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

by George Ticknor

Indeed, so attractive was the theatre now become, that ecclesiastics and the higher nobility, who, from their position in society, did not wish to be known as dramatic authors, still wrote for the stage, sending their plays to the actors or to the press anonymously. Such persons generally announced their dramas as written by “A Wit of this Court,”—Un Ingenio de esta Corte,—and a large collection of pieces could now be made, which are known only under this mask; a mask, it may be observed, often significant of the pretensions of those whom it claims partly to conceal. Even Philip the Fourth, who was an enlightened lover of the arts and of letters, is said to have sometimes used it; and there is a tradition that “Giving my Life for my Lady,” “The Earl of Essex,” and perhaps one or two other plays, were either entirely his, or that he contributed materially to their composition.[561]

One of the most remarkable of these “Comedias de un Ingenio” is that called “The Devil turned Preacher.” Its scene is laid in Lucca, and its original purpose seems to have been to glorify Saint Francis, and to strengthen the influence of his followers. At any rate, in the long introductory speech of Lucifer, that potentate represents himself as most happy at having so far triumphed over these his great enemies, that a poor community of Franciscans, established in Lucca, is likely to be starved out of the city by the universal ill-will he has excited against them. But his triumph is short. Saint Michael descends with the infant Saviour in his arms, and requires Satan himself immediately to reconvert the same inhabitants whose hearts he had hardened; to build up the very convent of the holy brotherhood which he had so nearly overthrown; and to place the poor friars, who were now pelted by the boys in the streets, upon a foundation of respectability safer than that from which he had driven them. The humor of the piece consists in his conduct while executing the unwelcome task thus imposed upon him. To do it, he takes, at once, the habit of the monks he detests; he goes round to beg for them; he superintends the erection of an ampler edifice for their accommodation; he preaches; he prays; he works miracles;—and all with the greatest earnestness and unction, in order the sooner to be rid of a business so thoroughly disagreeable to him, and of which he is constantly complaining in equivocal phrases and bitter side-speeches, that give him the comfort of expressing a vexation he cannot entirely control, but dares not openly make known. At last he succeeds. The hateful work is done. But the agent is not dismissed with honor. On the contrary, he is obliged, in the closing scene, to confess who he is, and to avow that nothing, after all, awaits him but the flames of perdition, into which he visibly sinks, like another Don Juan, before the edified audience.

The action occupies above five months. It has an intriguing underplot, which hardly disturbs the course of the main story, and one of whose personages—the heroine herself—is very gentle and attractive. The character of the Father Guardian of the Franciscan monks, full of simplicity, humble, trustful, and submissive, is also finely drawn; and so is the opposite one,—the gracioso of the piece,—a liar, a coward, and a glutton; ignorant and cunning; whom Lucifer amuses himself with teasing, in every possible way, whenever he has a moment to spare from the grave work he is so anxious to finish.

In some of the early copies, this drama, so characteristic of the age to which it belongs, is attributed to Luis de Belmonte, and in some of them to Antonio de Coello. Later, it is declared, though on what authority we are not told, to have been written by Francisco Damian de Cornejo, a Franciscan monk. But all this is uncertain. We only know, that, for a long time after it appeared, it used to be acted as a devout work, favorable to the interests of the Franciscans, who then possessed great influence in Spain. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, however, this state of things was partly changed, and its public performance, for some reason or other, was forbidden. About 1800, it reappeared on the stage, and was again acted, with great profit, all over the country,—the Franciscan monks lending the needful monastic dresses for an exhibition they thought so honorable to their order. But in 1804 it was put anew under the ban of the Inquisition, and so remained until after the political revolution of 1820, which gave absolute liberty to the theatre.[562]

The school of Lope, to which all the writers we have just enumerated, and many more, belonged, was not received with an absolutely universal applause. Men of learning, from time to time, refused to be reconciled to it; and severe or captious critics found in its gross irregularities and extravagances abundant opportunity for the exercise of a spirit of complaint. Alonso Lopez, commonly called El Pinciano, in his “Art of Poetry founded on the Doctrines of the Ancients,”—a modest treatise, which he printed as early as 1596,—shows plainly, in his discussions on the nature of tragedy and comedy, that he was far from consenting to the forms of the drama then beginning to prevail in the theatre. The Argensolas, who, about ten years earlier, had attempted to introduce another and more classical type, would, of course, be even less satisfied with the tendency of things in their time; and one of them, Bartolomé, speaks his opinion very openly in his didactic satires. Others joined them, among whom were Artieda, in a poetical epistle to the Marquis of Cuellar; Villegas, the sweet lyrical poet, in his seventh elegy; and Christóval de Mesa, in different passages of his minor poems, and in the Preface to his ill-constructed tragedy of “Pompey.” If to these we add a scientific discussion on the True Structure of Tragedy and Comedy, in the third and fourth of the Poetical Tables of Cascales, and a harsh attack on the whole popular Spanish stage, by Suarez de Figueroa, in which little is noticed but its follies, we shall have, if not every thing that was said on the subject, at least every thing that needs now to be remembered. The whole is of less consequence than the frank admissions of Lope de Vega, in his “New Art of the Drama.”[563]

