New Comedy Or Coffee

New comedy or coffee

Introduction

Leandro Fernández de Moratín was born in 1760 in Madrid. Son of the poet and playwright Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, had a self-taught training, although in contact with the authors who, together with his father, formed the intellectual and literary elite of Madrid of Carlos III. After an childhood and youth of scarcity, especially after the death of his father, he held important positions in the administration during the reign of Carlos IV and José Bonaparte. In 1787, thanks to his friendship with Jovellanos, he traveled in France as secretary of Francisco Cabarrús. 

After returning to Spain, Minister Floridablanca got a modest benefit and ordered first tonsure. Later, and thanks to the protection of the favorite Manuel Godoy, he obtained other ecclesiastical income, as well as the license to represent the old and the girl – a year before he had published his satire in prose the defeat of the pedantas – and a pension to travelby Europe between 1792 and 1796. Fruit of these trips are your travel notebooks. His stay in the European Courts facilitated contact with the theatrical life of England, France and Italy, which would be fundamental to finish profiling his training as a playwright, already revealed in the aforementioned work and in the new comedy. 

In 1796 he was appointed secretary of the interpretation of languages, which allows him. In 1799 he had been appointed director of the Board of Directorate and Reform of the Theaters, constituted in accordance with the repeated requests of Moratín himself and other neoclassical authors.

However, he failed in the task of making a reform in the theater consistent with what was manifested in his memorials, letters and, especially, in the new comedy or coffee.

Developing

In 1803 the Baron premiered, and in 1804 the Mojigata, who had an acceptable reception. Its greatest success would come with the yes of the girls, released in 1806, with which its original dramatic production ends. In 1798 he had translated Hamlet, from Shakespeare, and adapted two works by Molière, the school of the husbands and the doctor to Palos.

After the Napoleonic invasion he fled from Madrid, where he held the position of major librarian of the Royal Library. He moved to Valencia and from there to Barcelona until the end of the war. In 1817 he left Spain and resided in Montpellier, Paris and Bologna, along with groups of exiled Spaniards. The restoration of the Constitution in 1820 allowed him to return to Barcelona, but an epidemic forced him to leave Bayona, and no longer returned. Despite his health problems, during the last years of his life he completed the manuscript of origins of the Spanish theater -published posthumously, essential for the knowledge of the history of theater in Spain -and was collecting and retouting the texts for the edition for the editionParisian of his dramatic and lyrical works. This latest edition is his will, along with an extensive epistolary that reflects the loneliness and sadness of his last years.

Moratín also successfully cultivated lyric poetry and was one of the most lucid reformers of the theater, a task that he considered essential to represent his works properly.

His diary and his epistolary, of great interest, were edited by R. Andioc in 1968 and 1973, respectively.

He died in Paris in 1828.

Moratín, as the main figure of the Spanish enlightened theater, became a flag bearer of the so -called "renovators", being one of the greatest critics of the theater of the time. In the work that concerns us, the opposition between neoclassicist and post -baroque ideas is presented, embodied in the characters, of opposite characters.

Dramatic text structure

• Internal structure

New comedy or coffee is a metateatral work: its central theme is the theater, which the playwright knew so well.

Don Eleuterio, author of El Gran Craco de Vienna, is in a coffee close to a theater waiting for the success of his work, which will be released that same afternoon. His wife accompanies him, Ms. Mariquita, Marisabidilla proud of her mind, which escapes the traditional role of women;Don Hermogenes, a pedant who ‘speaks in Greek’ to be better understood, who has convinced him that he is a great playwright;And Ms. Mariquita, her young sister, whose wedding with the latter depends on the success of the comedy.

All the action takes place in the time it takes to represent the work, which coincides with the time of the representation of Moratín’s comedy itself. While they expect the reaction of the public, the characters are manifesting, while their miseries, their eagerness, which are based on the economic benefits that will supposedly generate the success of the work. Thus, we know the delusions of greatness of some, the criticisms of the ‘scholars to the violet’ of others and, above all, the theatrical world of the time.

• External structure

It is a dramatic work composed of two acts. The first, composed of six scenes, introduces the theme and the characters;The second, consisting of nine, shows the outcome.

The facts take place in the two -hour space, which is, as I pointed out above, the time it takes to represent the work included in it. The duration of the scenes respects these temporary intervals, giving credibility to the space-time unit.

The first act, in addition to the presentation of the characters, fundamentally contains the reflections that two of the characters (D. Antonio and d. Pedro) do about dramatic theory.

