The reputation of Pedro Calderon de la Barca has suffered in the minds
of English-speaking people from the injudicious comparisons of critics,
as well as from lack of knowledge of his works. To put Calderon, a
master of invention, beside Shakespeare, the master of character, and to
show by analogies that the author of 'Othello' was far superior to the
writer of 'The Physician of His Own Honor,' is unjust to Calderon; and
it is as futile as are the ecstasies of Schultze to the coldness of
Sismondi. Schultze compares Dante with him, and the French critics have
only recently forgiven him for being less classical in form than
Corneille, who in 'Le Cid' gave them all the Spanish poetry they wanted!
Fortunately the student of Calderon need not take opinions. Good
editions of Calderon are easily attainable. The best known are Heil's
(Leipzig, 1827), and that by Harzenbusch (Madrid, 1848). The first
edition, with forewords by Vera Tassis de Villareal, appeared at Madrid
(nine volumes) in 1682-91. Commentaries and translations are numerous in
German and in English; the translations by Denis Florence MacCarthy are
the most satisfactory, Edward Fitzgerald's being too paraphrastic. Dean
Trench added much to our knowledge of Calderon's best work; George
Ticknor in the 'History of Spanish Literature,' and George Henry Lewes
in 'The Spanish Drama,' left us clear estimates of Lope de Vega's great
successor. Shelley's scenes from 'El Magico Prodigioso' are superb.
No analyses can do justice to the dramas, or to the religious plays,
called "_autos_," of Calderon. They must be read; and thanks to the late
Mr. MacCarthy's sympathy and zeal, the finest are easily attainable. As
he left seventy-three _autos_ and one hundred and eight dramas, it is
lucky that the work of sifting the best from the mass of varying merit
has been carefully done. Mr. Ticknor mentions the fact that Calderon
collaborated with other authors in the writing of fourteen other plays.
Calderon was not "the Spanish Shakespeare." "The Spanish Ben Jonson"
would be a happier title, if one feels obliged to compare everything
with something else. But Calderon is as far above Ben Jonson in splendor
of imagery as he is below Shakespeare in his knowledge of the heart,
and in that vitality which makes Hamlet and Orlando, Lady Macbeth and
Perdita, men and women of all time. They live; Calderon's people, like
Ben Jonson's, move. There is a resemblance between the _autos_ of
Calderon and the masques of Jonson. Jonson's are lyrical; Calderon's
less lyrical than splendid, ethical, grandiose. They were both court
poets; they both made court spectacles; they both assisted in the decay
of the drama; they reflected the tastes of their time; but Calderon is
the more noble, the more splendid in imagination, the more intense in
his devotion to nature in all her moods. If one wanted to carry the
habit of comparison into music, Mozart might well represent the spirit
of Calderon. M. Philarete Chasles is right when he says that 'El Magico
Prodigioso' should be presented in a cathedral. Calderon's genius had
the cast of the soldier and the priest, and he was both soldier and
priest. His _comedias_ and _autos_ are of Spain, Spanish. To know
Calderon is to know the mind of the Spain of the seventeenth century; to
know Cervantes is to know its heart.
The Church had opposed the secularization of the drama, at the end of
the fifteenth century, for two reasons. The dramatic spectacle fostered
for religious purposes had become, until Lope de Vega rescued it, a
medium for that "naturalism" which some of us fancy to be a discovery
of M. Zola and M. Catulle Mendes; it had escaped from the control of
the Church and had become a mere diversion. Calderon was the one man
who could unite the spirit of religion to the form of the drama which
the secular renaissance imperiously demanded. He knew the philosophy
of Aristotle and the theology of the 'Summa' of St. Thomas as well
as any cleric in Spain, though he did not take orders until late in
life; and in those religious spectacles called _autos sacramentales_ he
showed this knowledge wonderfully. His last _auto_ was unfinished when
he died, on May 25th, 1681,--sixty-five years after the death of
Shakespeare,--and Don Melchior de Leon completed it, probably in time
for the feast of Corpus Christi.
[Illustration: CALDERON.]