The opposition of the Church, more formidable than that of the scholars of the time, was, in some respects, better founded, since many of the plays of this period were indecent, and more of them immoral. The ecclesiastical influence, as we have seen, had, therefore, been early directed against the theatre, partly on this account and partly because the secular drama had superseded those representations in the churches which had so long been among the means used by the priesthood to sustain their power with the mass of the people. On these grounds, in fact, the plays of Torres Naharro were suppressed in 1545, and a petition was sent, in 1548, by the Cortes, to Charles the Fifth, against the printing and publishing of all indecent farces.[564] For a long time, however, little was done but to suspend dramatic representations in seasons of court mourning, and on other occasions of public sorrow or trouble;—this being, perhaps, thought by the clergy an exercise of their influence that would, in the course of events, lead to more important concessions.

But as the theatre rose into importance with the popularity of Lope de Vega, the discussions on its character and consequences grew graver. Even just before that time, in 1587, Philip the Second consulted some of the leading theologians of the kingdom, and was urged to suppress altogether the acted drama; but, after much deliberation, followed the milder opinion of Alonso de Mendoza, a professor at Salamanca, and determined still to tolerate it, but to subject it constantly to a careful and even strict supervision. In 1590, Mariana, the historian, in his treatise “De Spectaculis,” written with great fervor and eloquence, made a bold attack on the whole body of the theatres, particularly on their costumes and dances, and thus gave a new impulse to the discussion, which was not wholly lost when, in 1597, Philip the Second, according to the custom of the time, ordered the public representations at Madrid to be suspended, in consequence of the death of his daughter, the Duchess of Savoy. But Philip was now old and infirm. The opposers of the theatre, among whom was Lupercio de Argensola, gathered around him.[565] The discussion was renewed with increased earnestness, and in 1598, not long before he breathed his last in the Escurial, with his dying eyes fastened on its high altar, he forbade theatrical representations altogether.

Little, however, was really effected by this struggle on the part of the Church, except that the dramatic poets were compelled to discover ingenious modes for evading the authority exercised against them, and that the character of the actors was degraded by it. To drive the drama from ground where it was so well intrenched behind the general favor of the people was impossible. The city of Madrid, already the acknowledged capital of the country, begged that the theatres might again be opened; giving, as one reason for their request, that many religious plays were performed, by some of which both actors and spectators had been so moved to penitence as to hasten directly from the theatre to enter religious houses;[566] and as another reason, that the rent paid by the companies of actors to the hospitals of Madrid was important to the very existence of those great and beneficent charities.[567]

Moved by such arguments, Philip the Third, in 1600, when the theatres had been shut hardly two years, summoned a council of ecclesiastics and four of the principal lay authorities of the kingdom, and laid the whole subject before them. Under their advice,—which still condemned in the strongest manner the theatres as they had heretofore existed in Spain,—he permitted them to be opened anew; diminishing, however, the number of actors, forbidding all immorality in the plays, and allowing representations only on Sundays and three other days in the week, which were required to be Church festivals, if such festivals should occur. This decision has, on the whole, been hardly yet disturbed, and the theatre in Spain, with occasional alterations and additions of privilege, has continued to rest safely on its foundations ever since;—closed, indeed, sometimes, in seasons of public mourning, as it was three months on the death of Philip the Third, and again in 1665, by the bigotry of the queen regent, but never interrupted for any long period, and never again called to contend for its existence.

The truth is, that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the popular Spanish drama was too strong to be subjected either to classical criticism or to ecclesiastical control. In the “Amusing Journey” of Roxas, an actor who travelled over much of the country in 1602, visiting Seville, Granada, Toledo, Valladolid, and many other places, we find plays acted everywhere, even in the smallest villages, and the drama, in all its forms and arrangements, accommodated to the public taste far beyond any other popular amusement.[568] In 1632, Montalvan—the best authority on such a subject—gives us the names of a crowd of writers for Castile alone; and three years later, Fabio Franchi, an Italian, who had lived in Spain, published a eulogy on Lope, which enumerates nearly thirty of the same dramatists, and shows anew how completely the country was imbued with their influence. There can, therefore, be no doubt, that, at the time of his death, Lope’s name was the great poetical name that filled the whole breadth of the land with its glory, and that the forms of the drama originated by him were established, beyond the reach of successful opposition, as the national and popular forms of the drama for all Spain.[569]