During the second act, in which the beginning of the work represented has already taken place, we attend a discussion between D. Eleuterio and their interlocutors about the convenience that women participate in certain intellectual tasks.

• Main and secondary characters

In the new comedy there are four main characters that represent two opposite faces: an intellectual face and a human face.

Don Pedro, transfer of Moratin himself, is a character of neoclassical ideas. It does not admit that nonsense in a cultured nation are represented and regrets that the people are then. Of contemporary comedies, they say that "they have a report action, unlikely sets, unconnected episodes, poorly expressed characters, emboles, mamarrachy of magic flashlight and other borders". Will say, in short, that to write you have to have talent, sensitivity and exquisite judgment.

Of his character we know that he is a very rich, generous, honest man, of a lot. Antonio.

Don Antonio shares the neoclassical ideas of D. Pedro, who sometimes exposes with forcefulness. However, although their ideas are similar, they differ in the human aspect, in their temperament. D. Antonio is an ironic, friendly character, who looks life with complacency and sense of humor. Although he is a good man, just like D. Pedro does not tell the truth openly because he does not like to "distribute bitter disappointments to certain men, whose happiness lies in his own ignorance", because it would be cruel.

Both characters represent the illustrated ideas of Moratín, which are reflected in the dialogues they maintain:

MR. PEDRO.  Now, compare our adocencing authors of the day with the old ones, and tell me if they are not worth more Calderón, Solís, Rojas, Moreto, when they delir, that you need when they want to talk about reason.

DON ANTONIO. The thing is clear, Mr. Don Pedro, that there is nothing to oppose it;But, tell me, the people, the poor people, do that frightful comment suffer patiently?

Don Hermogenes, whose name alludes sarcastically to the Greco -Roman culture, is intellectually a pedanton and morally an evil. Pretend to love Mrs. Ladya, sister -in D. Eleuterio, to share the monetary successes of his work. It does not doubt, in addition, in Embaucar the author praising his disastrous work and encouraging him to continue writing, knowing that he has no talent, to get his ends. Your moral bajeza is underlined when you answer the question of the failed writer you are pacato and fucking too much … and then, you leave. With him, Moratín represents the pretentious critics of the time.

Don Eleuterio is, according to the words of Moratín himself, the compendium of all the bad dramatic poets of the time. It is an honest but naive man. It provokes, on the one hand, laughs for his ignorance, vaiglory and foolishness. But for another compassion, for his love to his family and his honesty by accepting his failure.

Among the secondary characters stand out:

Doña Agustina, D wife. Eleuterio, foolish and presumptuous, who drives to help her husband in the composition of the work, although she is as ignorant as he, putting this work before her role as wife and mother.

Ms. Mariquita is, according to the critic Cabezón, Moratín’s voice in scenes in which D. Pedro is absent. Thus, the young woman expresses the neoclassical ideals and suggests a return to the traditional: she rejects the contemporary values of life and those of theater. Represents the opposite pole to Mrs. Agustina.

The opposition between these two characters is shown in the following dialogue:

Doña Mariquita.- No sir;If I’m ignorant, good benefit, do me. I know how to write and adjust an account, be stew, be ironing, be sewing, be zurcir, be embroidered, I know how to take care of a house;I will take care of mine, and my husband, and my children, and I will raise them. Well Lord, don’t I know enough? That by force I must be a doctor and marisabidilla, and that I have to learn the grammar, and that I have to make couplets! So that? To lose your mind?

Don Serapio is the one who explains the theatrical uses and offers a vision of the theatrical environment of the moment: the disputes between followers of the different companies, the atmosphere of the comedies pens, of the circles of actors, etc.

Pipí, the Tabernero, is an observer character who knows everyone. It is used to present the characters of the characters and introduce the plot.

The public is an important latent character in the work. Reference is made to him in act II, scene VIII:

Doña Mariquita.- The patio was tremendous. What waves! What a cough! What sneeze! What yawning! What a confusing noise everywhere!… […] People who were already harassing the storm, war council, dance and burial began again to upset. The noise is increased;They sound bramids on the one hand and another, and such discharge of hollow pat. He came out with all the people;

• the time and the space

Moratín limits the dramatic time at the beginning of the work: "The action begins at four in the afternoon and ends at six", not making more allusions to time or giving more temporal references until the moment in which Hermogenes gives the time of his timeStop watch, already in the second act:

Don Hermogenes.- Here is my watch, which is very punctual. Three and a half bones.

Doña Agustina.- Oh!, Well we still have time. Let’s sit down, once there are no people. (Get all except Don Eleuterio.)

