Chapter II: Part 2

The priority in this as in most of the other aspects of the Renaissance belongs to Italy. In ultimate achievement the Italian drama fell short of the fulness of the results obtained elsewhere--a surprising fact when it is considered, not only that the Italian language had the vantage-ground of closest relationship to the Latin, but that the genius of the Italian people has at all times led it to love the drama. The cause is doubtless to be sought in the lack, noticeable in Italian national life during a long period, and more especially during the troubled days of division and strife coinciding with the rise and earlier promise of Italian dramatic literature, of those loftiest and most potent impulses of popular feeling to which a national drama owes so much of its strength. This deficiency was due partly to the peculiarities of the Italian character, partly to the political and ecclesiastical experiences which Italy was fated to undergo. The Italians were alike strangers to the enthusiasm of patriotism, which was as the breath in the nostrils of the English Elizabethan age, and to the religious devotion which identified Spain with the spirit of the Catholic revival. The clear-sightedness of the Italians had something to do with this, for they were too intelligent to believe in their tyrants, and too free from illusions to deliver up their minds to their priests. Finally, the chilling and enervating effects of a pressure of foreign domination, such as no Western people with a history and a civilization like those of Italy has ever experienced, contributed to paralyse for many generations the higher efforts of the dramatic art. No basis was permanently found for a really national tragedy; while literary comedy, after turning from the direct imitation of Latin models to a more popular form, lost itself in an abandoned immorality of tone and in reckless insolence of invective against particular classes of society. Though its productivity long continued, the poetic drama more and more concentrated its efforts upon subordinate or subsidiary species, artificial in origin and decorative in purpose, and surrendered its substance to the overpowering aids of music, dancing and spectacle. Only a single form of the Italian drama, improvised comedy, remained truly national; and this was of its nature dissociated from higher literary effort. The revival of Italian tragedy in later times is due partly to the imitation of French models, partly to the endeavour of a brilliant genius to infuse into his art the historical and political spirit. Comedy likewise attained to new growths of considerable significance, when it was sought to accommodate its popular forms to the representation of real life in a wider range, and again to render it more poetical in accordance with the tendencies of modern romanticism.

The regular Italian drama, in both its tragic and its comic branches, began with a reproduction, in the Latin language, of classical models--the first step, as it was to prove, towards the transformation of the medieval into the modern drama, and the birth of modern dramatic literature. But the process was both tentative and tedious, and must have died away but for the pomp and circumstance with which some of the patrons of the Renaissance at Florence, Rome and elsewhere surrounded these manifestations of a fashionable taste, and for the patriotic inspiration which from the first induced Italian writers to dramatize themes of national historic interest. Greek tragedy had been long forgotten, and one or two indications in the earlier part of the 16th century of Italian interest in the Greek drama, chiefly due to the printing presses, may be passed by.[13] To the later middle ages classical tragedy meant Seneca, and even his plays remained unremembered till the study of them was revived by the Paduan judge Lovato de' Lovati (Lupatus, d. 1309). Of the comedies of Plautus three-fifths were not rediscovered till 1429; and though Terence was much read in the schools, he found no dramatic imitators, _pour le bon motif_ or otherwise, since Hrosvitha.

Thus the first medieval follower of Seneca, Albertino Mussato (1261-1330) may in a sense be called the father of modern dramatic literature. Born at Padua, to which city all his services were given, he in 1315 brought out his _Eccerinis_, a Latin tragedy very near to the confines of epic poetry, intended to warn the Paduans against the designs of Can Grande della Scala by the example of the tyrant Ezzelino. Other tragedies of much the same type followed during the ensuing century; such as L. da Fabiano's _De casu Caesenae_ (1377) a sort of chronicle history in Latin prose on Cardinal Albornoz' capture of Caesena.[14] Purely classical themes were treated in the _Achilleis_ of A. de' Loschi of Vicenza (d. 1441), formerly attributed to Mussato, several passages of which are taken verbally from Seneca; in the celebrated _Progne_ of the Venetian Gregorio Cornaro, which is dated 1428-1429, and in later Latin productions included among the translations and imitations of Greek and Latin tragedies and comedies by Bishop Martirano (d. 1557), the friend of Pope Leo X.,[15] and the efforts of Pomponius Laetus and his followers, who, with the aid of Cardinal Raffaele Riario (1451-1521), sought to revive the ancient theatre, with all its classical associations, at Rome.

In this general movement Latin comedy had quickly followed suit, and, as just indicated, it is almost impossible, when we reach the height of the Italian Renaissance under the Medici at Florence and at Rome in particular, to review the progress of either species apart from that of the other. If we possessed the lost _Philologia_ of Petrarch, of which, as of a juvenile work, he declared himself ashamed, this would be the earliest of extant humanistic comedies. As it is, this position is held by _Paulus_, a Latin comedy of life on the classic model, by the orthodox P. P. Vergerio (1370-1444); which was followed by many others.[16]

Italian tragedy in the 16th century.

