Los Amantes de Teruel / Drama en cuatro actos en verso y prosa

by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch

INTRODUCTION

#I. The Legend#. Constancy in love has inspired many writers and has given undying fame to many legends and traditions. Among the famous lovers that have passed into legend and that stand as the embodiment of constant love in different ages and in different countries,—Pyramus and Thisbe, Hero and Leander, Tristam and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet,—are to be found Marsilla and Isabel. These Lovers of Teruel, as constant as any of the others, are especially notable because of the purity of their love and because of the absence of violence in their sudden departure from this life. Disappointed love, desperate grief at separation, was the only cause of their death.

The old city of Teruel, founded by the Aragonese in the latter half of the twelfth century at the junction of the Guadalaviar and the Alfambra as a stronghold in the territory recently recovered from the Moors, was the fitting scene for the action of the legend…. The pioneer life of the city, the depth of sentiment and singleness of purpose of its Aragonese inhabitants, the crusading spirit that carried to victory the armies of Peter II of Aragón and his more famous son, James the Conqueror, lend probability to a legend that would ordinarily be considered highly improbable from the point of view of historical authenticity. Stripped of the fantastic details that have gathered about it in the many literary treatments given to it by Spanish writers, the legend may be briefly told. In Teruel, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, lived Juan Diego Martínez Garcés de Marsilla and Isabel de Segura. They had loved each other from childhood, but when it became a question of marriage, Isabel's father opposed the union because of the young man's lack of material resources and because a wealthy suitor, Rodrigo de Azagra, had presented himself for the hand of his daughter. All that the entreaties of the lovers could gain from him was the promise that if Marsilla went to the wars, gained fame and riches, and returned before a certain day, he would receive Isabel in marriage. This Marsilla did; but unfortunately he was unable to return until just after the expiration of the time set. When he reached Teruel, he found Isabel married to the wealthy rival. Disappointed in their hopes after so many years of constant love and continual struggle against adversity, Marsilla died of grief, and Isabel soon followed him; separated in life by cruel fate, they were united in death. Buried in the same tomb, they were later disinterred, and their mummified remains may now be seen in the old church of San Pedro in Teruel.

#II. Authenticity of the Legend#. The earliest references that have yet been found to the legend belong to the middle of the sixteenth century, that is, more than three centuries after the supposed death of the lovers. In 1555, when the church of San Pedro in Teruel was undergoing some repairs, two bodies, supposedly those of Marsilla and Isabel, were discovered in one tomb in a remarkably good state of preservation. They were reburied at the foot of the altar in the chapel of Saints Cosme and Damian, and the story of the unfortunate lovers began to spread far and wide. By the end of the century it was apparently widely known and attracted considerable attention to the old city of Teruel. When Philip III of Spain was journeying to Valencia in 1599 he was induced to turn aside to visit the church of San Pedro. In the official account of his journey, "Jornada de Su Majestad Felipe III y Alteza la Infanta Doña Isabel, desde Madrid, a casarse el Rey con la Reyna Doña Margarita, y su Alteza con el Archiduque Alberto," the story of the legend as then generally accepted is related so succinctly that it may well be quoted here: "En la iglesia de San Pedro, en la capilla de San Cosme y San Damián, de la dicha ciudad, está la sepultura de los Amantes que llaman de Teruel; y dicen eran un mancebo y una doncella que se querían mucho, ella rica y él al contrario; y como él pidiese por mujer la doncella y por ser pobre no se la diesen, se determinó a ir por el mundo a adquerir hacienda y ella aguardarle ciertos años, al cabo de los cuales y dos o tres días más, volvió rico y halló que aquella noche se casaba la doncella. Tuvo trazas de meterse debajo de su cama y a media noche le pidió un abrazo, dándose a conocer; ella le dijo que no podía por no ser ya suya, y él murió luego al punto. Lleváronle a enterrar, y ella fué al entierro, y cuando le querían echar en la sepultura, se arrimó a la ataúd y quedó allí muerta; y así los enterraron juntos en una sepultura, sabido el caso."

Seventeen years later a long epic poem by the secretary of the city council of Teruel, Juan Yagüe de Salas, aroused much discussion as to the authenticity of the legend. In 1619 the bodies were again exhumed and in the coffin of one of them were found written the words "Éste es Don Diego Juan Martínez de Marsilla"; also a document, "papel de letra muy antigua," giving the story in detail. This document disappeared, but the copy that Juan Yagüe claimed to have made may be seen in the archives of the church of San Pedro or in the transcription published in the Semanario Pintoresco for the week ending Feb. 5, 1837 (Vol. II, pages 45-47). The genuineness of the document and its copy is very doubtful. The first paragraph shows some linguistic peculiarities of old Aragonese; but these gradually disappear, until there is little left in the language to differentiate it from that of the good notary public and poet, Juan Yagüe, who was so anxious to prove authenticity for the legend treated in his poem. Although there is no reliable evidence that the bodies exhumed in 1555 and again in 1619 were those of Marsilla and Isabel, the church of San Pedro has held them in special reverence. They attract many admirers to the old city on the Guadalaviar and the tourist who expresses incredulity when shown the remains of the lovers becomes thereby persona non grata in Teruel.

