which he had hitherto

with
written,
were constructed in defiance of

this thrust at pedantry,
art
and,
he takes leave
of the Madrid Academicians.
Some
earnest
students have sought to identify the six plays
of which Lope speaks
but surely
it is
plain
that these six perfect ones never existed, that
Lope does not attempt

himself, and that he
to
make
as
a case for
comes
near banter as
It
is
:
proper politeness to his hosts allows.

perhaps
it
as well. as
His genius j^yjjcrea^^

as
was
uncritical
Cervantes's
own.
Probably
if his lost treatise
were discovered
39
it
would prove
less
valuable and efFective
than Tirso de Molina's bold

the
apology
for
\l
new drama.
rejects
Tirso, in the
Cigarrales
'
de Toledo^ faces the issues, vindicates the
new
the
for-
system,
the
unities,
justifies
mingling of comedy and tragedy, and

mally acknowledges Lope
de la comedia nueva.
It
as
the reformador
needed no courage to
uphold the
coinedia
nueva in 1624
^^
battle
was already decisively won.

Tirso ascribes to modesty Lope's avowal
that, in leaving the old paths,
he pandered
to the vulgar.
No
doubt the position was

glorify the
embarrassing.
Lope could not
new drama without glorifying himself, and good taste may have kept him silent. He
turned the difficulty by paying lip-homage
to
the
conventional
rules
of poetics and
understood
dramaturgy,
as tKese"ruTes" v/efe
during the Renascence.

felt
But, in truth, he
it
no
interest in
if
them, and
would have
been strange
been
he had, for his glory had

scattering
all
won by
down
these
sterile
dogmas
tied
to the winds. to such
He was
not to be
an absolute division or
40
styles
and manners
to
as
had hitherto obtained.
He
put an end
the simple classificatio n, of

:
plays as tra gedies an d farc es
he conceived
the comedia
which
fused the
most diverse
elements into />nc spacious whole, and by

this invention
he was enabled
to represent
his age, to enthral his public,

his
and to developp
own amazing
powers.
He
wrought
to
such purpose that the path which he cut out

for himself,
and by himself, became the main

pictured
road.
He
contemporary modes
and humours with unflagging vivacity and

unshrinking
treasures
indistinct
truth.
historic
He
hard
opened
up the
of
legend,
transforming
into
types
all
and
automata
living beings,
his
touched with something of
own
urbanity-
He
created character,
he enchanted with
his transcripts of
emotion
and passion, he excelled
in fancy, in ingenuity,
and in the chivalrous courtesy which led him

to
make
his heroines the
most delightful
in
the world.
tells us
In the
Fama postuma Montalban

suffer
that
Lope would never

guessed
anyone
to speak depreciatingly of
women, and we
should
have
as
much from
the
41
evidence of his plays.
all
And,
in addition to
this,
he captivated by the brilliance of
his
treatment.
There
is
nothing in the"^
to
methods of
a
his successors
which amounts
new
departure.
Calderon
his
himself does
constant
so
f
not attempt to rival
master's
;
wealth
of
metrical
design
design
elaborate in ornamentation that, as Chorley
has said, " one
knows not which
to
admire
most
fine
the
taste
of a populace which this

to please,
workmanship was made

mastery
of
invention
it
or
the
and
language
required to produce
with such ease and
abundance." *
effort,
and, if
Nowhere is there a trace of we regard Lope s work as a

marvel
at
its
whole,
we
it
shall
high
level
of excellence.
That
not
has
manj^fects Js jtrue
a
it
could
be otherwise in so vast
Euphrates,
river
;
structure.
is
The
says
it
Callimachus,
bears
all
mighty
but
the
dead
dogs of Babylon
Spaniard
* See
to the sea.
The
topical
all
of his
age.
Lope
incarnates
J.
R. Chorley, Notes on the National
Drama
59,
of Spain
in Eraser's
Magazine (London,
1859), vol.
Ix., p.
42
Spain's
wealuiess^
as
he
incarnates
her
strength.
He
has
the
b^^^
southern
tendency
to be content with^^
He
ness
\
improvizes with a speed and
copious-
which do not allow of Un varying and