Early in the 16th century, tragedy began to be written in the native tongue; but it retained from the first, and never wholly lost, the impress of its origin. Whatever the source of its subjects--which, though mostly of classical origin, were occasionally derived from native romance, or even due to invention--they were all treated with a predilection for the horrible, inspired by the example of Seneca, though no doubt encouraged by a perennial national taste. The chorus, stationary on the stage as in old Roman tragedy, was not reduced to a merely occasional appearance between the acts till the beginning of the 17th century, or ousted altogether from the tragic drama till the earlier half of the 18th. Thus the changes undergone by Italian tragedy were for a long series of generations chiefly confined to the form of versification and the choice of themes; nor was it, at all events till the last century of the course which it has hitherto run, more than the aftergrowth of an aftergrowth. The honour of having been the earliest tragedy in Italian seems to belong to A. da Pistoia's _Pamfila_ (1499), of which the subject was taken from Boccaccio, introduced by the ghost of Seneca, and marred in the taking. Carretto's _Sofonisba_, which hardly rises above the art of a chronicle history, though provided with a chorus, followed in 1502. But the play usually associated with the beginning of Italian tragedy--that with which "th' Italian scene first learned to glow"--was another _Sofonisba_, acted before Leo X. in 1515, and written in blank hendecasyllables instead of the _ottava_ and _terza rima_ of the earlier tragedians (retaining, however, the lyric measures of the chorus), by G. G. Trissino, who was employed as nuncio by that pope. Other tragedies of the former half of the 16th century, largely inspired by Trissino's example, were the _Rosmunda_ of Rucellai, a nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent (1516); Martelli's _Tullia_, Alamanni's _Antigone_ (1532); the _Canace_ of Sperone Speroni, the envious _Mopsus_ of Tasso, who, like Guarini, took Sperone's elaborate style for his model; the _Orazia_, the earliest dramatic treatment of this famous subject by the notorious Aretino (1549); and the nine tragedies of G. B. Giraldi (Cinthio) of Ferrara, among which _L'Orbecche_ (1541) is accounted the best and the bloodiest. Cinthio, the author of those _Hecatommithi_ to which Shakespeare was indebted for so many of his subjects, was (supposing him to have invented these) the first Italian who was the author of the fables of his own dramas; he introduced some novelties into dramatic construction, separating the prologue and probably also the epilogue from the action, and has by some been regarded as the inventor of the pastoral drama. But his style was arid. In the latter half of the 16th century may be mentioned the _Didone_ and the _Marianna_ of L. Dolce, the translator of Euripides and Seneca (1565); A. Leonico's _Il Soldato_ (1550); the _Adriana_ (acted before 1561 or 1586) of L. Groto, which treats the story of _Romeo and Juliet_; Tasso's _Torrismondo_ (1587); the _Tancredi_ of Asinari (1588); and the _Merope_ of Torelli (1593), the last who employed the stationary chorus (_coro fisso_) on the Italian stage. Leonico's _Soldato_ is noticeable as supposed to have given rise to the _tragedia cittadina_, or domestic tragedy, of which there are few examples in the Italian drama, and De Velo's _Tamar_ (1586) as written in prose. Subjects of modern historical interest were in this period treated only in isolated instances.[17]

Italian tragedy in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Maffei.

Metastasio.

Alfieri.

The tragedians of the 17th century continued to pursue the beaten track, marked out already in the 16th by rigid prescription. In course of time, however, they sought by the introduction of musical airs to compromise with the danger with which their art was threatened of being (in Voltaire's phrase) extinguished by the beautiful monster, the opera, now rapidly gaining ground in the country of its origin. (See OPERA.) To Count P. Bonarelli (1589-1659), the author of _Solimano_, is on the other hand ascribed the first disuse of the chorus in Italian tragedy. The innovation of the use of rhyme attempted in the learned Pallavicino's _Erminigildo_ (1655), and defended by him in a discourse prefixed to the play, was unable to achieve a permanent success in Italy any more than in England; its chief representative was afterwards Martelli (d. 1727), whose rhymed Alexandrian verse (_Martelliano_), though on one occasion used in comedy by Goldoni, failed to commend itself to the popular taste. By the end of the 17th century Italian tragedy seemed destined to expire, and the great tragic actor Cotta had withdrawn in disgust at the apathy of the public towards the higher forms of the drama. The 18th century was, however, to witness a change, the beginnings of which are attributed to the institution of the Academy of the Arcadians at Rome (1690). The principal efforts of the new school of writers and critics were directed to the abolition of the chorus, and to a general increase of freedom in treatment. Before long the marquis S. Maffei with his _Merope_ (first printed 1713) achieved one of the most brilliant successes recorded in the history of dramatic literature. This play, which is devoid of any love-story, long continued to be considered the masterpiece of Italian tragedy; Voltaire, who declared it "worthy of the most glorious days of Athens," adapted it for the French stage, and it inspired a celebrated production of the English drama.[18] It was followed by a tragedy full of horrors,[19] noticeable as having given rise to the first Italian dramatic _parody_; and by the highly esteemed productions of Granelli (d. 1769) and his contemporary Bettinelli. P. T. Metastasio (1698-1782), who had early begun his career as a dramatist by a strict adherence to the precepts of Aristotle, gained celebrity by his contributions to the operatic drama at Naples, Venice and Vienna (where he held office as _poeta cesareo_, whose function was to arrange the court entertainments). But his _libretti_ have a poetic value of their own;[20] and Voltaire pronounced much of him worthy of Corneille and of Racine, when at their best. The influence of Voltaire had now come to predominate over the Italian drama; and, in accordance with the spirit of the times, greater freedom prevailed in the choice of tragic themes. Thus the greatest of Italian tragic poets. Count V. Alfieri (1749-1803), found his path prepared for him. Alfieri's grand and impassioned treatment of his subjects caused his faultiness of form, which he never altogether overcame, to be forgotten. His themes were partly classical;[21] but the spirit of a love of freedom which his creations[22] breathe was the herald of the national ideas of the future. Spurning the usages of French tragedy, his plays, which abound in soliloquies, owe part of their effect to an impassioned force of declamation, part to those "points" by which Italian acting seems pre-eminently capable of thrilling an audience. He has much besides the subjects of two of his dramas[23] in common with Schiller, but his amazon-muse (as Schlegel called her) was not schooled into serenity, like the muse of the German poet. Among his numerous plays (21), _Merope_ and _Saul_, and perhaps _Mirra_, are accounted his masterpieces.