For three centuries the controversy has continued and has resulted in the spilling of much ink. The most complete and authoritative study of the sources and growth of the legend is that of the eminent scholar Cotarelo y Mori (Sobre el origen y desarrollo de la leyenda de Los Amantes de Teruel, 2d edition, 1907). His conclusions support the theory that the legend is the result of the localization in Teruel of the story of the unfortunate Florentine lovers, Girolamo and Salvestra, as related by Boccaccio in his Decameron, Book IV, Novel 8. He refutes the arguments advanced by the supporters of the authenticity of the legend, calls attention to the suspicious nature of all the documents, and maintains the thesis that Boccaccio's story found its way into Spain toward the end of the fourteenth century and took the form of the legend of the Lovers of Teruel about the middle of the sixteenth century, at which time it first appeared definitely in Spanish literature. The majority of literary critics and historians accept Cotarelo y Mori's conclusions; others, however, refuse to give up the historic basis of the legend. They cannot deny, of course, the evident similarity of the stories; they explain it by saying that the story of the constant lovers who died in Teruel in 1217 was carried to Italy by Aragonese soldiers or merchants, was heard by the Italian novelist, and used by him as the basis for his story of Girolamo and Salvestra.

#III. The Legend in Spanish Literature.# Very few of the famous legends of the world rest upon documentary evidence, and the fact that the legend of the Lovers of Teruel lacks historic proof has had little influence upon its popularity. It has been productive of much literature, the extent of which is indicated by the two hundred or more titles contained in the bibliography[l] published by Domingo Gascón y Guimbao in 1907. Of the many poems, plays, and novels inspired by the legend only the most noteworthy can be mentioned here. The oldest literary treatment is apparently that of Pedro de Alventosa, written about the middle of the sixteenth century, Historia lastimosa y sentida de los tiernos amantes Marcilla y Segura. This was followed in 1566 by a Latin poem of about five hundred lines by Antonio de Serón, published in 1907 by Gascón y Guimbao, with a Spanish translation and an excellent bibliography. In 1581 the legend was given dramatic treatment by Rey de Artieda, who followed the story in its essential elements but modernized the action by placing it in the time of Charles V, only forty-six years earlier than the publication of the play. It has little literary value, but is important because of its influence on later dramatists. Passing over various treatments of the theme that serve merely to indicate its growing popularity, we come to the pretentious epic poem of Juan Yagüe de Salas in twenty-six cantos, Los Amantes de Teruel, Epopeya trágica, in which, besides adding many fantastic details to the legend, the author presented much extraneous matter bearing upon the general history of Teruel. Because of this widely known poem and the growing popularity of the Lovers, two dramatists of the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina and Pérez de Montalbán, gave it their attention. Los Amantes de Teruel of the great Tirso de Molina, published in 1635, is disappointing, considering the dramatic ability of the author; it contains passages of dramatic effectiveness but is weak in construction. As in Rey de Artieda's play, the action is placed in the sixteenth century; Marsilla takes part in the famous expedition of Charles V against the Moors in Tunis, saves the Emperor's life, and, richly rewarded, returns, too late, to claim the promised bride. It is a better play than that of Artieda, but is itself surpassed by Montalbán's play of three years later. Although he was far from possessing the dramatic genius of Tirso, Montalbán succeeded in giving the story the form that it was to maintain on the stage for two centuries. Frequent performances and many editions of his play, as well as many other literary treatments and references that might be cited, attest the continued popularity of the legend.

[Footnote 1: Los Amantes de Teruel, Bibliografía de los Amantes.
Domingo Gascón y Guimbao, Madrid, 1907.]

Finally, in the early days of Romanticism, it assumed the dramatic form that has remained most popular down to the present day. On the nineteenth of January of the year 1837 the theatergoing people of Madrid were moved to vociferous applause by a new treatment of the old theme, and a new star of the literary firmament was recognized in the person of Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. In his dramatic masterpiece Hartzenbusch eclipsed all the other plays that have dealt with the legend, and more than twenty editions stand as proof of its continued popularity. Besides these many editions of the play, numerous novels, poems, and operas have appeared from time to time. For the most complete bibliography down to 1907 the reader is again referred to that of the official historian of Teruel, Gascón y Guimbao. We must now turn our attention to the author of the best dramatic treatment of the legend.

#IV. Life of Hartzenbusch#. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, born in 1806, was the only son of a German cabinet-maker who had wandered to Spain from his home near Cologne, married a Spanish girl, and opened up a shop in Madrid. The son inherited from his German father and Spanish mother traits of character that were exemplified later in his life and writings. From his father he received a fondness for meditation, conscientious industry in acquiring sound scholarship, and the patience needed for the continual revision of his plays; from his mother came his ardent imagination and love of literature. Childhood and youth were for him a period of disappointment and struggle against adversity. Less than two years old when his mother died after a short period of insanity caused by the sight of bloodshed in the turbulent streets of Madrid in 1808, he was left to the care of a brooding father who had little sympathy with his literary aspirations, but who did wish to give him the best education he could afford. He received a common school education and was permitted to spend the four years from 1818 to 1822 in the College of San Isidro. As a result of the political troubles in Spain in 1823, the father's business, never very prosperous, fell away and the son had to leave college to help in the workshop. He was thus compelled to spend a large part of his time in making furniture, although his inclination was toward literature.