As for space, all the action takes place in the same place: coffee next to the theater, thus fulfilling the unit of space.

The unit of time and space are characteristics of the neoclassical theater that our author defended, as opposed to the theater of a grandiloquent and dark style that was developed at the time, with complicated effects, devices and temporary ruptures, which we can see reflected in the following dialogue, in which Ms. Agustina refers to the work composed of D. Hermogenes:

Doña Agustina.- Well, you see. Figure a heroic comedy like this, with more than nine sets you have. A challenge on horseback on the patio, three battles, two storms, a burial, a mask function, a city fire, a broken bridge, two fire exercises and one executed;Figure if this should like precisely.

Don Serapio.- Take if you will like!

• Dramatic language

In the work, prose written, Moratín claims clarity and simplicity in the texts, in front of the grandiloquence and darkness of the postbarrocos texts. Use a simple, intelligible, precisely and perfectly appropriate language to the development of what is represented.

The dialogues of the same, of agile rhythm, show the brilliance of the author, which makes each character speak differently, according to their character. Thus, Ms. Mariquita uses colloquial language with vulgarisms, laisms, etc.

Doña Mariquita.- Let’s hurry up.

D. Hermogenes, a pedantic and dark language:

Don Hermogenes.- Aquila non Capit Muscas, Don Eleuterio. I want to say that you ignore. In the shadow of merit, envy grows. The same thing happens to me. You see if I know something ..

D. Pedro and d. Antonio, cultured and enlightened men, speak in an agile, elegant and precise way. In their dialogues they often use rhetorical questions, with the intention of raising issues for the reader to reflect on them:

MR. PEDRO.- But it is not fatality that after as much as it has been written by the most learned men in the nation about the need for its reform, such unhappy shows must still be seen in our scene? What will foreigners who see this afternoon comedy think of our culture? What will they say when they read those that are continuously printed?

DON ANTONIO.- Say what they want, friend Don Pedro, neither you nor I can remedy it. And what are we going to do? Laugh or rage;There is no other alternative … Well, I want to laugh more than impatient myself.

Other relevant aspects

As seen throughout this analysis, Moratín observes in this work the rules of Aristotle’s poetics in regard to the three units: Unit of Action, Time and Place.

The didactic nature of the work is evident, expressed through the characters of D. Pedro and d. Antonio. Didactism that was the author’s goal, as already revealed in his warning of the 1825 edition, he wrote:

The circumstances of time and place, which abound so much in this piece, must necessarily make it lose a part of the public appreciation, for having disappeared or altering the originals imitated;But the same course of time will make it more estimated to those who want to acquire knowledge of the State in which our dramatic was in the last twenty years of the previous century. It will undoubtedly arrive the time when it disappears from the scene (which in the comic genre only suffers the painting of current vices and errors);But it will be a monument of literary history, unique in its kind, and not unworthy of the estimation of the learned.

conclusion

The new comedy condemns the grandiloquence and implaximilitude of the dramas that were represented in the coliseums at the end of the eighteen, while proposing an alternative model adjusted to the neoclassical mandatory, that is, forced to respect the famous units of action, time and place, incorporating an unequivocal moral teaching. And, despite the fact that its author considered it conjunctural, ephemeral testimony of the situation of the theater of his time, the work managed to last when he was considered as a determining point of inflection for the development of a good part of the subsequent dramaturgy, many of whose whoseformulas are inspired by the Moratinian premises.

The new comedy has, in addition to the usual purpose of satirizing the dramatic vices of its time, to expose a moral lesson: the approach and solution of the problem in human communication. Three possible solutions to the problem are embodied by the author in the three main characters of US work: Don Pedro, Don Antonio and Don Hermogenes. The other, Don Eleuterio, synthesizes the problem itself and towards him converge the three solutions offered.

Bibliography

• Romera Castillo, José Nicolás (2013). Spanish Theater: XVII-XX centuries, Madrid, UNED.
• ALBORG ESCARTI, J. (1999). History of Spanish literature. Century XVIII. Volume III, Madrid, Gredos.
• Ríos Carratalá, Juan Antonio (1993). Dictionary of Spanish and Spanish -American Literature, Madrid, Alliance.
• Cañas Murillo, Jesús (2011). On the trajectory and evolution of the new comedy, Alicante, Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library.
• García Barrientos, José Luis (2001). How a play is commented on, Madrid, Synthesis.
• Osuna, Rafael (1976). Thematic and imitation in the new comedy, by Moratín. Ed. Digital from Spanish -American Notebooks, no. 317