Tragedians since Alfieri.

The political colouring given by Alfieri to Italian tragedy reappears in the plays of U. Foscolo and A. Manzoni, both of whom are under the influence of the romantic school of modern literature; and to these names must be added those of S. Pellico and G. B. Niccolini (1785-1861), Paolo Giacometti (b. 1816) and others, whose dramas[24] treat largely national themes familiar to all students of modern history and literature. In their hands Italian tragedy upon the whole adhered to its love of strong situations and passionate declamation. Since the successful efforts of G. Modena (1804-1861) renovated the tragic stage in Italy, the art of tragic acting long stood at a higher level in this than in almost any other European country; in Adelaide Ristori (Marchesa del Grillo) the tragic stage lost one of the greatest of modern actresses; and Ernesto Rossi (1827-1896) and Tommaso Salvini long remained rivals in the noblest forms of tragedy.

Italian comedy; popular forms.

Commedia dell' arte.

Masked comedy.

In comedy, the efforts of the scholars of the Italian Renaissance for a time went side by side with the progress of the popular entertainments noticed above. While the _contrasti_ of the close of the 15th and of the 16th century were disputations between pairs of abstract or allegorical figures, in the _frottola_ human types take the place of abstractions, and more than two characters appear. The _farsa_ (a name used of a wide variety of entertainments) was still under medieval influences, and in this popular form Alione of Asti (soon after 1500) was specially productive. To these popular diversions a new literary as well as social significance was given by the Neapolitan court-poet Sannazaro (c. 1492); about the same time a _capitano valoroso_, Venturino of Pesara, first brought on the modern stage the _capitano glorioso_ or _spavente_, the military braggart, who owed his origin both to Plautus[25] and to the Spanish officers who abounded in the Italy of those days. The popular character-comedy, a relic of the ancient _Atellanae_, likewise took a new lease of life--and this in a double form. The _improvised_ comedy (_commedia a soggetto_) was now as a rule performed by professional actors, members of a _craft_, and was thence called the _commedia dell' arte_, which is said to have been invented by Francesco (called Terenziano) Cherea, the favourite player of Leo X. Its scenes, still unwritten except in skeleton (_scenario_), were connected together by the ligatures or links (_lazzi_) of the _arlecchino_, the descendant of the ancient Roman _sannio_ (whence our _zany_). Harlequin's summit of glory was probably reached early in the 17th century, when he was ennobled in the person of Cecchino by the emperor Matthias; of Cecchino's successors, Zaccagnino and Truffaldino, we read that "they shut the door in Italy to good harlequins." Distinct from this growth is that of the _masked_ comedy, the action of which was chiefly carried on by certain typical figures in masks, speaking in local dialects,[26] but which was not improvised, and indeed from the nature of the case hardly could have been. Its inventor was A. Beolco of Padua, who called himself Ruzzante (joker), and is memorable under that name as the first actor-playwright--a combination of extreme significance for the history of the modern stage. He published six comedies in various dialects, including the Greek of the day (1530). This was the masked comedy to which the Italians so tenaciously clung, and in which, as all their own and imitable by no other nation, they took so great a pride that even Goldoni was unable to overthrow it. Improvisation and burlesque, alike abominable to comedy proper, were inseparable from the species.

Early Italian regular comedy.

Meanwhile, the Latin imitations of Roman, varied by occasional translations of Greek, comedies early led to the production of Italian translations, several of which were performed at Ferrara in the last quarter of the 15th century, whence they spread to Milan, Pavia and other towns of the north. Contemporaneously, imitations of Latin comedy made their appearance, for the most part in rhymed verse; most of them applying classical treatment to subjects derived from Boccaccio's and other _novelle_, some still mere adaptations of ancient models. In these circumstances it is all but idle to assign the honour of having been "the first Italian comedy"--and thus the first comedy in modern dramatic literature--to any particular play. Boiardo's _Timone_ (before 1494), for which this distinction was frequently claimed, is to a large extent founded on a dialogue of Lucian's; and, since some of its personages are abstractions, and Olympus is domesticated on an upper stage, it cannot be regarded as more than a transition from the moralities. A. Ricci's _I Tre Tiranni_ (before 1530) seems still to belong to the same transitional species. Among the earlier imitators of Latin comedy in the vernacular may be noted G. Visconti, one of the poets patronized by Ludovico il Moro at Milan;[27] the Florentines G. B. Araldo, J. Nardi, the historian,[28] and D. Gianotti.[29] The step--very important had it been adopted consistently or with a view to consistency--of substituting prose for verse as the diction of comedy, is sometimes attributed to Ariosto; but, though his first two comedies were originally written in prose, the experiment was not new, nor did he persist in its adoption. Caretto's _I Sei Contenti_ dates from the end of the 15th century, and Publio Filippo's _Formicone_, taken from Apuleius, followed quite early in the 16th. Machiavelli, as will be seen, wrote comedies both in prose and in verse.

