Volume 1 / Book 2 — SECOND SECTION. History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence, from the Age of Cervantes and Lope de Vega to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century. (continued 3)

Calderon’s Autos Sacramentales may be noticed in a few words. In this class of dramatic composition, Calderon pursued the path which had been previously trodden by Perez de Montalvan, but he left his model far behind him. Some of his autos, of which that entitled, La Devocion de la Cruz, (the Miracles of the Cross, or literally the Devotion of the Cross), may be cited as an example, are the grandest and most ingenious productions of the kind in the Spanish language. But in these spiritual dramas, reason and moral feeling are so perverted by extravagant and fantastic notions of religious faith, that it is impossible to forbear congratulating those nations whose better fate has excluded them from amusements of this kind.

HISTORY OF THE SPANISH DRAMA CONTINUED TO THE CLOSE OF THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION.

Never, perhaps, was any dramatic poet accompanied in so long a career by such a number of rivals, friends, and imitators, as Calderon. It was precisely the half century during which he indefatigably laboured for the Spanish theatre that gave birth to the greater part of those dramas, the number of which is better known than the merits. In consequence of the popularity of Lope de Vega and Calderon, the passion for dramatic composition became as epidemic in Spain as that of sonnet writing had formerly been. The encouragement which Philip IV. gave to the drama, doubtless contributed not a little to excite this poetic emulation. But the multitude of writers who entered into the competition were ambitious of rivalling Lope de Vega and Calderon in proofs of fertility of invention. The fecundity of Perez de Montalvan, who, notwithstanding his life was short, wrote nearly one hundred plays in the style of Lope de Vega, was not allowed to remain a solitary example. The impression produced by successive comedias famosas on a public whose greatest mental enjoyment was found in the theatre, was also felt by those who were desirous of producing similar works. Thus every piece which was applauded sowed the seeds of new comedies. No author thought it necessary to reform the principles on which Spanish comedy was composed, or attempted to distinguish himself by any particular originality. At the same time the spirit which governed this emulation was equally remote from an intentional imitation of the more celebrated dramatic poets. He who was ambitious of adding one more to the numberless dramas in the possession of the stage, followed in the general stream under the influence of impressions previously received. To wit and fancy free scope was allowed; but any original traits which the new production might contain, were more or less overshadowed by the general character of this class of composition. The whole of those dramatists, whose works so closely resemble each other, form therefore only one school. Were not the critic assisted by names the most extensive, knowledge of this department of Spanish literature would in most cases be insufficient to enable him to distinguish the labours of different authors. It often happened that several writers formed a co-partnership of their talents for the production of one piece. Hence arose the practice of printing on the titles of some dramas, the words, “by two wits,” or “by three wits,” (de dos ingenios, or de tres ingenios.) Of the numerous aspirants in this conflict of efforts and of talents, proportionally few succeeded in obtaining a celebrity which entitles them to be placed near Lope de Vega and Calderon. These few, however, whose number, compared with the approved dramatists of other nations, the French comic authors excepted, is still very considerable, vied in ingenuity and delicacy of composition with Calderon, and endeavoured to surpass him in regularity.

Several authors have with much labour endeavoured to discover the number of the Spanish dramas, as if the knowledge of their amount even correctly ascertained, could be worth the pains necessary to acquire it. Of the three thousand eight hundred and fifty-two dramatic works which La Huerta has enumerated,551 the greater part belongs to the age of Calderon. Those which Calderon himself wrote, appear in the list; and it also includes a considerable number of short interludes, some of which, perhaps, did not cost their authors more than a few hours labour. But this list contains only the printed dramas known to literary collectors. That the number of pieces remaining in manuscript is much greater, may from analogy be presumed; for of the dramatic compositions of the idolized Lope de Vega, which are estimated at more than two thousand, not many more than three hundred have been printed.

It would not be uninteresting to analyze, for the purpose of comparison with the works of Calderon, some of the best of the other dramas of this age; but such details do not fall within the province of this General History of Spanish Poetry and Eloquence. Some of the contemporaries of Calderon, however, vied with him in so distinguished a manner, that an express but brief notice of their merits becomes indispensable.

ANTONIO DE SOLIS—MORETO—JUAN DE HOZ—TIRSO DE MOLINA—FRANCISCO DE ROXAS—AUGUSTIN DE SALAZAR—MIRA DE MESCUA, &c.

