In the other European nations as soon as dramatic composition rose to any degree of purity, it became thereby disconnected with the church. But in Spain this is by no means the case, for their best poets, while writing for the stage, have busied their pens in the composition of religious dramas. Passing over the names of Villena, Santillana, Naharro, and Rueda, as diligent but comparatively weak builders of the fame of the Spanish D., we come to the periods of Cervantes, of Lope de Vega, and of Calderon, when the Spanish stage may be regarded as in its best condition. In his .Numantia particularly, Cervantes, whose genius was more decidedly epic than dramatic, has left to the world a specimen of tragic invention and of moral dignity which it is not likely to forget. While the critics were clamoring about the classic rules and the Aristotelic unities, Lope de Vega appeared on the scene, to set nearly all the dramatic laws at defi ance. He is the most fertile dramatic writer in the world, besides being one of the best. Yet he prostituted his pen to serve the public, and sacrificed his future fame to his living popularity. Calderon, who succeeded him, possessed all his advantages, with the impor tant additional merit of being thoroughly devoted to dramatic art as to a mistress. So great was Calderon reckoned in the composition of religious plays, that by letters-patent lie enjoyed a monopoly of these productions for 37 years. The brilliant period of the Spanish theater, comprising the first half of the 17th c., had with the death of Calderon well-nigh closed. Tirso de Molina, and Solis the historian, there is no writer of any note to engage the attention.
We come now to France, where the unities, as they are called, have been observed with as much strictness as if the country had been an old Grecian province. This is. chiefly owing to the influence of the criticisms of Boileau, who adopted the dramatic unities in all their severe rigor. The critics of other nations, partipularly of Germany and of England, have chosen to contemn this exposition of the D., and sometimes to despise even the Stagirite as a dramatic critic. The dramatic unities are threefold— action, time, and place. According to the French, these unities have the following significance: 1. That the action of the D. must be one—that is, that the interest or atten tion must not be distracted by several plots, but everything must be subservient to the main action. 2. That all the actions must take place on the same spot, or very nearly so, in order that the illusion may not be disturbed; and 3. Everything should happen on the same day for the same reason. Much has been written for and against these rules. Suffice it to say, that these are the landmarks on which the classic dramatist fixes his. eye. Previous to Jodelle, or indeed to Corneille, hardly any progress had been made in the regular D. in France. A number of writers, of more or less ability, had produced. mysteres, soties, moralita, farces, in which, in numerous instances, the romantic or anti classical tendencies of human nature had manifested themselves; but neither in the case of the brethren of the Passion, nor in the case of the Enfans sans Boucle, was there any progress made in the proper business of dramatic composition. Jodelle was the first.
writer who composed a regular five-act tragedy, and he publicly exhibited it in the presence of the court of Henry II. of France. He composed other pieces of equal,. many of superior, merit, hut nothing of any importance in the D. appeared before the time of Corneille. This writer, who appeared in the reign of Louis XIV., during the time that the star of Richelieu was in the ascendant, had to humor the court by humor ing the academy, and to please the academy he required to observe the rules of Aristotle. He produced seven plays, as cold and as severe as if they had been written by Sophocles, but of great elegance and dignity of style, when it struck him that he might give more free scope to his romantic tendencies in the tragedy of the Cid. All Paris rang with its praises, but the academy gloomcd, and poor Corneille had to betake himself again to the dignity and severity of the Greek drama. He got what lie longed for, seat among the members of that institution which had been so instrumental in repress ing the spontaneous outflow of his genius. It was more than his successor, Moliere, obtained, who insisted to the last on playing his part as well as penning his pieces—au abuse which the dignified academicians could by no means tolerate. The genius of this dramatist was decidedly comic, and it may perhaps be questioned, whether, in all the essentials of true comedy, Moliere's is not the very foremost name in the history of the stage. He borrowed much from the Spaniards, though perhaps less than Corneille; a great deal from the Latins; and more perhaps from the Italians. But the favorite tragic poet of the court of Louis XIV. was Racine. His genius lay decidedly towards the serious and the exalted, so that he had no temptations, like Corneille, to trespass the bounds of the academic proprieties. In tenderness and elegance, all French writers give way before him. In his Athalie, his last and best D., he gave to the Parisian public a composition, such as in breadth, in elegance, and in severe grandeur, it could nowhere find out of the Greek theater. But we must push through the crowd of lesser lights which shone on the decline of Racine and Moliere, and glance at that bright and fitful luminary—Voltaire. He pressed boldly forward, and astonished all Europe with the• force and power of his romantic dramas, a style of composition which, since the Cid of Corneille, had been altogether excluded from the theater. His spirit of intolerance was perhaps felt in his dramas, and his increasing warfare with superstition and fanaticism was too distinctly experienced even in the theater. But his genius and spirit have earned for him a place beside Corneille and Racine as one of the tragic names whom France delights to remember. Boursault, Regnard, Legrand, Lemercier, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Alfred de Vigny, would all require to be noticed in a full view of the French drama.