Los Amantes de Teruel | Page 6

property beyond the needs of his simple mode of
living, conscientious in the performance of all his duties, he retained to
the end of his life the personal esteem of his many friends. When death
put an end in 1880 to the long illness that saddened the last years of his
life, his mortal remains were conducted to the tomb with all due
ceremony by the Spanish Academy, to which membership had been
granted him in 1847 as a recognition of his excellent work as dramatist
and scholar.
The productivity of Hartzenbusch, as well as his versatility, would be
remarkable in any country but Spain. The Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch,
prepared by his son and published in 1900,[3] stands as proof of the
great extent and diversity of his productions; four hundred pages are
needed for the bibliographical data connected with his many
publications and for a few extracts from his unpublished writings.
Hundreds of titles of dramas, poems, addresses, essays, literary
criticism, scholarly commentaries, indicate the versatility of his talent
and his tireless industry.
[Footnote 3: Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch. Eugenio Hartzenbusch.
Madrid, 1900.]
#V. Hartzenbusch's Treatment of the Legend.# Apparently
Hartzenbusch had given much study and thought to the famous legend
of the Lovers of Teruel. At first it was his intention to use it in an
historical novel, but only the first few pages of this have been preserved
(Bibliografía de Hartzenbusch). Believing that the legend could be
better treated in dramatic form, he applied himself enthusiastically to
the construction of the play in accordance with the new theories that
were becoming popular, and had it ready for production when a copy of
José de Larra's Macías came into his hands. What was his astonishment
to find that the plot of his play was so similar to that of Macías that no
one would be likely to accept the similarity as a mere coincidence.
Patiently he reconstructed it and had it published in 1836, if the date on
the title page of the oldest edition is to be accepted as accurate.[4] If
published in 1836, the author remained in obscurity until the first

performance of the play, January 19 of the following year, made him
famous.
[Footnote 4: Los Amantes de Teruel, drama en cinco actos en prosa y
verso por Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. Madrid. Imprenta de D. José
María Repullés. 1836.]
Many difficulties beset the dramatist in the construction of the play.
The legend that served as plot was already known to all, so that the
element of suspense could not be used to any great extent. Moreover,
the climax was not in itself dramatic; the death of two lovers through
grief at separation, pathetic though it be, lacked the tragic element of
other similar stories in which death resulted from violence. The
dénouement, the probability of which would not be generally accepted,
had to be retained in the treatment of a legend so widely known, a
legend in which the essential originality consisted in this very
improbability. Careful preparation throughout the whole play was
needed, then, for this improbable dénouement, pathetic, rather than
tragic; dramatic incidents had to be supplied by the author's own
inventiveness, the characters had to be carefully delineated, the
motivation carefully considered. How successfully the author was able
to overcome these difficulties, with what dramatic skill he was able to
succeed where dramatists such as Tirso de Molina and Montalbán were
only partially successful, careful study of the play will reveal.
The play as given in this edition differs in many ways from the play as
first presented in 1837. More than once the author returned to it, and
the numerous editions needed to supply the popular and continuous
demand gave him the opportunity to revise it and give it the most
artistic finish of which he was capable. Changed literary conditions
after Romanticism had run its course are reflected in the more sober
dress of the revised play; there are reflected in it, too, the greater
restraint, the more scholarly and critical attention to character
delineation and literary finish befitting a man who had passed from the
warm impulsiveness of youth to the calm rationality of middle age. The
student who takes the trouble to compare the text of this edition with
that of the first will see many changes: the five acts are reduced to four;

some of the prose scenes are now in poetic form; the diction is much
improved generally and obscure passages are made clear; some changes
in motivation are to be noted, especially in the scenes leading up to the
voluntary marriage of Isabel with Azagra; the mother's character is
notably ennobled. On the whole, the play has gained by these revisions;
what it has lost in freshness and spontaneity has been more than
counterbalanced by the more careful