An honourable station, beside Calderon, belongs to Antonio de Solis, one of the most eminent authors of his age. He was ten years younger than Calderon, whom he survived a few years. His literary activity was not limited to the study of poetry; for morals, politics, and history, also occupied his attention, particularly in his maturer years. He wrote the preludes, (loas), to some of Calderon’s dramas, and appears to have been connected by the ties of friendship with that great poet. The fame of his political and historical knowledge obtained for him a place in the administration under Philip IV. and after the death of that monarch he was appointed to the lucrative post of Coronista de las Indias, or historiographer of the transactions of the Spaniards in both Indies. While he held this office, he wrote his celebrated History of the Conquest of Mexico, which will be more particularly noticed at the close of the present book. Finally, he entered into holy orders, and devoted himself almost exclusively to exercises of devotion; he died in 1686. His plays do not display so much boldness of imagination as Calderon’s; but they are ingeniously composed in the Spanish national style of intrigue, and exhibit an elegant vivacity of diction. With regard to pleasantries put into the mouths of servants, he does not exactly correspond with other Spanish dramatists. His dramatic compositions are more regular than Calderon’s, because he was less liable to be seduced by the force of his imagination. Among his comedies attributed to the heroic class, El Alcazar del Secreto, (the Castle of Mystery), is justly much valued. In his dramas of intrigue he has endeavoured to vary the characters more than his great contemporary. Thus gipseys figure in his piece, called, La Gitanilla de Madrid, which is partly founded on Cervantes’s novel of the same title.552

Augustin Moreto possessed a higher degree of comic talent than Calderon. This able and industrious writer was also favoured by Philip IV. but he became an ecclesiastic and renounced writing for the theatre. Some of his pieces are comic from beginning to end, and are also comedies of character, though the form of the Spanish drama of intrigue is still preserved. In his piece, entitled, De fuera vendra, quien de casa nos eschara,553 (He will come from without, Who will turn us out), he has introduced an old coquette, a military coxcomb, and a doctor of laws, who besides being cowardly and pedantic, is also amorous. These characters are drawn with a comic force which has seldom been surpassed, though it must be confessed that they partake too much of the caricature style. In general Moreto approximates more than Calderon to Terence, whose comedies became, in the sequel, models for the Spanish dramatists when the principles of the French drama were adopted. But his gracioso, who is always the fool of the piece in the character of a servant, repeats too often the same sort of wretched jests.

Juan de Hoz likewise approached to the comic style of the regular dramas representing character. Of this author nothing further is known, except that he wrote an excellent comedy, entitled, El castigo de la Miseria, (Avarice Punished,) which presents a considerable resemblance to one of Cervantes’s novels.554

Tirso de Molina, or Gabriel Sellez, (as his real name is said to have been) was one of the most prolific dramatic writers among the contemporaries of Calderon. He is the reputed author of upwards of seventy plays still extant. He vied with Lope de Vega and Calderon in the merit of ingenious and bold invention, which is particularly manifested in his historical and spiritual dramas.555

The dramas of intrigue by Francisco de Rojas, or Roxas, a knight of the order of Santiago, were, about the middle of the sixteenth century, as much esteemed as those of Calderon; for the art of ingenious complexity which they exhibited, rendered them particularly pleasing to the Spanish taste. A play by this author, entitled, Entre Bobos anda el Juego556, (When Fools play the Game goes well), is even at the present day a distinguished favourite on the Spanish stage. He was not so successful as a writer of heroic comedies. His Casarse para Vengarse, (Marriage of Vengeance), which is a sort of tragedy, is disgustingly surcharged with bombastic phrases.

Agustin de Salazar y Torres, was educated in Mexico, and after his return to Spain, lived at the court of Philip IV. He was an admirer of Gongora, and as many of his poems prove, also a faithful disciple; but though an inveterate Gongorist, he was one of the cleverest writers of that school of affectation. His dramatic works are distinguished for ingenuity of invention, and a style which shews that he knew how to elevate himself above the common level, without running into bombast.557 His heroic comedy, entitled, Elegir al Enemigo, (How to choose an Enemy), is full of genuine poetry.