Such
Comedia
plays
de
minute perfection.
abrasada
and
the
Roma Bamha are

as
wholly unworthy of him.
There
are un-
mistakable^ signs of carelessness in one scene
upon another, and, though
his
autographs
prove that he was ruthless in revising, he

did not escape disasters.
act of
Thus,
in the third
ha Nina
de plata^ he seems to mistake

his
the
names of
characters,
assigning to
the niece Dorotea
speeches
which should
obviously be delivered by her aunt Teodora,
and
to
Teodora
lines
which should
This
last
clearly
be spoken by Dorotea.
suggests
a
example
of
probable explanation
Lope's
theatre.
many
per-
blemishes in
His pieces
his
were constantly printed without

mission, and, as he declares in
en su patria^ they
Peregrino
were
so travestied in this
process
that
their
at
author
sight.
often
failed
to
recognize them
For one
line of
43
his
own, he
protests, they contain a

else.
hundred
by some one
to those
This
is
credible
enough
copies
who know how these pirated were obtained. The chief culprit
to
seems
have been
certain
Luis Ramirez de
Arellano,
lishers
who
It is
undertook to supply pubafter three
with the text of any piece
hearings.
not surprising that, on one
occasion, the famous actor Sanchez refused

to
go on with Lope's Galdn de
la
Membrilla
until
Ramirez de Arellano was turned out

pit.
of the
This person was Gran Memoria^
and there must have been more than the

one Memorilla of
whom Lope
a
rest
tells
us
men quick
act,
to
learn
few verses
in each
to
fill
in
the
with their
own
vapid wit, and to

tion to provincial
sell their
detestable concoc-
managers
who
then played
the piece
all
over Spain
as a comcdia
famosa
this
by the Phoenix, Lope de Vega.

excuse
a
is
But
not always available.
Lope took
tour de force.
most
inartistic
joy in a
is
me re
case
El Arauco domado
in
point.
It
scarcely deserves the severity of the
younger
it
Moratin's reproaches,
if
we remember that
44
was dashed
off in reply to a direct challenge
thrown down by Belmonte Bermudez, Guillen

de Castro, Mira de Amescua, Ruiz de Alarcon, Velez de Guevara, and four others
who
combined
be
as a
to
produce a play which should
manifesto of revolt against Lope's
suzerainty.
El Arauco domaô is
his
answer to
the daring nine
who had
proclaimed them-
selves the foremost writers of the

spite of envy.'^
time
''
in
And from
a personal point of
it
view,
the
answer was a triumph, for
chased the rival piece from the boards.
too frequent repetition of these victories has

cost
It
Lope
dear.
may
be asked whether he possesses the
magical quality of distinction.
Now,
it is
sometimes argued that Spanish

a
literature, as
whole,
is
lacking in distinction.
This
is
a hard saying.
to excess in
*"
Distinction does not abound

literature.
Still, as
any modern
it is
regards Spanish,
found in each vehicle,
in writings dealing
with every subject
it
in
poetry or prose, in devout works, in history,
and
in fiction.
;
Santillana has
it
in half-ain
dozen songs
Hurtado de Mendoza has
45
the Guerra de Granada;
in Lazarillo de Tormes.
it
is
present even
The
mystics are rich
in
it.
Juan de Valdes and Luis de Leon

it
have
it
in a
high degree.
Santa Teresa has
no
less
than
Madame
de Sevigne.
is
In the a less
[
next literary generation distinction

constant note.
it
Cervantes and Gongora have

Cervantes, w^hen
:
at
times
the Knight
himself speaks
Gongora, before the demon
of culteranismo possessed him.