His leisure was given to study and to the acquirement of a practical knowledge of the dramatic art, gained for the most part from books, because of his father's dislike of the theater and because of the lack of money for any unnecessary expenditure. He translated several French and Italian plays, adapted others to Spanish conditions, and recast various comedias of the Siglo de Oro, with a view to making them more suitable for presentation. He tried his hand also at original production and succeeded in getting some of his plays on the stage, only to have them withdrawn almost immediately. Undiscouraged by repeated failure, he continued studying and writing, more determined than ever to become a successful dramatist and thus realize the ambition that was kindled in him by the first dramatic performance that he had witnessed when he had already reached manhood.

At the time of his marriage in 1830 he was still helping his ailing and despondent father in the workshop; more interested undoubtedly in his literary pursuits, but ever faithful to the call of duty. Until success as a dramatist made it possible for him to gain a living for his family by literature, he continued patiently his manual labor. At his father's death he closed the workshop and for a short time became dependent for a livelihood on stenography, with which he had already eked out the slender returns from the labor of his hands.

Meanwhile, during these last years of apprenticeship in which Hartzenbusch was gaining complete mastery of his art by continual study and practice, the literary revolution known as Romanticism was making rapid progress. The death of the despotic Ferdinand VII in 1833 removed the restraint that had been imposed upon literature as well as upon political ideas. The theories of the French and English Romanticists were penetrating Spanish literary circles, to be taken up eagerly by the younger dramatists; political exiles of high social and literary prestige, such as Martínez de la Rosa and the Duque de Rivas, were returning to Spain with plays and poems composed according to the new theories; the natural reaction from the logical, unemotional ideals of the Classicists was developing conditions favorable to the revolution. The first year of the struggle between the two schools of literature, 1834, gave the Romanticists two important victories in the Conjuración de Venecia of Martinez de la Rosa, and the Macías of José de Larra, two plays that show clearly Romantic tendencies but that avoid an abrupt break with the Classical theories. They served to prepare the way for the thoroughly Romantic play of the Duque de Rivas, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, a magnificent, though disordered, drama that gained for the Romanticists a decisive victory in 1835, a victory over Classicism in Spain similar to that gained in Paris five years earlier by the famous Hernani of Victor Hugo, leader of the French Romanticists. In 1836 the equally successful performance of El Trovador, the Romantic play of García Gutiérrez, confirmed the victory gained by the Romanticists with Don Álvaro, and gave clear indication that the literary revolution was complete. The temper of the time was decidedly Romantic, and the wholehearted applause that resounded through the Teatro del Príncipe on the night of Jan. 19, 1837, at the first performance of Los Amantes de Teruel put an end to the long and laborious apprenticeship of Hartzenbusch.

A few days later the warm reception given the play and its continued popularity were justified in a remarkable piece of dramatic criticism by the rival playwright and keen literary critic, José de Larra, known better by his journalistic pen-name, Fígaro, and greatly feared by his contemporaries for his mordant criticism and stinging satire. In the opening words of his review of the play, we may see the highly favorable attitude of the critic and realize the suddenness of the fame that came to Hartzenbusch. "Venir a aumentar el número de los vivientes, ser un hombre más donde hay tantos hombres, oír decir de sí: 'Es un tal fulano,' es ser un árbol más en una alameda. Pero pasar cinco o seis lustros oscuro y desconocido, y llegar una noche entre otras, convocar a un pueblo, hacer tributaria su curiosidad, alzar una cortina, conmover el corazón, subyugar el juicio, hacerse aplaudir y aclamar, y oír al día siguiente de sí mismo al pasar por una calle o por el Prado: 'Aquél es el escritor de la comedia aplaudida,' eso es algo; es nacer; es devolver al autor de nuestros días por un apellido oscuro un nombre claro; es dar alcurnia a sus ascendientes en vez de recibirla de ellos."[2] Other contemporary reviews were just as favorable, and all expressed with Fígaro great hopes in the career of a dramatist that had thus begun with an acknowledged masterpiece. The Semanario Pintoresco, for example, a literary magazine in its second year of publication, ended its review of the play with these words: "El joven que, saliendo de la oscuridad del taller de un artesano, se presenta en el mundo literario con los Amantes de Teruel por primera prueba de su talento, hace concebir al teatro español la fundada esperanza de futuros días de gloria, y de verse elevado a la altura que un día ocupó en la admiración del mundo civilizado." (Feb. 5, 1837.)

[Footnote 2: Obras completas de Fígaro. Paris, 1889. Vol. III, page 187.]

