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

by George Ticknor

The tragedy itself, which comes like a sort of appendix to this discussion, and seems intended to illustrate and enforce its opinions, is entirely after the model of the French school, and especially after Racine;—all the rules, as they are technically called, including that which requires the stage never to be left vacant during the continuance of an act, being rigorously observed. But the “Virginia” is no less cold than it is regular, and, like the waters of the Alps, its very purity betrays the frozen region from which it has descended. Its versification, which consists of unrhymed iambics, is as far as possible removed from the warmth and freedom of the ballad style in the elder drama; its whole movement is languid; and the catastrophe, from the fear of shocking the spectator by a show of blood on the stage, turns out, in fact, to be no catastrophe at all. No effort, it is believed, was made to bring it upon the stage, and as a printed poem it produced no real effect on public opinion.

Montiano, however, was not discouraged. In 1753 he published another critical discourse and another tragedy, with similar merits and similar defects, taking for its subject the reign and death of Athaulpho, the Goth, as they are found in the old chronicles. But this, too, like its predecessor, was never acted, and both are now rarely read.[371]

The earliest comedy within the French rules that appeared in the Spanish language was the translation of Lachaussée’s “Préjugé à la Mode” by Luzan, which was printed in 1751.[372] It judiciously preserved the national asonantes, or imperfect rhymes, throughout, and was followed, in 1754, by the “Athalie” of Racine, rendered with much taste, principally into blank verse, by Llaguno y Amirola, Secretary of the Academy of History. But the first original Spanish comedy formed on French models was the “Petimetra,” or the Female Fribble, by Moratin the elder. It was printed in 1762, and was preceded by a dissertation, in which, while the merits of the schools of Lope and Calderon are imperfectly acknowledged, their defects are exhibited in the strongest relief, and the impression left, in relation to the old masters, is of the most unfavorable character.

In the play itself, a similar kind of deference is shown to the popular prejudices and feelings, which adhered faithfully to the old drama and to the miserable imitations of it that continued to be produced. It is divided into the three jornadas to which the public had so long been wonted, and is written in the national manner, sometimes with full rhymes, and sometimes only with asonantes. But the compromise was not accepted by those to whom it was offered. The principal character, Doña Gerónima, is feebly drawn; and, though the versification and style are always easy, and sometimes beautiful, the attempt to reconcile the irregular genius of the elder comedy with what Moratin, on his title-page, calls “the rigor of art” was a failure. A corresponding effort which he made the next year in tragedy, taking the story of Lucretia for his subject, and adopting even more fully the French conventions, was not more successful. Neither of them obtained the distinction of being publicly represented.

That honor, however, was gained in 1770, with much difficulty, by Moratin’s “Hormesinda,” the first original drama, under the canons that governed Corneille and Racine, which ever appeared in a public theatre in Spain. It is founded on events connected with the Arab invasion and the achievements of Pelayo, and is written, like the “Lucretia,” in that irregular verse, partly rhymed and partly not, which in Spanish poetry is called silva, and is intended to have, more than any other, the air of improvisation.

The partial success of this drama, which, notwithstanding an improbable plot, deserved all the favor it received, induced its author, in 1777, to write his third tragedy, “Guzman the True,” dedicating it to his patron, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who was a descendant of that famous nobleman, and who, a few years before, had himself translated the “Iphigénie” of Racine into Spanish. The well-known character of the hero, who chose rather to have his son sacrificed by the Moors than to surrender the fortress of Tarifa, if it is not drawn with the vigor of the old Castilian chronicles or of the drama of Guevara, is exhibited, at least, with a well-sustained consistency, that gives token of more poetical power than any thing else produced by its author for the theatre. But this is its only real merit; and the last tragedy of Moratin was, on the whole, no more successful, and no more deserving of success, than the first.

Cadahalso, the friend whom we have already noticed as much under the influence of Moratin, went one step further in his imitation of the French masters. His “Don Sancho Garcia,” a regular, but feeble, tragedy, printed in 1771 and afterwards acted, is written in long lines and rhymed couplets; an innovation which could hardly fail to be accounted monotonous on a stage, one of whose chief luxuries had so long been a wild variety of measures. Nor did more favor follow an attempt of Sebastian y Latre to adjust to the theories of the time two old dramas, still often represented,—the one by Roxas and the other by Moreto,—which he forced within the pale of the three unities, and for the public representations of one of which, Aranda, the minister of state, paid the charges. Like the subsequent attempts of Trigueros to accommodate some of Lope de Vega’s plays to the same system of opinions, it was entirely unsuccessful. The difference between the two different schools was so great, and the effort to force them together so violent, that enough of the spirit and grace of the originals could not be found in these modernized imitations to satisfy the demands of any audience that could be collected to listen to them.[373]

Yriarte, better known as a didactic poet and fabulist, enjoys the distinction of having produced the first regular original comedy that was publicly represented in Spain. He began very young, with a play which he did not afterwards think fit to place among his collected works; and, beside translations from Voltaire and Destouches, and three or four attempts of less consequence, he wrote two full-length original comedies, which were better than any thing previously produced by the school to which he belonged. One of them, called “The Flattered Youth,” appeared in 1778, and the other, “The Ill-bred Miss,” ten years later;—the first being on the subject of a son spoiled by a foolishly indulgent mother, and the second on the daughter of a rich man equally spoiled by the carelessness and neglect of her father. Both are divided into three acts, and written in the imperfect rhyme and short verses always grateful to Castilian ears; and both are marked by good character-drawing and a pleasant, easy manner, not abounding in wit nor sensibly deficient in it. But, except these plays of Yriarte and Moratin, and an unfortunate one by Melendez Valdes in 1784,—founded on Camacho’s wedding, in “Don Quixote,” and containing occasionally gentle and pleasing pastoral poetry which ill agrees with the rude jesting of Sancho,—nothing that deserves notice was done for comedy in the latter part of the reign of Charles the Third.[374]

Tragedy fared still worse. The “Numantia Destroyed,” written by Ayala, a man of learning and the regular censor of the public theatres of Madrid, was acted in 1775. Its subject is the same with that of the “Numantia” by Cervantes; but the horrors of the siege it describes are not brought home to the sympathies of the reader by instances of individual suffering, as they are in the elder dramatist, and therefore produce much less effect. As an acting drama, however, it is not without merit. Its versification, which is, again, an attempt at a compromise with the public by giving alternate asonantes, but attaching them to the long-drawn lines of the French theatre, is not, indeed, fortunate; but the style is otherwise rich and vigorous, and the tone elevated. Perhaps its ardent expressions of patriotic feeling, and its fierce denunciations of foreign oppression, have done as much to keep it on the stage as its intrinsic poetical merits.

The “Raquel” of Huerta, printed in 1778, three years after the “Numantia,” is not so creditable to the author, and produced a less lasting impression on the public. The story—that of the Jewess of Toledo, which has been so often treated by Spanish poets—is taken too freely from a play of Diamante; and though Huerta has, in some respects, given the materials he found there a better arrangement, and a more grave and sonorous versification, he has diminished the spirit and naturalness of the action by constraining it within the hard conventions he prescribed to himself, and has rendered the whole drama so uninteresting, that, notwithstanding its considerable reputation at first, it was soon forgotten.[375]