George Ticknor

“ The buoyancy of life and spirit that he has infused into the gayer divisions of his drama, and the moving tenderness that pervades its graver and more tragical portions, lift us unconsciously to the height where alone his brilliant exhibitions can prevail with our imaginations,—where alone we can be interested and deluded, when we find ourselves in the midst, not only of such a confusion of the different forms of the drama, but of such a confusion of the proper limits of dramatic and lyrical poetry. ”

“ Everywhere his verses charm us by their delicious melody; everywhere he indulges himself in the rich variety of measures which Spanish or Italian poetry offered him,—octave stanzas, terza rima, sonnets, silvas, liras, and the different forms of the redondilla, with the ballad asonantes and consonantes;—showing a mastery over his language extraordinary in itself, and one which, while it sometimes enables him to rise to the loftiest tones of the national drama, seduces him at other times to seek popular favor by fantastic tricks that were wholly unworthy of his genius. ”

“ In carrying out this theory of the Spanish drama, Calderon, as we have seen, often succeeds, and often fails. But when he succeeds, his success is sometimes of no common character. He then sets before us only models of ideal beauty, perfection, and splendor;—a world, he would have it, into which nothing should enter but the highest elements of the national genius. There, the fervid, yet grave, enthusiasm of the old Castilian heroism; the chivalrous adventures of modern, courtly honor; the generous self-devotion of individual loyalty ”

“ He wrote, if we are to judge from the little that has come down to us, in the Italian forms; for his twenty-nine sonnets,—which, with a singularly antique air, are sometimes quite poetical,—a good cancion on the death of a friend, and another on a religious festival at Cadiz, constitute the greater part of his known works. But his little lyric to his guitar, which he calls simply a “Silva,” is worth all the rest. It is entirely Spanish in its tone, and breathes a gentle sensibility, not unmingled with sadness, that finds its way at once to the heart. ”

“ Both Don Quixote and Sancho are thus brought before us, like such living realities, that, at this moment, the figures of the crazed, gaunt, dignified knight and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire dwell bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. The greatest of the great poets—Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton—have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed themselves in more imposing relations with the noblest attributes of our nature ”

“ A communication with the unseen world is opened through a dark and frightful cave. Enio, the godless Spaniard, already converted by an alarming vision, enters it and witnesses its dread secrets; after which he returns, and effects the conversion of the king and court by a long description of what he had seen,—a description which is the only catastrophe to the play.
Besides its religious story, the Purgatory of Saint Patrick has a love-plot, such as might become the most secular drama, and a gracioso as rude and free-spoken as the rudest of his class. ”

“ Do men believe that the innocence of childhood and the fervor of youth, that an idle and dainty nobility and an ignorant populace, can witness without injury such examples of effrontery and grossness, of an insolent and absurd affectation of honor, of contempt of justice and the laws, and of public and private duty, represented on the stage in the most lively colors, and rendered attractive by the enchantment of scenic illusions and the graces of music and verse? ”

“ Indeed, in all its forms, and in all its subsidiary attractions of ballads, entremeses and saynetes, music, and dancing, the old Spanish drama was essentially a popular entertainment, governed by the popular will. In any other country, under the same circumstances, it would hardly have risen above the condition in which it was left by Lope de Rueda, when it was the amusement of the lowest classes of the populace. But the Spaniards have always been a poetical people. There is a romance in their early history, and a picturesqueness in their very costume and manners, that cannot be mistaken. ”

“ Ximena, the daughter of Count Lozano, is represented in the drama as already attached to the young knight; and a contest, therefore, arises between her sense of what she owes to the memory of her father and what she may yield to her own affection; a contest that continues through the whole of the play, and constitutes its chief interest. She comes, indeed, at once to the king, full of a passionate grief, that struggles with success, for a moment, against the dictates of her heart, and claims the punishment of her lover according to the ancient laws of the realm. ”

“ This son, under the name of Mireno, is the hero of the piece. Finding himself possessed of nobler sentiments and higher intelligence than those of the rustics among whom he lives, he half suspects that he is of noble origin; and, escaping from his solitude, appears at court, determined to try his fortune. Accident favors him. He enters the service of the royal favorite, and wins the love of his daughter, who is as free and bold, from an excessive knowledge of the world, as her lover is humble and gentle in his ignorance of it. ”

“ It is impossible to speak of Cervantes as the great genius of the Spanish nation without recalling Lope de Vega, the rival who far surpassed him in contemporary popularity, and rose, during the lifetime of both, to a degree of fame which no Spaniard had yet attained, and which has been since reached by few of any country. To the examination, therefore, of this great man’s claims—which extend to almost every department of the national literature—we naturally turn, after examining those of the author of Don Quixote. ”

“ Other passages might be adduced; but, though striking, they do not enter into the essential interest of the drama. This consists in the exhibition of the heroic character of Herod, broken down by a cruel jealousy, over which the beautiful innocence of his wife triumphs only at the moment of her death; while above them both the fatal dagger, like the unrelenting destiny of the ancient Greek tragedy, hangs suspended, seen only by the spectators, who witness the unavailing struggles of its victims to escape from a fate in which, with every effort, they become more and more involved. ”

“ In the early scenes of Calderon’s drama, we find Herod, with this passionately cherished wife, alarmed by a prediction that he should destroy, with his own dagger, what he most loved in the world, and that Mariamne should be sacrificed to the most formidable of monsters. At the same time we are informed, that the tetrarch, in the excess of his passion for his fair and lovely wife, aspires to nothing less than the mastery of the world,—then in dispute between Antony and Octavius Cæsar,—an empire which he covets only to be able to lay it at her feet. ”