Antonio Mira de Mescua, or Amescua, who lived as an ecclesiastic at the court of Philip IV. must not be omitted in the list of the Spanish dramatic poets of the period now under consideration. He was regarded by many of his contemporaries as a second Lope de Vega;558 and he doubtless more nearly approached the rude brilliancy of Lope than the elegant manner of Calderon. He remained, however, far behind his model; yet his historical and spiritual dramas are distinguished for conceptions, which, though extravagant, are not devoid of interest, and which were moreover perfectly in unison with the prevailing Spanish taste. In El Caballero sin Nombre, (The Knight without a Name), he has even ventured to introduce a wild bear on the stage.

To the historian who makes the dramatic literature of Spain his particular object, must be consigned the task of collecting the necessary information respecting the works of Antonio de Mendoza, Luis Velez de Guevara, Alvaro Cubillo, Luis Coello, Felipe Godinez, Juan Matos Fragoso, and other dramatists, who in the age in which they lived, were frequently placed on a level with Calderon. The writer who devotes his attention to this department of Spanish literature, must likewise take into consideration the older dramatic works which appeared during the latter years of Lope de Vega’s career, as, for example, the comedies of Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Guillen de Castro, &c.559 Neither must he neglect to furnish bibliographic accounts of the various collections of Spanish dramas published by different editors. In the present work it is only necessary to observe, that these collections, the greater part of which appeared in the seventeenth century, were all speculations of the booksellers. Most of them present abundant traces of haste and negligence, and but few are distinguished for critical discrimination in the selection. The historian of the Spanish national taste will, however, consult those collections with the view of ascertaining what dramas were, at a certain period, the greatest favourites in Spain; for the booksellers published their collections in conformity with the humour of the public. Thus every drama which was printed, was styled a Comedia famosa, so that about the middle of the seventeenth century, the epithet famosa, had, by frequent repetition, lost all value.

CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY OF SPANISH ELOQUENCE AND CRITICISM WITHIN THE PERIOD OF THIS SECTION.

The works belonging to the department of elegant prose, which appeared during the period of the ascendency of dramatic poetry in Spanish literature, may be noticed in few words. The authors who still adhered to the spirit of genuine eloquence, gave no new direction to rhetorical cultivation; they merely continued, with laudable perseverance, the task begun by their predecessors, namely, that of opposing the party who methodically endeavoured to introduce into prose composition a new tone of ingenious absurdity.

Romantic prose no longer maintained a conflict with true eloquence, but proceeded in a separate course. The reading portion of the Spanish public continued to be supplied with romances and novels, most of which, however, were the production of obscure writers. Several Spanish ladies contributed their share in this kind of authorship.

The necessary distinction between historical and romantic narrative was now made by the historiographers or chroniclers, whose numbers had been augmented since the extension of the Spanish possessions in India and America. But among all these writers, Antonio de Solis, who has already been noticed as a dramatic poet, is the only one who produced a work deserving to be ranked among the models of historical composition. His history, which he wrote in the quality of historiographer of the Indies, is the last classic relic of the kind of which Spanish literature can boast. It contains an account of the Conquest of Mexico, in a genuine historical form, notwithstanding that the subject was calculated to seduce a poetic author into the romantic narrative style.560 Those who are unacquainted with the fact of Antonio de Solis being a celebrated poet, will never conjecture it from the general tone of this work. No writer could possibly mark with more solidity of taste the distinction between poetry and prose. Antonio de Solis had, however, attained the age of maturity when he laid down the principles by which he was guided in the discharge of his functions as a historian. He states in his preface that in history all ornaments of eloquence are merely accessaries; and that the accuracy of the relation is true historical elegance. He says, that truth must be of all things the most important to the historian, and that in historical composition what is truly stated, is well stated.561 According to these principles the very worst style possible would be tolerable in a faithful historical narrative. But it would appear that Antonio de Solis, through a distrust of his own poetic imagination, exaggerated to himself the necessity of self-denial as an homage due to historical fidelity; and this exaggeration, which in reality was only theoretical, proved of essential service to him in the execution of his work. His talent for description, and his cultivated taste, naturally elevated him above the dryness and dulness of the common chronicle style. Though he seems scarcely to have reflected on the more essential requisites of the historical art, yet his work has not suffered by their neglect; for as a dramatic poet he had been accustomed to an arrangement of events which concentrated them in a single point of view; and profound political knowledge was not required for the just exposition of transactions occurring in the expedition of a small party of Spanish adventurers, led on by the daring Hernando Cortes, to the conquest of the kingdom of Mexico. Nothing more was necessary than a simple and unaffected narration, to cause the interest naturally belonging to the subject to be strongly felt.