But, whoever wrote the first Italian comedy, Ludovico Ariosto was the first master of the species. All but the first two of his comedies, belonging as they do to the field of _commedia erudita_, or scholarly comedy, are in blank verse, to which he gave a singular mobility by the dactylic ending of the line (_sdrucciolo_). Ariosto's models were the masterpieces of the _palliata_, and his morals those of his age, which emulated those of the worst days of ancient Rome or Byzantium in looseness, and surpassed them in effrontery. He chose his subjects accordingly; but his dramatic genius displayed itself in the effective drawing of character,[30] and more especially in the skilful management of complicated intrigues.[31] Such, with an additional brilliancy of wit and lasciviousness of tone, are likewise the characteristics of Machiavelli's famous prose comedy, the _Mandragola_ (_The Magic Draught_);[32] and at the height of their success, of the plays of P. Aretino,[33] especially the prose _Marescalco_ (1526-1527) whose name, it has been said, ought to be written in asterisks. It may be added that the plays of Ariosto and his followers were represented with magnificent scenery and settings. Other dramatists of the 16th century were B. Accolti, whose _Virginia_ (prob. before 1513) treats the story from Boccaccio which reappears in _All's Well that Ends Well_; G. Cecchi, F. d'Ambra, A. F. Grazzini, N. Secco or Secchi and L. Dolce--all writers of romantic comedy of intrigue in verse or prose.

The pastoral drama.

During the same century the "pastoral drama" flourished in Italy. The origin of this peculiar species--which was the bucolic idyll in a dramatic form, and which freely lent itself to the introduction of both mythological and allegorical elements--was purely literary, and arose directly out of the classical studies and tastes of the Renaissance. It was very far removed from the genuine peasant plays which flourished in Venetia and Tuscany early in the 16th century. The earliest example of the artificial, but in some of its productions exquisite, growth in question was the renowned scholar A. Politian's _Orfeo_ (1472), which begins like an idyll and ends like a tragedy. Intended to be performed with music--for the pastoral drama is the parent of the opera--this beautiful work tells its story simply. N. da Correggio's (1450-1508) _Cefalo_, or _Aurora_, and others followed, before in 1554 A. Beccari produced, as totally new of its kind, his Arcadian pastoral drama _Il Sagrifizio_, in which the comic element predominates. But an epoch in the history of the species is marked by the _Aminta_ of Tasso (1573), in whose Arcadia is allegorically mirrored the Ferrara court. Adorned by choral lyrics of great beauty, it presents an allegorical treatment of a social and moral problem; and since the conception of the characters, all of whom think and speak of nothing but love, is artificial, the charm of the poem lies not in the interest of its action, but in the passion and sweetness of its sentiment. This work was the model of many others, and the pastoral drama reached its height of popularity in the famous _Pastor fido_ (written before 1590) of G. B. Guarini, which, while founded on a tragic love-story, introduces into its complicated plot a comic element, partly with a satirical intention. It is one of those exceptional works which, by circumstance as well as by merit, have become the property of the world's literature at large. Thus, both in Italian and in other literatures, the pastoral drama became a distinct species, characterized, like the great body of modern pastoral poetry in general, by a tendency either towards the artificial or towards the burlesque. Its artificiality affected the entire growth of Italian comedy, including the _commedia dell' arte_, and impressed itself in an intensified form upon the opera. The foremost Italian masters of the last-named species, so far as it can claim to be included in the poetic drama, were A. Zeno (1668-1750) and P. Metastasio.

Comedy in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Goldoni.

Gozzi.

The comic dramatists of the 17th century are grouped as followers of the classical and of the romantic school, G. B. della Porta (q.v.) and G. A. Cicognini (whom Goldoni describes as full of whining pathos and commonplace drollery, but as still possessing a great power to interest) being regarded as the leading representatives of the former. But neither of these largely intermixed groups of writers could, with all its fertility, prevail against the competition, on the one hand of the musical drama, and on the other of the popular farcical entertainments and those introduced in imitation of Spanish examples. Italian comedy had fallen into decay, when its reform was undertaken by the wonderful theatrical genius of C. Goldoni. One of the most fertile and rapid of playwrights (of his 150 comedies 16 were written and acted in a single year), he at the same time pursued definite aims as a dramatist. Disgusted with the conventional buffoonery, and ashamed of the rampant immorality of the Italian comic stage, he drew his characters from real life, whether of his native city (Venice)[34] or of society at large, and sought to enforce virtuous and pathetic sentiments without neglecting the essential objects of his art. Happy and various in his choice of themes, and dipping deep into a popular life with which he had a genuine sympathy, he produced, besides comedies of general human character,[35] plays on subjects drawn from literary biography[36] or from fiction.[37] Goldoni, whose style was considered defective by the purists whom Italy has at no time lacked, met with a severe critic and a temporarily successful rival in Count C. Gozzi (1722-1806), who sought to rescue the comic drama from its association with the actual life of the middle classes, and to infuse a new spirit into the figures of the old masked comedy by the invention of a new species. His themes were taken from Neapolitan[38] and Oriental[39] fairy tales, to which he accommodated some of the standing figures upon which Goldoni had made war. This attempt at mingling fancy and humour--occasionally of a directly satirical turn[40]--was in harmony with the tendencies of the modern romantic school; and Gozzi's efforts, which though successful found hardly any imitators in Italy, have a family resemblance to those of Tieck and of some more recent writers whose art wings its flight, through the windows, "over the hills and far away."

