But by common consent there is awarded to Lope de Vega (1562-16351 and to his younger compeer Pedro Calderon de la Barer; (1600-81) supremacy among the many gifted dramatic an thors. Inventive beyond conception and amaz ingly prolific in production, Lope is known to have composed over 1500 plays, irrespective of a number of autos (one-act plays of a religious and allegorical nature), Inas (preludes), and entre meses (interludes) ; of these pieces about 500 are still extant. The number of enduring masterpieces among his pieces is remarkably large. especially in the ease of his historical dramas, such as El mejor alealde el rep and Los Tellos de Meneses; and we even still find hardly less interesting and powerful than they such a play as the Estrella de Sevilla and not a few of his eomedias de capa y espada or plays dealing with every-day life. Lope's disciples included Mira de Amesena (c.1578-1641). Luis Wlez de Guevara (1570 1944), .11ontalban, and de Alarcon (died 1939). Alareiln wrote the comedy La s'erdad sospeehosa, the model of Corneille's Ifsattear. In talent. Lope was most nearly approached by the cleric Gabriel Tfillez (1570-1648; known also by the pseudonym Tirso de Molina).
After Lope's death Calderon reigned on the stage. Though less inventive, Calderon paid more attention to details of form, simplifying somewhat the multitudinous metrical forms in use in the drama. In philosophic insight lie was inferior to Lope, yet in La rids es guar) ("Life is a Dream") he cannot really be deemed unsuccessful in his endeavor to give dramatic reality to one of the most transcendental of ideas. lie first gave great importance on the boards to the pandonor (the point of honor) as an actuat ing impulse of the Spaniard's life, and be gave its greatest development to the stock figure of the gracioso or clown. He devoted no little at tention to the type of religious play called the auto sacramental. Of his followers, two were men of distinguished talents: Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla (1607-e.1660), who produced the excel lent play, Del rep abajo ninguno, and Agustin Moreto (c.3618-1669), to whom we owe El desden con el desden.
Swift and deep was the decline in Spanish let ters that followed the siglo de oro, and it went band in hand with a decay in things national and political, which the advent to the throne of the French Bourbon house could do little to check. By the opening years of the eighteenth century Gongorism had thoroughly vitiated lyric verse, the novel had become unimportant, and the stage was controlled by dull or absurdly fantastic imi tators of the older national drama. Not a single Spanish writer of the first order made his ap pearance during the first three decades of the eighteenth century, and during that period the only event of importance was the establishment in 1714 of the Spanish Academy (La Real Aca demia Espanola), whose Dictionary appeared in 1726-39. With the fourth decade came a new movement, the chief object of which was to chasten popular taste by the introduction of foreign :esthetic canons, particularly those of France. The impulse to the new movement was given hylgnacio de Luzan (1702-54), a man of great talent and greater culture, who set forth in hisPoetica (3737 ) the principles that ought to govern poetic produc tion. Luzan preached that the various literary genres should not be intermingled and that the Spanish drama should be subjected to the French system of unities. The doctrines which he thus laid down were taken up and applied by his disciples Nassare (1689-1751), Montiano ( 1697 1765), the author of two tragedies, and by Luis Jose Velazquez (1722-72), in his Origenes de la porsia eastellana (3749). In his Teatro critic()
(1726-29) and in his Cartas eruditas p euriosas (1742-60), Benito FeijOo (16761-1764) first made known to a large part of the Spanish nation many of the scientific developments and discov eries of the age. Jos6 Francisco de Isla (1703 81). in his amusing though rather long-winded novel, Tlistoria del famoso predieador. Pray Ge rundio de Campazas (17581, ridiculed unmerci fully the extravagance, ignorance, and pedantry that characterized most of the pulpit eloquence of his time. Isla is also famous for his attempt to appropriate to Spanish literature the Gil Blas of Lesage.
A party headed by Garcia de in 1Tuerta ( 1731 87) strove, hut ineffectually, to curb the growing tendency to imitate French models. On the other hand. the followers of Luzon formed a strong school, known as the Salamancan school. The foremost member of this new school was Juan Melendez Valdes (1754-1817). His little volume of lyrics shows more true poetic sentiment than anything that had preceded them since the days of the masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of considerable merit were Iglesias (1748-91), best known for his letrillas; Cien fuegos (1764-1809), whose lyrics come nearest to those of Melendez in the expression of genuine feeling; and Diego Gonzfilez (1733-94). It was in the drama that the imported French classi cism was to have its real triumph. To be sure, one writer of more than average ability, RamOn de la Cruz (1731-c.95), still kept alive the tra ditions of the Spanish stage of the Golden Age in his humorous little plays called sainetes, but, on his side, Ramon de la Cruz stood alone. It was only natural that men of taste, like Nicolas Fer nandez Mo•atin (Moratin the Elder, 1737-80) and the dramatist statesman Jovellanos (1744 1811), should, in their love for moderation and order, seek to elevate the fallen stage by adopt ing for their own compositions the rigid prin ciples of the French theatre. But neither of these became a favorite with the masses, and it remained for Leandro Fernandez de Moratin (1760-1828), the son of Nicolas, to compose dramas governed by the French rules, that could captivate Spanish audiences. Moratin the lounger brings us over the threshold of the nine teenth century; still he belongs properly to the eighteenth century. An enthusiastic admirer of Moliere, he both imitated and translated plays of that great dramatist. But Moratin was more than a mere imitator or translator; for his mas tery of dialogue, his pure style and his faithful description of the manners of his time show in him a talent of the highest order. Although he carefully applied the French system of unities, he did not disdain certain elements of the home stage. Thus, he divided his plays into three acts instead of five, as the French and classic Latin rules would have exacted, he employed the popu lar romance verse in a number of pieces, and, above all, he made a skillful use of the element of intrigue that had been so prominent in the dramas of the Golden Age and has ever remained dear to the Spanish heart. It was this happy blending of the spirit of romantic intrigue with the cold precision of French rules that made his master piece, the Si dc las niiias (1806), obtain at once the popularity that it has never since lost, and constitute it the only masterpiece produced for the Spanish stage since the days of Lope and Calderon.