It is, however, to his dramatic writings that Lope owes his eminent place in literary history. It is very curious to notice how he himself always treats the art of comedy-writing as one of the humblest of trades (de pane lucrando), and protests against the supposition that in writing for the stage his aim is glory and not money. The reason is not far to seek. The Spanish drama, which, if not literally the creation of Lope, at least owes to him its defini tive form—the three-act comedy—was totally regardless of the precepts of the school, the pseudo-Aristotelianism of the doctors of the period. Lope accordingly, who stood in awe of the criticism of the cientificos, felt bound to prove that, from the point of view of literary art, he attached no value to the "rustic fruits of his humble vega." In his Arte Nuevo de hater comedias en este tiempo (1609), Lope begins by showing that he knows as well as any one the established rules of poetry, and then excuses himself for his inability to follow them on the ground that the "vulgar" Spaniard cares nothing about them. "Let us then speak to him in the language of fools, since it is he who pays us." Another reason which made it necessary for him to speak deprecatingly of his dramatic works is the circumstance that the vast majority of them were written in haste and to order. The poet does not hestitate to confess that "more than a hundred of my comedies have taken only 24 hours to pass from my brain to the boards of the theatre." Nevertheless, Lope did write dramas in which the plan is more fully matured and the execution more carefully carried out; still, hurried composition and reckless production are after all among the distinctive marks of his theatrical works. Towards the close of his career Lope somewhat modified the severe and disdainful judgments he had formerly passed upon his dramatic performances ; he seems to have had a presentiment that posterity, in spite of the grave defects of his work in that depart ment, would nevertheless place it much higher than La Dragontea and Jerusalen Conquistada, and other works of which he himself thought so much. We may certainly credit Lope with creative power, with the instinct which enabled him to reproduce the facts of history or those supplied by the imagination in a multi tude of dramatic situations with an astonishing cleverness and flexibility of expression; but unfortunately, instead of concen trating his talent upon the production of a limited number of works which he might have brought to perfection, he dissipated it, so to say, and scattered it to the winds.
The classification of the enormous mass of Lope's plays (about 470 comedias and 5o autos are known to us) is a task of great difficulty, inasmuch as the terms usually employed, such as comedy, tragedy, and the like, do not apply here. There is not explicitness enough in the division current in Spain, which recog nizes three categories :—(1) comedias de capa y espada, the sub jects of which are drawn from everyday life and in which the persons appear as simple caballeros; (2) comedias de ruido or de teatro, in which kings and princes are the leading characters and the action is accompanied with a greater display of dramatic machinery ; (3) comedias divines or de santos. Some other ar rangement must be attempted. In the first place, Lope's work
belongs essentially to the drama of intrigue; be the subject what it may, it is always the plot that determines everything else. Lope in the whole range of his dramatic works has no piece comparable to La V erdad Sospechosa of Ruiz de Alarcon, the most finished example in Spanish literature of the comedy of character; and the comedy of manners is represented only by El Galan Castrucho, El Anzuelo de Fenisa and one or two others. It is from history, and particularly Spanish history, that Lope has borrowed more than from any other source. But it is to the class of capa y espada —also called novelesco, because the subjects are almost always love intrigues complicated with affairs of honour—that Lope's most celebrated plays belong. In these he has most fully dis played his powers of imagination (the subjects being all invented) and his skill in elaborating a plot. Among the plays of this class which are those best known in Europe, and most frequently imi tated and translated, may be specially mentioned Los Ramilletes de Madrid, La Boba pare los Otros y Discreta Para si, El Perro del Hortelano, La Viuda de Valencia and El Maestro de Danzar. In some of them Lope has sought to set forth some moral maxim, and illustrate its abuse by a living example, as in Las Flores de Don Juan. Such pieces are, however, rare in Lope's repertory; in common with all other writers of his order in Spain, with the occasional exception of Ruiz de Alarcon, his sole aim is to amuse and stir his public ; not troubling himself about its instruction. The strong point of such writers is and always will be their management of the plot.
To sum up, Lope found a poorly organized drama, plays being composed sometimes in four acts, sometimes in three; and, though they were written in verse, the structure of the versification was left far too much to the caprice of the individual writer. The style of drama then in vogue he adopted, because the Spanish public liked it. The narrow framework it afforded he enlarged to an extraordinary degree, introducing everything that could pos sibly furnish material for dramatic situations—the Bible, ancient mythology, the lives of the saints, ancient history, Spanish history, the legends of the middle ages, the writings of the Italian novel ists, current events, Spanish life in the 17th century. Before him manners and the conditions of persons and characters had been barely sketched; with fuller observation and more careful descrip tion he created real types, and gave to each social order the lan guage and drapery appropriate to it. The old comedy was awk ward and poor in its versification; he introduced order into the use of all the forms of national poetry, from the old romance couplets to the rarest lyrical combinations borrowed from Italy. Hence he was justified in saying that those who should come after him had only to go on along the path which he had traced.