Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/29

 pared in this country for the convenience of students of Spanish, while more thoroughly grounded, do not attempt to enter the critical field, nor will Fitzmaurice-Kelly's "History of Spanish Literature," a convenient handbook on many subjects, repay examination. Two experts upon the drama, however, write with ampler information. Isaac Goldberg's essay, appearing at the beginning of his "Drama of Transition," invites comparison with the best work of the Spanish critics. Exceptional insight and sympathy also illumine the pages of Storm Jameson's "Modern Drama in Europe," reflecting, perhaps, more satisfyingly than any other the spiritual side of this great idealist. Ignorance of the language has unfortunately compelled a reliance upon second-hand authorities in matters of detail, leading upon occasion to eloquent comparisons with a beatified Lope de Vega, endowed for the purpose with dramas of model construction, palpitating with vital, distinctive characters. In the cold light of truth, Benavente does not derive from the florid line of Lope. Except for his astonishing richness, his starry spirituality reminiscent, in Shelley's phrase, of the autos of Calderón, he has little in common with the Golden Age of the Spanish Renaissance. With a nicer intuition—the prophetic vision of the poet—Rubén Darío has visualized Benavente as of the major, nobler stock of the dialectical troubadour and knight of the spirit, who carried the banner of his country in the new dawn at the close of the Middle Ages throughout the Christian world: "Jacinto Benavente is the man who smiles… Amid the debacle with which the nineteenth century closed in Spain, his face smiles as from an invisible frame. He is Mephistophelian, a meticulous philosopher, whose isolation has become a weapon of defense. As he talks or writes, like a true prince, he always has a poignard at his side, or a fool. He possesses independence, which is more priceless to a man than any kingdom, and so he is the master of truth and the tamer of lies. His culture is cosmopolitan, and his mental processes, which are wholly foreign to his people, bewildering in the land of fixed tradition, but they will not astonish the observer who has the keenness to perceive how this soil, which has been so fertile of genius, has