The Spanish Plays of Neoclassical England by John Loftis (review)

390 Comparative Drama a reedition of the records in Chester, Richard Wright those of many of the towns of East Anglia, and David Galloway those of Norwich, to name just a few. Within a relatively few years these will all be in print. The Medieval English Stage would have been a better book had it been al­ lowed to age before appearing. STANLEY J. KAHRL The Ohio State University John Loftis. The Spanish Plays of Neoclassical England. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973. Pp. xiii + 263. $10.00. Readers familiar with the earlier books of John Loftis (e.g., Comedy and Society from Congreve to Fielding, The Politics of Drama in Au­ gustan England) and such articles as “The Limits of Historical Veracity in Neoclassical Drama” will not find anything surprising in his latest study, The Spanish Plays of Neoclassical England. He has accustomed us to his brand of careful, detailed, painstakingly solid scholarship, which provides a maximum amount of information with a minimum of hypo­ thetical speculation. The newest book is a fitting addition to his previous body of research, illuminating the recesses of dramatic literature from 1650 to 1750, an era which is all too frequently conceived as consisting of some dozen atypical plays by Dryden, Otway, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and their compeers. Much of the Introduction and opening chapter of The Spanish Plays of Neoclassical England is a mustering of evidence to demonstrate the close ties culturally between England and Spain/Portugal during the Interregnum and the 1660’s. Loftis’ scrupulosity in gamering data to support his thesis of cultural interchange might appear excessive, had not the ties between England and France been so exhaustively proclaimed by previous commentators on Restoration drama. Loftis himself appears to think the Anglo-French nexus in theatrical matters has been overdone; writing of the Spanish influence in English plays of the early 60’s he says, Curiously little, by comparison, is made of French settings and characters, and this notwithstanding the frequency with which Englishmen borrowed from Molière and his contemporaries; frenchified Englishmen are a common enough subject of ridicule, and Frenchmen in England sometimes appear, but comedies in which some special point is made of a French setting are rare. It is Loftis’ intent to show that the presence of Englishmen in Spain in the age of Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderón de la Barca led to permutations in Restoration drama equally significant with those effected by the presence of Waller, Sackville, Sedley, Etherege, and Wycherley in the France of Molière, Racine, and Corneille. The roster of Iberian visitors given by Loftis at first glance would Reviews 391 seem to have little direct bearing on the plays written in London in the 1660’s. Charles II, Henry Bennet Earl of Arlington, Edward Hyde Earl of Clarendon, Lord Cottington, Sir Richard Fanshawe—all ventured into Spain (or as far south as the Pyrenees); but few of them actually wrote plays themselves or, with the exception of the King, sponsored actively the playwrights of the early decade of the Restoration. Other Englishmen —the Duke of York, for instance—had a sometime contact with Spanish culture through its attenuated version in Flanders. But only two English dramatists, Sir Samuel Tuke of inconsequent fame and possibly William Wycherley, went in person to Spain and imbibed Hispanic theatrical fare on the premises. Loftis says, correctly, that his catalogue of visitors to Iberia could be extended; he does not mention the diplomatic mission of Edward Montague Earl of Sandwich, for instance. Even so, to substanti­ ate his emphasis on Anglo-Hispanic ties, Loftis resorts to the sales cata­ logue of George Digby Earl of Bristol, Fanshawe’s translation of Camoes’ Lusiads, Pepys’s collection of Spanish books, Gerard Langbaine’s refer­ ences to Spanish sources, and the fact that Charles II spoke Spanish well enough to make his desires known to his Portuguese bride to prove the cultural connections between Englishmen and Spanish drama. One need not cavil nor doubt the validity of his conclusions to remark that Loftis’ case perhaps did not need such belaboring. It is a sad commentary on the general historical ignorance of most...