Los Amantes de Teruel | Page 5

fuerza del sino, a magnificent, though

disordered, drama that gained for the Romanticists a decisive victory in
1835, a victory over Classicism in Spain similar to that gained in Paris
five years earlier by the famous Hernani of Victor Hugo, leader of the
French Romanticists. In 1836 the equally successful performance of El
Trovador, the Romantic play of García Gutiérrez, confirmed the victory
gained by the Romanticists with Don Álvaro, and gave clear indication
that the literary revolution was complete. The temper of the time was
decidedly Romantic, and the wholehearted applause that resounded
through the Teatro del Príncipe on the night of Jan. 19, 1837, at the first
performance of Los Amantes de Teruel put an end to the long and
laborious apprenticeship of Hartzenbusch.
A few days later the warm reception given the play and its continued
popularity were justified in a remarkable piece of dramatic criticism by
the rival playwright and keen literary critic, José de Larra, known better
by his journalistic pen-name, Fígaro, and greatly feared by his
contemporaries for his mordant criticism and stinging satire. In the
opening words of his review of the play, we may see the highly
favorable attitude of the critic and realize the suddenness of the fame
that came to Hartzenbusch. "Venir a aumentar el número de los
vivientes, ser un hombre más donde hay tantos hombres, oír decir de sí:
'Es un tal fulano,' es ser un árbol más en una alameda. Pero pasar cinco
o seis lustros oscuro y desconocido, y llegar una noche entre otras,
convocar a un pueblo, hacer tributaria su curiosidad, alzar una cortina,
conmover el corazón, subyugar el juicio, hacerse aplaudir y aclamar, y
oír al día siguiente de sí mismo al pasar por una calle o por el Prado:
'Aquél es el escritor de la comedia aplaudida,' eso es algo; es nacer; es
devolver al autor de nuestros días por un apellido oscuro un nombre
claro; es dar alcurnia a sus ascendientes en vez de recibirla de ellos."[2]
Other contemporary reviews were just as favorable, and all expressed
with Fígaro great hopes in the career of a dramatist that had thus begun
with an acknowledged masterpiece. The Semanario Pintoresco, for
example, a literary magazine in its second year of publication, ended its
review of the play with these words: "El joven que, saliendo de la
oscuridad del taller de un artesano, se presenta en el mundo literario
con los Amantes de Teruel por primera prueba de su talento, hace
concebir al teatro español la fundada esperanza de futuros días de gloria,

y de verse elevado a la altura que un día ocupó en la admiración del
mundo civilizado." (Feb. 5, 1837.)
[Footnote 2: Obras completas de Fígaro. Paris, 1889. Vol. III, page
187.]
Thus encouraged by popular applause and by the enthusiastic praise of
literary critics, Hartzenbusch produced at varying intervals many
excellent plays, but none of them surpassed or even equaled his
Amantes de Teruel. Many of them, characterized by careful
workmanship, dramatic effectiveness, and fine literary finish, are well
worth studying, and deserve more attention than can be given them
here. They offer all kinds of drama: tragedies such as Doña Mencía, in
which the exaggerations of Romanticism are given free rein; historical
plays, in which striking incidents in Spanish history or legend are given
dramatic treatment; fantastic plays, such as La redoma encantada, in
which magic plays an important part; comedies of character and
manners, such as La coja y el encogido, in which contemporary life
found humorous presentation. The best of them may be read in the
three volumes published in the well-known series Colección de
Escritores Castellanos. For literary criticism the student is referred to
the books mentioned later in the bibliography.
The love of study grew stronger in Hartzenbusch as the opportunity to
devote himself to it became greater, so that after he had had several
plays presented with considerable success, scholarship began to absorb
more and more of his time and the intervals between plays began to
lengthen. Literary criticism, editorial work in connection with new
editions of the Spanish classics, his duties as assistant and, later, chief
librarian of the Biblioteca Nacional, these, with the production from
time to time of a new play, made him a well-known figure in the
literary life of Madrid. His was the quiet life of the modern man of
letters, to whom the incidents of greatest interest are of the intellectual
order: the production of a new play, the publication of a new book of
literary or scholarly value, the discovery of an old manuscript or the
announcement of a new theory, the admission of a new member to the
Spanish Academy. Serenely tolerant in his outlook upon life, of gentle

disposition and ready sympathy, unaffectedly modest, indifferent to the
accumulation of