Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/140

Rh 124 V E G V E G their studies. 1 Nevertheless, he did write some dramas in which the plan is more fully matured and the execution more carefully carried out ; still, hurried composition and reckless production are after all among the most distinctive marks of his theatrical works. Towards the close of his career Lope somewhat modified the severe and disdainful judgments he had formerly passed upon his dramatic performances ; he seems to have had a presentiment that posterity, in spite of the grave defects of his work in that de partment, would nevertheless place it much higher than the Jeru salem Conquistada, La Dragontca, and other works of which he himself thought so much. In his Egloga d Claudia, which is, so to .say, his literary last will and testament, he claims to have been a creator : &quot; It is to me that the art (of comedy) owes its beginnings, although I have departed from the strictness of Terence, and do not for a moment pretend to deny the part which belongs to the three or four great geniuses who have watched over the infancy of the drama. To whom are we indebted, Claudio, for so many de lineations of love and jealousy, so many moving pieces of eloquence, such a copious supply of all the figures which rhetoric has ever been able to invent ? All that is produced to-day is nothing but imita tion of what art created yesterday. The path, it is I who have opened it up and made it practicable, and everybody now traverses it with ease. It was I who gave the example which is followed and copied on all hands.&quot; We may certainly credit Lope with creative power, with the instinct which enabled him to reproduce the facts of history or those supplied by the imagination in a multi tude of dramatic situations with an astonishing cleverness and flexi bility of expression ; but unfortunately, instead of concentrating his talent upon the production of a limited number of works which he might have brought to perfection, he dissipated it, so to say, and scattered it to the winds. The catalogue of Lope s comedies has been drawn up by himself ; and, in spite of some discrepancies in his figures, it is established that up to 1604 he had composed, in round numbers, as many as 230. In 1609 the figure had risen to 500, in 1618 to 800, in 1620 to 900, in 1625 to 1070, and in 1632 to 1500. Ultimately Montalban in his general survey published in 1636 (Fama Posthuma} set down the total of Lope s dramatic productions at 1800 comedies and 400 autos sacramcntales. Of this number there are nearly 608 comedies of which the text is extant, or which are at least known to us by their titles (from the lists of the Pcrcgrino) ; but the printed or MS. text of only 439 is actually accessible, besides some 40 autos and a few entremescs. Very many of those pieces were printed during Lope s lifetime, either in collections of varies autorcs or as separate issues by booksellers who bought from the actors in an underhand way the manuscripts of their roles or else caused the unpublished comedy to be written down from memory by persons whom they sent to attend the first representation. Such pieces therefore as do not figure in the collection published under Lope s own direction or under that of his friends cannot be regarded as perfectly authentic, and it would be unfair to hold their author responsible for all the faults and defects they exhibit. On the other hand, there exist in various libraries entire comedies in Lope s own handwriting which have never been printed. The classification of this enormous mass of dramatic literature is a task of great difficulty, inasmuch as the terms usually employed, such as comedy, tragedy, and the like, do not apply here. There is not explicitness enough in the division current in Spain, which recognizes three categories : (1) comcdias de capa y espada, the subjects of which- are drawn from everyday life and in which the persons appear as simple caballeros ; (2) comcdias dc ruido or dc teatro, in which kings and princes are the leading characters and the action is accompanied with a greater display of dramatic machin ery ; (3) comcdias divinas or de santos. Some other arrangement must be attempted. In the first place Lope s work belongs essenti ally to the drama of intrigue ; be the subject what it may, it is always the plot that determines everything else, not the delinea tion of manners or of character. Lope in the whole range of his dramatic works has not a single piece comparable to La Verdad Sospechosa of Alarcon, the most finished example in Spanish litera ture of the comedy of character ; and what is called the comedy of manners is no better represented : only El Rufian Castrucho, El Anzuclo de Fenisa, and one or two others can be named. It is from history, and particularly Spanish history, that he has borrowed more than from any other source. It would in fact be difficult to say what national and patriotic subjects, from the reign of the half fabulous King Pelayo down to the history of his own age, he has not put upon the stage. Sometimes he contents himself with serv ing up old chronicles afresh or stringing together fragments of old popular songs, as in El Bastardo Mudarra, with inventing here and there a few secondary characters when the original material is not sufficiently rich and complicated, as in Las Doncellas de Simancas, Los Bcnavides, El Casamiento en la Mucrte, and many others, or sometimes even with clothing with complete dramatic action one 1 No las escrivi. . . para que de los oydos del teatro se trasladarau a la censura de los aposentos. single fact of history, as in one of his most famous plays, La Estrclla de Sevilla, in Porftar kasta Morir, in El Mcjor Alcalde el Key, and others. Even current events as they took place under his eyes