The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical EssaysSteele, Richard, Sir
General
The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays
Steele, Richard, Sir
English essays -- 18th century -- Periodicals
Españoles, he had to remark on the unjust neglect of that good author in
Spain also, where the poets and men of letters had long wished in vain
for a complete edition of his works. Lope de Vega, it may be added, was
really the author of a sequel to 'la Verdad sospechosa', which Corneille
adapted also as a sequel to his 'Menteur', but it was even poorer than
such sequels usually are.
The 'Lying Lover' in Alarcon's play is a Don Garcia fresh from his
studies in Salamanca, and Steele's Latine first appears there as a
Tristan, the gracioso of old Spanish comedy. The two ladies are a
Jacinta and Lucrecia. Alarcon has in his light and graceful play no less
than three heavy fathers, of a Spanish type, one of whom, the father of
Lucrecia, brings about Don Garcia's punishment by threatening to kill
him if he will not marry his daughter; and so the Liar is punished for
his romancing by a marriage with the girl he does not care for, and not
marrying the girl he loves.
Corneille was merciful, and in the fifth act bred in his 'Menteur' a new
fancy for Lucrece, so that the marriage at cross purposes was rather
agreeable to him.
Steele, in adapting the 'Menteur' as his 'Lying Lover', altered the
close in sharp accordance with that 'just regard to a reforming age,'
which caused him (adapting a line in his 'Procession' then unprinted) to
write in his Prologue to it, 'Pleasure must still have something that's
severe.' Having translated Corneille's translations of Garcia and
Tristan (Dorante and Cliton) into Young Bookwit and Latine, he
transformed the servant into a college friend, mumming as servant
because, since 'a prating servant is necessary in intrigues,' the two
had 'cast lots who should be the other's footman for the present
expedition.' Then he adapted the French couplets into pleasant prose
comedy, giving with a light touch the romancing of feats of war and of
an entertainment on the river, but at last he turned desperately
serious, and sent his Young Bookwit to Newgate on a charge of killing
the gentleman--here called Lovemore--who was at last to win the hand of
the lady whom the Liar loved. In his last act, opening in Newgate,
Steele started with blank verse, and although Lovemore of course was not
dead, and Young Bookwit got at last more than a shadow of a promise of
the other lady in reward for his repentance, the changes in construction
of the play took it beyond the bounds of comedy, and were, in fact,
excellent morality but not good art. And this is what Steele means when
he says that he had his play damned for its piety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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