Comedians after Goldoni.

During the latter part of the 18th and the early years of the 19th century comedy continued to follow the course marked out by its acknowledged master Goldoni, under the influence of the sentimental drama of France and other countries. Abati Andrea Villi, the marquis Albergati Capacelli, Antonio Simone Sografi (1760-1825), Federici, and Pietro Napoli Signorelli (1731-1815), the historian of the drama, are mentioned among the writers of this school; to the 19th century belong Count Giraud, Marchisio (who took his subjects especially from commercial life), and Nota, a fertile writer, among whose plays are three treating the lives of poets. Of still more recent date are L. B. Bon and A. Brofferio. At the same time, the comedy of dialect to which the example of Goldoni had given sanction in Venice, flourished there as well as in the mutually remote spheres of Piedmont and Naples. Quite modern developments must remain unnoticed here; but the fact cannot be ignored that they signally illustrate the perennial vitality of the modern drama in the home of its beginnings. A new realistic style set fully in about the middle of the 18th century with P. Ferrari and A. Torelli; and though an historical reaction towards classical and medieval themes is associated with the names of P. Cossa and G. Giacosa, modernism reasserted itself through P. Bracco and other dramatists. It should be noted that the influence of great actors, more especially Ermete Novelli and Eleanora Duse, must be credited with a large share of the success with which the Italian stage has held its own even against the foreign influences to which it gave room. And it would seem as if even the paradoxical endeavour of the poet Gabrielle d' Annunzio to lyricize the drama by ignoring action as its essence were a problem for the solution of which the stage can furnish unexpected conditions of its own. In any event, both Italian tragedy and Italian comedy have survived periods of a seemingly hopeless decline; and the fear has vanished that either the opera or the ballet might succeed in ousting from the national stage the legitimate forms of the national drama.

(b) _Greece._

Modern Greek and Dalmatian drama.

The dramatic literature of the later Hellenes is a creation of the literary movement which preceded their noble struggle for independence, or which may be said to form part of that struggle. After beginning with dramatic dialogues of a patriotic tendency, it took a step in advance with the tragedies of J. R. Nerulos[41] (1778-1850), whose name belongs to the political as well as to the literary history of his country. His comedies--especially one directed against the excesses of journalism[42]--largely contributed to open a literary life for the modern Greek tongue. Among the earlier patriotic Greek dramatists of the 19th century are T. Alkaeos, J. Zampelios (whose tragic style was influenced by that of Alfieri),[43] S. K. Karydis and A. Valaoritis. A. Zoiros[44] is noteworthy as having introduced the use of prose into Greek tragedy, while preserving to it that association with sentiments and aspirations which will probably long continue to pervade the chief productions of modern Greek literature. The love of the theatre is ineradicable from Attic as it is from Italian soil; and the tendencies of the young dramatic literature of Hellas which is not wholly absorbed in the effort to keep abreast of recent modern developments, seem to justify the hope that a worthy future awaits it.

Under Italian influence an interesting dramatic growth attained to some vitality in the Dalmatian lands about the beginning of the 16th century, where the religious drama, whose days were passing away in Italy, found favour with a people with a scant popular literature of its own. At Ragusa Italian literary influence had been spread by the followers of Petrarch from the later years of the 15th century; here several Servo-Croatian writers produced religious plays in the manner of the Italian _rappresentazioni_; and a gifted poet, Martin Drzic, composed, besides religious plays and farces, a species of pastoral which enjoyed much favour.

(c) _Spain._

Spain is the only country of modern Europe which shares with England the honour of having achieved, at a relatively early date, the creation of a genuinely national form of the regular drama. So proper to Spain was the form of the drama which she produced and perfected, that to it the term _romantic_ has been specifically applied, though so restricted a use of the epithet is clearly unjustifiable. The influences which from the Romance peoples--in whom Christian and Germanic elements mingled with the legacy of Roman law, learning and culture--spread to the Germanic nations were represented with the most signal force and fulness in the institutions of chivalry,--to which, in the words of Scott, "it was peculiar to blend military valour with the strongest passions which actuate the human mind, the feelings of devotion and those of love." These feelings, in their combined operation upon the national character, and in their reflection in the national literature, were not confined to Spain; but nowhere did they so long or so late continue to animate the moral life of a nation.

