#III. The Legend in Spanish Literature.# Very few of the famous legends of the world rest upon documentary evidence, and the fact that the legend of the Lovers of Teruel lacks historic proof has had little influence upon its popularity. It has been productive of much literature, the extent of which is indicated by the two hundred or more titles contained in the bibliography[l] published by Domingo Gascón y Guimbao in 1907. Of the many poems, plays, and novels inspired by the legend only the most noteworthy can be mentioned here. The oldest literary treatment is apparently that of Pedro de Alventosa, written about the middle of the sixteenth century, Historia lastimosa y sentida de los tiernos amantes Marcilla y Segura. This was followed in 1566 by a Latin poem of about five hundred lines by Antonio de Serón, published in 1907 by Gascón y Guimbao, with a Spanish translation and an excellent bibliography. In 1581 the legend was given dramatic treatment by Rey de Artieda, who followed the story in its essential elements but modernized the action by placing it in the time of Charles V, only forty-six years earlier than the publication of the play. It has little literary value, but is important because of its influence on later dramatists. Passing over various treatments of the theme that serve merely to indicate its growing popularity, we come to the pretentious epic poem of Juan Yagüe de Salas in twenty-six cantos, Los Amantes de Teruel, Epopeya trágica, in which, besides adding many fantastic details to the legend, the author presented much extraneous matter bearing upon the general history of Teruel. Because of this widely known poem and the growing popularity of the Lovers, two dramatists of the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina and Pérez de Montalbán, gave it their attention. Los Amantes de Teruel of the great Tirso de Molina, published in 1635, is disappointing, considering the dramatic ability of the author; it contains passages of dramatic effectiveness but is weak in construction. As in Rey de Artieda's play, the action is placed in the sixteenth century; Marsilla takes part in the famous expedition of Charles V against the Moors in Tunis, saves the Emperor's life, and, richly rewarded, returns, too late, to claim the promised bride. It is a better play than that of Artieda, but is itself surpassed by Montalbán's play of three years later. Although he was far from possessing the dramatic genius of Tirso, Montalbán succeeded in giving the story the form that it was to maintain on the stage for two centuries. Frequent performances and many editions of his play, as well as many other literary treatments and references that might be cited, attest the continued popularity of the legend.
[Footnote 1: Los Amantes de Teruel, Bibliografía de los Amantes.
Domingo Gascón y Guimbao, Madrid, 1907.]
Finally, in the early days of Romanticism, it assumed the dramatic form that has remained most popular down to the present day. On the nineteenth of January of the year 1837 the theatergoing people of Madrid were moved to vociferous applause by a new treatment of the old theme, and a new star of the literary firmament was recognized in the person of Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. In his dramatic masterpiece Hartzenbusch eclipsed all the other plays that have dealt with the legend, and more than twenty editions stand as proof of its continued popularity. Besides these many editions of the play, numerous novels, poems, and operas have appeared from time to time. For the most complete bibliography down to 1907 the reader is again referred to that of the official historian of Teruel, Gascón y Guimbao. We must now turn our attention to the author of the best dramatic treatment of the legend.
#IV. Life of Hartzenbusch#. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, born in 1806, was the only son of a German cabinet-maker who had wandered to Spain from his home near Cologne, married a Spanish girl, and opened up a shop in Madrid. The son inherited from his German father and Spanish mother traits of character that were exemplified later in his life and writings. From his father he received a fondness for meditation, conscientious industry in acquiring sound scholarship, and the patience needed for the continual revision of his plays; from his mother came his ardent imagination and love of literature. Childhood and youth were for him a period of disappointment and struggle against adversity. Less than two years old when his mother died after a short period of insanity caused by the sight of bloodshed in the turbulent streets of Madrid in 1808, he was left to the care of a brooding father who had little sympathy with his literary aspirations, but who did wish to give him the best education he could afford. He received a common school education and was permitted to spend the four years from 1818 to 1822 in the College of San Isidro. As a result of the political troubles in Spain in 1823, the father's business, never very prosperous, fell away and the son had to leave college to help in the workshop. He was thus compelled to spend a large part of his time in making furniture, although his inclination was toward literature.
His leisure was given to study and to the acquirement of a practical knowledge of the dramatic art, gained for the most part from books, because of his father's dislike of the theater and because of the lack of money for any unnecessary expenditure. He translated several French and Italian plays, adapted others to Spanish conditions, and recast various comedias of the Siglo de Oro, with a view to making them more suitable for presentation. He tried his hand also at original production and succeeded in getting some of his plays on the stage, only to have them withdrawn almost immediately. Undiscouraged by repeated failure, he continued studying and writing, more determined than ever to become a successful dramatist and thus realize the ambition that was kindled in him by the first dramatic performance that he had witnessed when he had already reached manhood.