the
We
may
he
say
is
r^
J.
same of Lope.
At
his
best
eminently distinguished and, though he condescends to culteranismo^

as
Los
Tellos de
even Meneses^ he
..^^j^cuM^
in such plays
sins against the
light.
At
heart he never
made
the blunder
of confounding distinction wîth mannerisms,
mincings, and affectations, and he never loses
himself for any length of time.
When
;
he
chooses, he can be as simple, strong, direct,
and
lofty as
any
v^riter in
Spain
sublime
as
Calderon, vîthout any

preciosity w^hich mars
best passages.
of the
flamboyant
many
of Calderon's
But, after
all, it is as
a great inventor that

|
Lope must be honoured.
He
imagined
46
that
he was the
first
to
place
upon the
boards the gracioso or figura del donaire

character
he
whichractuany found
eighty
years
earlier.
in
Torres
Naharro
Still,
humanized the sketches of
his
forerunners
to such an extent that his alert, vital
humour
in
evolved
fact, to
new
type
which amounts,
It
an independent creation.
that
has been the
asserted
" nowhere
throughout
Spanish drama can you find a character."

Shakespeare, of course, stands alone.
But
agree with Chorley in thinking that, with

this single exception, the
Spanish character-
plays are a
match
for
those
produced by
In
this
any theatre in the world.
kind
Lope's Perro del hortelano and his Esclava

de su galdn speak for themselves.
too, the sombre^giftjof tragedy, as L,as
He
has,
shown
in
Paces de
in
is
los
Reyes, in
La
Estrella de
Sevilla,
La
a
Fianza
satisfecha,
less
where
Leonido
figure
no
impressively
himself.
terrible than the figure of
Don Juan
el
Read him
Ocana,
or
in Peribanez
in
Comendador de
or
in
Fuente
ovejuna,
Los
Comendadores de Cordoba, and you will have
47
revealed to you the full breadth and depth
of his wondrous power.
Read El Rey Don
Pedro en Madrid^ a piece often ascribed to

Claramonte, or to Tirso, or to Calderon, and
you will
realize the inexhaustible resources of
the dramatist
who
can spare so
much
to
make
the reputation of others without any
appreciable loss to himself.
Consider a
the
world's
moment how poor would

theatre
It
be
of
were
it
deprived
Lope's capital.
was once the fashion
to say
that he dropped out of vogue the
moment
was But
;
he died, and
it
is
true that his place,
taken (though not filTe^J'IByXralderon.

his
memory was
his
perpetuated in other ways
mostly by imitations.
time
During
his
own
it
life-
wealth had been discovered
by
Sainte-Beuve's favourite, Rotrou, and
may
be well to note here that a large proportion of Rotrou's

tions
plays
:
are
simple adaptais
is
from Lope
La
bague d'oubli
persecutee
is
from
from
La
sortija del olvido^
Laure
Laura
perseguida^
Saint-Genest
from Lo
is
verdaderojingido, the
Heureux naufrage
from
LI Naufragio
prodigioso.
Never was
a repu-
48
tation
won more
a
cheaply.
'
And
in
Mo liere
Lope found
than Rotrou.
far
more eminent follower
Had Lope not written El mayor imposible and La discreta enamorada we should not have the Ecole des maris as we have it now had he not written El Acero de Madrid and La Nina boba we should not have the Ecole desfemmes as we have it now
; ;
had he not written Los melindres
de Belisa
we should not have Les Femmes savantes as we have it now. Tartufe bespeaks a careful study of El Perro del hortelano and the
;
Medecin malgre
in
//
proves that Moliere found

to
El Acero
de
Madrid enough material

a second play.
furnish
him with
is
Somea
times the loan

inte rmediary.
medecin^
made through
example,
in
nimble
For
U Amour
that
Moliere doubtless believed that he
was plundering Cyrano de Bergerac's Pedant

youe
;
he could scarcely
know
idle
as
the
Pedant Joue was taken from Lope's Robo de