Outward causes contributed to this result. For centuries after the crusades had become a mere memory, Spain was a battle-ground between the Cross and the Crescent. And it was just at the time when the Renaissance was establishing new starting-points for the literary progress of Europe, that Christian Spain rose to the height of Catholic as well as national self-consciousness by the expulsion of the Moors and the conquest of the New World. From their rulers or rivals of so many centuries the Spaniards derived that rich, if not very varied, glow of colour which became permanently distinctive of their national life, and more especially of its literary and artistic expressions; they also perhaps derived from the same source a not less characteristically refined treatment of the passion of love. The ideas of Spanish chivalry--more especially religious devotion and a punctilious sense of personal honour--asserted themselves (according to a process often observable in the history of civilization) with peculiar distinctness in literature and art, after the period of great achievements to which they had contributed in other fields had come to an end. The ripest glories of the Spanish drama belong to an age of national decay--mindful, it is true, of the ideas of a greater past. The chivalrous enthusiasm pervading so many of the masterpieces of its literature is indeed a distinctive feature of the Spanish nation in all, even in the least hopeful, periods of its later history; and the religious ardour breathed by these works, though associating itself with what is called the Catholic Reaction, is in truth only a manifestation of the spirit which informed the noblest part of the Reformation movement itself. The Spanish drama neither sought nor could seek to emancipate itself from views and forms of religious life more than ever sacred to the Spanish people since the glorious days of Ferdinand and Isabella; and it is not so much in the beginnings as in the great age of Spanish dramatic literature that it seems most difficult to distinguish between what is to be termed a religious and what a secular play. After Spain had thus, the first after England among modern European countries, fully unfolded that incomparably richest expression of national life and sentiment in an artistic form--a truly national dramatic literature,--the terrible decay of her greatness and prosperity gradually impaired the strength of a brilliant but, of its nature, dependent growth. In the absence of high original genius the Spanish dramatists began to turn to foreign models, though little supported in such attempts by popular sympathy; and it is only in more recent times that the Spanish drama has sought to reproduce the ancient forms from whose masterpieces the nation had never become estranged, while accommodating them to tastes and tendencies shared by later Spanish literature with that of Europe at large.

Early efforts.

Gil Vicente.

The earlier dramatic efforts of Spanish literature may without inconvenience be briefly dismissed. The reputed author of the _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_ (R. Cota the elder) likewise composed the first act of a story of intrigue and character, purely dramatic but not intended for representation. This tragic comedy of _Calisto and Meliboea_, which was completed (in 21 acts) by 1499, afterwards became famous under the name of _Celestina_; it was frequently imitated and translated, and was adapted for the Spanish stage by R. de Zepeda in 1582. But the father of the Spanish drama was J. de la Enzina, whose _representaciones_ under the name of "eclogues" were dramatic dialogues of a religious or pastoral character. His attempts were imitated more especially by the Portuguese Gil Vicente, whose writings for the stage appear to be included in the period 1502-1536, and who wrote both in Spanish and in his native tongue. A further impulse came, as was natural, from Spaniards resident in Italy, and especially from B. de Torres Naharro, who in 1517 published, as the chief among the "firstlings of his genius" (_Propaladia_), a series of eight _comedias_--a term generally applied in Spanish literature to any kind of drama. He claimed some knowledge of the theory of the ancient drama, divided his plays into _jornadas_[45] (to correspond to acts), and opened them with an _introyto_ (prologue). Very various in their subjects, and occasionally odd in form,[46] they were gross as well as audacious in tone, and were soon prohibited by the Inquisition. The church remained unwilling to renounce her control over such dramatic exhibitions as she permitted, and sought to suppress the few plays on not strictly religious subjects which appeared in the early part of the reign of Charles I. Though the universities produced both translations from the classical drama and modern Latin plays, these exercised very little general effect. Juan Perez' (Petreius') posthumous Latin comedies were mainly versions of Ariosto.[47]

Lope de Rueda and his followers.

Classical dramas.

Thus the foundation of the Spanish national theatre was reserved for a man of the people. Cervantes has vividly sketched the humble resources which were at the command of Lope de Rueda, a mechanic of Seville, who with his friend the bookseller Timoneda, and two brother authors and actors in his strolling company, succeeded in bringing dramatic entertainments out of the churches and palaces into the public places of the towns, where they were produced on temporary scaffolds. The manager carried about his properties in a corn-sack; and the "comedies" were still only "dialogues, and a species of eclogues between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess," enlivened at times by intermezzos of favourite comic figures, such as the negress or the Biscayan, "played with inconceivable talent and truthfulness by Lope." One of his plays at least,[48] and one of Timoneda's,[49] seem to have been taken from an Italian source; others mingled modern themes with classical apparitions,[50] one of Timoneda's was (perhaps again through the Italian) from Plautus.[51] Others of a slighter description were called _pasos_,--a species afterwards termed _entremeses_ and resembling the modern French _proverbes_. With these popular efforts of Lope de Rueda and his friends a considerable dramatic activity began in the years 1560-1590 in several Spanish cities, and before the close of this period permanent theatres began to be fitted up at Madrid. Yet Spanish dramatic literature might still have been led to follow Italian into an imitation of classical models. Two plays by G. Bermudez (1577), called by their learned author "the first Spanish tragedies," treating the national subject of Inez de Castro, but divided into five acts, composed in various metres, and introducing a chorus; a _Dido_ (c. 1580) by C. de Virues (who claimed to have first divided dramas into three _jornadas_); and the tragedies of L. L. de Argensola (acted 1585, and praised in _Don Quixote_) alike represent this tendency.

Cervantes.

