The literature of the Spanish peninsula was to have its flourishing period in the century following that we have called after Columbus, but there is enough of enduring literary products to show that men's minds were deeply affected by the great spirit of the time and to lay broad and deep foundations for the Golden Age of Spanish literature that was to follow so soon.
CHAPTER V
ENGLISH LITERATURE
The English literature of Columbus' Century obtained some of its triumphs very early in the period in a literary department, that of dramatics, in which other nations achieved little success. England in the latter part of the fifteenth century produced a series of plays whose high place in literature was only recognized properly during the past two or three generations. Ordinarily it is assumed that dramatic literature of serious significance did not develop in any modern language until much later than this time. Indeed, as a rule, the English drama of Shakespeare's time is supposed to be the first development of any importance in this department. The Spanish drama developed almost immediately after our Shakespearean period, the French came half a century later, and curiously enough Italy and Germany did not develop a national drama until the nineteenth century. The mystery and morality plays of the latter half of the fifteenth century in England have been revived in recent years and have illustrated beyond all doubt the genius of their authors and the fine evolution of drama at this time. Specimens that have been played in many places, in public performances, have proved to possess a gripping power over audiences, surpassing the dramatic literature of our own time, and the dramatic ability and genius of the men who wrote them has now come to be generally recognized.
"Everyman," for instance, has been played to crowded houses in many of the large cities of the country, audiences listening intently for the two hours without an intermission and then paying the highest possible tribute by going out always in silence. The story is only a dramatic rendition of the place in life of the "four last things to be remembered"--death, judgment, heaven and hell--of interest to every man. Such a subject would seem to be quite out of harmony [{486}] with the temper of our time and above all with the mood in which our people attend the theatre. The man who wrote it and was able to give it such enduring interest was a dramatic genius of the first order, for he was able to take the familiar things of life, even those to which men are not prone to give much attention, and make them compelling.
Mystery plays have come to have much more significance for us since the wide popularity of the Passion Play at Oberammergau. Thousands of people go up to the little village of scarcely more than a thousand inhabitants every ten years to see and hear the simple villagers tell the old, old story of the Passion and Death of Him that died on the Cross for us. Some, perhaps, of the attendance is due to the fact that it has become a fad to go, yet most of it is a real act of devotion, but to a shrine that is literary and truly dramatic as well as religious. From all over the world people have flocked to it and have confessed the dramatic force of the story in its simple setting in such a way as to make us realize what a powerful appeal the old mystery plays must have had for the people of the later Middle Ages when they came to their perfection of presentation. The appeal that the Passion Play had to the older folk, the Nativity Plays had for the children, though also for their elders and especially the women.
It is exactly during Columbus' Century that these mystery and morality plays reached their highest development and greatest perfection of expression and presentation. In England this development proved to be the fertile field out of which sprang the great Elizabethan dramatic literature. There are all the elements of a great dramatic literature in them. There is simplicity and directness with the presentation of subjects that have the highest appeal and yet very humanly done, so that wit, and above all, humor, has its role, and the problems concerned are those which interest all mankind. So little is known about this phase of dramatic literature, though it represents such a charmingly simple expression of dramatic poetry, containing a lesson of sincerity, naturalness and occupation with the higher things, which our generation needs above all in order to be lifted out of the rut of over-attention to problem plays, that some review of it seems necessary not [{487}] only for a complete picture of the literature of Columbus' time, but also for the sake of the enduring social significance of this early dramatic literature.
Page from early popular printed religious book (woodcut)
While we have greater examples of this mode of literature from England, in nearly every country in Europe the Passion Plays had a wonderful development toward the end of the fifteenth century. They were particularly striking, both in their literary value and their presentation in the Teutonic [{488}] countries and in England. There was a whole series of plays in England, many of which have come down to us. There is question whether "Everyman" was originally of Dutch or of English origin. The first production of it was as a translation of the Dutch "Elkerlijk." In Germany, the period in which the Passion Play reached its highest development was from about 1450 to 1550. The great Frankfurt Passion Play, the Alsfelder and the Friedburger plays came at this time. Many other towns, however, had their special Passion Plays written for them and presented in their own way. There was the Vienna Passion, the St. Gall Passion and the Maestricht Passion. But there were Passion Plays also at Eger, at Augsburg, Freising and Lucerne. From very early times Passion Plays were given in various parts of the Tyrol, always attracting the deep attention of the people, and it is here that the single example which has survived still serves to show us how genuinely dramatic and how powerful in their appeal were these plays. [Footnote 46]