Doresta. How know’st thou that?
And so she continues till she comes to a plenary confession of being no less hurt, or in love, herself, than he is.[479]
All the plays of Naharro have a versification remarkably fluent and harmonious for the period in which he wrote,[480] and nearly all of them have passages of easy and natural dialogue, and of spirited lyrical poetry. But several are very gross; two are absurdly composed in different languages,—one of them in four, and the other in six;[481] and all contain abundant proof, in their structure and tone, of the rudeness of the age that produced them. In consequence of their little respect for the Church, they were soon forbidden by the Inquisition in Spain.[482]
That they were represented in Italy before they were printed,[483] and that they were so far circulated before their author gave them to the press,[484] as to be already in some degree beyond his own control, we know on his own authority. He intimates, too, that a good many of the clergy were present at the representation of at least one of them.[485] But it is not likely that any of his plays were acted, except in the same way with Vicente’s and Enzina’s; that is, before a moderate number of persons in some great man’s house,[486] at Naples, and perhaps at Rome. They, therefore, did not probably produce much effect at first on the condition of the drama, so far as it was then developed in Spain. Their influence came in later, and through the press, when three editions, beginning with that of 1520, appeared in Seville alone in twenty-five years, curtailed indeed, and expurgated in the last, but still giving specimens of dramatic composition much in advance of any thing then produced in the country.
But though men like Juan de la Enzina, Gil Vicente, and Naharro had turned their thoughts towards dramatic composition, they seem to have had no idea of founding a popular national drama. For this we must look to the next period; since, as late as the end of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, there is no trace of such a theatre in Spain.
CHAPTER XVI.
Provençal Literature in Spain. — Provence. — Burgundians. — Origin of the Provençal Language and Literature. — Barcelona. — Dialect of Catalonia. — Aragon. — Troubadour Poets in Catalonia and Aragon. — War of the Albigenses. — Peter the Second. — James the Conqueror and His Chronicle. — Ramon Muntaner and his Chronicle. — Decay of Poetry in Provence, and Decay of Provençal Poetry in Spain. — Catalonian Dialect.
Provençal literature appeared in Spain as early as any portion of the Castilian, with which we have thus far been exclusively occupied. Its introduction was natural, and, being intimately connected with the history of political power in both Provence and Spain, can be at once explained, at least so far as to account for its prevalence in the quarter of the Peninsula where, during three centuries, it predominated, and for its large influence throughout the rest of the country, both at that time and afterwards.
Provence—or, in other words, that part of the South of France which extends from Italy to Spain, and which originally obtained its name in consequence of the consideration it enjoyed as an early and most important province of Rome—was singularly fortunate, during the latter period of the Middle Ages, in its exemption from many of the troubles of those troubled times.[487] While the great movement of the Northern nations lasted, Provence was disturbed chiefly by the Visigoths, who soon passed onward to Spain, leaving few traces of their character behind them, and by the Burgundians, the mildest of all the Teutonic invaders, who did not reach the South of France till they had been long resident in Italy, and, when they came, established themselves at once as the permanent masters of that tempting country.