Thus encouraged by popular applause and by the enthusiastic praise of literary critics, Hartzenbusch produced at varying intervals many excellent plays, but none of them surpassed or even equaled his Amantes de Teruel. Many of them, characterized by careful workmanship, dramatic effectiveness, and fine literary finish, are well worth studying, and deserve more attention than can be given them here. They offer all kinds of drama: tragedies such as Doña Mencía, in which the exaggerations of Romanticism are given free rein; historical plays, in which striking incidents in Spanish history or legend are given dramatic treatment; fantastic plays, such as La redoma encantada, in which magic plays an important part; comedies of character and manners, such as La coja y el encogido, in which contemporary life found humorous presentation. The best of them may be read in the three volumes published in the well-known series Colección de Escritores Castellanos. For literary criticism the student is referred to the books mentioned later in the bibliography.

The love of study grew stronger in Hartzenbusch as the opportunity to devote himself to it became greater, so that after he had had several plays presented with considerable success, scholarship began to absorb more and more of his time and the intervals between plays began to lengthen. Literary criticism, editorial work in connection with new editions of the Spanish classics, his duties as assistant and, later, chief librarian of the Biblioteca Nacional, these, with the production from time to time of a new play, made him a well-known figure in the literary life of Madrid. His was the quiet life of the modern man of letters, to whom the incidents of greatest interest are of the intellectual order: the production of a new play, the publication of a new book of literary or scholarly value, the discovery of an old manuscript or the announcement of a new theory, the admission of a new member to the Spanish Academy. Serenely tolerant in his outlook upon life, of gentle disposition and ready sympathy, unaffectedly modest, indifferent to the accumulation of property beyond the needs of his simple mode of living, conscientious in the performance of all his duties, he retained to the end of his life the personal esteem of his many friends. When death put an end in 1880 to the long illness that saddened the last years of his life, his mortal remains were conducted to the tomb with all due ceremony by the Spanish Academy, to which membership had been granted him in 1847 as a recognition of his excellent work as dramatist and scholar.

The productivity of Hartzenbusch, as well as his versatility, would be remarkable in any country but Spain. The Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch, prepared by his son and published in 1900,[3] stands as proof of the great extent and diversity of his productions; four hundred pages are needed for the bibliographical data connected with his many publications and for a few extracts from his unpublished writings. Hundreds of titles of dramas, poems, addresses, essays, literary criticism, scholarly commentaries, indicate the versatility of his talent and his tireless industry.

[Footnote 3: Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch. Eugenio Hartzenbusch.
Madrid, 1900.]

#V. Hartzenbusch's Treatment of the Legend.# Apparently Hartzenbusch had given much study and thought to the famous legend of the Lovers of Teruel. At first it was his intention to use it in an historical novel, but only the first few pages of this have been preserved (Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch). Believing that the legend could be better treated in dramatic form, he applied himself enthusiastically to the construction of the play in accordance with the new theories that were becoming popular, and had it ready for production when a copy of José de Larra's Macías came into his hands. What was his astonishment to find that the plot of his play was so similar to that of Macías that no one would be likely to accept the similarity as a mere coincidence. Patiently he reconstructed it and had it published in 1836, if the date on the title page of the oldest edition is to be accepted as accurate.[4] If published in 1836, the author remained in obscurity until the first performance of the play, January 19 of the following year, made him famous.

[Footnote 4: Los Amantes de Teruel, drama en cinco actos en prosa y verso por Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Madrid. Imprenta de D. José María Repullés. 1836.]

Many difficulties beset the dramatist in the construction of the play. The legend that served as plot was already known to all, so that the element of suspense could not be used to any great extent. Moreover, the climax was not in itself dramatic; the death of two lovers through grief at separation, pathetic though it be, lacked the tragic element of other similar stories in which death resulted from violence. The dénouement, the probability of which would not be generally accepted, had to be retained in the treatment of a legend so widely known, a legend in which the essential originality consisted in this very improbability. Careful preparation throughout the whole play was needed, then, for this improbable dénouement, pathetic, rather than tragic; dramatic incidents had to be supplied by the author's own inventiveness, the characters had to be carefully delineated, the motivation carefully considered. How successfully the author was able to overcome these difficulties, with what dramatic skill he was able to succeed where dramatists such as Tirso de Molina and Montalbán were only partially successful, careful study of the play will reveal.

The play as given in this edition differs in many ways from the play as first presented in 1837. More than once the author returned to it, and the numerous editions needed to supply the popular and continuous demand gave him the opportunity to revise it and give it the most artistic finish of which he was capable. Changed literary conditions after Romanticism had run its course are reflected in the more sober dress of the revised play; there are reflected in it, too, the greater restraint, the more scholarly and critical attention to character delineation and literary finish befitting a man who had passed from the warm impulsiveness of youth to the calm rationality of middle age. The student who takes the trouble to compare the text of this edition with that of the first will see many changes: the five acts are reduced to four; some of the prose scenes are now in poetic form; the diction is much improved generally and obscure passages are made clear; some changes in motivation are to be noted, especially in the scenes leading up to the voluntary marriage of Isabel with Azagra; the mother's character is notably ennobled. On the whole, the play has gained by these revisions; what it has lost in freshness and spontaneity has been more than counterbalanced by the more careful delineation of character, improved motivation of action, correctness of diction, and literary finish. The play in its first form is undoubtedly a better example of Romanticism in all its phases, its tendencies toward exaggeration, its crudities of thought and expression, combined with qualities unsurpassed in any other period of literature; in its revised form it is a more artistic production, is still a Romantic play, and one of the best in Spanish literature.

