Poets, Spanish; Spanish poetry -- History and criticism; Spanish poetry -- Translations into English
The profits accruing from the representation of his comedies were
exceedingly trifling; but his natural inclinations led him to writing
for the stage, where he now found himself respected as a successful
writer; and as he had no other resource for maintenance, he applied
himself to this labour with better hopes. A succession of pieces he
wrote were equally successful, produced with a rapidity that reminded
the world of the fertility that had characterized the genius of Lope de
Vega or Calderon. One of his pieces was so much relished, that at the
close, the audience insisted on its being repeated all over a second
time, with which extraordinary demand the actors had to comply. In 1831
he brought out his comedy of ‘Marcela, or Which of the Three?’--the
most popular of all his productions, the subject being, which of
three lovers, all unworthy of her, the heroine, who is amiability
personified, should accept. It was repeated at all the theatres in
the kingdom, and went through six editions on publication, besides
several surreptitious ones, having some of the verses even passing into
“household words,” as popular expressions.
In the same year, 1831, he published a small volume of poems,
containing lyrical and miscellaneous pieces, and has since written many
more of the same character in the different periodicals of Madrid.
None of these are, however, deserving of note, except the satirical
ones, many of which abound with the wit and humour for which his
comedies are remarkable. He is now engaged in publishing at Madrid a
collection of all his works, the last volume being intended to contain
the miscellaneous poems, which, corrected and collected together from
the different papers in which they at first appeared, will no doubt
prove to be more worthy of his fame than those published in 1831. In
the lyrical poems he is avowedly a follower of the so-called classical
school, and rises no higher than those of the same class that had
preceded him; their utmost praise being to be characterized as--
Coldly correct and classically dull.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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