furnished him with motives. In an age when people read but little, the theatre was a channel of information and a means of rousing patriotic sentiment. A victory of the Spanish arms in Flanders or the success of hardy adventurers in planting the royal banner of Castile in some virgin land in the West, events like these promptly gave rise to a comedy. On the basis of any sort of report of battle or conquest Lope improvises a dramatic action, or at least a narrative in dialogue. Thus under the title of La Mayor Victoria de Ale- mania he describes a victory won in the Palatinate by Don Gonzalo de Cordoba, brother of the duke of Sesa, his patron. Such are the principal varieties of historical or heroic comedy. But it is to the class of capa y espada also called norelcsco, because the subjects are almost always love intrigues complicated with affairs of honour that Lope s most celebrated plays belong. In these he has most fully displayed his powers of imagination (the subjects being all invented) and his skill in elaborating a plot. Among the plays of this class which are those best known in Europe, and most frequently imitated and translated, may be specially mentioned Los liamillctcs de Madrid, La Boba para los Otros y Discrcta para si, El Perro del Hortclano, La Viuda de Valencia, and El Maestro de Danzar. In some of them Lope has sought to set forth some moral maxim, and illustrate its abuse by a living example. Thus, on the theme that &quot;poverty is no crime,&quot; we have the play entitled Las Flores de Don Juan, in which he shows in the history of two brothers the triumph of virtuous poverty over opulent vice ; at the same time he attacks indirectly the institution of primogeniture, which often places in the hands of an unworthy person the honour and substance of a family when the younger members would be much better quali fied for the trust. Such pieces are, however, rare in Lope s repertory ; in common with all other writers of his order in Spain, with the occasional exception of Alarcon, his sole aim is to amuse and stir his public, not troubling himself about its instruction. The strong point of such writers is and always will be their management of the plot. As has been said by Le Sage, a good judge: &quot;The Spaniards are our masters in the art of planning and skilfully work ing out a plot ; they know how to set forth their subject with infinite art and in the most advantageous light.&quot; It is not necessary to dwell here upon the other varieties of comedy represented in Lope s works, that is, the comedias divinas, fiestas (mythological dramas for the most part), entremescs, and autos. In none of them has he produced anything of the highest order, or even comparable to the better performances of his contemporaries and successors. To sum up, Lope found a poorly organized drama, plays being composed sometimes in four acts, sometimes in three ; and, though they were written in verse, the structure of the versification was left far too much to the caprice of the individual writer. The style of drama then in vogue he adopted, because the Spanish public liked it. The narrow framework it afforded he enlarged to an extra ordinary degree, introducing everything that could possibly furnish material for dramatic situations, the Bible, ancient mythology, the lives of the saints, ancient history, Spanish history, the legends of the Middle Ages, the writings of the Italian novelists, current events, Spanish life in the 17th century. Before him manners and the conditions of persons and characters had been barely sketched ; with fuller observation and more careful description lie created real types, and gave to each social order the language and drapery appropriate to it. The old comedy was awkward and poor in its versification ; he introduced order into the use of all the forms of national poetry, from the old romance couplets to the rarest lyrical combinations borrowed from Italy. Hence he was justified in say ing that those who should come after him had only to go on along the path which he had opened up. Calderon notably, whose merit has been much exaggerated, especially since the Germans took him under their protection, is merely a pupil and inferior to his master ; at all events, his indebtedness to the latter is enormous and has not as yet been adequately recognized. IttWiography.- For the life of Lope, see Juan Perez cle Montalban s Fama Posthuma (4 to, Madrid, 1036 ; reprinted in JIM. Bivadeneyrd) ; La Barrera, Catdlogo del Teatro Antiguo Espanol; Von Schack, Geschichte der dramalischcn Literatur und Kunst in Spanien, vol. ii.; and Ultimas Amores de l.ope, de Vega Carpio (8vo, Madrid, 1S76), an extract by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri from an unpublished biography written by La Barrera in connexion with the poet s correspondence with the duke of Sesa. For Lope s literary theories and doctrine of dramatic art, reference may be made to Menendez-Pelayo, Histnria de las Ideas Eatcticas en Eapaiia, and to A. Morel-Fatio, JM Comfdie Espagnole du XV lime Sierle (Svo, Paris, 1885). The Oliras Sveltns were published by Francisco Cenla y Rico (21 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1776-70). For the bibliography of the comedies, see La Barrera. The selection of comedies published by Ilartzen- busch in four volumes in the Biblioteca Kivadeneyra is fairly good ; but the same cannot be said of its choice of Obras Sueltas. (A. M.-F.) VEGA, GARCILASO DE LA. See GARCILASO. VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 2 There is one peculiar factor which enters into the problem of the classification &quot; The problem of classification being essentially the same in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the reader is referred to the general discussion of it in the article ANIMAL KINGDOM.