#VI. Romanticism.# Generally speaking, an author belongs to his own age and country, is moved by the prevalent ideas and sentiments; his outlook upon life is similar to that of the majority of his contemporaries. Ordinarily then, a piece of literature of a past age is understood and fully appreciated only by the student who is able to view it in its proper historical perspective, to see it through the eyes of those for whom it was written. Especially is this true of Romantic literature, the production of ardent and youthful enthusiasts who found themselves suddenly emancipated from the rigid rules and formalism of French pseudo-Classicism of the eighteenth century. The tendency in literature, as in political and social life, is to pass in a pendulum swing from one extreme to the other, so that to appreciate the fine and enduring qualities of Romantic literature and to make due allowance for its exaggerations and other apparent faults, the student must know something of the Romantic movement and of the Classicism that immediately preceded it. Moreover, his purpose in reading a literary masterpiece is not merely to understand and appreciate it in itself, but also to gain through it some understanding of the age or literary movement of which it is a representative. In order, then, that Los Amantes de Teruel may be more fully appreciated as a dramatic masterpiece, and in order that through it the student may come to a fuller understanding of Romanticism, his attention is now directed to the essential characteristics of this important literary movement.

Romanticism in Spanish literature is the name given to the literary revolt that began about 1830 against pseudo-Classicism. A similar revolt had already freed the other literatures of Europe, so that the many Spanish exiles who had been forced to seek refuge for political reasons in England or on the Continent there became familiar with the new ideas in literature. Ardent converts to the new literary ideals, these political exiles, when permitted to return to Spain at the death of the despotic Ferdinand VII in 1833, became the leaders in a literary revolution that soon swept away all opposition. The logical reaction from the rigid rules and formalism, new ideas in political and social life weakened opposition so rapidly and effectively that the Romantic poetry and plays of the Duque de Rivas, Espronceda, García Gutiérrez, Hartzenbusch, and others found a ready and enthusiastic welcome.

In the comparison that is to be made of Romanticism and Classicism, romantic and classic are to be used in their technical, literary sense. As ordinarily used, romantic means the extreme opposite of prosaic or commonplace; in literary history, Romantic is used to describe the movement known as Romanticism. Classic, in its oldest and ordinary acceptation, means the best of its class or kind; in its literary sense, classic, or classical, is usually applied to the type of literature that harmonized so completely with eighteenth century rationalism, the Classicism, or rather pseudo-Classicism, which, enthroned in France, ruled all literary Europe until the closing years of the century. In the following comparison, Classic, Classicist, and Classicism are the opposites of Romantic, Romanticist, and Romanticism.

Romanticism, in its general application to all kinds of literature and to the literatures of all countries where it made itself effectively felt, shows the following characteristics:

1. Subjectivity, the introduction of the personal note, the expression by the author of his own individual feelings and ideas. The Classicist, aiming at universality and completeness, considered only the typical and eternal as suitable material for literature and carefully excluded whatever seemed peculiar to himself; his ideal was to give perfect literary form to ideas and sentiments acceptable to mankind generally, truths of universal application. Originality of idea or sentiment was not of prime importance with him; his aim was rather to give finished form to "what oft was said, but ne'er so well expressed." The aim of the Romanticist, on the other hand, was to turn to literary uses his own individual experiences, to give forceful and effective, rather than elegant, expression to his own peculiar feelings and ideas. This subjectivity led naturally to many abuses; it also led to the production of some of the masterpieces of literature. Lyric poetry, that had almost died of inanition during the period of Classicism, took on new and vigorous life and became again one of the most important literary genres. The mere mention of such famous poets as Byron, Shelley, Heine, Musset, Leopardi, Espronceda, indicates the extent and importance of lyric poetry in the first half of the nineteenth century.

