History of Spanish Literature, vol. 2 (of 3)

by George Ticknor

In Guevara’s religious dramas we have, as usual, the disturbing element of love adventures, mingled with what ought to be most spiritual and most separate from the dross of human passion. Thus, in his “Three Divine Prodigies” we have the whole history of Saint Paul, who yet first appears on the stage as a lover of Mary Magdalen; and in his “Satan’s Court” we have a similar history of Jonah, who is announced as a son of the widow of Sarepta, and lives at the court of Nineveh, during the reign of Ninus and Semiramis, in the midst of atrocities which it seems impossible could have been hinted at before any respectable audience in Christendom.

Once, indeed, Guevara stepped beyond the wide privileges granted to the Spanish theatre; but his offence was not against the rules of the drama, but against the authority of the Inquisition. In “The Lawsuit of the Devil against the Curate of Madrilejos,” which he wrote with Roxas and Mira de Mescua, he gives an account of the case of a poor mad girl who was treated as a witch, and escaped death only by confessing that she was full of demons, who are driven out of her on the stage, before the audience, by conjurations and exorcisms. The story has every appearance of being founded in fact, and is curious on account of the strange details it involves. But the whole subject of witchcraft, its exhibition and punishment, belonged exclusively to the Holy Office. The drama of Guevara was, therefore, forbidden to be represented or read, and soon disappeared quietly from public notice. Such cases, however, are rare in the history of the Spanish theatre, at any period of its existence.[518]

The most strict, perhaps, of the followers of Lope de Vega was his biographer and eulogist, Juan Perez de Montalvan. He was a son of the king’s bookseller at Madrid, and was born in 1602.[519] At the age of seventeen he was already a licentiate in theology and a successful writer for the public stage, and at eighteen he contended with the principal poets of the time at the festival of San Isidro at Madrid, and gained, with Lope’s assent, one of the prizes that were there offered.[520] Soon after this, he took the degree of Doctor in Divinity, and, like his friend and master, joined a fraternity of priests in Madrid, and received an office in the Inquisition. In 1626, a princely merchant of Peru, with whom he was in no way connected, and who had never even seen him, sent him, from the opposite side of the world, a pension as his private chaplain to pray for him in Madrid; all out of admiration for his genius and writings.[521]

In 1627, he published a small work on “The Life and Purgatory of Saint Patrick”; a subject popular in his Church, and on which he now wrote, probably, to satisfy the demands of his ecclesiastical position. But his nature breaks forth, as it were, in spite of himself, and he has added to the common legends of Saint Patrick a wild tale, wholly of his own invention, and yet so interwoven with his principal subject as to seem to be a part of it, and even to make equal claims on the faith of the reader.[522]

In 1632, he says he had composed thirty-six dramas and twelve sacramental autos;[523] and in 1636, soon after Lope’s death, he published the extravagant panegyric on him which has been already noticed. This was probably the last work he gave to the press; for, not long after it appeared, he became hopelessly deranged, from the excess of his labors, and died on the 25th of June, 1638, when only thirty-six years old. One of his friends showed the same pious care for his memory which he had shown for that of his master; and, gathering together short poems and other eulogies on him by above a hundred and fifty of the known and unknown authors of his time, published them under the title of “Panegyrical Tears on the Death of Doctor Juan Perez de Montalvan”;—a poor collection, in which, though we meet the names of Antonio de Solís, Gaspar de Avila, Tirso de Molina, Calderon, and others of note, we find very few lines worthy either of their authors or of their subject.[524]

