The Influence of Lachrymose Comedy on Moratin's El viejo y la nina

Abstract

would suggest that Leandro Fernandez de is very much indebted to the genre known as the comedia for the theme of El viejo y la nina, as well as for his treatment of the theme. While a few critics mention this influence in connection with Moratin's first play, none has elaborated on it, and many have ignored it altogether. Luis Felipe Vivanco mentions the influence of the sentimental comedy's moralismo and use of prose with regard to Moratin. According to this critic, Moratin's comedies in prose were not only influenced by the prose plays of Goldoni and the commedia dell'arte in Italy but also by el drama burgues y la nueva comedia seria o lacrimosa (Moratin y la ilustracion magica [Madrid: Taurus, 1972], p. 121). John Dowling goes the farthest in pointing to the impact of the lachrymose comedy on Moratin's first play. While explaining what meant when he called El viejo y la a comedy, Dowling asserts that Moratin called his play a comedia but the word cannot be interpreted either in the strict neoclassic sense, as it can be when applied to other plays, nor even in the more ample meaning of the Golden Age comnedia. El viejo y la is related in tone to what Moratin's contemporary Beaumarchais described as le genre dramatique serieux and to the tearful comedy which Denise Diderot so much admired (Leandro Fernandez de [New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971], p. 33). In his recent article entitled La genesis de El viejo y la niia (HR, 44 [1976], 113-25), Dowling also links Moratin's first play to the comedia by speaking of the predominant tone of tenderness, a key element of the sentimental comedy: Lo que