2. Emotional appeal. Classicism made its appeal to the intellect; Romanticism to the emotions. The aim of the Classicist being to give perfect literary expression to the accumulated wisdom of mankind or to reform social, moral, or political conditions by means of ridicule, he accepted logic as his guide. The Romanticist, whose aim it was to express his individual sentiments and ideas, rebelled against the restraints of logic and common sense; his purpose was not to persuade his reader or hearer by logical reasoning, but rather to carry him off his feet by the onrush of his passions and sentiments. The Classicist mistrusted the imagination for fear that it might lead him away from common sense and moderation; the Romanticist turned to it eagerly as the most effective means of conveying to reader or hearer his ardent sentiments and vague aspirations. For the reason then that the Classicist made his appeal to the intellect, mistrusted the imagination, and usually avoided all strong passions except that of indignation, Classicism tended to become more and more prosaic. Romanticism, because of its appeal to the emotions and to the imagination, put new life and power into literature, and immeasurably widened its range. On the other hand the tendency on the part of writers of little ability and less judgment to go to absurd extremes in their efforts to express strange and original ideas and sentiments, to get as far away as possible from the logical and commonplace, led to the production of much absurd writing. This and the attempt of many of them to apply the extreme principles of Romanticism to daily life as well as to literature resulted in the derogatory sense that the word romantic came to have in its ordinary acceptation. The results of Romanticism in its exaggerated form may be seen in the satirical article written in 1837 by Mesonero Romanos, El Romanticismo y los Románticos. This article, highly recommended in this connection, may easily be found in his collected writings Obras, Madrid, 1881, or, better still, it may be studied in the excellent edition of Professor G.T. Northup, Selections from Mesonero Romanos.

3. Spiritual awakening. The latter half of the eighteenth century was a materialistic age. The realities of life were limited to such as could be understood by the five senses and the reasoning faculty. Life and literature for the Classicist meant reasoned submission to things as they were; achievement was the accepted basis of judgment for his life or literature. The Romanticist rebelled against this materialistic view of life; for him the real truths lay beyond the apparent realities; he grasped at the impalpable and infinite, and wished to have his life and literature judged by his aspirations, rather than by his achievements. Hence, too, the vague longings, the gentle melancholy or violent revolt, the spiritual uplift. The new sense of the wonder and glory of the universe, as well as the spiritual reality behind the material, has suggested as a definition of Romanticism the "Renascence of Wonder."

4. Revival of the Middle Ages and national traditions. The Romanticists were inclined to turn away from the prosaic present and to seek material for their writings in the Middle Ages, the time of unrestrained feelings and emotions, of chivalrous adventure and romance, of strong religious faith, of miracles and superstition. The historical novel, in which the powerful imagination of a Walter Scott made the past live again, became popular throughout Europe; innumerable dramas sought their plots in medieval history and legend. Spain, with her rich literature of popular ballads and drama, a storehouse of picturesque legends and traditions, attracted the attention of Romanticists everywhere, so that for Spaniards the movement came to have a patriotic significance. The best Romanticists did not limit themselves to the Middle Ages; they broadened their vision to include the whole past of the human race, whereas the Classicists, fixing their eyes steadily upon ancient Greece and Rome, whenever they were inclined to turn away from the present, ignored entirely the medieval period and the early modern.

5. Picturesqueness. Seeking to give polished expression to the probable and typical, the Classicist abhorred exaggeration and violent contrasts. The Romanticist, on the other hand, was attracted to the grotesque, mingled the ugly and the beautiful, the commonplace and the fantastic; he delighted in striking antitheses.

6. Love of inanimate nature. The Classicist, instead of going directly to Nature for individual inspiration, was content to repeat in new ways the generally accepted ideas regarding natural scenery. His interest lay almost wholly in mankind, so that inanimate Nature usually served as a merely conventional background. The Romanticist loved Nature for its own sake, and many masterpieces of lyric poetry were due to its inspiration. He loved Nature in all her aspects and moods; if these were grandiose or violent, the greater was his admiration.

7. Freedom from rule and conventionality in literary forms and technique. The foregoing characteristics, concerned mainly with the content of Romantic literature, would naturally mean a corresponding revolution in literary form and technique. Rules and conventions had kept accumulating about literature, until by the middle of the eighteenth century, when French Classicism dominated literary Europe, they were so rigid that only a few of the many men of letters were able to produce literature that was not wholly artificial and uninspired. Each kind of literature was supposed to be written in a certain way; narrative poetry had a certain prescribed meter; lyric poetry another; tragedy and comedy should be carefully kept apart. The Romanticist proceeded at once to throw overboard all these rules and conventionalities. Each literary production was to be judged upon its own merits as literature, not upon the closeness of its adherence to any set of rules, and each author was to be at liberty to get his results in any way that he might choose. Hence we find the mingling of literary genres, the neglect of the dramatic unities, the invention of new meters and the revival of old ones.

8. Richness of language. Because of the continual elimination of words considered unsuitable for literary expression, the language of the Classicists was becoming more and more impoverished, diction was becoming more and more stereotyped and artificial. The Romanticists, with their revolutionary ideas as to content, rebelled against any rule or convention that would restrict their choice of words or diction; seeking complete and effective self-expression, they turned to literary use all the resources of the language of their own time and of any other age as well. The result was a great enrichment of language through the effective use of highly colored, picturesque words and diction, as fresh and bright as newly coined pieces of gold.