“ But in every thing else there seems no end to their diversities,—whether we regard their subjects, running from the deepest tragedy to the broadest farce, and from the most solemn mysteries of religion down to the loosest frolics of common life, or their style, which embraces every change of tone and measure known to the poetical language of the country. And all these different masses of Lope’s drama, it should be further noted, run insensibly into each other,—the sacred and the secular ”

“ Perhaps the most characteristic of his openings is in his “Love for Reasons of State,” where we have, at the outset, a scene before a lady’s balcony, a rope-ladder, and a duel, all full of Castilian spirit. His more obvious defects are the too great similarity of his characters and incidents; the too frequent introduction of disguised ladies to help on the intrigue; and the needless and shameless indelicacy of some of his stories,—a fault rendered more remarkable by the circumstance, that he himself was an ecclesiastic of rank, and honored in Madrid as a public preacher. ”

“ On their arrival at the stage, the Divine Orpheus, with lyric poetry and music, begins the work of creation, using always language borrowed from Scripture; and at the suitable moment, as he advances, each Day presents itself, roused from its ancient sleep and clothed with symbols indicating the nature of the work that has been accomplished; after which, Human Nature is, in the same way, summoned forth, and appears in the form of a beautiful woman, who is the Eurydice of the fable. ”

“ In Madrid, if he found little to hinder, he also found little to help him, except two rude theatres, or rather court-yards, licensed for the representation of plays, and a dramatic taste formed or forming in the character of the people. But this was enough for a spirit like his. His success was immediate and complete; his popularity overwhelming. Cervantes, as we have seen, declared him to be a “prodigy of nature”; and, though himself seeking both the fame and the profit of a writer for the public stage, generously recognized his great rival as its sole monarch. ”

“ The principle on which so many Spanish dramas turn, that
A sword-thrust heals more quickly than a wound
Inflicted by a word, [649]
is abundantly exemplified. More than once the lady’s secret is protected rather than the friend of the lover, though the friend is in mortal danger at the moment;—the circumstance which gives its name to the drama. At last, the confusion is cleared up by a simple explanation of the original mistakes of all the parties, and a double marriage brings a happy ending to the troubled scene, which frequently seemed quite incapable of it. ”

“ Ercilla is to be counted among the many instances in which Spanish poetical genius and heroism were one feeling. He wrote in the spirit in which he fought; and his principal work is as military as any portion of his adventurous life. Its subject is the very expedition against Arauco which occupied eight or nine years of his youth; and he has simply called it “La Araucana,” making it a long heroic poem in thirty-seven cantos, which, with the exception of two or three trifles of no value, is all that remains of his works. Fortunately, it has proved a sufficient foundation for his fame. ”

“ But in all this there is little that is truly national,—little that is marked with the old Castilian spirit; and if this were all he had done, his fame would by no means stand where we now find it. His prose pastorals and his romances are, indeed, better than his epics; and his didactic poetry, his epistles, and his elegies are occasionally excellent; but it is only when he touches fairly and fully upon the soil of his country,—it is only in his glosas, his letrillas, his ballads, and his light songs and roundelays, that he has the richness and grace which should always have accompanied him. ”

“ No doubt, indeed, much of his power over the mass of the people of his time is to be sought in the charm that belonged to his versification; not unfrequently careless, but almost always fresh, flowing, and effective. Its variety, too, was remarkable. No metre of which the language was susceptible escaped him. The Italian octave stanzas are frequent; the terza rima, though more sparingly used, occurs often; and hardly a play is without one or more sonnets. All this was to please the more fashionable and cultivated among his audience, who had long been enamoured of whatever was Italian ”

“ In the interval, as he tells us, “that great prodigy of nature, Lope de Vega, has raised himself to the monarchy of the theatre, subjected it to his control, and placed all its actors under his jurisdiction; filled the world with becoming plays, happily and well written; ... and if any persons (and in truth there are not a few such) have desired to enter into competition with him and share the glory of his labors, all they have done, when put together, would not equal the half of what has been done by him alone.” ”

“ Parts of it have a more familiar and domestic character than we are accustomed to find on the Spanish stage, particularly the scene where Isabella sits with her women at her wearisome embroidery, during her lover’s absence; the scene of her discouragement and misgiving just before her marriage; and portions of the scene of horror with which the drama closes.
The two lovers are drawn with no little skill. Our interest in them never falters; and their characters are so set forth and developed, that the dreadful catastrophe is no surprise. ”

“ And if to these we add Villegas, who stands quite separate, uniting the spirit of Greek antiquity to that of a truly Castilian genius, and the fresh, graceful popular songs and roundelays, which, by their very nature, break loose from all forms and submit to no classification, we shall have a body of poetry, not, indeed, large, but one that, for its living national feeling on the one side, and its dignity on the other, may be placed without question among the more successful efforts of modern literature. ”

“ Indeed, it is impossible to read far in Calderon without perceiving that his object is mainly to excite a high and feverish interest by his plot and story; and that to do this, he relies almost constantly upon an exaggerated sense of honor, which, in its more refined attributes, certainly did not give its tone to the courts of Philip the Fourth and Charles the Second, and which, with the wide claims he [p. 392] makes for it, could never have been the rule of conduct and intercourse anywhere, without shaking all the foundations of society and poisoning the best and dearest relations of life. ”