CHAPTER XXIII.
Calderon, continued. — His Secular Plays. — Difficulty of classifying them. — Their Principal Interest. — Nature of their Plots. — Love survives Life. — Physician of his own Honor. — Painter of his own Dishonor. — No Monster like Jealousy. — Firm-hearted Prince.
Passing from the religious plays of Calderon to the secular, we at once encounter an embarrassment which we have already felt in other cases,—that of dividing them all into distinct and appropriate classes. It is even difficult to determine, in every instance, whether the piece we are considering belongs to one of the religious subdivisions of his dramas or not; for the “Wonder-working Magician,” for instance, is hardly less an intriguing play than “First of all my Lady”; and “Aurora in Copacabana” is as full of spiritual personages and miracles, as if it were not, in the main, a love-story. But, even after setting this difficulty aside, as we have done, by examining separately all the dramas of Calderon that can, in any way, be accounted religious, it is not possible to make a definite classification of the remainder.
Some of them, such as “Nothing like Silence,” are absolutely intriguing comedies, and belong strictly to the school of the capa y espada; others, like “A Friend Loving and Loyal,” are purely heroic, both in their structure and their tone; and a few others, such as “Love survives Life,” and “The Physician of his own Honor,” belong to the most terrible inspirations of genuine tragedy. Twice, in a different direction, we have operas, which are yet nothing but plays in the national taste, with music added;[615] and once we have a burlesque drama,—“Cephalus and Procris,”—in which, using the language of the populace, he parodies an earlier and successful performance of his own.[616] But, in the great majority of cases, the boundaries of no class are respected; and in many of them even more than two forms of the drama melt imperceptibly into each other. Especially in those pieces whose subjects are taken from known history, sacred or profane, or from the recognized fictions of mythology or romance, there is frequently a confusion that seems as though it were intended to set all classification at defiance.[617]
Still, in this confusion there was a principle of order, and perhaps even a dramatic theory. For—if we except “Luis Perez the Galician,” which is a series of sketches to bring out the character of a notorious robber, and a few show pieces, presented on particular occasions to the court with great magnificence—all Calderon’s full-length dramas depend for their success on the interest excited by an involved plot, constructed out of surprising incidents.[618] He avows this himself, when he declares one of them to be—
The most surprising tale
Which, in the dramas of Castile, a wit
Acute hath yet traced out, and on the stage
With tasteful skill produced.[619]