Elena,
It
would be
as
list
it
would
but
be easy to draw up a
of
profitless loans
by D'Ouville, Boisrobert, and

it
is
others,
worth mentioning
that,
as
Corneille's
49
Don
Sanche d'Aragon
confuso^
is
derives
from Lope's
Palacio
so
his
admirable Suite du
Lope's
it
Menteur
saber
based
upon
Amur
not
sin
quien.
Lastly,
should
be
forgotten that The Toung
Admiral oi
English
Shirley,
the
last
of the
great
dramatists,
and one rightly praised for the originality

of his
plots,
is
suggested
by Lope's Don
^
Lope de Cardona,
If
Lope has
it
left
this
mark_jon_foreign
literatures,
may
is
well be imagined
his
how
deep
and wide
influence
at
home.
Velez de Guevara made

tation
a considerable repu-
with
L,os
celos
hasta
but,
las
cielos
an
excellent play indeed,
as
it
happens,
adapted from
La
desdichada Estefania of Lope.

a
Few
dramatists have
higher fame than

it
Rojas Zorrilla, and few deserve

pletely.
Still,
it
more com-
is
plain that his master-
piece
Del Rey
abajo ninguno
el
owes much
to
Lope's Peribanez y
Comendador de Ocana
and
to
Lope's Villano en su rincon.

all
Take
writer like Moreto, famous
the world
over for his wit and grace.

dexterity as an
That Moreto's
adaptor was recognised in
so
his
own generation
is
manifest from Jeronimo

:
de Cancer's well-known epigram
Que
Que
estoy
minando imagina
Cuando
tu de
mi
te quejas
en estas comedias viejas
He
Moreto
hallado una brava mina.
But now-a-days perhaps few realize that

lives, in
great part, on the
crumbs
los
from Lope's
nobles
is
table.
His Como
se
vengan
taken from Lope's Testimonio vengado^
his
Principe perseguido
from Lope's Gran
Duque
Lope's
ser
de Moscovia^ his Eneas de Dios
from
Caba Hero
del Sacramento^ his
No puede
his
from
Lope's
penitente
/ Mayor
from
imposible^
Adultera
Lope's
Prodigio de
Etiopia^ his Travesuras del estudiante Pantoja
from Lope's Entrernes del
letrado^ his
El
mejor
Par
de
los
doce
from Lope's Las Pobrezas
de Rinaldos^ and his Z)e fuera vendrd quien de casa

nos
vino,
echard from Lope's

. . .
De
cuando
;
acd nos
The
in
list is
striking
but
it
leaves
Moreto
un disturbed ^posses-
sion of that fine achievement in

desden con el desden.
It
com edy_^jE/
to
would be odious
a
attempt
to
deprive
Moreto of
brilliant
^/
51
play which, perhaps more than any other,

testifies to
the suppleness of his talent.

it
Yet,
in the interest of historical truth,
may be
well to
recall
:
what SchaefFer has already
pointed out
desden
is
* namely, that
desden con el
most masterly
hates
is
pastiche.
The
Ven-
heroine,
who
men from what

;
she has
read of them,
taken from Lope's

the
La
gadora de las mujeres

suitors
devices of the
come from Lope's

play.
T>e cosario a cosario
the stratagem of the successful lover occurs

in Lope's
La
hermosa fea
and the
Lope's
to
servant
is
simply transferred from

desprecio.
It
is
Milagros del
difficult
conceive
how
Moreto's
flattery
of
Lope
could have taken a sincerer form.
There remains
in the Spanish
drama one
has often
great figure, a superb poet
who
been
set
is
up
as
a rival
to
Lope de Vega.
the
This
not, as one
might expect, Tirso de

as
Molina, whose claims are considerable
author of El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado

de piedra, of that grand historical
drama La
* See Adolf Schaefifer's Geschichtc des spanischen National-
dramas
(Leipzig, 1890), vol.
ii.,
pp. 158-159.
52
Prudencia en la mujer^ of that moving and
terrible play
/ Condenado pordesconjiado^ and
dozen more examples of conspicuous genius.

