This was no offence against the prevailing code of morality in literary matters. Most Spanish dramatists of this period borrowed freely. Lope de Vega, indeed, had such wealth of invention that he was never tempted in this way: so, too, he seldom collaborated. So far from being a help, this division of labour was almost an impediment to him, for he could write a hundred lines in the time that it took him to consult his collaborator. But Lope was unique. Manuel de Guerra, in his celebrated Aprobación to the Verdadera Quinta Parte of Calderón’s plays, calls him a monstruo de ingenio. The words recall the monstruo de naturaleza, the phrase applied by Cervantes to Lope, but there is a marked difference between the two men—a difference perhaps implied in the two expressions. Lope was possessed by an irresistible instinct which impelled him to constant, and often careless, creation; Calderón creates less lavishly, treats existing themes without scruple, and his recasts are sometimes completely successful. His devotees never allow us to forget, for instance, that in El Alcalde de Zalamea he has transformed one of Lope’s dashing improvisations into a most powerful drama, and they cite as a parallel case the Electra of Euripides and the Electra of Sophocles. Just so, when Calderón receives a prize at the poetical jousts held at Madrid in 1620-22, the extreme Calderonians are reminded of ‘the boy Sophocles dancing at the festival after the battle of Salamis.’ Why drag in Sophocles? There are degrees. It is quite true that Calderón has made an admirable play out of Lope’s sketch; but it is also true that the dramatic conception of El Alcalde de Zalamea is due to Lope, and not to Calderón.
Any other dramatist in Calderón’s place would have been compelled to accept the conventions which Lope de Vega had imposed upon the Spanish stage—conventional presentations of loyalty and honour. Calderón devoted his magnificent gifts to elaborating these conventions into something like a code. His readiness in borrowing may be taken to mean that he was not, in the largest sense, an inventor, and the substance of his plays shows that he was rarely interested in the presentation of character. But he had the keenest theatrical sense, and once he is provided with a theme he can extract from it an intense dramatic interest. Moreover, he equals Lope in the cleverness with which he works up a complicated plot, and surpasses Lope in the adroitness with which he employs the mechanical resources of the stage. In addition to these minor talents, he has the gift of impressive and ornate diction. It is a little unfortunate that many who read him in translations begin with La Vida es sueño, a fine symbolic play disfigured by the introduction of so incredible a character as Rosaura, declaiming gongoresque speeches altogether out of place. Calderón is liable to these momentary aberrations; yet, at his best, he is almost unsurpassable. Read, for example, the majestic speech of the Demon in El Mágico prodigioso which Trench very justifiably compares with Milton. The address to Cyprian loses next to nothing of its splendour in Shelley’s version:—
Chastised, I know
The depth to which ambition falls; too mad
Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now
Repentance of the irrevocable deed:—
Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
Of not to be subdued, before the shame
Of reconciling me with him who reigns
By coward cession.