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 of foreign examples will satisfy Spanish dramatists—especially when, like the author of Doña Perfecta (Perez Galdos), they have excellent home material of their own for adaptation,—or that the Spanish public itself, with fine actors and actresses still upholding the lofty traditions of the national drama, will remain too fatigued to consume the drama unless bit by bit—in the shape of zarzuelas and similar one-act confections. Whatever may be the future of one of the noblest of modern dramatic literatures, it may confidently be predicted that, so long as Spain is Spain, her theatre will not be permanently either denationalized or degraded.

 

The Portuguese drama in its earlier phases, especially before in the latter part of the 14th century the nation completely achieved its independence, seems to have followed much the same course as the Spanish; and the religious drama in all its prevailing forms and direct outgrowths retained its popularity even by the side of the products of the Renaissance. In the later period of that movement translations of classical dramas into the vernacular were stimulated by the cosmopolitan example of George Buchanan, who for a time held a post in the university of Coimbra; to this class of play Teive’s Johannes (1553) may be supposed to have belonged. In the next generation Antonio Ferreira and others still wrote comedies more or less on the classical model. But the rather vague title of “the Plautus of Portugal” is accorded to an earlier comic writer, the celebrated Gil Vicente, who died about 1536, after, it is stated, producing forty-two plays. He was the founder of popular Portuguese comedy, and his plays were called autos, or by the common name of praticas. Among his most gifted successors are mentioned A. Ribeiro, called Chiado (the mocking-bird), who died in 1590; his brother Jeronymo, B. Dias, A. Pires, J. Pinto, H. Lopes and others. The dramatic efforts of the illustrious poet Luis de Camões (Camoens) are relatively of slight importance; they consist of one of the many modern versions of the Amphitruo, and of two other comedies, of which the earlier (Filodemo) was acted at Goa in 1553, the subjects having a romantic colour. Of greater importance were the contributions to dramatic literature of F. de Sá de Miranda, who, being well acquainted with both Spanish and Italian life, sought early in his career to domesticate the Italian comedy of intrigue on the Portuguese stage; but he failed to carry with him the public taste, which preferred the autos of Gil Vicente. The followers of Miranda were, however, more successful than he had been himself, among them the already-mentioned Antonio Ferreira; the prose plays of Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, which bear some resemblance to the Spanish Celestina, are valuable as pictures of contemporary manners in city and court.

The later Portuguese dramatic literature seems also to have passed through phases corresponding to those of the Spanish, though with special features of its own. In the 18th century Alcino Mycenio (1728–1770), known as Domingos dos Reis Quito in everyday life, in which his avocation was that of Allan Ramsay, was remarkably successful with a series of plays, including of course an Inez de Castro, which in a subsequent adaptation by J. B. Gomes long held the national stage. Another dramatist, of both merit and higher aspirations, was Lycidas Cynthio (alias Manoel de Figueiredo, 1725–1801). But the romantic movement was very late in coming to Portugal. Curiously enough, one of its chief representatives, the viscount da Almeida Garrett, exhibited his sympathy with French, revolutionary and anti-English ideas by a tragedy on the subject of Cato; but his later works were mainly on national subjects. The expansive tendencies of later Portuguese dramatic literature are illustrated by the translations of A. F. de Castilho, who even ventured upon Goethe’s Faust (1872). Among 19th-century dramatists are to be noted Pereira da Cunha, R. Cordeiro, E. Biester, L. Palmeirin, and Garrett’s disciple F. G. de Amorim, by whom both political and social themes have been freely treated. The reaction against romanticism observable in Portuguese poetic literature can hardly fail to affect (or perhaps has already affected) the growth of the national drama; for the receptive qualities of both are not less striking than the productive.

 

France was the only country, besides Italy, in which classical tragedy was naturalized. In 1531 the Benedictine Barthélemy of Loches printed a Christus Xylonicus; and a very notable impulse was given both to the translation and to the imitation of ancient models by a series of efforts made in the university of Paris and other French places of learning. The most successful of these attempts was the Johannes Baptistes of George Buchanan, who taught in Paris for five years and at a rather later date resided at Bordeaux, where in 1540 he composed this celebrated tragedy (afterwards translated into four or five modern languages), in which it is now ascertained that he had in view the trial and condemnation of Sir Thomas More. He also wrote Jephthah, and translated into Latin the Medea and Alcestis of Euripides. At a rather later date the great scholar M. A. Muret (Muretus) produced his Julius Caesar, a work perhaps superior in correctness to Buchanan’s tragic masterpiece, but inferior to it in likeness to life. About the same time the enthusiasm of the Paris classicists showed itself in several translations of Sophoclean and Euripidean tragedies into French verse.

Thus the beginnings of the regular drama in France, which, without absolutely determining, potently swayed its entire course, came to connect themselves directly with the great literary movement of the Renaissance. Du Bellay sounded the note of attack which converted that movement in France into an endeavour to transform the national literature; and in Ronsard the classical school of poetry put forward its conquering hero and sovereign lawgiver. Among the disciples who gathered round Ronsard, and with him formed the “Pleiad” of French literature, Étienne Jodelle, the reformer of the French theatre, soon held a distinguished place. The stage of this period left ample room for the enterprise of this youthful writer. The popularity of the old entertainments had reached its height when Louis XII., in his conflict with Pope Julius II., had not scrupled to call in the aid of Pierre Gringoire (Gringon), and when the Mère sotte had mockingly masqueraded in the petticoats of Holy Church. In the reign of Francis I. the Inquisition, and on occasion the king himself, had to some extent succeeded in repressing the audacity of the actors, whose follies were at the same time an utter abomination in the eyes of the Huguenots. For a time the very mysteries of the Brethren of the Passion had been prohibited; while the moralities and farces had sunk to an almost contemptible level. Yet to this reign belong the contributions to farce-literature of three writers so distinguished as Rabelais (non-extant), Clément Marot and Queen Margaret of Navarre. Meanwhile isolated translations of Italian as well as classical dramas had in literature begun the movement which Jodelle now transferred to the stage itself. His tragedy Cléopatre captive was produced there on the same day as his comedy L’Eugène, in 1552, his Didon se sacrifiant following in 1558. Thus at a time when a national theatre was perhaps impossible in a country distracted by civil and religious