Calderon, the youth
life.
It is
whom
As no
Lope
first
introduced to public
writer has
had stauncher admirers than Calderon, so none

has had greater reason to deplore the indiscretion of his friends.
It is difficult for us to
imagine Frederic von
Schlegel
declaring
that " in this great and divine master the
enigma of
Nl
life
is
not merely expressed but

it
solved;'' or
August von Schlegel laying

is
down
that " Calderon
not merely the
first
of Spanish dramatists, but so
much above
all
others that, far from speaking of a rival, there

is
none
fit
to be
ranked
as
second to him.'*
travelled
Since the Schlegels' day

far,
we have
but the immediate effect of these dithy-
rambics was considerable.
Goethe himself
had been betrayed into praising Calderon's

Hija del
aire^
which
Sr.
very rightly describes

strosity."
Menendez y Pelayo as " a dramatic monthe

first
But, after
moment
of
rapture, the critical instinct reasserted itself

in
Goethe, and led him to note the
infinite
53
mischief wrought by this blind worship of

the Spanish
poet,
whose
characters, as
he
observes, are as
much
true
alike as
cast
cannon
the
balls
or
leaden
It
soldiers,
is
all
in
same
mould.
that
Goethe was not
deeply read in Calderon, but he had at least

as
ample
knowledge of Calderon's plays

:
as
the Schlegels had of Lope's

as
and, foreigner
he was,
lay
his
his
keen perception caused him on

Calderon's
to
finger
weakness
precisely as the acute
Luzan had done more

earlier.
It
than half a
century
would be
uncritica l to deny that Calderon was

a splendid lyric poet,
but
not only
this
most accom-
pli shed^nasFeT^'oT'"''"'^^
dramatic device.
Still,
between
mar-
vellous cleverness and the creation of character
which, concern there

after
all,
is
is
the dramatist's chief

interval.
wide
Even
in
England, where Calderon has found translators
of genius in Shelley and FitzGerald,
the word of warning was uttered

right
by the
man
in the right place.
No
foreigner
has ever had a
more exact and informed
knowledge of the Spanish drama than was
54
possessed
by John Rutter Chorley, whose

final
admirable articles are a

real position.
statement of the
a century
Writing nearly half
ago in The Athenceum^^ Chorley pointed out

that, as regards the
''
Spanish drama, Calderon
found
it
already developed, and arrived in

at
many
directions
point
of excellence
which he might equal, but could not hope

to excel."
In other words, Calderon came

:
into the field too late
he cou|d only pro-
ceed upon the lines laid

X
down by Lope, and
produce variants of Lope*s work.

Calderon was fortunate in the circumstances
of
his
life.
His
reputation
was
greatly
official
promoted
by the accident of his
rank, and by the fact that a pious
editor (an
imitator of
Lope) collected the
works of the fashionable court-dramatist.

^
But
it is
beyond doubt that Calderon's prowith Philip IV., his compieces
fessional connection
placence in
supplying
for
which were
and
mere excuses
his
splendid
spectacles,
to
own
natural ^tendencjr
allegories
* No.
361,
November
26, 1853.
55
which were
ment,
all
occasions for illustrative treatto
combined
It
degrade the Spanish

his
theatre.
wariJisasffbus for "hif^^
worst pieces were those most favoured by

his kingly patron
:
that his Principe constante

in
passed
almost
unnoticed
high
places,
while
he was decorated with the

hos
tres
Order
of Santiago for
a
mayores prodigios^
feeble
masque
de
borrowed
and
from
Lope's
in
Laberinto
Creta
It
is
ruined
the
conveyance.
characteristic
of Lope"^
that he should have opposed the spectacular
drama from the

