Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities

by Anne C. Lynch Botta

In the dramas of the Cloak and Sword the plots of Calderon are intricate. He excelled in the accumulation of surprises, in plunging his characters into one difficulty after another, maintaining the interest to the last. In style and versification Calderon has high merits, though they are occasionally mingled with the defects of his age. He added no new forms to dramatic composition, nor did he much modify those which had been already settled by Lope de Vega; but he showed greater skill in the arrangement of his incidents, and more poetry in the structure and tendency of his dramas. To his elevated tone we owe much of what distinguishes Calderon from his predecessors, and nearly all that is most individual in his merits and defects. In carrying out his theory of the national drama, he often succeeds and often fails; and when he succeeds, he sets before us an idealized drama, resting on the noblest elements of the Spanish national character, and one which, with all its unquestionable defects, is to be placed among the extraordinary phenomena of modern poetry.

The most brilliant period of the Spanish drama falls within the reign of Philip II., which extended from 1620 to 1665, and embraced the last years of the life of Lope de Vega, and the thirty most fortunate years of the life of Calderon. After this period a change begins to be apparent; for the school of Lope was that of a drama in the freshness and buoyancy of youth, while that of Calderon belongs to the season of its maturity and gradual decay. The many writers who were either contemporary with Lope de Vega and Calderon, or who succeeded them, had little influence on the character of the theatre. This, in its proper outlines, always remained as it was left by these great masters, who maintained an almost unquestioned control over it while they lived, and at their death left a character impressed upon it, which it never lost till it ceased to exist altogether.

When Lope de Vega first appeared as a dramatic writer at Madrid, the only theatres he found were two unsheltered courtyards, which depended on such companies of strolling players as occasionally visited the capital. Before he died, there were, besides the court-yards in Madrid, several theatres of great magnificence in the royal palaces, and many thousand actors; and half a century later, the passion for dramatic representations had spread into every part of the kingdom, and there was hardly a village that did not possess a theatre.

During the whole of the successful period of the drama, the representations took place in the daytime. Dancing was early an important part of the theatrical exhibitions in Spain, even of the religious, and its importance has continued down to the present day. From the earliest antiquity it was the favorite amusement of the rude inhabitants of the country, and in modern times dancing has been to Spain what music has been to Italy, a passion with the whole population.

In all its forms and subsidiary attractions, the Spanish drama was essentially a popular entertainment, governed by the popular will. Its purpose was to please all equally, and it was not only necessary that the play should be interesting; it was, above all, required that it should be Spanish, and, therefore, whatever the subject might be, whether actual or mythological, Greek or Roman, the characters were always represented as Castilian, and Castilian of the seventeenth century. It was the same with their costumes. Coriolanus appeared in the costume of Don Juan of Austria, and Aristotle came on the stage dressed like a Spanish Abbé, with curled periwig and buckles on his shoes.

The Spanish theatre, therefore, in many of its characteristics and attributes, stands by itself. It is entirely national, it takes no cognizance of ancient example, and it borrowed nothing from the drama of France, Italy, or England. Founded on traits of national character, with all its faults, it maintained itself as long as that character existed in its original attributes, and even now it remains one of the most striking and interesting portions of modern literature.

5. ROMANCES AND TALES.—Hitherto the writers of Spain had been little known, except in their own country; but we are now introduced to an author whose fame is bounded by no language and no country, and whose name is not alone familiar to men of taste and learning, but to almost every class of society.

Cervantes (1547-1616), though of noble family, was born in poverty and obscurity, not far from Madrid. When he was about twenty-one years of age, he attached himself to the person of Cardinal Aquaviva, with whom he visited Rome. He soon after enlisted as a common soldier in the war against the Turks, and, in the great battle of Lepanto, 1572, he received a wound which deprived him of the use of his left hand and arm, and obliged him to quit the military profession. On his way home he was captured by pirates, carried to Algiers, and sold for a slave. Here he passed five years full of adventure and suffering. At length his ransom was effected, and he returned home to find his father dead, his family reduced to a still more bitter poverty by his ransom, and himself friendless and unknown. He withdrew from the world to devote himself to literature, and to gain a subsistence by his pen.

One of the first productions of Cervantes was the pastoral romance of "Galatea." This was followed by several dramas, the principal of which is founded on the tragical fate of Numantia. Notwithstanding its want of dramatic skill, it may be cited as a proof of the author's poetical talent, and as a bold effort to raise the condition of the stage.

After many years of poverty and embarrassment, in 1605, when Cervantes had reached his fiftieth year, he published the first part of "Don Quixote." The success of this effort was incredible. Many thousand copies are said to have been printed during the author's lifetime. It was translated into various languages, and eulogized by every class of readers, yet it occasioned little improvement in the pecuniary circumstances of the author. In 1615, he published the second part of the same work, and, in the year following, his eventful and troubled life drew to its close.