The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria: A Drama of Early Christian RomeCalderón de la Barca, Pedro
Religion
The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria: A Drama of Early Christian Rome
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
Christian martyrs -- Italy -- Rome -- Drama
This surely is unquestionably true, and the argument used by Sir F. H.
Doyle to controvert it does not go for much. These Autos, no doubt,
were, as he says, "composed in the first instance to gratify, and did
gratify, the uneducated populace of Madrid". Yes, the crowds that
listened delighted and entranced to these wonderful compositions, were,
for the most part, "uneducated" in the ordinary meaning of that word.
But in the special education necessary for their thorough enjoyment, the
case was very different. It is not too much to say that, as the result
of Catholic training, teaching, intuition, and association, the least
instructed of his Madrid audience more easily understood Calderon's
allusions, than the great majority of those who, reared up in totally
different ideas, are able to do, even after much labour and sometimes
with considerable sympathy. Mr. Tennyson says that he counts--
"The gray barbarian lower than the Christian child",
because the almost intuitive perceptions of a Christian child as to the
nature of God and the truths of Revelation, place it intellectually
higher than even the mature intelligence of a savage. I mean no
disrespect to Sir F. H. Doyle, but I think that Calderon would have
found at Madrid in the middle of the seventeenth century, and would find
there to-day, in a Catholic boy of fifteen, a more intelligent and a
better instructed critic on these points, than even the learned
professor himself. I shall make no further comments on Sir F. H.
Doyle's Lecture, but give his remarks on Calderon's Autos to the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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