boards,
outset.
" Four
trestles,
four
two
actors, a passion :"
and he underIt
is
took
to
supply
the
rest.
equally
characteristic of
self
Lope
that,
though he himits
gave the sword-and-cloak play

is less
final
form, he
it
constantly inclined tp^^ractise

:
than
is
Calderon
possibly because in this
genre character counts for less than episode
and incident.
of the drama,
superiority to
In a very different province

as a
writer of autos^ Calderon^s

'
Lope isTnconfesTable
and yet
to
even CaldêrorTTriight not disdain
sign
El Auto
de los cantares^
La
Siega^
and Del
56
pan y
del palo.
Still,
it
must be frankly
,
admitted that Lope'i.

guished by
the
./^^j^/c^j-
are
not distinof
exquisite
combination
mysticism, philosophic subtlety and allegory,

in
which the younger

as
man
is
supreme.
as a
But
Calderon overtops Lope
metashort
physical and allegorical poet, so he
falls
of Lope's success in the religious drama on a

\ Z^^^^L^^^*
find
Where
set
in
Calderon shall
Lope's
we
aught to
against
Fianza
satisfecha ?
As
for invention,
no other great
as
poet borrows so extravagantly

plots, lines, stanzas, acts entire.
\
Calderon
Many
will
remember
Manos
that he introduces Escriba's cele-
brated verses
b laneas
Ven^ muerte^ tan escondida

no ofenden^
los eelos.
in
and again in /
is
mayor monstruo
It
less
generally
known thai
verdades
!
the magnificent ballad

en
que
amor
which
is
Ay
adorns
Calderon's
pen.
task
Conde Lucanor^
I
from Lope's
But
shall not enter

all
on the endless
debts
to
of indicating
;
Calderon's
Lope
if I
mention
few of
it
his debts to
suffice
another
great
dramatist
will
to
disprove Schlegel's assertion
that Calderon
was
far too rich

!
to
borrow.
the
Too
facts
?
rich to
borrow
What
are
That
ven-
Calderon's
secreto
agravio
secreta
ganza derives from Tirso's

that his
jE/
Celoso
is
prudente^
Tirso's
secreto
a voces
^
from
his
Amar
por
arte
mayor
that
Encanto
senas^
sin encanto is
from Tirso's Amar por
and that the second act of Los

Absalon
Tirso's
is
cabellos de
copied almost word for word from
Venganza de
Tamar,*
No
looser
doubt
the notions of literary morality current in
the seventeenth
those of to-day,
century were
than
and
at
any period such
borrowings are
justified, or at least excused,

is
by
success.
But Calderon's success
inter-
mittent.
The
;
autos
are
essentially
un-
dramatic
and, if
de
we
set aside as~exceptions,
El Alcalde
counts for
cierto, it
Zalamea
(in
which
lo
is
Lope
peor
es
much) and No
siempre
will be found that Calderon
seldom >
(
capable of maintaining the interest through* It is curious to observe that Tirso's Venganza de Tamar was reproduced in an abbreviated form, and with unimportant additions, under the name of Felipe Godinez. The fact is recorded in a Notice prefixed to the translations published by M. Lô
Rouanet,
Dt antes
religieux de Calderon (Paris, 1898), p. 15.
58
outâ whole play.
I
Incomparably
is
brilliant in
individual scenes^ he
failures,
condemned
to frequent
is
inasmuch
as
he follows what
on the
point of becoming a petrified formula.
His
wonderful ingenuity, his technical
accom-
p'îshment, his mellifluous eloquence, cannot