The _auto_ was an elaboration of the older miracle-play, and a spectacle
as much in keeping with the temper of the Spanish court and people as
Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' or Ben Jonson's 'Fortunate
Isles' was in accord with the tastes of the English. And Calderon, of
all Spanish poets, best pleased his people. He was the favorite poet of
the court under Philip IV., and director of the theatre in the palace of
the Buen Retiro. The skill in the art of construction which he had begun
to acquire when he wrote 'The Devotion of the Cross' at the age of
nineteen, was turned to stage management at the age of thirty-five, when
he produced his gorgeous pageant of 'Circe' on the pond of the Buen
Retiro. How elaborate this spectacle was, the directions for the
prelude of the greater splendor to come will show. They read in this
way:--
"In the midst of this island will be situated a very lofty
mountain of rugged ascent, with precipices and caverns,
surrounded by a thick and darksome wood of tall trees, some of
which will be seen to exhibit the appearance of the human form,
covered with a rough bark, from the heads and arms of which will
issue green boughs and branches, having suspended from them
various trophies of war and of the chase: the theatre during the
opening of the scene being scantily lit with concealed lights;
and to make a beginning of the festival, a murmuring and a
rippling noise of water having been heard, a great and
magnificent car will be seen to advance along the pond, plated
over with silver, and drawn by two monstrous fishes, from whose
mouth will continually issue great jets of water, the light of
the theatre increasing according as they advance; and on the
summit of it will be seen seated in great pomp and majesty the
goddess Aqua, from whose head and curious vesture will issue an
infinite abundance of little conduits of water; and at the same
time will be seen another great supply flowing from an urn which
the goddess will hold reversed, and which, filled with a variety
of fishes leaping and playing in the torrent as it descends and
gliding over all the car, will fall into the pond."
This 'Circe' was allegorical and mythological; it was one of those
soulless shows which marked the transition of the Spanish drama from
maturity to decay. It is gone and forgotten with thousands of its kind.
Calderon will be remembered not as the director of such vain pomps, but
as the author of the sublime and tender 'Wonderful Magician,' the weird
'Purgatory of St. Patrick,' 'The Constant Prince,' 'The Secret in
Words,' and 'The Physician of His Own Honor.' The scrupulous student of
the Spanish drama will demand more; but for him who would love Calderon
without making a deep study of his works, these are sufficiently
characteristic of his genius at its highest. The reader in search of
wider vistas should add to these 'Los Encantos de la Culpa' (The
Sorceries of Sin), and 'The Great Theatre of the World,' the theme of
which is that of Jacques's famous speech in 'As You Like It':--
"En el teatro del mundo
Todos son representados."
("All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.")
On the principal feasts of the Church _autos_ were played in the
streets, generally in front of some great house. Giants and grotesque
figures called _tarascas_ gamboled about; and the _auto_, which was more
like our operas than any other composition of the Spanish stage, was
begun by a _loa_, written or sung. After this came the play, then an
amusing interlude, followed by music and sometimes by a dance of
gipsies.
Calderon boldly mingles pagan gods and Christ's mysteries in these
_autos_, which are essentially of his time and his people. But the
mixture is not so shocking as it is with the lesser poet, the Portuguese
Camoens. Whether Calderon depicts 'The True God Pan,' 'Love the Greatest
Enchantment,' or 'The Sheaves of Ruth,' he is forceful, dramatic, and
even at times he has the awful gravity of Dante. His view of life and
his philosophy are the view of life and the philosophy of Dante. To many
of us, these simple and original productions of the Spanish temperament
and genius may lack what we call "human interest." Let us remember that
they represented truthfully the faith and the hope, the spiritual
knowledge of a nation, as well as the personal and national view of that
knowledge. In the Spain of Calderon, the personal view was the national
view.
Calderon was born on January 17th, 1600,--according to his own statement
quoted by his friend Vera Tassis,--at Madrid, of noble parents. He was
partly educated at the University of Salamanca. Like Cervantes and
Garcilaso, he served in the army. The great Lope, in 1630, acknowledged
him as a poet and his friend. Later, his transition from the army to the
priesthood made little change in his views of time and eternity.
On May 25th, 1881, occurred the second centenary of his death, and the
civilized world--whose theatre owes more to Calderon than it has ever
acknowledged--celebrated with Spain the anniversary at Madrid, where as
he said,--
"Spain's proud heart swelleth."
The selections have been chosen from Shelley's 'Scenes,' and from Mr.
MacCarthy's translation of 'The Secret in Words.' 'The Secret in Words'
is light comedy of intricate plot. Fabio is an example of the attendant
_gracioso_, half servant, half confidant, who appears often in the
Spanish drama. The Spanish playwright did not confine himself to one
form of verse; and Mr. MacCarthy, in his adequate translation, has
followed the various forms of Calderon, only not attempting the assonant
vowel, so hard to escape in Spanish, and still harder to reproduce in
English. These selections give no impression of the amazing invention of
Calderon. This can only be appreciated through reading 'The Constant
Prince,' 'The Physician of His Own Honor,' or a comedy like 'The Secret
in Words.'
[Illustration: Signature: Maurice Francis Egan]