Such were the alternatives which had opened for the Spanish drama, when at last, about the same time as that of the English, its future was determined by writers of original genius. The first of these was the immortal Cervantes, who, however, failed to anticipate by his earlier plays (1584-1588) the great (though to him unproductive) success of his famous romance. In his endeavour to give a poetic character to the drama he fell upon the expedient of introducing personified abstractions speaking a "divine" or elevated language--a device which was for a time favourably received. But these plays exhibit a neglect or ignorance of the laws of dramatic construction; their action is episodical; and it is from the realism of these episodes (especially in the _Numancia_, which is crowded with both figures and incidents), and from the power and flow of the declamation, that their effect must have been derived. When in his later years (1615) Cervantes returned to dramatic composition, the style and form of the national drama had been definitively settled by a large number of writers, the brilliant success of whose acknowledged chief may previously have diverted Cervantes from his labours for the theatre. His influence upon the general progress of dramatic literature is, however, to be sought, not only in his plays, but also in those _novelas exemplares_--incomparable alike in their clearness and their terseness of narrative--to which more than one drama is indebted for its plot, and for much of its dialogue to boot.

Lope de Vega.

Lope de Vega, one of the most astonishing geniuses the world has known, permanently established the national forms of the Spanish drama. Some of these were in their beginnings taken over by him from ruder predecessors; some were cultivated with equal or even superior success by subsequent authors; but in variety, as in fertility of dramatic production, he has no rivals. His fertility, which was such that he wrote about 1500 plays, besides 300 dramatic works classed as _autos sacramentales_ and _entremeses_, and a vast series of other literary compositions, has indisputably prejudiced his reputation with those to whom he is but a name and a number. Yet as a dramatist Lope more fully exemplifies the capabilities of the Spanish theatre than any of his successors, though as a poet Calderon may deserve the palm. Nor would it be possible to imagine a truer representative of the Spain of his age than a poet who, after suffering the hardships of poverty and exile, and the pangs of passion, sailed against the foes of the faith in the Invincible Armada, subsequently became a member of the Holy Inquisition and of the order of St Francis, and after having been decorated by the pope with the cross of Malta and a theological doctorate, honoured by the nobility, and idolized by the nation, ended with the names of Jesus and Mary on his lips. From the plays of such a writer we may best learn the manners and the sentiments, the ideas of religion and honour, of the Spain of the Philippine age, the age when she was most prominent in the eyes of Europe and most glorious in her own. For, with all its inventiveness and vigour, the genius of Lope primarily set itself the task of pleasing his public,--the very spirit of whose inner as well as outer life is accordingly mirrored in his dramatic works. In them we have, in the words of Lope's French translator Baret, "the movement, the clamour, the conflict of unforeseen intrigues suitable to unreflecting spectators; perpetual flatteries addressed to an unextinguishable national pride; the painting of passions dear to a people never tired of admiring itself; the absolute sway of the point of honour; the deification of revenge; the adoration of symbols; buffoonery and burlesque, everywhere beloved of the multitude, but here never defiled by obscenities, for this people has a sense of delicacy, and the foundation of its character is nobility; lastly, the flow of proverbs which at times escape from the _gracioso_" (the comic servant domesticated in the Spanish drama by Lope)--"the commonplace literature of those who possess no other."

Comedias de capa y espada.

Heroicas.

Comedias de santos.

Autos sacramentales.

Entremeses.

The plays of Lope, and those of the national Spanish drama in general, are divided into classes which it is naturally not always easy, and which there is no reason to suppose him always to have intended, to keep distinct from one another. After in his early youth composing eclogues, pastoral plays, and allegorical moralities in the old style, he began his theatrical activity at Madrid about 1590, and the plays which he thenceforth produced have been distributed under the following heads. The _comedias_, all of which are in verse, include (1) the so-called _c. de capa y espada_--not comedies proper, but dramas in which the principal personages are taken from the class of society that wears cloak and sword. Gallantry is their main theme, an interesting and complicated, but well-constructed and perspicuous intrigue their chief feature; and this is usually accompanied by an underplot in which the _gracioso_ plays his part. Their titles are frequently taken from the old proverbs or proverbial phrases of the people[52] upon the theme suggested, by which the plays often (as G. H. Lewes admirably expresses it) constitute a kind of gloss (_glosa_) in action. This is the favourite species of the national Spanish theatre; and to the plots of the plays belonging to it the drama of other nations owes a debt almost incalculable in extent. (2) The _c. heroicas_ are distinguished by some of their personages being of royal or very high rank, and by their themes being often historical and largely[53] (though not invariably[54]) taken from the national annals, or founded on contemporary or recent events.[55] Hence they exhibit a greater gravity of tone; but in other respects there is no difference between them and the cloak-and-sword comedies with which they share the element of comic underplots. Occasionally Lope condescended in the opposite direction, to (3) plays of which the scene is laid in common life, but for which no special name appears to have existed.[56] Meanwhile, both he and his successors were too devoted sons of the church not to acknowledge in some sort her claim to influence the national drama. This claim she had never relinquished, even when she could no longer retain an absolute control over the stage. For a time, indeed, she was able to reassert even this; for the exhibition of all secular plays was in 1598 prohibited by the dying Philip II., and remained so for two years; and Lope with his usual facility proceeded to supply religious plays of various kinds. After a few dramas on scriptural subjects he turned to the legends of the saints; and the _comedias de santos_, of which he wrote a great number, became an accepted later Spanish variety of the miracle-play. True, however, to the popular instincts of his genius, he threw himself with special zeal and success into the composition of another kind of religious plays--a development of the Corpus Christi pageants, in honour of which all the theatres had to close their doors for a month. These were the famous _autos sacramentales_ (i.e. solemn "acts" or proceedings in honour of the Sacrament), which were performed in the open air by actors who had filled the cars of the sacred procession. Of these Lope wrote about 400. These entertainments were arranged on a fixed scheme, comprising a prologue in dialogue between two or more actors in character (_loa_), a farce (_entremes_), and the _auto_ proper, an allegorical scene of religious purport, as an example of which Ticknor cites the _Bridge of the World_,--in which the Prince of Darkness in vain seeks to defend the bridge against the Knight of the Cross, who finally leads the Soul of Man in triumph across it. Not all the _entremeses_ of Lope and others were, however, composed for insertion in these _autos_. This long-lived popular species, together with the old kind of dramatic dialogue called _eclogues_, completes the list of the varieties of his dramatic works.