,
je
overpraised
but
they do
not
vitalize
to half th e
purpo se of JLope*s instantaneous
vision, his faculty of dramatic creation, his
human sympathies, his debonair, In Calderon we have the fant astic humour
wide
.
great court-poet, portraying with phrases of
suave preciosity the
conventional emotions
;
of a single social
class
in
Lope we have
deeper,
the great popular poet expressing
more elemental
\of his
passions, in vigorous
forms
own
design.
^With
Calderon the history of the Spanish

close.
drama may
period of
stages of
His long
life
covered the
first
its
brightest splendour and the

decline.
its
He found
it
golden and
left it silver.
But fortune was always constant
to him.
Lope de Vega and the dramatists

editions.
of his generation were to be read mostly in

rare
and wretched
The lucky
59
court-poet was accessible in purer texts
which
found, as they deserved to find, numerous

admirers.
Late in the eighteenth century,

its
when when
the French fashion was at
height,
the destructive criticism of
Luzan and
Moratin had completed the ruin of the old

national theatre,
when
Lessing himself was
mistaking
Montiano
important figure
even then some few

Tirso
Luyando
for
an
plays^
by Calderon survived the wreck.

too,
Moreto,.
stage.
was represented on the Madrid
Though Lope and

forgotten by
fallen
all
were surely not
their "countryrnen, they
had
out of popular
still
favour.
"^gP Lope's
name
echoed in foreign countries.

Metastasio
We
his
know
that
admired him, that

at
Lessing was astounded
his
variety,
amalgam of the
tragic and comic, his inde-
pendence of the schools.

itself
And
in
Spain
the revival of Lope's popularity began

efforts of
through the humble
Candido Maria
writer
Trigueros, a most indifferent

after failing as
who,
an original
dramatist, suc-
ceeded
with
his
arrangements
of
LopeV
Fenisdy,
Moza
de cdntaro
and E/ Anzuelo de
6o
and
at last
produced an excellent play by

Estrella de Sevilla as Sancho
It
recasting Lope's
Ortiz de las Roelas,
was unnecessary
for
Trigueros to have introduced passages which
make Lope appear even more monarchical

than he really was
;
still,
this
was
less
grave fault than that committed by Dionisio

Soils,
who
actually
undertook
to
convert
classic
Lope, the born romantique^ into a

the
strict
of
French school.
Solis's
Yet the very substitution of

boba for Lope's
Nina
Dama
boba was to the good
inasmuch
as it
served to awaken interest in
the
original.
Thenceforward
men
like
Duran, Lord Holland, George Henry Lewes,
John Rutter Chorley, Grillparzer have,
in
varying degrees, contributed to re-establish

v^
Lope
in his ancient sovereignty.
From
the
middle of the
star
nineteenth
as
century
Lope's
has
waxed
Calderon's has
waned.
The publication
of
la Barrera's
biography has
quickened general interest in the personality

of the great enchanter.
Many
it is
points in the
are
still
romantic story
obscure, and
of Lope's
career
upon these
safe to say that
6i
much
expect
light will be
thrown
in the elaborate
biographical study which
from
the
well
we may - known
Albert
shortly
Spanish
scholar,
Professor
Hugo
Rennert,
^-^C
of the University of Pennsylvania.
The
monumental
works,
edition
of Lope's
complete
now
being issued
by the Spanish
of
Sr.
Academy, under the

master of
direction
D.
Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, the chief and

all
Spanish students, indicates a

taste.
complete revolution in opinion and
And
there are other
symptoms no
less signi-
ficant.
In France
an eminent expert like
M. Morel-Fatio
comedias en
spends a wealth of learning
on an edition of the Arte nuevo de hacer

este tiempo.
In Italy Lope's plays
and fugitive pieces are illustrated by the
commentaries of scholars like Restori and

Mele.
In Austria and
Germany
the illumin-
ating erudition of investigators like Farinelli,
Hennigs, Gunthner, Albert
Ludwig,
and
Wurzbach
There
future.
supplies us with critical
mono-
graphs and appreciations of inestimable value.

is
even some slight danger that, in the
Lope may be unduly over-praised
62
as
he was unduly belittled in the eighteenth
century.
But no such
It
is
peril
threatens
in
England.
discouraging to note that,

of recent publications conis
in the long
list
cerning Lope, our contribution

nothing.
Indifference
to so
next to
imposing a
representative of a rich and varied literature

