Chapter XVI

LOPE DE VEGA, CONTINUED.--HIS HEROIC DRAMA, AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS.--GREAT NUMBER ON SUBJECTS FROM SPANISH HISTORY, AND SOME ON CONTEMPORARY EVENTS.

The dramas of Lope de Vega that belong to the next class were called “Comedias Heróicas,” or “Comedias Historiales,”--Heroic or Historical Dramas. The chief differences between these and the last are that they bring on the stage personages in a higher rank of life, such as kings and princes; that they generally have an historical foundation, or, at least, use historical names, as if claiming it; and that their prevailing tone is grave, imposing, and even tragical. They have, however, in general, the same involved, intriguing stories and underplots, the same play of jealousy and an over-sensitive honor, and the same low, comic caricatures to relieve their serious parts, that are found in the dramas of “the Cloak and Sword.” Philip the Second disapproved of this class of plays, thinking they tended to diminish the royal dignity,--a circumstance which shows at once the state of manners at the time, and the influence attributed to the theatre.[325]

[325] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 410.

Lope wrote a very large number of plays in the forms of the heroic drama, which he substantially invented,--perhaps as many as he wrote in any other class. Every thing historical seemed, indeed, to furnish him with a subject, from the earliest annals of the world down to the events of his own time; but his favorite materials were sought in Greek and Roman records, and especially in the chronicles and ballads of Spain itself.

Of the manner in which he dealt with ancient history, his “Roma Abrasada,” or Rome in Ashes, may be taken as a specimen, though certainly one of the least favorable specimens of the class to which it belongs.[326] The facts on which it is founded are gathered from the commonest sources open to its author,--chiefly from the “General Chronicle of Spain”; but they are not formed into a well-constructed or even ingenious plot,[327] and they relate to the whole twenty years that elapsed between the death of Messalina, in the reign of Claudius, and the death of Nero himself, who is not only the hero, but the _gracioso_, or droll, of the piece.

[326] Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, ff. 177, etc. It is
entitled “_Tragedia_ Famosa.”

[327] It is worth while to compare Suetonius, (Books V. and VI.),
and the “Crónica General,” (Parte I. c. 110 and 111), with the
corresponding passages in the “Roma Abrasada.” In one passage of