Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/507

* DBAMA. 439 DRAMA. Spanish Stage, and liis follower Naharro, we tome to the century of Cervantes, Lope de 'ega, and Calderoii. The genius of Cervantes was more decidedly epic than dramatic. Yet in La Xuinaiiciti he has left a serious tragedy of per- nianeut worth and dignity. Contemporary with him were the leaser writers Cueva, Virues, and Argensola. While the critics, however, were clamoring about the classic rules of the drama. Lope de Vega appeared upon the scene, to set nearly all the laws at defiance. He was a writer of the most prodigious facility, as well as dra- matic vigor. More than eighteen hundred plays are said to have been his work, and he won im- mense popularity, to which, indeed, he sacri- ficed some of the more enduring qualities. Of the same period were Ruiz de Alarcon and Tirso de Miilina (Gabriel Tellez). whose Burlador de Serillii. 6 el comirjado de piedra is a play notable for having introduced the famous character of Don Juan. Calderon, who succeeded to the greatness of Lope de Vega, had the additional merit of serious devotion to dramatic art. The lyric ele- ment is prominent in his plays, and they include many of the highest expressions of Spanish ideals, of devotion to the King, to the Church, and to personal 'honor.' Famous among his creations were the religious plays tailed aiitos sacranteiitales, in which the mystery of the Eucharist was dramatically set forth. With his death in 1G81, the brilliant period of the Spanisli theatre was nearly closed. His con- temporary iloreto wrote numerous fine come- dies, notably the 'cloak and sword plays.' for which the Spanish stage is proverbial : and the name of the historian Solis is worthy of mention. For the theatre of the present day in Spain, Echegaray is the best-known writer. Fbench Dr.m.. France, in the revival of the classical drama, accepted the "unities' as the first essentials in the drama. This was in great part- owing to the logical temper of the national genius. Previous to Jodelle,or. indeed, to Corneille. hardly any progress had been made in regular dramatic composition. A number of writers had produced mysteres. moralilei, sottles. farces, in which in numerous instances the romantic or anti-clas- sical tendencies of human nature had manifested themselves: but neither in the representations of the Confreres de In Passion nor more secular performances like those of the Eiifants sans Soucy was there any great advance in proper dramatic achievement. Jodelle, at the Court of Henri II.. was the first to exhibit a regular five-act tragedy. He composed other pieces of some merit, but nothing of any great importance to the drama was done in the lialf-century that succeeded. Corneille appeared in the reign of Louis XIII. during the time that the star of Richelieu was in the a-cen<lent: he had to humor the Court by humoring the Academy, and to please the Academy he was required to observe the rules of Aristotle. He had pro- duced several plays of a severe elegance and dignity of style, when inspiration came to his more romantic tendencies in the Spanish story of the fid. . Paris rang with the praises of his 'tragicomedy.' but the .cademy held aloof, till the matter became an historic controversy, and Corneille had to betake himself again to the classic limitations. He got what he longed for. however, a seat among the members of that institution which had helped repress the spontaneous outflow of his genius. It was more than came to his contemimrary, the great comedian Aloli?re, who insisted to the last upon playing his part as well as penning his pieces, an abuse which the dignified academicians could by no means tolerate. Vet it may be questioned whether in all the essentials of pure comedy ilolifere's is not the very foremost name in the history of the stage. He, like Shakes])eare, bor- rowed much from the Italians, and much also from the Spaniards and the Latins, but made his theatre the true expression of the French genius for witty characterization. Comedy, besides, more than tragedy, maintained a relation with the spontaneous forms of the drama whi<-h pre- ceded the Uenaissance. The favorite tragic poet of the Court of Louis XIV. was Racine. His powers lay decidedly in the region of the serious and the exalted, so that he had no temptation, like Corneille, to pass tlie bounds of the aca- demic proprieties. In tenderness and elegance all French writers yield to him; in his Athalie, his last and best drama, interpreted by the actors Baron and Madame Champmesle, he gave to the Parisian public a composition such as in breadth, elegance, and severe grandeur it could nowhere find apart from the Greek theatre. Passing by Boursault and the other lesser writers who saw the decline of Kacine and Mo- lifere, and such artists on the stage as Adrienne Lecouvreur, Lekain, and Mile. Clairon, we come to the brilliant and erratic Voltaire. He as- tonished Europe with the force and power of his romantic tragedies, in a style of composition which, since the Cid, had been excluded from the theatre. The intolerant iconoclasm of his warfare with superstition was perhaps too dis- tinctly revealed in his dramas, but his genius and spirit have earned for him a place beside the great tragic names of Corneille and Racine. Among the writers of the period that followed were Lemercier and Chenier. whose tragedy of Charles IX.. played by Talma, led to the division of the Com^die Francaise, while among the other famous actors at the national theatre were Mile. Dumesnil, Monvel, and his daugh- ter. Mile. Mars. In the nineteenth century, the drama of France has been more productive than that of any other nation. Notable among the writers of the century ar^ Alfred de Vigny, Scribe, and Legouve, who collaborated in a large number of successful pieces, Dumas p&re. and Victor Hugo — leaders of the 'romantic movement.' the battle over which converged about Hugo's Hernnni in 1830 — Alfred de ^Nfusset. Kmile .ugier. Dumas fils, Victorien Sardou. and more recently Ed- mond Rostand, who has very successfully re- vived the poetical play. No sketch of the French drama can overlook the services of an institution like the Comedie Francaise (q.v.) in maintaining the literary qualities of the stage and encouraging its support by the lead- ing writers of the nation, while artists like Mile. Rachel. Sarah Bernhardt, and Constant Coquelin have often been better known than the authors who've lines they spoke, German Drama. The German drama is al- most wholly dependent for its fame upon the names of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller. For ■while Hans Sachs. .Ayrer. and some others showed ability and some fertility, and while Gryphius, Gottsched, Gellert, and Sehlegel made advances