Montalvan’s life was short, but it was brilliant. He early attached himself to Lope de Vega with sincere affection, and continued to the last the most devoted of his admirers; deserving in many ways the title given him by Valdivielso,—“the first-born of Lope de Vega’s genius.” Lope, on his side, was sensible to the homage thus frankly offered him; and not only assisted and encouraged his youthful follower, but received him almost as a member of his household and family. It has even been said, that the “Orfeo”—a poem on the subject of Orpheus and Eurydice, which Montalvan published in August, 1624, in rivalship with one under the same title published by Jauregui in the June preceding—was, in fact, the work of Lope himself, who was willing thus to give his disciple an advantage over a formidable competitor. But this is probably only the scandal of the next succeeding generation. The poem itself, which fills about two hundred and thirty octave stanzas, though as easy and spirited as if it were from Lope’s hand, bears the marks rather of a young writer than of an old one; besides which the verses prefixed to it by Lope, and especially his extravagant praise of it when afterwards speaking of his own drama on the same subject, render the suggestion that he wrote the work a grave imputation on his character.[525] But however this may be, Montalvan and Lope were, as we know from different passages in their works, constantly together; and the faithful admiration of the disciple was well returned by the kindness and patronage of the master.

Montalvan’s chief success was on the stage, where his popularity was so considerable, that the booksellers found it for their interest to print under his name many plays that were none of his.[526] He himself prepared for publication two complete volumes of his dramatic works, which appeared in 1638 and 1639, and were reprinted in 1652; but besides this, he had earlier inserted several plays in one of his works of fiction, and printed many more in other ways, making in all about sixty; the whole of which seem to have been published, as far as they were published by himself, during the last seven years of his life.[527]

If we take the first volume of his collection, which is more likely to have received his careful revision than the last, and examine it, as an illustration of his theories and style, we shall easily understand the character of his drama. Six of the plays contained in it, or one half of the whole number, are of the class of capa y espada, and rely for their interest on some exhibition of jealousy, or some intrigue involving the point of honor. They are generally, like the one entitled “Fulfilment of Duty,” not skilfully put together, though never uninteresting; and they all contain passages of poetical feeling, injured in their effect by other passages, in which taste seems to be set at defiance,—a remark particularly applicable to the play called “What’s done can’t be helped.” Four of the remaining six are historical. One of them is on the suppression of the Templars, which Raynouard, referring to Montalvan, took as a subject for one of the few successful French tragedies of the first half of the nineteenth century. Another is on Sejanus, not as he is represented in Tacitus, but as he appears in the “General Chronicle of Spain.” And yet another is on Don John of Austria, which has no dénouement, except a sketch of Don John’s life given by himself, and making out above three hundred lines. A single play of the twelve is an extravagant specimen of the dramas written to satisfy the requisitions of the Church, and is founded on the legends relating to San Pedro de Alcántara.[528]

The last drama in the volume, and the only one that has enjoyed a permanent popularity and been acted and printed ever since it first appeared, is the one called “The Lovers of Teruel.” It is founded on a tradition, that, early in the thirteenth century, in the city of Teruel, in Aragon, there lived two lovers, whose union was prevented by the lady’s family, on the ground that the fortune of the cavalier was not so considerable as they ought to claim for her. They, however, gave him a certain number of years to achieve the position they required of any one who aspired to her hand. He accepted the offer, and became a soldier. His exploits were brilliant, but were long unnoticed. At last he succeeded, and came home in 1217, with fame and fortune. But he arrived too late. The lady had been reluctantly married to his rival, the very night he reached Teruel. Desperate with grief and disappointment, he followed her to the bridal chamber and fell dead at her feet. The next day the lady was found, apparently asleep, on his bier in the church, when the officiating priests came to perform the funeral service. Both had died broken-hearted, and both were buried in the same grave.[529]

A considerable excitement in relation to this story having arisen in the youth of Montalvan, he seized the tradition on which it was founded, and wrought it into a drama. His lovers are placed in the time of Charles the Fifth, in order to connect them with that stirring period of Spanish history. The first act begins with several scenes, in which the difficulties and dangers of their situation are made apparent, and Isabella, the heroine, expresses an attachment which, after some anxiety and misgiving, becomes a passion so devoted that it seems of itself to intimate their coming sorrows. Her father, however, when he learns the truth, consents to their union; but on condition that, within three years, the young man shall place himself in a position worthy the claims of such a bride. Both of the lovers willingly submit, and the act ends with hopes for their happiness.