Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/439

419 ITALIAN.] DRAMA 419 tion of Spanish examples. Italian comedy had fallen into decay, when its reform was undertaken by the wonderful theatrical genius of C. Goldoni (1707-1793). One of the most fertile and rapid of playwrights (of his 150 comedies 16 were writtsu and acted in a single year), he at the same time pursued definite aims as a dramatist. Dis gusted with the conventional buffoonery, and ashamed of the rampant immorality, of the Italian comic stage, he drew his characters from real life, whether of his native city (Venice) 1 or of society at large, and sought to enforce virtuous and pathetic sentiments without neglecting the essential objects (f his art. Happy and. various in his choice of themes, 1 le produced, besides comedies of general human character, 2 plays on subjects drawn from literary biography 3 or from fiction. 4 Goldoni, whose style was con sidered defective bf the purists whom Italy has at no time lacked, met with a severe critic and a temporarily success- ful rival in Count C. Gozzi (1722-1806), who sought to rescue the comic d rama from its association with the real life of the middle classes, and to infuse a new spirit into the figures of the old masked comedy by the invention of a new species. His themes were* taken from Neapolitan 5 and Oriental 6 fairy tales, to which he accommodated some of the standing figures upon which Goldoni had made war. This attempt at mingling fancy and humour occasionally of a directly satirical turn 7 was in harmony with the tendencies of the modern romantic school, and Gozzi s efforts, which though successful found hardly any imitators in Italy, have a family resemblance to those of Tieck. During the latter part of the 18th and the early years of the present century comedy continued to follow the course marked out by its acknowledged master Goldoni, under the influence of the sentimental drama of France and other countries. Villi, Nelli, the Marquis Albergati Capacelli, Sografi, Federici, and Signorelli (the historian of the drama) are mentioned among the writers of this school ; to the present century belong Count Giraud, Marchisio (who took his subjects especially from commercial life), and Nota, a fertile writer, among whose plays are three treating the lives of poets. Of still more recent date are Bon and Brofferio. Though no recent Italian comedies have acquired so wide a celebrity as that which has been obtained by the successful productions of the recent French stage, there seems no reason to predict a barren future for Italian comedy any more than for Italian tragedy. Both the one and tlio other have survived periods of a seemingly hopeless decline ; tragedy has been rescued from the pedantry of a timid classicism, and comedy from the con ventionalism of its most popular but least progressive form ; and neither the opera nor the ballet has succeeded in ousting from the national stage the legitimate forms of the national drama. To the above summary of the history of the modern Italian drama it would not have been inappropriate to append a brief account of that of the MODERN GREEK. The dramatic literature of the later Hellenes is a creation of the literary movement which preceded their glorious 1 Momolo Cortesan (Jerome the Accomplished Man); La Bottega del Gaffe, &c. La Vedova Scaltra (The Cunning Widow); La Pulta Onorata thing ), &c. ; and II Burbero Benefico called iu its original French version Le Bourru Bienfaisant. 3 Moliere; Terenzio; Tasso. 4 Pamela; Pamela Maritata ; II Filosofo Inglese (Mr Spectator). 5 L Amore delle tre Melarance (The Three Lemons); II Corw, 6 Turandot; Zobe ide. 7 L Amore delle tre M. (against Goldoni); L Angellino Belverdc (The Small Green Bird), (against Helvetius, Rousseau, and Voltaire). struggle for independence, or which may be said to form part of that struggle. After beginning with dramatic dia logues of a patriotic tendency, it took a step in advance with the tragedies of J. R. Nerulos 8 (1778-1850), whose name belongs to the political as well as to the literary history of his country. His comedies especially one directed against the excesses of journalism 9 largely contributed to open a literary life for the modern Greek tongue. Among the earlier patriotic Greek dramatists of the present century are T. Alkaeos, J. Zampelios (whose tragic style was influenced by that of Alfieri), 10 S. K. Karydis, and A. Valaoritis. A. Zoiros 11 is noteworthy as having introduced the use of prose into Greek tragedy, while preserving to it that association with sentiments and aspirations which will probably long continue to pervade the chief productions of modern Greek literature. The love of the theatre is ineradicable from Attic as it is from Italian soil ; and the tendencies of the young dramatic literature of Hellas seem to justify the hope that a worthy future awaits it. Italy produced many brilliant growths, from which the S dramatic literatures of other nations largely borrowed ; but DRAM. SPAIN is the only country of modern Europe which shares with England the honour of having achieved, at a relatively early date, the creation of a genuinely national form of the regular drama. So proper to Spain was the form of the drama which she produced and perfected, that to it the term romantic has been specifically applied, though so restricted a use of the epithet is clearly unjustifiable. The influences which from the Romance peoples in whom Christian and Germanic elements mingled with the legacy of Roman law, learning, and culture spread to the Germanic nations were represented with the most signal force and fulness in the institutions of chivalry, to which, in the words of Scott, &quot;it was peculiar to blend military valour with the strongest passions which actuate the human mind, the feelings of devotion and those of love.&quot; These feelings, in their combined operation upon the national character, and in their reflection in the national literature, were not peculiar to Spain; but nowhere did they so long or so late continue to animate the moral life of a nation. Outward causes contributed to this result. For centuries after the crusades had become a mere memory, Spain was a battle ground between the cross and the crescent. And it was precisely at the time when the Renaissance was establishing new starting-points for the literary progress of Europe, that Christian Spain rose to the height of Catholic as well as national self -consciousness by the expulsion of the Moors and the conquest of the Xew World. From their rulers or rivals af so many centuries the Spaniards had derived that rich glow of colour which became permanently distinctive of their national life, and more especially of its literary and artistic expressions ; they had also perhaps derived from the same source an equally characteristic refinement in their treatment of the passion of love. The ideas of Spanish chivalry more especially religious devotion and a punctilious sense of personal honour asserted themselves (according to a process often observable in the history of civilization) with peculiar distinctness in literature and art, after the great achievements to which they had contributed in other fields had already been wrought. The ripest glories of the Spanish drama belong to an age of national decay mindful, it is true, of the ideas of a greater past. The chivalrous enthusiasm pervading so many of the master-pieces of its literature is indeed a characteristic oi 8 Aspasia; Polyxena. 9 Ephemeridopho bos. 10 limoleon; Konstantinos Palceologos; Rhigas of Pherce. &quot;. 11 The Three Hundred, or Ihe Character of the Ancient Hellene (Leonidas); The Death of the Qrator (Demosthenes) ; A Scion oj Timoleon, &c.