/
\
is
assuredly no matter for pride.

for
The one
huge
remedy
those
who
do not appreciate
Lope
is
to read
him.
To
attack the
library of dramatic literature
which he has
bequeathed us
is
an enterprise calling for
courageous perseverance during years.

result will repay the effort.
If,
The
Lope's
to
on the one
all
hand, the
man who
is
reads with care
surviving plays
read
little
inevitably
condemned
else,
on the other hand, such a
reader has before

interested,
him
the certainty of being
moved,
and
delighted
for
no
small part of a life-time.
He
will learn to
know
dull
;
a genius^
unequal indeed^ but never
h e may be exha usted by Lope's indehe will never weary
fatigable cleverness, but
of his author's company.

before
He
will see pass
him
the entrancing pageant of a van-
63
ished age, a society vivid, picturesque, noble,
'
f
I
blazoning
Point
Its
belief
n
as
Go d,
the King, the

realities
;
of
Honour,
imperious
governing the conduct of an entire nation
\y^
he will meet with person^^ges of

presented in every circumstance
all
gra des,
from the
most tragic
will
to the
most laughable, and he

a
make acquaintance with

invite
score
of
heroines as fair and gracious as Rosalind or

Beatrice.
I
you
to
make
the trial/
And
confidently
countries,
anticipate
that here, as
all
in other
the verdict of
who
have thus qualified themselves to pronounce
judgment
will be unanimous.
It will surely
declare that literary history reveals no more''

interesting personality than
Lope de Vega
that this great poet
was
also
the mighty
inventor of an original
a
form, that he was
consummate expert
in
dramatic creation,
country, and
with no equal in his

Shakespeare only
own
save
''
no
superior elsewhere.
Erratum. p.
12, line
18, for
"younger Argensola/*
read "elder Argensola."
J
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Lope de Vega and The Spanish Drama

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GLASGOW: GOWANS & GRAY

GLASGOW: GOWANS & GRAY

general terms, that the modern drama

derives solely from the ecclesiastical miracle-

certain that in Spain, as in

between church and stage was originally

nacular examples of the hieratic drama do

not abound in Spain,

specime n of the S panish _drama

fragment survives, was pro-;

beginning of the thirteenth

of Corpus Christi, instituted by

special magnificence at Gerona, and extant

documents show that the expenses of staging

sueno del patriarca Jose

byBerenger de Palaciolo, who died

ascribed to the fo iixteenth century

the celebrated Mtsterio de Elche^ which

given annually on the fourteenth and

of August, cannot well be dated

of these primitive pieces are results of French

Cluny monks, and indeed

demonstrated that the Misterio de

Magos follows the Orleans

as the Dispute entre

and the Danse Macabre

than in the other kingdoms of the peninsula.

This would denote

a slight infiltration of the

profane element into the sanctuary.

Roma?tia (Paris, 1895),

vol. xxiv., p. 129.

developed side by side > the liturgical drama. Though its

forms have perished, there

Spanish historians, such

mention Albigensian refugees

the public squares,

shortcomings of the clergy to the rabble's

Alfonso the Learned implies that some un-

by the Spaniard Seneca,

Antonio Vilaregut and Domingo Masco, the

wrote a tragedy entitled

was performed before Juan L

found in Berceo, in the Archpriest of

and in that spirited

the Coplas de Mingo Revulgo are

but they are dramatic neitlier

in intention nor effect. It

appear that this

production by the converted Toledan Jew,

that public representations

must have been

before Cota's tijme, for chroniclers

of the fifteenth century speak of entremeses

some impression of the plangent

music which characterizes Jorge Manrique's

memory of know the name

votional simplicity and charm.

the Infanta Isabel acted as one of the Muses,

both the religious

Passing by the vivacious Fray Inigo dc

Auto del nacimiento was