Such are the general characteristics of the movement that had such a profound effect upon the literatures of western Europe in the closing years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. All of them may be observed in the literature produced in Spain during the twenty years from 1830 to 1850, although, naturally, they do not all have the same importance there as in other countries. In a general way it may be said that the movement was not so revolutionary as in France, for example, where Classicism had taken deeper root. Moreover, in Spain, Romanticism meant the revival of some of the literary ideals of the Siglo de Oro, and to this extent at least could hardly be considered revolutionary. The most complete representative of Romanticism in Spanish dramatic literature is the Don Álvaro of Angel de Saavedra, better known as the Duque de Rivas; in this play are to be found all the above-mentioned characteristics, even those that have to do more naturally with lyric poetry, subjectivity and love of nature. Not only does it present Romanticism in its most effective form; it also shows the pitfalls of exaggeration and improbability that even the greatest Romanticists failed to avoid when the check of common sense was removed and free rein was given to the imagination. But since we are here concerned mainly with Los Amantes de Teruel, a play that demands for its understanding and appreciation much less familiarity with the Spanish language than that required by Don Álvaro, the extent to which the masterpiece of Hartzenbusch is representative of Romanticism will now be briefly noted.[5]

[Footnote 5: In order that the student may discover for himself the essential differences between the two schools of drama, it is recommended that he read a classical play such as Moratin's El Sí de las Niñas before reading Los Amantes de Teruel. In comparing the two plays he should bear in mind that, for the reason that they are both artistic masterpieces, they avoid the extremes of Classicism and Romanticism, and that they do not illustrate entirely the opposite characteristics of the less artistic examples of the two kinds of drama.]

#VII. Romanticism in Los Amantes de Teruel.# That the appeal is mainly to the emotions and imagination is quite evident. The plot is based on a legend that owes its chief interest to the unusual and even improbable ending; and the exceptional and improbable, if they are to be effectively treated in literature, must appeal to the imagination, must so stir the sentiments of the reader or hearer that the reasoning faculty may be kept from becoming too active. Not only is the dénouement itself improbable; the somewhat melodramatic figure of Zulima and the important part she plays in keeping apart the lovers until it is too late, would hardly be convincing if the main appeal of the play were to the intellect. These improbabilities are willingly ignored by the reader or spectator as he allows himself to be carried along in the current of passion to the final scene of deep emotion and intense pathos. Melodious verse and poetic imagery help to make effective this emotional appeal.

The spiritual appeal of the play is apparent. To Marsilla and Isabel love is so spiritualized that materialism can find in it no place. Their love for each other is the "encarnación del cariño anticipado al nacer," life means for them "seguir con el cuerpo amando, como el espíritu amó." Love is life itself; and when no longer permitted to love each other in this life for the reason that Isabel, believing her lover to be dead and wishing to sacrifice herself in order that her mother's good name may be preserved, has become the wife of Rodrigo de Azagra, they willingly return to the spiritual world from which together they had come into the world of materiality.

The dramatization of a medieval legend is typical of the newly awakened interest in the Middle Ages. Five years before the beginning of the supposed action of the play, shortly after Marsilla had left home to gain name and fortune in the wars against the infidels, was fought at Navas de Tolosa one of the most decisive battles between Christianity and Mohammedanism. The year after his departure from Teruel there ascended the throne of Aragón the boy that was to be known to history as Jaime el Conquistador because of his reconquest of southeastern Spain for Christianity. In the lull that preceded the approaching storm the Christians and Moslems in the eastern part of the peninsula were at peace, so that in the play they mingle freely, treating each other with the chivalrous respect that was characteristic of the Middle Ages. The numerous references to contemporary historic personages and events and the careful attention to local color bring vividly before us the life of that part of Aragón recently recovered from the Moors. The dénouement is made less improbable by placing the action of the play in that age of deep convictions, exalted idealism, chivalrous customs, and in that part of Spain where tenacity of purpose has always been regarded as a characteristic trait.

Picturesqueness, in its literary sense is not very apparent in the play as we now have it. In the first version there were examples of striking contrasts, a mingling of the tragic and comic, the noble and base, but these were toned down or eliminated by the author in his revisions of the play. For an example of exaggerated picturesqueness, with its violent contrasts, mingling of the sublime and vulgar, the grotesque and beautiful, the student is referred to Don Álvaro.

The classical conventionality that each kind of literature should have its prescribed form and that the various literary genres should be kept apart was disregarded by Hartzenbusch. In this play we see a mingling of scenes in prose with those in verse, we find the versification varied according to the nature of the scenes, a mingling of dramatic dialogue and lyrical expression of sentiment and passion. The action of the play in its first form was impeded by the excessive lyricism of some of the scenes; although notably reduced, this lyric element is still quite apparent in the scene between Marsilla and Zulima in the first act, for example; or between Marsilla and Isabel in the last. In the first version Mari-Gómez, later changed to Teresa with the suppression of most of her garrulity, was made to serve as a graciosa and thus relieve the tenseness of the serious scenes.

As to the three dramatic unities so dear to the Classicists, those of time and place are disregarded. The action shifts from Valencia to Teruel; the time occupied covers the last six days of the plazo given Marsilla in which to gain name and fortune and return home to claim Isabel for wife. The unity of action, the one essential unity in any work of art, is carefully preserved. In the first version could be seen something of the Romantic tendency to complicate the plot by the introduction of an excessive number of characters and needless episodes, but in its final form the plot is simple and nothing is permitted to interfere with its dramatic development.