INTRODUCTION OF GONGORISM INTO SPANISH PROSE—BALTHASAR GRACIAN.

The elegant simplicity of the historical style adopted by Antonio de Solis, forms, with the Gongorism which about this time crept into Spanish prose composition from the poetic school of Gongora, a rhetorical contrast, which is the last remarkable phenomenon in the history of Spanish eloquence. The pedantic commentators of the unintelligible Gongora had long been accustomed to write a strange fantastic prose style; but this prosaic Gongorism had not infected any man of distinguished talent, until Lorenzo, or Balthasar Gracian, became a popular author. Writers on literature mention but few particulars respecting the life of this distinguished man, who is supposed to have died in the year 1652. It is probable that he himself concealed his literary existence; for it is conjectured that the works which on their title-pages bear the name of Lorenzo Gracian, were really written by Balthasar Gracian, who was a Jesuit, and the brother of Lorenzo. Respecting Lorenzo nothing further is known than that he is understood to have lent his name to the productions of his brother; but, be this as it may, the writings which have conferred celebrity on that name, are, in some measure, sufficiently jesuitical.562 They relate, in general, to the morality of the great world, to theological morality, and to poetry and rhetoric. The most voluminous of these works bears the affected title of El Criticon. It is an allegorical picture of the whole course of human life divided into Crisis, that is to say, sections according to fixed points of view, and clothed in the formal garb of a pompous romance. It is scarcely possible to open any page of this book without recognizing in the author a man, who is in many respects far from common, but who from the ambition of being entirely uncommon in thinking and writing studiously and ingeniously, avoids nature and good sense. A profusion of the most ambiguous subtleties, expressed in ostentatious language, are scattered throughout the work;563 and those affected conceits are the more offensive, in consequence of their union with the really grand view of the essential relationship of man to nature and his Creator, which forms the subject of the treatise. Gracian would have been an excellent writer had he not so anxiously wished to be an extraordinary one. His shorter productions, in which he developes his theory of the intellectual faculties, and the conduct of life, are still more disfigured by affected ornament than the tedious Criticon;564 they, however, occasionally contain striking observations intelligibly expressed.565 His Oraculo Manual has been more read than any other of his works. It is intended to be a collection of maxims of general utility, but it exhibits good and bad precepts, sound judgments, and refined sophisms, all confounded together. In this work Gracian has not forgotten to inculcate the practical principle of jesuitism “to be all things to all men,” (hacerse a todos), nor to recommend his own favourite maxim, “to be common in nothing,” (en nada vulgar), which in order to be valid would require a totally different interpretation from that which he has given it.

Gracian’s uncommon prose was formed according to certain principles. His book on the Art of Ingeniously Thinking and Writing,566 is no inconsiderable contribution to criticism in Spanish literature. He refines to an incredible degree on subtle distinctions and antitheses, with the view of systematically bringing the style of his countrymen to the level of his own. His illustrative examples are selected from Italian and Spanish poets, particularly from Marino, Gongora and Quevedo. Throughout the whole work, ingenious thoughts (conceptos,) are constantly the subject of consideration. A man of genius, he says, may receive these ideas from nature; but art enables him to create them at pleasure. “As he who comprehends such ideas is an eagle, so he who is capable of producing them must be ranked among angels; for it is an employment of cherubims and an elevation of man which raises him to sublime hierarchy.”567 He then proceeds to describe those conceptos, which he pronounces to be undefinable, because “they are to the understanding what beauty is to the eye, and harmony to the ear.”568 Next follows an enumeration and explanation of the numerous combinations by which the various classes of these ideas, for example, the proverbial, the pathetic, the heroic, &c. may be produced. Poetic figures are examined in rotation; and the style of true eloquence is defined according to the same principles. Thus throughout the whole book good sense and good taste are most ingeniously abused.

This art of poetry and rhetoric by Gracian was, in the seventeenth century, the only work of the kind which produced any influence on the taste of writers and the public.

Gongorism peeps forth even in the published letters of the eminent men of this period, which exhibit a strained formality and an affected elegance. The letters of Quevedo form in this respect no exception. Even in those of Antonio de Solis the facility of the true epistolatory style is wanting.569