At the time of his marriage in 1830 he was still helping his ailing and despondent father in the workshop; more interested undoubtedly in his literary pursuits, but ever faithful to the call of duty. Until success as a dramatist made it possible for him to gain a living for his family by literature, he continued patiently his manual labor. At his father's death he closed the workshop and for a short time became dependent for a livelihood on stenography, with which he had already eked out the slender returns from the labor of his hands.
Meanwhile, during these last years of apprenticeship in which Hartzenbusch was gaining complete mastery of his art by continual study and practice, the literary revolution known as Romanticism was making rapid progress. The death of the despotic Ferdinand VII in 1833 removed the restraint that had been imposed upon literature as well as upon political ideas. The theories of the French and English Romanticists were penetrating Spanish literary circles, to be taken up eagerly by the younger dramatists; political exiles of high social and literary prestige, such as Martínez de la Rosa and the Duque de Rivas, were returning to Spain with plays and poems composed according to the new theories; the natural reaction from the logical, unemotional ideals of the Classicists was developing conditions favorable to the revolution. The first year of the struggle between the two schools of literature, 1834, gave the Romanticists two important victories in the Conjuración de Venecia of Martinez de la Rosa, and the Macías of José de Larra, two plays that show clearly Romantic tendencies but that avoid an abrupt break with the Classical theories. They served to prepare the way for the thoroughly Romantic play of the Duque de Rivas, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, a magnificent, though disordered, drama that gained for the Romanticists a decisive victory in 1835, a victory over Classicism in Spain similar to that gained in Paris five years earlier by the famous Hernani of Victor Hugo, leader of the French Romanticists. In 1836 the equally successful performance of El Trovador, the Romantic play of García Gutiérrez, confirmed the victory gained by the Romanticists with Don Álvaro, and gave clear indication that the literary revolution was complete. The temper of the time was decidedly Romantic, and the wholehearted applause that resounded through the Teatro del Príncipe on the night of Jan. 19, 1837, at the first performance of Los Amantes de Teruel put an end to the long and laborious apprenticeship of Hartzenbusch.
A few days later the warm reception given the play and its continued popularity were justified in a remarkable piece of dramatic criticism by the rival playwright and keen literary critic, José de Larra, known better by his journalistic pen-name, Fígaro, and greatly feared by his contemporaries for his mordant criticism and stinging satire. In the opening words of his review of the play, we may see the highly favorable attitude of the critic and realize the suddenness of the fame that came to Hartzenbusch. "Venir a aumentar el número de los vivientes, ser un hombre más donde hay tantos hombres, oír decir de sí: 'Es un tal fulano,' es ser un árbol más en una alameda. Pero pasar cinco o seis lustros oscuro y desconocido, y llegar una noche entre otras, convocar a un pueblo, hacer tributaria su curiosidad, alzar una cortina, conmover el corazón, subyugar el juicio, hacerse aplaudir y aclamar, y oír al día siguiente de sí mismo al pasar por una calle o por el Prado: 'Aquél es el escritor de la comedia aplaudida,' eso es algo; es nacer; es devolver al autor de nuestros días por un apellido oscuro un nombre claro; es dar alcurnia a sus ascendientes en vez de recibirla de ellos."[2] Other contemporary reviews were just as favorable, and all expressed with Fígaro great hopes in the career of a dramatist that had thus begun with an acknowledged masterpiece. The Semanario Pintoresco, for example, a literary magazine in its second year of publication, ended its review of the play with these words: "El joven que, saliendo de la oscuridad del taller de un artesano, se presenta en el mundo literario con los Amantes de Teruel por primera prueba de su talento, hace concebir al teatro español la fundada esperanza de futuros días de gloria, y de verse elevado a la altura que un día ocupó en la admiración del mundo civilizado." (Feb. 5, 1837.)
[Footnote 2: Obras completas de Fígaro. Paris, 1889. Vol. III, page 187.]
Thus encouraged by popular applause and by the enthusiastic praise of literary critics, Hartzenbusch produced at varying intervals many excellent plays, but none of them surpassed or even equaled his Amantes de Teruel. Many of them, characterized by careful workmanship, dramatic effectiveness, and fine literary finish, are well worth studying, and deserve more attention than can be given them here. They offer all kinds of drama: tragedies such as Doña Mencía, in which the exaggerations of Romanticism are given free rein; historical plays, in which striking incidents in Spanish history or legend are given dramatic treatment; fantastic plays, such as La redoma encantada, in which magic plays an important part; comedies of character and manners, such as La coja y el encogido, in which contemporary life found humorous presentation. The best of them may be read in the three volumes published in the well-known series Colección de Escritores Castellanos. For literary criticism the student is referred to the books mentioned later in the bibliography.