In the first version there was also some tendency to abuse the new freedom from conventionality in language, a tendency to seek out unusual words and phrases for the sake of their picturesqueness, rather than for their artistic appropriateness. In the polishing and toning-down process, such words and phrases were eliminated, so that the play in its final form serves as a good illustration of the permanent enrichment of the literary language by the Romanticists. Likewise, in its versification, it offers a good example of the metrical variety found in the Spanish dramatists of the Golden Age and revived by the Romanticists.

#VIII. Versification.# Only the fundamental principles of Spanish versification will be noted here. For a more adequate treatment the student is referred to such works as Andrés Bello's Ortología y métrica (Vol. IV of Obras completas, Madrid, 1890), or the Prosodia castellana y versificación of E. Benot; or to the more easily accessible notes on Spanish versification in Hills and Morley's Modern Spanish Lyrics or Ford's Spanish Anthology.

Some knowledge of two of the essential differences between Spanish and English versification is needed for the appreciation of the poetry of this play. Whereas in English poetry the number of feet to the line is essential, in Spanish the basis of meter is the number of syllables; moreover, in syllable-counting there are certain rules (too complicated to be given here) regarding the treatment of contiguous vowels as one syllable or more than one. Another difference that should be noted is that in Spanish poetry there are two kinds of rime, consonantal rime and assonance. Consonantal rime is the same as that used in English poetry, identity of the last stressed vowel sound as well as all following vowel or consonant sounds in two or more verses; as for example, in lines 127-130, Act I, clemencia, Valencia: favor, mejor. Assonance is identity in a series of verses of the last stressed vowel and of a following unstressed vowel, if there be one, but not of a consonant; in other words, assonance is the correspondence of the vowels, but not of the consonants, in the riming syllables. Thus, in the first 110 lines of the play, all the even verses have the same vowel in the last stressed syllables: volver, administré, fiel, pie, Adel, partiré, el, rey, etc. Only the strong vowel in a diphthong is recognized, so that in these 110 lines the assonance of the alternate verses is in e. In the first 148 lines of Act IV all the even verses have one and the same vowel in the last accented syllable and one and the same vowel in the unaccented syllable: pueblo, bandoleros, prenderlos, tiempo, vinieron, provecho, etc. The assonance is, therefore, é-o.

Of the many verse-forms, i.e., definite combinations of line and rime, to be found in Spanish poetry, we find the following in this play: romance, romance heroico, redondilla, quintilla, décima, copla de arte mayor, and silva.

The romance, or ballad meter, is the most thoroughly national of all Spanish meters and has always been very popular with the dramatists. It has, regularly, eight syllables to the line, with a regular rhythmic accent on the seventh, and has assonance in the alternate lines. The seventh syllable may or may not be followed by one or two unstressed syllables, but the line is called octosyllabic; one unstressed syllable is counted whether it be present or not. The first 110 lines of Act I, for example, are in romance. Note that the regular rhythmic stress of each line is on the seventh syllable; that the odd lines have seven or eight syllables; that all the even lines have seven metrical syllables each, and have assonance in e. In the first 148 lines of Act IV, all of the even lines have eight syllables each, for the reason that each seventh syllable is followed by an unaccented syllable, the assonance being é-o. This is the normal romance line, eight-syllabled and in assonance.

The romance heroico or real differs from the ordinary romance in that the lines are hendecasyllabic (eleven-syllabled). Lines 269-474, Act IV, are in romance heroico, with assonance in á-a.

The redondilla consists of four octosyllabic lines, with consonantal rime, usually arranged thus: abba. In Act I, for example, lines 111-458 consist of 87 redondillas.

The quintilla consists of five octosyllabic lines, with two consonantal rimes, arranged so that no more than two may come together: ababa, abbab, abaab, etc. In Act III lines 62-226 consist of 33 quintillas. The last one has a very unusual combination of rimes: abbba.

The décima consists of ten octosyllabic lines, with four consonantal rimes usually arranged as in lines 761-770, or 771-780, Act II: abbaaccddc. The décima is not properly considered as two quintillas, since there should be a pause at the end of the fourth line of a décima.

The copla (stanza) de arte mayor contains eight lines with three consonantal rimes arranged thus: abbaacca. Each line is divided into two hemistitches, with rhythmic stress on the fifth syllable of each hemistich. The sixth syllable of either hemistich or of both may be lacking, so that there may be a total of 10, 11, or 12 syllables in a line. Lines 179-282, Act II, are made up of thirteen coplas de arte mayor. Most of the lines have 11 or 12 syllables; note that verses 187, 200, 215, etc., have only ten each.

The silva is usually composed of eleven-syllabled lines, intermingled with lines of seven syllables. There is consonantal rime, but without regularity; and many lines are left unrimed. An example of the silva may be found in lines 309-437, Act III.