The school of Lope.

The example of Lope was followed by a large number of writers, and Spain thus rapidly became possessed of a dramatic literature almost unparalleled in quantity--for in fertility also Lope was but the first among many. Among the writers of Lope's school, his friend G. de Castro (1569-1631) must not be passed by, for his _Cid_[57] was the basis of Corneille's; nor J. P. de Montalban, "the first-born of Lope's genius," the extravagance of whose imagination, like that of Lee, culminated in madness. Soon after him died (1639) Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, in whose plays, as contrasted with those of Lope, has been recognized the distinctive element of a moral purpose. To G. Tellez, called Tirso de Molina (d. 1648), no similar praise seems due; but the frivolous gaiety of the inventor of the complete character of Don Juan was accompanied by ingenuity in the construction of his excellent[58] though at times "sensational"[59] plots. F. de Rojas Zorrilla (b. 1607), who was largely plundered by the French dramatists of the latter half of the century, survived Molina for about a generation. In vain scholars of strictly classical tastes protested in essays in prose and verse against the ascendancy of the popular drama; the prohibition of Philip II. had been recalled two years after his death and was never renewed; and the activity of the theatre spread through the towns and villages of the land, everywhere under the controlling influence of the school of writers who had established so complete a harmony between the drama and the tastes and tendencies of the people.

Calderon.

The glories of Spanish dramatic literature reached their height in P. Calderon de la Barca, though in the history of the Spanish theatre he holds only the second place. He elaborated some of the forms of the national drama, but brought about no changes of moment in any of them. Even the brilliancy of his style, glittering with a constant reproduction of the same family of tropes, and the variety of his melodious versification, are mere intensifications of the poetic qualities of Lope, while in their moral and religious sentiments, and their general views of history and society, there is no difference between the two. Like Lope, Calderon was a soldier in his youth and an ecclesiastic in his later years; like his senior, he suited himself to the tastes of both court and people, and applied his genius with equal facility to the treatment of religious and of secular themes. In fertility Calderon was inferior to Lope (for he wrote not many more than 100 plays); but he surpasses the elder poet in richness of style, and more especially in fire of imagination. In his _autos_ (of which he is said to have left not less than 73), Calderon probably attained to his most distinctive excellence; some of these appear to take a wide range of allegorical invention,[60] while they uniformly possess great beauty of poetical detail. Other of his most famous or interesting pieces are _comedias de santos_.[61] In his secular plays he treats as wide a variety of subjects as Lope, but it is not a dissimilar variety; nor would it be easy to decide whether a poet so uniformly admirable within his limits has achieved greater success in romantic historical tragedy,[62] in the comedy of amorous intrigue,[63] or in a dramatic work combining fancy and artificiality in such a degree that it has been diversely described as a romantic caprice and as a philosophical poem.[64]

Contemporaries of Calderon.

Moreto and the comedia de figuron.

During the life of the second great master of the Spanish drama there was little apparent abatement in the productivity of its literature; while the _autos_ continued to flourish in Madrid and elsewhere, till in 1765 (shortly before the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain) their public representation was prohibited by royal decree. In the world of fashion, the opera had reached Spain already during Calderon's lifetime, together with other French influences, and the great dramatist had himself written one or two of his plays for performance with music. But the regular national drama continued to command popular favour, and with A. Moreto may be said to have actually taken a step in advance. While he wrote in all the forms established by Lope and cultivated by Calderon, his manner seems most nearly to approach the masterpieces of French and later English comedy of character; he was the earliest writer of the _comedias de figuron_, in which the most prominent personage is (in Congreve's phrase) "a character of affectation," in other words, the Spanish fop of real life.[65] His masterpiece, a favourite of many stages, is one of the most graceful and pleasing of modern comedies--simple but interesting in plot, and true to nature, with something like Shakespearian truth.[66] Other writers trod more closely in the footsteps of the masters without effecting any noticeable changes in the form of the Spanish drama; even the _saynete_ (tit-bit), which owes its name to Benavente (fl. 1645), was only a kind of _entremes_. The Spanish drama in all its forms retained its command over the nation, because they were alike popular in origin and character; nor is there any other example of so complete an adaptation of a national art to the national taste and sentiment in its ethics and aesthetics, in the nature of the plots of the plays (whatever their origin), in the motives of their actions, in the conduct and tone and in the very costume of their characters.

Decay of the national Spanish drama.

The French school of the 18th century.

Other later dramatists.