Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/732

660 Ionia : but in 1651 lie entered tlie church, and from that period wrote nothing but spectacular plays for representa tion at court, and the religious pieces known as Autos Sacramentales. He received various ecclesiastical pre ferments from Philip IV., and prolonged his days in wealth and honour until his death on May 25, 1681. Very few traits of his personal character have been preserved, and little else can be extracted from the sonorous eulogium of his friend and biographer Vera Tassis than that he was held in esteem for gravity, urbanity, and modesty. A surer testimony to his character is the spirit of his works, which are animated throughout by a lofty ideal of honour and religion according to the conceptions of his age and country, and are wholly free from the usual impurity of the stage. He must evidently have been a highly accom plished man, possessed of a large stock of erudition. The entire number of pieces comprised in Hartzenbusch s edition of Calderon, which does not include the antos sacramentales, is 122. There are 72 autos. It is of course impossible to notice here more than a fraction of this prodigious mass of dramatic poetry. We shall briefly characterize the classes under which it admits of being distributed, adducing a few of the more remarkable dramas as representatives of the whole, and following in the main the admirable arrangement of Schack.

1. Religious Dramas.—Of these Schack reckons sixteen, including The Statue of Prometheus and Life is a Dream. This division comprises some of Calderon s most famous pieces, in particular The Wonder-working Magician, in which the brilliancy of his poetical imagination is displayed to the fullest extent, and by Shelley s translation of which he is hitherto best known in England. The subject the voluntary surrender of a human soul to the Evil One offers striking analogies and equally strong contrasts to Goethe s Faust. The comparison of the two pieces is most instructive, and most forcibly attests the vast progress in depth of thought and complexity of emotion of the modern over the mediaeval world. The Devotion of the Cross is another of the most remarkable pieces of this class, rich in poetical beauties, and exhibiting Catholic antinomianism in its most unmitigated form. There is a deeper vein of thought in Life is a Dream, in which the poet is compara tively free from ecclesiastical influences, and which is also one of his most striking and original productions. The Constant Prince, founded on Don Ferdinand of Portugal s captivity, is the very flower of Spanish religion, courtesy, and chivalry, and, like Life is a Dream, is an excellent acting play. The /Schism of England and The Dayspring in Copacavana, apart from their great poetical merits, are interesting as indications of the national feeling with regard to nearly contemporary events.

2. Nineteen of Calderon s dramas are classed as his torical tragedies. These generally exhibit his talent for effective theatrical situation in the most advantageous light; but in psychological depth and truth he is far behind the great dramatic masters of other countries. The most celebrated of these pieces are founded on incidents in Spanish and Portuguese history, from the posthumous coronation of Inez de Castro to the heart-rending story of Gomez Arias s Leman, and the powerful domestic tragedy of the Alcalde of Zalamea, which displays more individu ality in the delineation of personal character than is usual with him. Nowhere can a fuller insight be obtained into the peculiarities of the Spanish character and the national ideal while the nation was still a great Catholic and Cru sading power. Calderon s treatment of historical fact, it naed hardly be said, is frequently as free as Shakspeare s. The most remarkable of his historical plays, whose plots are not derived from the history of his own country, are No Monster like Jealousy, a most powerful tragedy on the story of Herod and Mariamne ; The Locks of A bsalom, so greatly admired by Shelley ; and Zenobia the Great.

3. The subjects of twenty-four of Calderon s pieces are derived from mythology, chivalric romance, or novels. Most of these are merely spectacular, affording little scope for strictly dramatic power, but dazzling from the opulence of the poet s invention, arid the sweetness and variety of his versification. He has here given his imagination the freest rein, and is nowhere more truly himself. No Magic like Love, a play on the story of Circe; Echo and Narcissus ; and The Bridge of Mantible may be cited as characteristic examples.

4. Sixteen romantic dramas, generally melodramas or tragi-comedies, form the transition from Calderon s tragic to his comic theatre. None of his plays are more distin guished for ingenuity of conception and grace of style. The Loud Secret is perhaps the most celebrated, but the rest are of hardly inferior merit.

5. We now come to Calderon s comedies of intrigue, the so-called &quot;comedies of cloak and sword,&quot; his delineations of the manners of his day, and of the actual human life around him. His range is an exceedingly limited one in comparison with that of the English dramatists. It hardly transcends the sphere of ordinary good society, the valets and other representatives of the lower orders being for the most part merely conventional types. The motive of his pieces, moreover, seldom comprehends more than the two prime factors of love and jealousy. Within these limits, however, his perception is commonly correct, and his characters are depicted with more individuality and subtlety than in his more serious pieces. Even his high- flown strain of chivalric sentiment and his punctilious formality correspond to fact. They are artificial indeed, but not affected, for they actually represent the ideal of the best contemporary society, and represent the Spanish cavalier, if not precisely as he was, yet as he wished to be esteemed. The capital merit of these pieces, however, is the prodigious ingenuity of the plots, and the fertility of invention by which our attention is kept continually on the stretch. Calderon s expedients are inexhaustible ; every fresh incident surprises, and none appears capricious or unnatural. Twenty-five plays are included under this head. The Fairy Lady and Tis ill keeping a House tvith Tti o Doors are perhaps the most generally known ; all however are nearly upon a level.

6. Autos Sacramentales.—A volume might be written upon this most peculiar of all the forms of the modern European drama. We can only describe it here as a development of the mystery or miracle play of the Middle Ages, designed like it for public representation on some specified religious occasion, and falling like it into two classes, the strictly Biblical play, of which Calderon s Jlrazen Serpent is an instance, and the religious allegory. The latter is Calderon s characteristic department, and nothing can surpass the boldness and quaintness of his personifications. Man, the World, Guilt, the Morning Star, the Synagogue, and Apostacy figure, for example, among his innumerable dramatis personce. The riches of his invention and his diction are nowhere more abundant ; but the profoundness of his philosophy and theology have been greatly over-estimated by writers of his own religious communion.

7. Minor Pieces.—Calderon also composed numerous farces, interludes, and other brief occasional pieces, the greater part of which are lost. Calderon received the Spanish drama from his predeces sors in a flourishing condition, exhausted, in conjunction with his numerous gifted contemporaries, every phase of which it allowed, and left it at his death in a condition of total decay. His retirement from the theatre in middle 