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420 420 D U A M A the Spanish nation in all, even in the least hopeful, periods of its later history ; and the religious ardour breathed by these works, though associating itself with what is called the Catholic Reaction, is in truth only a manifestation of the spirit which informed the noblest part of the lleforma- tion movement itself. The Spanish drama neither sought nor could seek to emancipate itself from views and forms of religious life more than ever sacred to the Spanish people since the glorious days of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and it is not in the beginnings but in the great age of Spanish dramatic literature that there is often most difficulty in distinguishing between whatis to beteruied a religious and what a secular play. After Spain had thus, the first after England among modern European countries, fully unfolded that incomparably richest expression of national life and sentiment in an artistic form a truly national dramatic literature, the terrible decay of her greatness and pros perity gradually impaired the strength of a brilliant but, of its nature, dependent growth. In the absence of high original genius the Spanish dramatists began to turn to foreign mod els, though little supported in such attempts by popular sympathy ; and it is only in more recent times that the Spanish drama has sought to reproduce the ancient forms from whose master-pieces the nation had never become estranged, while accommodating them to tastes and tendencies shared by later Spanish literature with that of Europe at large. y The earlier dramatic efforts of Spanish literature may ts. without inconvenience be briefly dismissed. The reputed author of the Couplets of Mingo Eevulgo (R. Cota the elder) likewise composed the first act of a story of intrigue and character, purely dramatic but not intended for repre sentation. This tragic comedy of Calisto and Melibtva, which was completed (in 21 acts) by 1499, afterwards became famous under the name of Celestina ; it was fre quently imitated and translated, and was adapted for the Spanish stage by R. de Zepeda in 1582. But the father of the Spanish drama was J. de la Enzina (b. c. 1468), whose represcntaciones under the name of &quot; eclogues &quot; were dramatic dialogues of a religious or pastoral character. His Vicente attempts were imitated more especially by Gil Vicente (fl. the 1502-1536), a Portuguese who wrote both in Spanish and uguese - m ki s na tive tongue the dramatic literature of which is stated to have produced nothing of equal merit afterwards. (The Portuguese literary drama is held to have begun with the prose comedies of Vicente s contemporary, F. de Sa de Miranda.) A further impulse came, as was natural, from Spaniards resident in Italy, and especially from B. de T. Naharro, who in 1517 published, as the chief among the &quot; firstlings of his genius &quot; (Fropaladia), a series of eight commedias a term generally applied in Spanish literature to any kind of drama. He claimed some knowledge of the theory of the ancient drama, divided his plays into iornadas 1 (to correspond to acts), and opened them with an introijto (prologue). Very various in their subjects, and occasionally odd in form, 2 they were gross as well as audacious in tone, and were soon prohibited by the Inquisi tion. The church remained unwilling to renounce her control over such dramatic exhibitions as she permitted, and sought to suppress the few plays on not strictly religi ous subjects which appeared in the early part of the reign of Charles I. The few translations published from the classical drama exercised no effect. Thus the foundation of the Spanish national theatre was reserved for a man of the people. Cervantes has vividly 1 The term is the same as that used in the old French collective K y stories (journtes). 4 In some of hi? plays (Comedia Serafina; C. Tindaria) there is a rdxture of languages even stranger than that of dialects in the Italian ir asked comedy. sketched the humble resources which were at the command Lope de of Lope de Rucda (fl. 1544-1567), a mechanic of Seville, Kueda a who with his friend the bookseller Timoueda, and two fo{i ower brother authors and actors in his strolling company, suc ceeded in bringing dramatic entertainments out of the churches and palaces into the public places of the towns, where they were produced on temporary scaffolds. The manager carried about his properties in a corn sack ; and the &quot; comedies &quot; were still only &quot; dialogues, and a species of eclogues between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess,&quot; enlivened at times by intermezzos of favourite comic figures, such as the negress or the Biscayan, &quot;played with inconceivable talent and truthfulness by Lope.&quot; One of his plays at least, 3 and one of Timoneda s, 4 seem to have been taken from an Italian source ; others mingled modern themes with classical apparitions ; 5 one of Timoneda s was (perhaps again through the Italian) from Plautus. Others of a slighter description were called pasos, a species after wards termed entremeses and resembling the modern French proverbes. With these popular efforts of Lope de Ilueda and his friends a considerable dramatic activity began in the years 1560-1590 in several Spanish cities, and before the close of this period permanent theatres began to be fitted up at Madrid. Yet Spanish dramatic literature Classical might still have been led to follow Italian in turning dra &quot; ifls - to an imitation of classical models. Two plays by G. Bermudez (1577), called by their learned author &quot; the first Spanish tragedies,&quot; treating the national subject of Inez de Castro, but divided into five acts, composed in various metres, and introducing a chorus; a Dido (c. 1580) by C. de Virues (who claimed to have first divided dramas into three jornadas); and the tragedies of L. L. de Argensola (acted 1585, and praised in Don Quixote) alike pointed in this direction. Such were the alternatives which had opened for the t ervanie Spanish drama, when at last, about the same time as that of the English, its future was determined by writers of original genius. The first of these was the im mortal Cervantes, who, however, failed to anticipate bj his earlier plays (1584-1588) the great (though to him unproductive) success of his famous romance. In his endeavour to give a poetic character to the drama he fell upon the expedient of introducing personified abstractions speaking a &quot; divine or elevated language a device which was for a time favourably received. But these plays exhibit a neglect or ignorance of the laws of dramatic con struction ; their action is episodical ; and it is from the realism of these episodes (especially in the Nutnancia, which is crowded with both figures and incidents), and from the power and flow of the declamation, that their effect must have been derived. &quot;When in his later years (1615) Cervantes returned to dramatic composition, the style and form of the national drama had been definitively settled by a large number of writers, the brilliant success of whose acknowledged chief may previously have diverted Cervantes from his labours for the theatre. His influence upon the general progress of dramatic literature is, however, to be sought, not only in ids plays, but also in those novelets exemplares to which more than one drama is indebted for its plot, and for much of its dialogue to boot. Lope de Vega (1562-1635), one of the most astonishing Lope do geniuses the world has known, permanently established Vega the national forms of the Spanish drama. Some of these were in their beginnings taken over by him from ruder predecessors ; some were cultivated with equal or even superior success by subsequent authors; but in variety, as in fertility of dramatic production, he has no rivals. His 3 Los Engaiios (Oh Ingannati). * Cornelia (II JS cgromante). 5 Lope, Armelina (Medea, and Neptune as deus ex machina-sl raodo machiua adfuisset). 6 Mcnennot.